One of the unique aspects of the United States is that we are all supposed to be equal under the law.
Now, we can all point to cases in which we believe that someone received harsher or kinder treatment while moving through the legal system. That’s just the reality of dealing with human beings.
But that doesn’t change the fact that, unlike many countries, there is at least the effort to treat people fairly.
Sadly, especially in blue areas of the country, that equal treatment seems to be less and less of a reality.
Take the recent criminal case around the shooting of a police officer in New York. Tragically, an officer, Jonathan Diller, was shot and killed during an arrest, and the shooter, Guy Rivera, was charged with murder. In this case, the shooter was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.
What I want to focus on here, though, is how the lawyers characterized the shooter. Philip Marcelo writes,
Rivera’s lawyer argued that Rivera had not targeted Diller and that the shooting was not intentional—a key factor prosecutors needed to prove to secure a first-degree murder conviction.
The defense attorneys sought to show that testimony from officers on scene that day contradicted their own body camera footage.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued the evidence showed that Rivera intended to use the gun because he had loaded an ammunition clip, chambered a round and switched off the safety before he stuffed it in his pocket.
Now, notice that the prosecutor’s criteria for someone having the intent to murder someone else is that they had a loaded firearm with one in the chamber and the safety off.
Now, I don’t know if Rivera was legally allowed to carry a firearm, but in the constitutional carry state that I live in, carrying a firearm with a full magazine, one in the chamber, and the safety off (if there is even a safety on the gun) is what everyone does.
That’s not a setup for intending to kill someone else. That’s how you carry for if you need to access your firearm for self-defense.
The prosecutor is trying to conflate being ready to defend yourself with an intention to commit murder.
It’s a complete twisting of reality when it comes to carrying a firearm on your person, and this is yet another reason why you should always be careful out there. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of charges from a prosecutor like this.