Store clerk in Austin convicted of murder but given probation over a beer theft.

[jobycom]

Quick background--last year a clerk killed a man who grabbed a 12 pack of beer and ran out of the store. It's called a beer run, and it's sort of a prank and a dare and a way to get free beer, or sometimes to get beer without an ID. He fired sixteen shots at the fleeing suspect, saw blood on the ground, cleaned up his shell casings, and destroyed his store's surveillance video (which was backed up on hard disk, so a copy survived). When cops responded to a "shots fired" call, he said he had heard nothing. The thief was later found dead in another part of town from the gunshot wounds.

Texas law allos a person to kill someone stealing their property if they can't protect the property in any other way and the property can't be recovered in any other way. This law has come up before as many Texans clearly use it to get their jollies more than protect their property. One thing that makes this case unique is that the clerk was actually arrested and charged with murder, as well as with tampering with evidence--though not with obstruction of justice or lying to the police, for some reason.

The jury deadlocked over the murder conviction, but finally worked out a compromise. They convicted him of murder (and tampering), and then sentenced him only to probation.

Does this sound like a cop-out to anyone else? If he was guilty of murder, why was his action excusable enough to give him probation? If he was not guilty because of Texas law, why was he convicted? To me, the decision sounds like both sides were afraid of their own verdicts.

This isn't a gun issue, because the law would allow a property owner (or someone appointed by the owner, like a store manager) to use a baseball bat or whatever, and no carry laws come into play since the gun was held by an owner's representative on private property. It's a crime issue.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/murder-conviction-8-years-probation-for-store-clerk-1186762.html

[rfranklin]

1. Walked back into the store with a smile on his face....

Does that sound like the reaction of a normal person?

[pscot]

5. Sounds like a fucking psychopath

But that may be the new normal for Texas.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Sounds like another misdemeanor murder conviction in Texas

It is far from the first

[Brilliantrocket]

3. I wonder if Texas has lower crime?

I'd bet once criminals hear that they can be killed over a beer, they will go be criminals elsewhere.

[stevenleser]

7. Nope. They do not. Most of Texas' cities have horrific crime rates, while NYC which has strict gun

laws is the safest large city in the country.

[Brilliantrocket]

9. Or you can take my city ,Chicago.

Toughest gun laws, a lot of crime. There's a graph that I don't care to look for right now, but essentially, when the ban was put into place crime rose up and up and up. You can see it go up the same year as the ban was put in.

[stevenleser]

10. So with just that we can conclude no correlation between violent crime rate and gun control laws

But even then, what we can make an educated guess about is that while the amount of guns does not influence crime rate, the crimes that do happen in places where there are more guns would tend to be more brutal and in fact, the statistics support that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Check the crime rates of NYC versus the cities in Texas that have a similar crime rate (most have a higher rate). The rates of murders in the Texas cities versus NYC are 3 to 5 times higher.

And since you mentioned Chicago, Chicago has a lower murder rate than almost all large Texas cities. So, yes, other factors dictate whether someone commits a crime in general, but when they have guns, people are murdered at far higher rates.

[jobycom]

18. I'd be interested in seeing those numbers.

They sound wrong.

[NutmegYankee]

32. I think police walking the beat has the greatest effect.

Well trained community oriented and involved police beats gun control hands down.

[MadHound]

8. I was wondering when Javert would show up,

Congratulations. I suppose that you had a crime free youth, never did a thing out of line, never broke a law.

[jobycom]

17. No, that's that conservative fallacy that believes crime is deterred by threats.

In the real world crime is driven by many factors, and fear or lack thereof of punishment is not one of them. If anything, it will become more of a game, like slapping an angry bull. Crime rates are affected most by wealth and poverty, with the richest states having the lowest crime rates, including non-property crimes like murder, assault, and rape. It may not be as simple as wealth though. For instance, education usually equals higher wealth, so wealthier states may have lower crime rates because of education, as well. Obviously no one knows exactly for sure, or we could eliminate crime. But in general, states with the most conservative laws tend to have higher crime rates--though again, that may be because states with lower education and lower income tend to be more conservative.

Texas has one of the worst records for violent crime, even though a large number of gun incidents go unpunished for political reasons. There are a lot of out-and-out murders here that aren't even charged because a person has a carry permit, and politicians are hell-bent on keeping such crime statistics low to keep the gun lobby happy.

But clerks shooting beer thiefs doesn't reduce the number of beer thefts. It can, though, increase the number of clerks shot by criminals not wanting to take chances.

[walldude]

33. Yeah and once your wife finds out she can be stoned to death

for infidelity she'll never have a wandering eye again.


Are you for fucking real? Is your post some kind of joke? Or are you really saying that killing a man over a 12 pack of beer is a good deterrent for criminals?

So? Which is it? Were you joking? Or are you a complete and utter dolt?

[Brilliantrocket]

4. Dupe

.

[stevenleser]

6. I've given up on RTKBA issues, but I am glad I live somewhere where the rules are strict. THANKS NYC

I love having it be dangerous (legalwise) to carry a gun

[ProgressiveProfessor]

31. What other racist and classist laws do you support?

Those are the roots of gun control and have not changed today?

[RegieRocker]

11. Someone explain to me the differnce between our society

and the radical Muslims again?

