Podcasts

Five years ago, on this exact date, Eric Garner died while violently resisting lawful arrest for a petty crime. Yesterday the Department of Justice announced that there would be no civil rights charges against the police officer most associated with that arrest (although numerous officers were involved). This perfectly reasonable decision by the DOJ—consistent with […]

Today’s post addresses California bill AB 392, a bill that addresses when police officers are justified in using deadly force, and which has been much in the press the last few months. The concern among many has been that AB 392 will strip away the ability of officers to rely on a reasonable perception of

Today’s post focuses on a one-punch-one-kill confrontation in Florida in which a Mexican television star Pablo Lyle killed a 63-year-old Florida man with a single punch, according to local news reports. Lyle has subsequently been charged with manslaughter. The event took place March 31 but is back in the news now because Lyle has just

This post is just a quick one about the story breaking out of the Philadelphia area in which a father is said to have beat to death a carjacker who stole the father’s car with his children inside. As usual, the news reports appear to be missing the key legal issue here, so naturally I

I often caution that a very common way that law-abiding armed citizens get into legal trouble is not so much that they don’t know self-defense law, but that so much of what they know is actually bad information. And where do they tend to get this bad information? Not from the gun controllers, but too

My apologies, folks, originally uploaded the wrong audio file for this podcast! ************************** Hey folks, In episode of calling the shots we covered several use-of-force cases recently in the news, including: CASE #1: A pregnant woman is in a fight with another woman, other woman shoots the pregnant woman, pregnant woman loses the baby as

Today’s post is about a defendant who brutally beat a victim outside of an Oklahoma bar, according to local news reports. This case is interesting in three respects: first, because it’s a case in which bare fists appear to qualify as deadly force, and; second, because it’s an example of a defendant demonstrating consciousness of

Hey folks, In episode of calling the shots we covered several use-of-force cases recently in the news, including: CASE #1: A pregnant woman is in a fight with another woman, other woman shoots the pregnant woman, pregnant woman loses the baby as a result of the gunshot injury, pregnant woman is charged with manslaughter. CASE

Today’s post is about a Pennsylvania woman who, as reported in a headline, “Drew [Her] Weapon After Being Jumped From Behind,” and ended up charged with attempted homicide and aggravated assault., crimes carry sentences of up to 40 years and 20 years in prison, respectively. Want to learn how what sounds like self-defense resulted in

Today’s post focuses on a case reported out of Florida in which police shot and killed a suspect. What’s notable about this story is that it’s yet another example of the mainstream media framing a police use-of-force as if it were a vicious, unlawful murder of a suspect, whereas the actual facts, for those who