Just want to know what I need to watch out for when I return to society.
@Gigantor : and that’s justifiable homicide in some people’s eyes.
The tl;dr, There’s very little “society” to return to.
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Does anyone find the characterization of this as a “mask dispute” chillingly dishonest in a rather familiar way, some combination of cop-talk’s reflexive jump to comparatively aseptic descriptions of people suffering significant ballistic trauma; and the compulsive-centrist desire to treat both sides as though they’ve got positions of sufficiently similar merit that it’s not outright crazy to compare them?
A “mask dispute” sounds like two epidemiologists getting a trifle heated about particle sizes and surface vs. airborne spread; not a dude getting astonishingly disproportionately bent out of shape and shooting someone in (relatively) cold blood.
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What a stupid reason to murder someone.
What a sad, ridiculous way to die.
Maybe we need to create a “thin [color] line” flag for those risking their lives working restaurant and retail jobs. Not sure what the color should be, Maybe green, for the money they aren’t making.
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Victor Lee Tucker, Jr. is a Black man. He may or may not be a fan of Trump, or a subscribing member of the NRA.
I have had Black students who said they liked Trump, and they didn’t seem to be doing it just to be funny/provocative. And I have a lot of Black friends/colleagues who are very pro-gun. In fact, most of the Black guys I know carry handguns in their cars. I’d say they’re at about as likely to carry a gun as a white guy. They’re not flamboyant about it, like all the crackers strutting around with pistols strapped below their dunlop.
Of course I’m in Alabama, but Georgia, even the ATL exurbs, is probably not all that different from Alabama in this respect
So… There’s no way I can’t put a foot wrong with this, but anyway: White liberals/progressives tend to assume that Black people are monolithic, just like White conservatives/fascists, except with a different idea of the geology of the monolith.
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(IAAL, but not your lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice, just information for the purposes of arguing on the internet.)
Premeditation isn’t an element of murder in Georgia. Doss v. State, 422 S.E.2d 25 (Ga. 1992). Instead, Georgia has “malice murder” instead of first degree murder. Malice aforethought can, under Georgia law, be formed instantly. Lamb v. State, 273 Ga. 729 (Ga. 2001)
And this sure seems like malice murder to me: “Malice shall be implied where no considerable provocation appears and where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.” Ga. Code Ann. 16-5-1(b). In practice, this means (1) an intent to kill and (2) lack of provocation. McCleskey v. Zant, 580 F. Supp. 338 (N.D. Ga. 1984).
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Or, perhaps with mask restrictions lifting, he objected to the cashier wearing one at all. It’s none of his business, of course.
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No the jury does not decide what crime he is being charged with.
Police and prosecutor will decide what degree of murder to charge him with.
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But the Jury can decide what crime he is guilty of. Prosecutors tend to charge with the highest crime that they think they might get a conviction on as well as lesser crimes. That gives them some leverage for a plea deal. Because the vast majority of cases are pled out. That is likely in this case where there are witnesses and no real questions of fact to be decided.
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We aren’t talking about what crime he will be charged with. We are talking about what he will likely be convicted of, and the jury will probably be given the option to convict on either First Degree Murder or Second Degree Murder (or manslaughter) at their discretion. Of course he will be charged with First Degree Murder. The question is: will he be convicted on that charge or a lesser charge?
The prosecutor will argue for first, the defense will argue for second and the jury will make the decision as two which side is correct.
ETA: And I would not be so sure that the prosecution is open to a plea bargain in this case. In open-and-shut cases like this, they have little to gain from a plea bargain.
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Time and money. Trials, especially jury trials are expensive and time consuming. The 100s of hours spent on taking a case like this to trial is not available for other cases.
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No. Decatur is not the exurbs. It’s an ITP suburb, and a fairly diverse and progressive one at that.
But sure, we don’t know the guy’s political beliefs and of course not all Black voters go democratic and some support the NRA… 
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That is true, and it is possible that they will be open to a plea bargain. I just wouldn’t be so sure about it. It will depend on the resources and attitude of the DA.
My bad on the exurb/suburb mistake. My experience of Atlanta is 99% driving to the airport, so I goofed on that one.
FWIW, I posted because so many previous posts jumped to the (reasonable) conclusion that this was an anti-mask white guy, and I stared chasing the gun violence rabbit, instead of writing about attitudes toward masks, conspiracies, and how all that is sort of equal opportunity around me.
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Sure, but to be fair, there is a really good reason for people making that assumption, as it’s often goign to be true… but the specific location, which is Decatur, but apparently south of I-20, is a Black majority, working class area of the city (and very blue/progressive). But the big issue on the table right now for the mayoral race is gun violence inside the city. So…
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Say what? (I’m guessing this has nothing to do with immune thrombocytopenia.)
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Sorry… In side the perimeter (ITP) and out side the perimeter (OTP) is short hand for where one lives in the ATL metro area, either inside or outside the I-285 perimeter that rings the city. The location we’re discussing is in a suburban community that’s still inside the perimeter.
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Yeah. It’s hard for me to even talk about this because there’s so much in play, and so much of it is messed up. I’m glad that there are progressives in ATL, and that there’s been headway in GA, the product of a lot of lot of lot of hard work.
At the same time I can’t stop thinking about differential sentencing and how it relates to desires for vengeance vs justice and prejudices and opportunity and oppression.
I think I need to take a lot of deep breaths.
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He probably doesn’t work. This is not the behavior of someone who can easily hold a job.
He probably doesn’t do that either.
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It starts at the top.
In WW2, conservatives were initially pro-Hitler (being for Nazi Germany was pro-business; racism/antisemitism wasnt a deal-killer; Communists were the “anti-fascists” so why side with them?), but they came around, and figured out that Nazism was bad. Because Lindbergh and others at least shut up during WW2. Trump just won’t shut up.
And regarding this murderer, I’m calling it right now: he’ll be another Kyle Rittenhouse. The right wing is going to be lining up to help this “patriot.”
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I think Georgia is a “Stand Your Ground” state… so don’t be too confident about that verdict.
EDIT: OK, I now see that the perpetrator was a black man, so obviously “stand your ground” cannot apply, since it’s only applicable when the victim is black and the perpetrator is not.
