[ZTWsquared]

(05-28-2010, 07:52 AM)OAC_Sparky Wrote: But why then was he not charged with involuntary manslaughter?

Quote:Involuntary manslaughter
Involuntary manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought. It is distinguished from voluntary manslaughter by the absence of intention. It is normally divided into two categories; constructive manslaughter and criminally negligent manslaughter.

Any normal lawyer would argue that dragging a cyclist with a car even in self defense would be an excessive use of force.

ie. In Canada, at least, if someone punches you and you shoot him dead it is not a valid case of self defense. The same thing if somebody grabs you, it doesn't give you free license to drive away with him attached. And the fact that this person had been recently violent has little bearing on Bryant's actions as he had no previous dealings with the cyclist to know. What if it was just some drunk old lady? One without a violent history?

I'm not disputing he didn't do anything that any of us wouldn't do out of panic, but i am skeptical that the average Joe wouldn't stand trial for something.

I'm not a lawyer but I can punch all kinds of holes in your assessment above ... starting with who was the aggressor and was the cyclist dragged or was he the one aggressively hanging on to the car and being pulled by his own volition. The defense would argue that Bryant has the right to try and put space between him and someone trying to attack him.

And we don't even have to take Bryant's word for it, because he's got at least 6 other witnesses who will testify that the same cyclist attacked them in exactly the same way.

Should Bryant have done something differently? Perhaps - theoretically - but we're only asking the question because someone's dead. But even if the answer is "yes, he should have done something different" - it doesn't by definition mean that what he did do was criminally wrong.

This whole thing could have been avoided if the cyclist hadn't attacked him in the first place, and if he had of let Bryant go when he tried to get away. And again, we don't have to take Bryant's word for it.

Under those circumstances, I can't imagine any jury convicting him -- all his lawyers have to do is ask the jury to be put themselves in the same position and then ask them if they think they should go to jail for trying to get away from a drunken, enraged, maniac with a history of violence.

Game - set - match.