Thank you. This comment “The gun, a Sig Sauer P239 pistol, is a backup emergency weapon used by law enforcement that has a light trigger mode and no safety.” that I keep seeing repeated – seems to be a mantra for some, I don’t understand where it comes from. One could as accurately say “The gun, a Sig Sauer P239 pistol, is a slender weapon used by some law enforcement for concealed carry that fires in both double action and single action modes, with integral safeties.”

The lack of gun powder residue would seem supportive of claims the weapon was wrapped in a covering of some sort, and lends some credence to claims he may not have known his finger was on the trigger when the weapon discharged. As to the defendent’s own testimony, it is so contradictory I’ve discounted it entirely and focused instead on what the physical evidence revealed.

“That still leaves the presumption his finger was on the trigger when the gun functioned as it was mechanically designed to do… Negligent Homicide”.

I agree, this should be negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter.

The prosecution didn’t charge negligent homicide and while involuntary manslaughter was included as a lesser included charge, the prosecution focused on first degree murder.

“*I’m unsure why you would presume a firearm stolen from someone’s vehicle, and in some person’s possession for a period of time before being used in this case would be left cocked – or why you seem so eager to believe that it might have discharged through no fault of the defendent’s”

I don’ necessarily believe it discharged on it’s own. But for the prosecution to prove murder he would have to prove that it was discharged intentionally and he made the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard to try to convince the jury of that. The prosecutor argued that the defendant was playing Russian roulette with a semi-auto pistol.

I have doubt about it having been stolen at all.

And there is no evidence at all, that the gun was in the defendants possession for more than a few minutes.

While the ranger reported it stolen, the prosecution never charged the defendant in the death of Kate Steinie with stealing the gun. From that I take that they never had any evidence to support such a charge. Such a charge and evidence to support it, would have gone a long way to discrediting the defendant’s claim to have found the gun under the park bench.

It’s possible the ranger simply lost the gun, and reported it stolen to cover his own ass for losing his weapon.

That still leaves the presumption his finger was on the trigger when the gun functioned as it was mechanically designed to do… Negligent Homicide.

I’m unsure why you would presume a firearm stolen from someone’s vehicle, and in some person’s possession for a period of time before being used in this case would be left cocked – or why you seem so eager to believe that it might have discharged through no fault of the defendent’s, yet didn’t in all the intervening hours between its theft and its use. There seems to be a real reach for mitigating circumstances here that neither defense, nor prosecution, saw fit to offer at trial. That seems to me to be “unjust”.

“The Sig 239 has a manual decocker that safely lowers the hammer after racking the slide to load a round in the chamber.”

IF that’s a manual process that the user must explicitly perform, then I think in this case, where it was a stolen gun, and they didn’t even charge the defendant with stealing the gun to counter the defense claim that he found the gun under a park bench, unless there is some way to tell after the fact, the presumption should be that the weapon was fully cocked.

Matt …”How is it possible that the operation of the slide by recoil cocks the hammer, but manual operation of the slide does not? That’s what I don’t get.”

The Sig 239 has a manual decocker that safely lowers the hammer after racking the slide to load a round in the chamber. At that point, it’s in double action mode (round in the chamber, hammer down). After the first round is fired, the hammer is locked back with each subsequent shot being in single action mode. Afterwards, the decocker is used to lower the hammer to prevent an accidental discharge placing the weapon back in double action mode.

Not having a manual safety is irrelevant, in that the DA/SA mode is considered the safety on this type of firearm.

MattS,

Two things:

Earlier you said:

1. The stock trigger pull data does not address the possibility that the ranger had it modified aftermarket.

The data doesn’t, but the trial does. If the pull weight was even less, don’t you think the defense would have brought it in as further proof that the gun had “issues?” If the modification was to make the trigger pull heavier, don’t you think the prosecution would have introduced that to disprove the claims of the defense? Instead, the lawyers all went with the data which shows there was no modification.

Secondly:

Still, I would have gone for involuntary manslaughter. Given the defendant’s claimed ignorance of guns, plausible because what criminal record he has is entirely non-violent offenses, I would consider him handling the gun at all reckless.

California prosecutor Patterico addresses that with the jury instructions:

“Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention, or mistake in judgment. A person acts with criminal negligence when:

In other words, a person acts with criminal negligence when the way he or she acts is so different from the way an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her act amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act.”

Merely picking up the gun is what a reasonable person would do or at the very least it is not outside of what a reasonable person would do.

Nothing is impossible. HIGHLY, HIGHLY IMPROBABLE, yes. In the absence of a mechanical break in the firing pin block – testimony not offered at trial – I am left with the conclusion that it is orders of maginitude more likely than not that this defendant’s finger was on the trigger when the firearm discharged. Whether he manually set the weapon to single action mode by manipulating the slide to chamber a round, manually set it to single action mode by thuumbing the hammer, or (if you assume people just randomly dispose of high quality, high priced semi-automatic handguns at random for people to pick up already chambered and set to single action (hammer cocked) which the defendant just happened to pick up – there is absolutely no reason to believe his finger wasn’t on the trigger when it discharged.

You Tube video starting at 1:57 for firing pin block

Yes, there is the possibility that the stolen weapon was improperly and against department policy taken somewhere to have a trigger job done, and its remotely possible that said person “forgot” to re-install the automatic firing pin block, and that the internal pieces somehow managed to all be in just the right alignment for the weapon to discharge – but such an event would certainly be worthy of mentioning to the jury, and wasn’t… HIGHLY, HIGHLY Improbable.

That’s not “reasonable doubt”.

I am not unfamiliar with firearms, though my experience with hand guns is limited and a few decades old.

I have seen nothing in what has been made public that would satisfy me beyond a reasonable doubt that the gun in this case was intentionally discharged at all, much less that the victim was an intended target.

Still, I would have gone for involuntary manslaughter. Given the defendant’s claimed ignorance of guns, plausible because what criminal record he has is entirely non-violent offenses, I would consider him handling the gun at all reckless.

“I obviously do not recommend, but dropping the firarm on the hammer, while cocked into single action mode, should not cause the weapon to go off, nor should hammering on the weapon with a hammer.”

Shouldn’t and can’t aren’t the same thing. Shouldn’t implies that a discharge under such conditions is unlikely but not impossible.