Author Archive for elaine-chiu
The Complications of Justification in the Sean Bell Trial
posted by Elaine Chiu
Tomorrow a judge will deliver his verdict in the most watched criminal trial of 2008 in New York City thus far. Three police officers are on trial for manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment for killing Sean Bell in a botched up undercover operation at a night club in Queens. The crux of the defense strategy is a justification defense. Were the defendants justified in using deadly force in their jobs as law enforcement officers? The prosecutor has the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no such justification in order to secure guilty convictions.
This is a complicated decision for the judge. Fifty bullets were fired from the guns of the police officers that night and the evidence in the trial has described a plethora of different emotions. In their grand jury testimony, the officers expressed how they felt fear, shock, anxiety, and panic when they confronted Mr. Bell and his friends outside the night club and when Mr. Bell drove his car twice into their unmarked police van. They also testified that they believed that at least one of the occupants of Mr. Bell’s car was armed with a gun and thus, were scared for their own lives when they began shooting at Mr. Bell and his friends.
The State’s version of the events is somewhat similar but of course also different. Undermining the emotions expressed in the defense strategy, the prosecutor explained that the police officers were primarily angry and that their anger is what drove them to shoot repeatedly at Mr. Bell and his friends. The implication of this argument is that angry police officers are not in fear for their lives and that anger precludes justification but neither is true. It is entirely possible to be angry while also justified in using deadly force. While fear and shock may be more sympathetic emotions, a justification defense does not require them. As the prosecutor said in his closing argument, the truth about the emotions lies somewhere between the defense case and the State’s case. The formal doctrine of the criminal law though does not mandate any particular emotions; it is only concerned with the reasonable use of deadly force.
April 24, 2008 at 2:24 am
Posted in: Criminal Law
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Adultery, Divorce & the Criminal Law
posted by Elaine Chiu
It looks like Eliot and Silda may be staying together after all. For a couple who has long been in the public spotlight, having a hot dog together in Central Park was surely a intentional display of a marriage on the mend. Is this surprising? Is this only to be expected? The statistics on adultery in this country vary widely from as low as 20 percent to as high as 75 percent of married people having engaged in adulterous sex. Many of these adulterous acts are discovered by spouses and many marriages undergo the difficult times now being experienced by the former governor and first lady of New York.
As a family law professor, I always ask matrimonial practitioners whether in their experience, divorce can be avoided after one spouse has cheated on the other. Their answers are always the same and sound true to life: some marriages can overcome an act of adultery while some cannot. What seems to matter are the underlying reasons that led the guilty spouse to stray. If the adultery involves emotional or spiritual bonds, it is a much harder road to forgiveness. Selective forgiveness makes sense on the personal level when two people are trying to sort out their marital relationship. Does it make sense on a societal level?
April 13, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Posted in: Criminal Law, Current Events, Family Law
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Attack of the Home Invaders
posted by Elaine Chiu
Thanks to Dan Solove and the rest of the gang at Concurring Opinions for inviting me to be a guest blogger this month. When you are lucky enough to teach and write in Criminal Law, frequently there are moments when class materials, current events and your own scholarship intersect. This past week I taught the 1985 case of Tennessee v. Garner in Criminal Law and in the local news, there were renewed calls in Connecticut for legislative solutions to respond to a recent pair of violent home invasions. In the first invasion, a pair of convicted felons out on parole terrorized and sexually and physically assaulted a family in the sleepy town of Chesire in July 2007 before finally burning down their family home and killing the wife and two daughters. In the second invasion, a registered sex offender walked into a home where two neighbors were having coffee in New Britain and ended up physically assaulting one of them while stealing the car and killing the other.
Most states would rely on traditional offenses such as intentional homicide, aggravated burglary, robbery and assault to prosecute these episodes. However, some states have begun to define a relatively new crime known as home invasion or home invasion robbery and to attach much stricter sentences and parole policies.
April 4, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Posted in: Criminal Law
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