Comment by iaw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iaw | Hacker News Reader

I am intimately aware of the prosecutorial aggression of the Solano County DA.

There was a young father who worked at the sugar factory that lived in a poor neighborhood. The owner of the house next door had rented it to ex-con meth addicts who liked harassing the mother when the father wasn't home.

Calling the police in this area didn't work because they wouldn't show up. The young man had a felony on his record for doing donuts then running from the police as an 18 year old which precludes him from owning a firearm legally, but out of fear for his family he purchased one.

On a particular bad day three men were stalking the house with his wife inside, he rushed back from work to find them harassing her on his lawn. One looked like he kept reaching for a gun behind his back.

The young father got his firearm and told them all to leave (note the police won't come at this point). The man with a "gun" gets more aggressive and as things escalate, during another sudden movement, the father shoots him once in the side.

Now that a gun has been fired the police come. The man dies on the front lawn. The officers, aware of the degree of harassment, tell the father that he was justified and that it will be okay. They all file reports to that effect.

The Solano County DA prosecutes the father for the manslaughter and felon in possession of a firearm. As a leveraging tool the manslaughter charge is dropped but the felon with a firearm puts him in the penitentiary for 7 years. He had a 6 month old and a 4 year old when he went in.

The Solano County DA knew they could win so they did, there was no benefit to the community. Solano is full of poor people that can be easily victimized, it's a heartbreaking environment.

Why didn't they call the county sheriff if the local police were not responding? Why didn't the father have his second amendment rights restored prior to purchasing a firearm?

I'm assuming they must have been in unincorporated/county jurisdiction as it was the county DA prosecuting and not the city one. County police are also far more likely to fail to respond in many places as county departments have vast amounts of area to cover with ever shrinking amounts of manpower due to budget constraints.

That said, I have no idea how CA'slaw enforcement/county government/judicial/legal system might differ from that of the states I've lived in.

> I'm assuming they must have been in unincorporated/county jurisdiction as it was the county DA prosecuting and not the city one.

This assumption is based on false premises; to wit, that there is such a thing as a "city DA" with a different geographical focus than the District Attorney of the county in which the city is located, such that offenses in city limits are prosecuted by the "city DA" and those in unincorporated areas are prosecuted by the "county DA". In California, however, DAs offices are county offices which cover all of the county, both incorporated and unincorporated areas; no city has its own DAs office (well, except San Francisco, but that's because the City and County of San Francisco is one entity.)

I am not familiar enough with the circumstances to say but I'd suspect it was an issue of jurisdiction. Whatever police forces covered that area didn't have the funding to address "nuisance" complaints. The police were well aware of the situation and apologetic for their inability to help, the men involved in the harassment were all repeat convicts (one was a pedophile).

My father has a felony conviction from the late 70's and has paid a fair amount of money trying to get his second amendment rights restored. California sucks about guns.

Last I've heard, the channels for getting second amendment rights restored are poorly documented and not often used, and for practical purposes are impossible to follow to completion without expensive lawyers that put the idea of it far out of reach of lower-income people.

It's a particularly tough issue to get political movement on because the Left mostly likes helping felons get back to a normal life, but hates any kind of gun rights for anyone, while the Right likes gun rights, but doesn't much like helping felons.

> Why didn't the father have his second amendment rights restored prior to purchasing a firearm?

If the felony was in federal court, that requires a Presidential pardon.

If it was a California state court, it requires either a state pardon, or an after-the-fact reduction of the felony to a misdemeanor (which is not allowed for all offenses.)

These are all rather exceptional processes; in general, both the federal and state bans on felons having guns are lifetime bans.

- How can it be possible that someone gets a criminal record for doing something stupid (but not reckless) with a car?

- How can it be possible that when someone calls the police and the police ignore them?

- How can it possible that someone who has problems with the neighbors thinks that the most sensible thing to do is to buy a gun?

- How can it be possible that a discussion in the lawn ends with a dead person?

So there was an ex-felon with an illegally obtained firearm, who used it--albeit defensively--in a homicide, and that's prosecutorial aggression?

We'll never know for sure if the gun helped or hurt this man's family safety, as the mere presence of a gun can escalate a situation out of control.

But even from the facts that you mention, it's hard to call this unnecessary prosecution.

Not homicide, manslaughter by definition.

There are two questions: 1) How much value was provided to society by prosecuting this man so aggressively? (a lesser sentence that allowed him to continue to work and care for his family would have seemed more beneficial for society)

2) Under the circumstances regarding law enforcement availability and his historic transgressions what was a lawful and economically feasible means for this man to protect his family? These men were intimating that they would rape his wife without going so far as to threaten it. When police respond to reports of a man with a gun by saying "call back once someone is shot then we can send someone," what are the options available to this man?

Manslaughter may not have even been the harshest puninshment, since depending on the circumstances, you could argue the act was a death during the commission of a felony.

IANAL, but jail time is not only protective, but punitive and a deterrent. Illegally obtained firearms are a huge problem in the US.

You and I know only anecdotal details about this case so arguing about societal impacts and fair self-defense are pointless.

I question I ask and what so many fail to do is "If I was in this mans shoes, what would I do?”

Do you allow your wife to live in fear and pray the police arrive in time?

Or do you go ask your buddy down the street to loan you his pistol, show it to her in case she needs it, and let her know that she is protected?

I simply wasn't raised to be the first man and given the facts as stated by the previous poster don't see any other course of action (assuming he is not wealthy enough to move). How do you live with yourself if she ended up raped?

That was the same conclusion that I reached, it's easy to prescribe justice and solutions from a vacuum protected by law enforcement, but in that actual situation I don't think I could've taken different actions from him.

There's a lot of if's here. My only point is that it didn't sound like an obvious overreach by prosecution.

Would I risk gun ownership if I thought my family was in imminent danger? Without question. I would have even done so even if I risked significant jail time.

But here, it's not just "borrowing" a firearm from a friend, it was an illegal purchase. Did this person look into restoring their gun-rights due to extenuating circumstances?

Was justice served? Hard to said because, as I said, we don't have all of the information.

But it's also hard to say that somebody convicted of felon in possession of a firearm, who was in fact both a felon and in possession of a firearm, was an abuse of the legal system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com