Back in May, I wrote about the case of Patricia Cook, the unarmed woman in Culpeper, Virginia who was killed by a police officer under suspicious circumstances; the officer, Daniel Harmon–Wright, was later charged with murder.
Things have moved faster than I expected: Harmon-Wright was convicted, but only of “voluntary manslaughter”, “shooting into an occupied vehicle”, and “shooting into an occupied vehicle resulting in death”.
And it is possible a mistrial will be declared: “a court’s clerk reported that she found two dictionaries and a thesaurus in the jury room”, which were brought in by the jury forewoman (according to another report) and were allegedly used by the jury to look up the definition of “malice”.
(Hattip: Balko.)
[…] (Previously. Previously.) […]