Sorry, words fail. I’m sure this compounds the sorrow and anger of the family.
there may have been jury instructions that required them to award something if X or Y was found to have happened. You are dealing with federal jury instructions but state liability laws. If this had been in a state court, there might have been no damages at all. You really have to know all the laws and instructions to know if they were forced to award $1 to each of the children and $1 for burial, which was then reduced by a Florida law on how to distribute fault.
There isn’t enough information in that article to figure out what really happened.
As I read it, the man was blasting loud and obscene music in his garage and someone called the police. He allegedly approached the police, holding a gun, and was shot when he backed up and closed his garage door. After a bit, the SWAT team sent in a robot, which found the man dead with an unloaded gun in his back pocket. (As an aside, assuming the man actually did display the gun to the cops, how are they to know it’s unloaded?) An autopsy revealed that he was more than legally intoxicated.
Florida apparently has a law that says that if a person is legally intoxicated and more than 50% negligent, they can’t recover in a negligence action. That could account for the reduction to 0, since he was also found 99% negligent.
I think that use of the police expert who was “hard of hearing” is a valid basis for a new tria, but I don’t know how the result would change in light of the intoxication law, unless the man is found less than 50% negligent in a retrial. If he truly is “hoh,” get some technology that will allow him to hear enough to answer questions. If he’s a faker, call him on it. The introduction of the fact that the man was on probation may not be an appealable issue. As a civil litigator, I am chomping at the bit to cross-examine a plaintiff in one of my cases who served time for assault with a gun. It goes to a certain type of mentality that can be illustrative to the jury in deciding the credibility overall of a person. However, there is a limit to the viability of this type of evidence. If it was 20 years ago and the person had no further problems, maybe it should be excluded. If it’s current, it could be allowed. In my case, the trial will take place when the person is finally released from jail.
I also question how much of a threat he truly was if he was in fact backing into his garage. My first thought was wondering if the garage was free standing or attached to the house. If the former, the police could have backed off and waited him out. If the latter, there was a potential danger that he could have gotten into the house and escaped and IF he had a gun, that was a problem.
Regardless, I feel awful for the man’s family. I just don’t have enough information to reach a conclusion as to whether or not the jury’s verdict was proper or not.
As per what I read a day or two ago, there was an unloaded gun in Hill’s back pocket. The family contends that the officer started shooting so quickly (which instantly killed him) that Hill would have been unable to put it in his pocket before dying.
@“Snowball City” -
That is one of the things that troubled me. Does anyone know if the garage door was completely down when the shooting started or what position it was in? Was there any dialogue? Were there any non-police witnesses, body cams, surveillance cameras - I am thinking no to all, but? Does the officer have any prior disciplinary actions? How many officers were at the scene? Had there been any prior calls from or about the address?
Why was a noise complaint at 3 in the afternoon a shooting matter? Would it have been a shooting matter if the guy was white?