Thursday, May 13, 2010

Can Van Hollen Be Charged For Party To Crime In Homicide?

It was bound to happen.
A Milwaukee man who filed a civil rights lawsuit over his arrests for openly carrying a gun into stores has been charged with fatally shooting one man and wounding another outside his south side home over the weekend.

After the shooting, Jesus C. Gonzalez immediately called 911 to report the incident. He was wearing his empty holster as he surrendered to police when they arrived moments later, according to a criminal complaint. His gun was sitting nearby.

Gonzalez, 23, was charged Thursday with first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Danny John and the wounding of his nephew, Jered Corn. Gonzalez is being held at the Milwaukee County Jail on $100,000 bail, according to jail and court records.

Coincidentally, a federal judge had dismissed his civil suit Tuesday.

Knowing the gun nuts, they will totally blow off that their hero murdered someone and tried to murder a second person. The will instead focus their outrage at U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman who dismissed Gonzalez's frivolous lawsuit, and offered some clairvoyant thoughts:

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman dismissed Gonzalez's civil rights complaint, saying police officers indeed had probable cause to arrest him in each instance, and that even if they had not, the officers had qualified immunity from claims such as the one Gonzalez had filed. He had alleged privacy and due process violations.

Adelman also rejected Gonzalez's claim that because police in West Milwaukee and Chilton held his gun for months before returning it, they violated his rights against illegal search and seizure.

His order may likely anger open carry proponents.

"No reasonable person would dispute that walking into a retail store openly carrying a firearm is highly disruptive conduct which is virtually certain to create a disturbance.

"This is so because when employees and shoppers in retail stores see a person carrying a lethal weapon, they are likely to be frightened and possibly even panicky. Many employees and shoppers are likely to think that the person with the gun is either deranged or about to commit a felony or both.

"Further, it is almost certain that someone will call the police. And when police respond to a 'man with a gun' call, they have no idea what the armed individual's intentions are. The volatility inherent in such a situation could easily lead to someone being seriously injured or killed," Adelman wrote.

Of course, all of this was triggered by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who had issued an opinion that it's just okey-dokey to do the open carry thing. Way to put politics before people. But can we possibly charge Van Hollen for Party to the Crime of Murder, or at least aiding and abetting?

See also: Bearing Arms and Pallbearers

17 comments:

  1. Typical chris...comments filled with false premises; “they will totally blow off that their hero”, and “all of this was triggered by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen”.

    I suggest you take your opinion and run with it, PLEASE. I would love to see your lame attempt to charge Van Hollen with aiding and abetting. This just further shows your ignorance of the law.

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  2. I see that satire and political opinion is beyond you. It must be difficult to go through life like that.

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  3. I like that as soon as anyone is "charged" They MUST be guilty. Way to go! The guy is doing exactly what he should be doing; keeping his mouth shut! This has the adverse effect of losing the battle of public opinion but it keeps his ass covered when the dog and pony show of a trial starts.
    In Wisconsin, most DA's will charge anyone with murder initially in a self defense case, even in more clear cut ones.
    We'll soon find out more about the case and then can form more edjucated opinions instead of making emotional snap judgments without anything to back them up

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  4. Riiiight. So the AG interprets the law as it's written, but it's some how his fault the legislature set it up this way in the first place.

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  5. His opinion was unsolicited and was a blatant political move. The results, people like this having to push the envelope, was all too predictable. I think that this will be just the first of many such problems as we decline as a society back to more primitive attitudes.

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  6. Again with the false premise, "people like this HAVING to push the envelope". If this were true than all people like that would push the envelope.

    If the facts as outlined in the news are true, there is no excuse for this murder...but murder and open carry have nothing to do with each other; one is legal the other is not.

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  7. Not everyone wants to push the envelope since not everyone wants to walk around packing a gun.

    And to say that they have nothing to do with each other is being intellectually dishonest. Carrying a gun makes events like this one all too easy and all too likely.

