The Daily Dose/October 16, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Once again a white police officer has shot and killed a black citizen in America and, once again, the officer has been charged with murder.
We applaud Aaron Dean’s arrest, however we’ve established here before the difficulty in conviciting police officers of murder in these situations and we want to remind you again of these difficulties. Don’t blame us when Dean is acquitted and Fort Worth goes up in flames.
To Recap: Dean and his partner on the Fort Worth Police Department were responding to a call early Saturday morning from a neighbor who reported Atatiana Jefferson’s front door was ajar. Inside she and her nephew were engaged in the dangerous past time of playing video games. Neither officer had made contact with the victim or identified themselves as police before Dean shot her through a window. Dean quickly resigned from the force and had he not he would have been fired. Dean is free on $200,000 bond.
Dry, Technical Matter: Texas state law identifies four types of criminal homicide: murder, capital murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide and we can dismiss capital murder becuase, by its definition, it is not relevant here.
Get Out Your Penal Codes: Texas further defines murder as having three elements, two of which are relevant here:
– intentionally or knowingly caus[ing] the death of an individual;
– intend[ing] to cause serious bodily injury and commit[ing] an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.
Good luck proving either of those two elements here. Intent will be difficult to prove in a case where Dean never knew the victim and only saw her for a second, if that.
OTOH: Manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, however, offer options. Manslaughter is defined in Texas as:
…recklessly caus[ing] the death of an individual.
Criminally negligent homicide is defined as:
…causing the death of an individual by criminal negligence.
No Wonder You Don’t Get Invited To More Parties: Criminal negligence is, more or less, not being aware of circumstances that could cause harm.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: If Texas proscutors insist on a murder trial they will face the same difficulties other prosecutors in this situation have faced. Dean will probably choose a bench trial because a judge will pay attention to the law and block out emotions a jury may be unwilling or unable to block out and more than one officer charged with murder has earned acquittal at a bench trial. Prosecutors will have to establish that Dean wanted to kill Jefferson and planned on killing Jefferson and good luck with that. This will be difficult to establish.
Write This Down: The citizens of Fort Worth are entitled to see Dean prosecuted for killing Jefferson. They are also entitled to a trial where Dean is charged with a crime he can reasonably be expected to be convicted of. Murder probably isn’t it.
Today At The Site:
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has the latest on the scratch paper front at the hotel. Today’s Diary.
I’ve let the scratch paper pile in the back office get pretty low – it’s about half of where it was at its peak, 1.25 inches – and I used one this morning and the next one had a notation from me on it:
6/19/19 0620
It even had my initials on it and it had taken this brave slip of Sparrow-produced scratch paper four months to reach the top of the pile…This is one reason I let the pile work its way down: if you keep adding sheets to the top the bottom sheets never get used…This so inspired me I put the few sheets I did make this morning on the bottom of the pile, so other sheets that have been there since summer wouldn’t have to wait forever and ever to be used.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
The Bottom Ten/NFL Week 7 will move Thursday morning. Promise.
Click here to get in on the laffs. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually.
On This Date
In 1946 – Ten of the twelve Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg Trials and sentenced to death are executed in a gymnasium adjacent to the prison they were being held in. 24 Nazis had originally been indicted on four charges, though some ended up not being charged, or they were acquitted or convicted and issued lesser sentences. The two who were not executed were Martin Borman, who had been convicted in absentia and was who was actually already dead and Hermann Goring who, peeved he was going to be hanged and not shot, had killed himself earlier in the evening.
In 1968 – Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists while The Star-Spangled Banner is played during the medal ceremony for the 200-meters at the Mexico City Olympics, an event History now refers to as the Black Power Salute. Australian Peter Norman joins the protest, wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights patch on his sweatsuit. For their efforts, Smith and Carlos are kicked out of the Games while Norman was not selected for the 1972 Olympics despite having a qualifying 200-meter time and when Norman died in 2006 Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral. The famous photograph of the protest was taken by John Dominis of Life magazine.
In 1971 – Rod Stewart is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third of five consecutive weeks with Maggie May. It was Stewart’s first Top 40 hit and his first of four #1s. The song also went to #1 in Great Britain, Canada and Australia and was Billboard’s second biggest song of the year. Maggie May had originally been released as the B side to Reason To Believe, a song that peaked at #62, and after that Billboard listed the record as a double-sided hit.
Quotebook
Genius does what it must, talent does what it can.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Gordie Howe currently ranks fourth the NHL all-time points list behind Wayne Gretzky, Jaromir Jagr and Mark Messier.
Today’s Stumper
What was Billboard’s biggest hit of 1971? – Answer next time!
