Quote:
Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo
"Robbery?"
Didn't the kid steal a fucking candybar or something?
Can we call a spade a spade - that's shoplifting, not "robbery."
Although i guess he's black and maybe he had words with the cashier, so I suppose that makes it "robbery."
(and no - i haven't watched the video yet, so I'm talking out my ass).
Okay - so it was cigars. And oh gee...he pushed the guy. I guess that's "robbery."
What a joke.
Even then - since when does stealing a couple cigars warrant a full-on search by local PD and a confrontational response that ends with someone getting shot? That's a pretty extreme overreaction.
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The legislature gets to define what crimes are, and in Missouri, they didn't specify any minimum amount of force gets you to 2nd-degree robbery. Though, there would need to be physical injury to get to 1st-degree robbery. (And it's all moot now, but I could see an argument that the shove came AFTER the theft, so maybe its misdemeanor theft + misdemeanor battery rather than one felony 2nd-degree robbery.) He might have gotten a break down the road, but it isn't necessarily racist just to identify him as a suspect of committing the actual crime he was arguably observed committing on video.
And whatever confrontation, or non-confrontation led up to the shooting, it didn't have anything to do with the robbery, at least from the officer's end.
As for prior acts evidence, you can't admit evidence of prior acts to show that because someone did something bad before, they must have done something bad again. But you can introduce it for other reasons. Like state of mind, motive, absence of mistake, plan, etc. Some states have evidentiary rules and caselaw interpreting those rules that make prior acts and prior convictions even tougher to get in when it comes to defendants, but remember that Brown will not be the defendant.