[ad_1]
Tomorrow morning begins the jury selection in the Minnesota trial of former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kimberly Potter, on charges of 1st and 2nd-degree manslaughter for the April 11, 2021 shooting death of criminal suspect Duante Wright, whom Potter shot in the mistaken belief that she was wielding her less-than-lethal Taser electroshock weapon.
The shooting and immediately surrounding events were captured on Potter’s body camera.
Law of Self Defense ADVANCED Class: Sat. Jan. 8, 2022
Before I jump into things, I do want to briefly mention an exceptional opportunity for your consideration. Perhaps once every 12 or 18 months we do one of our full-day Law of Self Defense ADVANCED Self-defense Law Classes.
This is a full-day class that’s the equivalent of a law school seminar on self-defense law, applicable to all 50 states, and taught in my usual plain English style without any confusing legalese. This class is taught live by me, streamed to you at your computer using Zoom, and there is plenty of opportunity for live Q&A with me during the class.
Because we allow for Q&A, however, we have to sharply limit the number of seats available, so on the rare occasions when we do one of our Law of Self Defense ADVANCED Self-defense Law Classes, they invariably fill up almost immediately after we announce the date.
And we’ve announced the date for this one: It’s taking place on Saturday, January 8, 2022. If you’ve ever wanted a true mastery of the law of self-defense, here’s the best—really, among the only—opportunities to grab that expertise with both hands.
Again, seats are already going fast, since we first announced this Law of Self Defense ADVANCED Self-defense Law Classes just a few days ago, so if you’re at all interested, I urge you to GRAB YOUR SLOT TODAY!
Duante Wright Traffic Stop & Arrest Warrant
Wright was initially pulled over by uniformed officers for driving a vehicle with expired license tags. During the stop, the officers discovered that Wright, 20 years old, had an outstanding arrest warrant. It’s my recollection that the underlying offense was a weapons charge.
As Wright was about to be handcuffed while standing by the open driver’s side door of his car, he suddenly began to violently resist arrest. He dove back into the vehicle, scrambling around, and ultimately was in a position from which to drive the car.
Potter Unintentionally Shoots Wright
Potter had been hanging back and observing the arrest until Wright began to violently resist. She was reportedly present in the role of a training officer, and at the time had 26 years as a police officer.
Potter approached the driver’s side door of Wright’s car, threatened to tase Wright, pulled her Glock 17 service pistol, shouted “Taser! Taser! Taser!” and then fired a single 9mm round into Wright’s body.
At that point Wright took off driving the vehicle, making it a few blocks before crashing to a stop. He would be declared dead at the scene. Immediately upon Wright’s departure from the scene, Potter can be overhead stating, “Holy shit, I just shot him.”
Potter Charged with Manslaughter
Initially, it seemed that Potter would face no criminal charges in this event, as then-Police Chief Tim Gannon characterized the shooting as a tragic accident. On Tuesday, April 13, 2021, however, both Chief Gannon and Officer Potter resigned from the department, and on Wednesday, April 14, 2021, Potter was charged with second-degree manslaughter, under § 609.20(2), a felony that carries a sentence of up to 10 years.
That charge was supplemented on September 2, 2021, with an additional count of first-degree manslaughter predicated on reckless use of a firearm, under § 609.205(1), a felony that carries a sentence of up to 15 years.
Criminal Recklessness & Firearms
Both of the crimes charged are predicated on a mental state of recklessness. That is, it is not claimed by prosecutors that Potter intended to shoot Wright. Rather, they argue that by drawing her Glock 17 from the holster on the right side of her duty belt in place of the Taser placed, as required, on the left side of her duty belt, Potter created an unreasonable risk of causing death or great bodily harm, and consciously disregarded that risk.
It is the degree of risk being deadly in nature and the conscious disregard of that risk that differentiates recklessness from mere negligence. Where recklessness is a valid basis for a criminal charge, as in this case, mere negligence would warrant only a civil suit for damages, and not create criminal liability.