[jobycom]

19. The Texas God speaks English. The Muslim God prefers Arabic. nt

[RegieRocker]

22. Ahh LOL

[LisaL]

12. I would think that under the law, as written, he should have

been found not guilty of murder.
Yet at the same time it doesn't seem like it should be legal to kill someone over beer. So I am not surprised the jury compromised (presumably that's what happened).

[jobycom]

20. That was the defense's argument, but it wasn't that simple.

The clerk made no effort to recover the beer, so it weakened his argument that he was just trying to protect his property, and since beer is easily replacable it's not as clear that killing the thief was his only recourse. In other words, if someone is robbing my house, and there is a police barricade outside to stop him the moment he leaves, then I have no right to kill him because there are other ways to recover my property. The law isn't supposed to allow revenge killing or lesson-teaching, it is supposed to give a property owner the legal ability to stop the theft of his property. The clerk's actions make it seem more like he just wanted to shoot the guy out of frustration or anger or for the thrill of it, and that's not the purpose of the law.

But I agree that's what the jury did. Most thought he was guilty of murder, but one or two thought he shouldn't be punished because he believed he was within the law (that's not an estimate--10 wanted to convict, one wanted to acquit, and one was undecided, at first). The defense made a big issue of him believing he was right, and that swayed enough jurors so that they had to compromise, because as we all know, if someone really, really believes the other person should die, then it's not really murder.

They left out one key quote in that story. The clerk told the cop that after the shooting, he was smiling because he "really fucked that guy over over a case of beer." The clerk did it for fun, not because he wanted to stop a theft.

[LisaL]

26. I think if somebody grabs the beer and runs off,

it'd be pretty hard to recover it.
I am not sure what effort he could have made that would have realistically led to the recovery of the beer. If it were up to me, I'd find him not guilty of murder (not because I believe it's fine to kill someone running away with beer, but because of the way law is written), find him guilty of tampering with evidence and then I would certainly want him to serve prison time instead of probation.

[Skip Intro]

13. None of this would have happened had the thief not stolen.

I'm sorry, well, not really sorry, but the thing that is overlooked here, and even made excuses for in the article, is that there was a thief. There was a criminal. Who broke the law. I'm not saying he should have been shot, but the story really begins with his crime. Had he not broken the law, had he not stolen from the store, there would be no story here. I think that is a critical fact that shouldn't be glossed over.

[AmericaIsGreat]

14. It's not a critical fact

Because it was minor theft. A fucking 12 pack? That's, what, 15 bucks? You should not be able to kill someone for that. Period.

[JI7]

29. i'm guessing people have stolen before so they don't see the cost as just that one time

but how people repeatedly steal things and it adds up.

someone else said that he did report it to the police before but they never did much.

[Astrad]

15. Proportionality has always been part of modern concepts of law

Hence you can't be shot for jaywalking even though you committed a crime.

[jobycom]

21. None of it would have happened if his parents hadn't had sex, either.

Can't forget that fact. Nor can we forget that if Texas had outlawed beer sales...

The thing is, if there is a genuine fear amongst thiefs that they could die over a twelve dollar case of beer, they aren't going to take the chance. They won't stop stealing beer, they will just start carrying weapons, and the next time they'll go for armed robbery, or just shoot the clerk in the first place. There are laws and procedures on the books to deal with misdemeanor theft. The thief gets fined, he gets a sentence, he gets councelling, and all that good stuff. He doesn't get shot down over twelve dollars. That's like shooting someone for speeding. In fact, it would make a lot more sense to start shooting speeders, because they are actually endangering people's lives, so there is an equivalency between the crime and the punishment. A guy who steals 12 bucks (retail) worth of beer--probably six bucks cost, and less than an average employee breaks or loses during a week--isn't endangering anyone's life, he's just stealing property.

And I doubt anyone would be against punishing the thief if he lived. In fact, I'd bet if he were given more than a month in jail for it, people would be outraged. Interesting that a couple of people seem to think that killing wasn't too harsh.

[Lucian]

25. He stole a fucking twelve pack of beer.

I don't think death is a justifiable punishment for his crime.

What an idiotic post.

[superduperfarleft]

30. So if you're jaywalking, and I get pissed and run you down with my car,

am I blameless because the story began with your crime?

The shopowner was in zero danger, and the guy had nothing more than a case of beer (I'm sure in Texas beer is dirt cheap). I'd much rather cut my losses than fucking shoot someone, but that's probably just because my priorities are actually in order.

[Iggo]

16. Property is more important than people.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

[JI7]

23. if the store had a camera couldn't he have just reported to the Police

and they would have the guy who stole on video ?

[LisaL]

27. His argument was he didn't report it to the police because police

have done little in response to previous complaints about the thefts from the store.
So he wouldn't be realistically expecting that police was going to recover the beer.

[Lucian]

24. So killing someone because they stole beer is justifiable?

Was the question asked: who owned the beer? I'm sure it wasn't the clerk who worked at the store. Wouldn't it be the store owner?

Texas is so fucked up I'm glad I don't live there.

[JonLP24]

28. Oh wow

Cleaning up evidence and lying to police and this is all that happens? Very weird.

[madinmaryland]

34. So let me get this straight. The penalty for stealing a 12-pack of beer is death.

Without a jury trial of one's peers and without any judicial appeal.

The dumbass clerk should have gotten life.

Un-fucking-believable.