Originally published at: Surveillance footage of Kentucky Sheriff killing judge shown in court - Boing Boing
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I’m honestly confused on this one - feels like there are no good guys in this scenario.
Was there a big sex for legal favors scheme being done by the judge and his bailiff (who was also the deputy) that got found out. And the Sherif was implicated because he knew or should have known - BUT then the sherif saw his daughter may have been victimized he shot the Judge?
OR
Was the bailiff running this scheme without the judge and the Sherif knew. And the judge found out and was working to get the sherif’s wife and daughter to safety because he knew the Sherif was dangrous and on edge.
Maybe no one knows yet - but I feel like the articles I’ve seen are too reputable to speculate.
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Someone’ll report it out sooner or later. Hopefully not the prosecutor, but local journalism is really not a thing anymore in a lot of places.
The comments on this Facebook post on the Sheriff’s Department’s Facebook page seem to represent the scuttlebutt. As posted a week ago, before the details in court yesterday: “The rumor is that sheriff killed the judge for being a pedo against the sheriff’s daughter”
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Is “it wasn’t cold-blooded murder; it was hot-blooded murder” actually a thing, legally speaking, or do lawyers just have to make the best of it when their clients are on tape quite clearly shooting the judge to death?
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AKA “it wasn’t premeditated, let’s talk manslaughter”
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It is the difference between 1st degree murder and 2nd degree murder.
(I am not a lawyer.)
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Yes, avoiding potentially harmful speculation on this kind of thing is difficult but noble, and I’m attempting to avoid speculation myself.
Pretty clear that the defense attorney has a very difficult job given that footage though.
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I suspect the only option for them is to try to paint it as a “crime of passion.” I feel very bad for his family, for a number of reasons.
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Indeed it is. It is the difference between premeditated murder and voluntary manslaughter. It’s also referred to as a crime of passion, or “in the heat of the moment” killing. The classic example is catching your spouse in bed with someone else, and then killing your spouse and/or the other person. Common Law recognizes these circumstances as meaning that the killer is, legally, not entirely in control of themselves in the moment, and so can’t have the required mens rea (intent) to satisfy the definition of 1st degree murder.
Source: manslaughter | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
ETA: Also, importantly, you can’t have had time to cool off from the provoking incident. And, in my opinion, finding out a judge was sexually abusing your minor daughter would qualify as such provocation. But if the sheriff had found out about it the day before, then he had time to cool off, as far as the law is concerned, and this would be first degree murder. But if he found out right in the moment, when he was looking at the judge’s phone, then that’s probably voluntary manslaughter. Lastly, it doesn’t actually have to be true that the judge was abusing the sheriff’s daughter. The sheriff would just have to reasonably believe that that the sheriff was doing that.
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Even with the alleged provocation, “your client hesistantly returned to headshot a federal judge he just double-tapped, then walked around the other side of his desk to do it again” is definitely doing to be the case of CarWreckAttorneyKentucky.com’s criminal defense career
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Yeah, maybe. That moment’s hesitation means more, legally speaking, than most people realize. We studied a case in law school where a brief moment’s hesitation before a kill shot is literally what the jury took to be proof of premeditation. It doesn’t take much.
Also, minor correction, he wasn’t a federal judge. He was a district court judge for Kentucky. He was appointed to that position by former governor Steve Beshear, the current governor’s father.
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Every far right murder victim is a paedophile in retrospect. Or prospect which is why they kill them.
But pastors and priests successful sportsball coaches and other paedophiles, for some reason they aren’t, and they don’t kill them.
In cold blood. Which this looks like. Organised, planned, executed, and back twice to make sure.
This is truly horrific and awful and probably fodder for some sort of movie but my take away from the still? I though a judge’s chambers would involve a lot more wood grain and include a decanter of brown liquor and just look so much more well appointed
than a grade school teacher’s lounge.
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That’s the rumor. Though in that CNN article it says:
“When he was taken into custody, I was told by one of the other officers there that he made the comment, ‘They’re trying to kidnap my wife and kid,’” he said.
That reads to me like someone who is having delusional thoughts. But I guess it will get sorted out what happened eventually.
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Or possibly a restraining or protective order against an abuser?
It’s all wild speculation at the moment, and I’m sure in the end it will be a sordid tale that will end up a made for television movie, and fuel the whole true crime podcast economy for years to come.
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This happened in one of the poorest, most drug impacted counties in KY and like many parts of rural America they loooove their cops. Pair that with the obscene amount of power and influence KY sheriffs wield and its a solid bet he’ll escape this with minimal repercussions. It’s ridiculous.
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Remind me to never go to the casino with you.
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He’s been arrested, charged with murder, and been forced to “retire”. So he’s already had some repercussions. I would bet quite a lot that he will be found guilty of something. Whether that’s first degree murder or voluntary manslaughter will depend on why he did it, but he’s getting convicted of something.
Now, had he shot a POC who was a clerk at Walmart or something similar, I would probably agree with you. But he didn’t. He shot and killed a white judge. He’s not getting off with a slap on the wrist. The real injustice is that this isn’t the outcome in more officer involved shootings.
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