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  8. Capper, you deserve a doctorate in putting forth dimwitted thoughts. Show any proof to your latest sputtering of carrying a gun makes it more likely something like this will happen.

    If this ridiculous statement were even close to true hunters would murder more than people who don't hunt, police officers would murder more than non-officers, and those with conceal carry licenses would have a higher murder rate than those without.

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  9. Talk about dimwitted! Are you seriously trying to say that the number of murders by stabbing or strangulation or any other means is even close to the number of people shot to death?

    I'm sure you can also explain why Europe, who has a much saner attitude towards guns, has the same murder rate as one major U.S.city.

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  10. OK back to your original comment...if you can contain that ADD. You said carrying a GUN makes events like this all to likely to happen, we can discuss stabbing, strangulation, and Europe later.

    For the record nothing in my comments said that guns were not used in murders or that they were not the most used in murders.

    Now that reality is back, please try again to justify your earlier comment that carrying a gun makes it more likely "something like this will happen", when it doesn't happen more for police, hunters, concealed carry people, or even the military.

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  11. FYI, cops and military have a higher level of suicides and incidents of of domestic violence than the general population, but I cannot state whether that is due to the availability of guns or stress they are under.

    But I told you why I said that guns make it more likely. They make it too easy to kill someone without a second thought. Accept the reality if you will, or continue to live in your world of denial. That choice is yours.

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  12. FYI, just because you "think" its true does not make it true. To your claims of higher rates of suicides, you failed to mention that suicides in both management and sales occupations are at a higher rate than cops or the military...and they don't carry guns. http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/osar0010.pdf

    Your belief that because a gun is closer something might happen is an emotional argument and not something derived from any facts; nothing new for you and your positions on most things.

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  13. Actually, profession makes a poor indicator of the likelihood of suicide.

    But back to the point, even your example shows that the by far most common method of suicide is gunshot. Why do you think that is, if it isn't that guns make killing easier?

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  14. If a profession makes a poor indicator, it just shows you introducing this as support was weak and meaningless to begin with.

    Declaring guns make it easier still has no correlation or support to your previous statement that carrying a gun makes it more likely "something like this will happen". We can debate all the other topics you want after you either support your claim or admit it is an emotional unsupported statement to begin with.

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  15. Well, let's see, you want me to support that guns make things easier to kill. How does one support common sense.

    You have a tool that's sole purpose is to kill. It does not require strength or thought, just point and shoot. It doesn't require proximity to the victim, so there is no personal effect on the shooter.

    Even you should be able to follow the logic from there without someone holding your hand.

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  16. lol, dodging your comment with un-artful sidesteps might make you "think" you are cute...in reality it shows you have no support at all.

    I never asked you to support guns make things easier to kill, common sense and reading comprehension skills can easily show I want you to defend your comment that carrying a gun makes it more likely "something like this will happen".

    To make it easier for you, I agree guns can kill as can many other things. As to your proximity retort, in most instances of murder there will always be some semblance of proximity.

    Now, if you can try and stick to the topic, you supporting your previous statement NOT some new statement, we might be able to continue our dialog.

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  17. Let's put a couple things into perspective:

    1998 -- Over 70% of the voters in WI approve Article 1, Section 25 saying YES, you can carry a firearm for protection.

    2002 -- Doyle is AG. Doyle's office argues TWICE, that right, TWICE that it is the states position that open carry in not only legal, but constitutionally protected.

    Shirley Abrahamson asks, "you can walk down state street with a loaded shotgun?" Doyle's assistant AG Kassel says "ABSOLUTELY." She asks in the second case, "go about with a holstered pistol?" Kassel again gives a resounding YES!

    The State Supreme Court accepts the states (Doyle's) position.

    2006 -- Doyle, while running for re-election advocates FOR open carry.

    2009 -- AG Van Hollen simply reiterates the SAME POSITION AS DOYLE has stated three times. The SAME POSITION that the State Supreme Court accepted twice, and the SAME POSITION that over 70% of the voters approved in 1998.

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