So what do you do when trigger happy cops chase you around?

[Razgovory]

There was expert testimony claiming this guys shots were the fatal ones.  The Judge simply ignored it.  If a cop did something as stupid as jump on the car hood and shoot the occupants to death it still doesn't make it reasonable.  It's simply bizarre behavior.  It would be dangerous to the cop do pull that kind of stunt.  A car hood can be slippery, he could easily have fallen down.  If the occupants actually had guns he would be exposing himself to gun fire.  I have no idea why he did that.  It's inexplicable behavior.

[grumbler]

i can see it. prosecutors couldn't prove that his bullets killed the victims, so there goes the primary charge.

The prosecutors proved that his bullets were fatal if the victims were alive when his fatal shots were fired.  His were not the only fatal shots, to be sure, but he fired the majority of the fatal shots and surely intended his shots to be fatal (he hit the woman three times in the head).  It is absolutely untrue that a person gets excused from firing fatal shots if someone else does so as well.  If that were the case, then every murder duo would get off because neither of them exclusively committed murder.

for secondary charges, this professor makes a good point:

"To find him responsible, to find him unreasonable under these circumstances (the judge) will be asking himself how come anyone else wasn't reasonable, too?" Valore said. "It was such a maelstrom of shots."

The professor is full of shit.  One does not have to be surrounded by reasonable people in order to be culpable for being unreasonable.  The professor is treading dangerously close to "I vas chust following or-ders!"

thirteen cops fired over a hundred bullets into this car. while brelo jumped on the hood, that's not necessarily unreasonable. if no cop had ever jumped onto a car hood and fired bullets into the windshield, then brelo's actions would probably be unreasonable. but, i'm sure there's case law that shows this has reasonably happened before. if a cop can "reasonably" (through beyond a reasonable doubt standard) pull a brelo when actual dangerous criminals are involved, then brelo's additional actions here shouldn't matter that much. assuming there aren't more to the facts, of course.

Jumping on the hood of the car is manifestly stupid.  Car hoods are slippery, he is close enough to the victims to block shots from fellow cops, and if he really thought that his life was in danger, he is exposing himself totally to return fire.  The only reason to jump on the hood of the car is when you know there isn't any danger and you want to be able to see the victims more fully in order to place your shots more surely fatally.  This is an open-and-shut case of blood thirst, excusable, apparently, because he is a cop.  Had be been a civilian murdering people like this, he'd get executed, no question.

[Tonitrus]

I got to agree with grumbles.  Jumping onto the hood of a car in a shootout?  That's action movie stupidity right there.

Only conceivably reasonable if that car is speeding right at you, and then the shooting would be justified anyway.

[LaCroix]

There was expert testimony claiming this guys shots were the fatal ones.  The Judge simply ignored it.  If a cop did something as stupid as jump on the car hood and shoot the occupants to death it still doesn't make it reasonable.  It's simply bizarre behavior.  It would be dangerous to the cop do pull that kind of stunt.  A car hood can be slippery, he could easily have fallen down.  If the occupants actually had guns he would be exposing himself to gun fire.  I have no idea why he did that.  It's inexplicable behavior.

i don't know the facts of the case because i haven't read the opinion, so i don't know what you mean by the judge simply ignored expert testimony. for the rest of your post, see my below response to grumbler.

The prosecutors proved that his bullets were fatal if the victims were alive when his fatal shots were fired.  His were not the only fatal shots, to be sure, but he fired the majority of the fatal shots and surely intended his shots to be fatal (he hit the woman three times in the head).  It is absolutely untrue that a person gets excused from firing fatal shots if someone else does so as well.  If that were the case, then every murder duo would get off because neither of them exclusively committed murder.

prosecutors had to prove causation for voluntary manslaughter, and they couldn't prove that brelo's bullets caused the deaths. i'm not sure about every jurisdiction in the U.S., but at least in ohio, the latter part of this paragraph isn't true. if two criminals shoot a victim at the same time, and prosecutors cannot prove which bullet actually caused the death, then there's gonna have to be other ways to convict the criminals (which should be easy because legislators provide prosecutors many tools). though i think this scenario is rarer than you might think, but i could be wrong.

One does not have to be surrounded by reasonable people in order to be culpable for being unreasonable.  The professor is treading dangerously close to "I vas chust following or-ders!"

agreed, but i'm not sure this is what the professor was arguing. it's a quote from an interview, so who knows.

Jumping on the hood of the car is manifestly stupid.  Car hoods are slippery, he is close enough to the victims to block shots from fellow cops, and if he really thought that his life was in danger, he is exposing himself totally to return fire.  The only reason to jump on the hood of the car is when you know there isn't any danger and you want to be able to see the victims more fully in order to place your shots more surely fatally.  This is an open-and-shut case of blood thirst, excusable, apparently, because he is a cop.  Had be been a civilian murdering people like this, he'd get executed, no question.

agreed that jumping on the hood of the car was stupid. but the charges against brelo focused on his actions against the victims and not reckless endangerment of his fellow officers. i don't know why brelo jumped on the hood, and i don't know the exact circumstance of what happened. however, as mentioned in my earlier post, a rambo-like act isn't necessarily "unreasonable" in a criminal case context. brelo's conduct could be found "unreasonable" in a civil trial with a lower standard, but apparently it wasn't "unreasonable" for this court. sometimes you just get "ridiculous outcomes" that make sense from a purely legal perspective. like when a home purchaser successfully sues a home seller because the home seller/realtor didn't inform the home purchaser that the house was haunted.

i disagree that this is an open-and-shut-case of excusing blood thirst because the guy was a cop as that's a pretty harsh accusation. i don't know what the defense presented, but i can see a situation where a (edit) jury factfinder legitimately could find a cop not guilty despite him jumping on a hood of a car and firing fifteen rounds into the windshield. it's maybe not plausible, but it's possible.