Legal Defense of Accident
I expect that Potter’s legal defense will be either that her conduct was at worst mere negligence so that there ought to be only civil and no criminal liability, or even that her conduct qualifies as a genuine accident to which neither civil nor criminal liability attaches. Accident is a genuine legal defense, much as self-defense is a genuine legal defense.
That said, a legal defense of accident in cases involving firearms is difficult, because firearms are inherently dangerous instruments, and thus the standard of care is very high. For practical purposes, unjustified death, injury, or risk created by the handling of a firearm is treated as a strict liability offense, and is inherently criminally reckless (absent some intervening event outside the gun handler’s control)
Wright’s Contribution to Own Demise
Certainly, Potter’s black Glock 17 pistol and her bright-yellow Taser are not difficult to distinguish under normal circumstances, and each is worn on opposite sides of her duty belt, with the Glock by her dominant-side right hand and her Taser by her “weak-side” left hand.
The scene of Wright’s arrest, however, was arguably not a normal circumstance, at least not once Wright began violently resisting arrest, presented himself as lunging into the car perhaps for a weapon (his outstanding arrest warrant was, I believe, for a weapons charge), and then positioning himself to drive wildly from the scene, in effect preparing to use the car itself as a weapon.
I expect that the Potter defense will argue that her conduct might qualify as reckless in the coolness of 20-20 hindsight, but that Wright’s contribution to the chaos by his violent resistance to lawful arrest is an important aspect of the totality of the circumstances that ought to mitigate Potter’s mental state to something less than reckless.
Potter Likely Privileged to Use Deadly Force
Interestingly, under the totality of the circumstances, it seems likely that Potter would have been privileged to use deadly force upon Wright, had she done so intentionally in the belief that Wright had re-entered the vehicle to access a weapon or intended to use the vehicle itself as a weapon. In that case, the appropriate justification for the shooting would be self-defense and defense of others. Because Potter so clearly did not intend to use deadly force, however, self-defense would seem to be off the table, as self-defense is an inherently intentional act—one cannot commit an act of accidental self-defense.
This case appears to be pushed aggressively by the Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was also a prominently featured personality during the trial of Police Officer Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Brooklyn Center, where Potter was a police officer and where she unintentionally shot Wright, is a nearby suburb of Minneapolis.
Live Trial Coverage Starting Tomorrow: Jury Selection
And that’s about where we are at, as jury selection in the trial of Ms. Potter is set to begin tomorrow. We hadn’t initially planned to cover this trial in real-time because the judge had refused to allow news cameras in the courtroom, but she recently reversed that decision.
Accordingly, we’ll be live commenting and live-streaming this trial every day at Legal Insurrection, much as we did the recent Rittenhouse trial in its entirety, as well as the chunk of the Ahmaud Arbery case trial that did not overlap with Rittenhouse.
We’ll also be providing an end-of-day wrap-up analysis of each day’s proceedings in the evening, with both live daily coverage and end-of-day analysis expected to run through to the verdict.
OK, folks, that’s all I have for you on this topic.
Until next time:
Remember
You carry a gun so you’re hard to kill.
Know the law so you’re hard to convict.
Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
Law of Self Defense Platinum Protection Program
IMPORTANT: We encourage civil and reasoned debate among Members in the comments. That said, comments reflect the opinion (legal or otherwise) of those who authored them only, and no comment should be assumed to reflect the opinion of, or be assumed to be shared by, Attorney Andrew F. Branca, except those authored by Attorney Branca. Law of Self Defense LLC does not systemically moderate comments for legal correctness, and we suggest that all comments be viewed with an appropriately critical eye and a grain of salt.
Nothing in this content constitutes legal advice. Nothing in this content establishes an attorney-client relationship, nor confidentiality. If you are in immediate need of legal advice, retain a licensed, competent attorney in the relevant jurisdiction.
Law of Self Defense © 2021
All rights reserved.
[ad_2]
Source link