[MadImmortalMan]

Aren't cops supposed to prefer to let the driver get away than engage in hundred round shootouts in the middle of a city anyway? Safety first, man.

[PDH]

How many backfires equals 100 rounds?  I am confused.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Weren't the cops responding to a shots fired call in the first place, then these guys take off, don't stop until they get to a middle school of all places, and then their old POS backfires?   I don't know about all this 100+ rounds fired and jumping on hoods fake hero bullshit, but damn.  That really seems like a scenario that pretty much guarantees the cops are going to shoot someone. 

[Razgovory]

Weren't the cops responding to a shots fired call in the first place, then these guys take off, don't stop until they get to a middle school of all places, and then their old POS backfires?   I don't know about all this 100+ rounds fired and jumping on hoods fake hero bullshit, but damn.  That really seems like a scenario that pretty much guarantees the cops are going to shoot someone.

The shots fired here was their car backfiring.  I don't think anyone actualy fired shots, and if they did it wasn't the guys in the car since they had no gun.  I think the backfire of the car initiated the chase.

[Martinus]

I find it a bit odd that the fact that the victims may have been already dead when the shots were fired is an automatic bar to prosecution.

Under Polish law we have this concept of "impossible attempt" when one can still be charged if the intent/mens rea was there, even if the crime had no chance of succeeding due to objective reasons that the perp was not aware of (such as using a toy gun to shoot someone, when the perp is thinking that the guy is actually real). In such cases, the judge may actually apply an extraordinary reduction of the sentence (so the punishment may actually be below the minimum statutory sentence for the crime of a given nature) or even abstain from pronouncing a sentence altogether, while declaring the perp guilty - but that is not a bar to a guilty verdict.

[The Minsky Moment]

I find it a bit odd that the fact that the victims may have been already dead when the shots were fired is an automatic bar to prosecution.

Under Polish law we have this concept of "impossible attempt" when one can still be charged if the intent/mens rea was there, even if the crime had no chance of succeeding due to objective reasons that the perp was not aware of

Yes - surprisingly this is not unique to Polish law    It is also a longstanding principle of English common law - and hence the criminal law of the American states as well.  There is even an old Alan Dershowitz case in NY on this issue - People v. Dlugash.  But it applies to "attempt" crimes.  One can be charged with attempted murder if the victim is already dead, but obviously not of murder itself since causing death is one of the elements.

My understanding is that Brelo could have convicted on an attempt charge but the judge apparently found his conduct "justified"

[grumbler]

My understanding is that Brelo could have convicted on an attempt charge but the judge apparently found his conduct "justified"

It was "justified."  Brelo didn't know they victims were already dead or dying, and he was perfectly justified in making sure that people who (he thought) fired on police didn't clutter up the courts with trials and the like by virtue of not surviving their encounter with the police.

Now, that's a shitty and illegal justification, but if you get the right (elected) judge, you can literally get away with murder.

BTW, O'Donnel just last fall won election to Ohio's Supreme Court.

[crazy canuck]

I find it a bit odd that the fact that the victims may have been already dead when the shots were fired is an automatic bar to prosecution.

Under Polish law we have this concept of "impossible attempt" when one can still be charged if the intent/mens rea was there, even if the crime had no chance of succeeding due to objective reasons that the perp was not aware of (such as using a toy gun to shoot someone, when the perp is thinking that the guy is actually real). In such cases, the judge may actually apply an extraordinary reduction of the sentence (so the punishment may actually be below the minimum statutory sentence for the crime of a given nature) or even abstain from pronouncing a sentence altogether, while declaring the perp guilty - but that is not a bar to a guilty verdict.

It is an automatic bar to being convicted of murder since one cannot kill someone who is already dead.  But an accused could still be found guilty of the attempt to commit murder even if the act of committing the murder was unsuccessful.

[Razgovory]

I find it a bit odd that the fact that the victims may have been already dead when the shots were fired is an automatic bar to prosecution.

Under Polish law we have this concept of "impossible attempt" when one can still be charged if the intent/mens rea was there, even if the crime had no chance of succeeding due to objective reasons that the perp was not aware of (such as using a toy gun to shoot someone, when the perp is thinking that the guy is actually real). In such cases, the judge may actually apply an extraordinary reduction of the sentence (so the punishment may actually be below the minimum statutory sentence for the crime of a given nature) or even abstain from pronouncing a sentence altogether, while declaring the perp guilty - but that is not a bar to a guilty verdict.

Generally though, it's not applied when the defendant may have already killed the person a few minutes earlier.

[jimmy olsen]

Cleveland comes to an agreement with the Feds to reform their policing.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cleveland-reaches-deal-with-justice-department-to-reform-police-conduct/

[Razgovory]

Well Derspeiss will be upset.