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tazzygirl -> RE: A court in TX just exonerated a man who shot and killed a woman who had refused to have sex with him (6/8/2013 5:15:05 PM)
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An interesting article... NOT written by a woman.
In my home state of Texas, a man named Ezekiel Gilbert decided on Christmas Eve in 2009 that he was feeling randy. He checked Craigslist, found a listing for an escort, and—believing the service included sex—arranged for a meeting. The escort, 23-year-old Lenora Ivie Frago, showed up, and Gilbert paid her $150 for half an hour of time. Then, once the paid-for time had passed, Frago got up to leave. Gilbert was outraged: he had paid money! He thought the price included for-hire sex! He wanted his illegal sex!
Frago went outside where her driver, Christopher Perkins, was waiting. Gilbert came out and confronted Perkins, who told the enraged man that he had hired Frago for 30 minutes of her time, not sex, and that was what he had received. Perkins drove away, when suddenly Frago screamed, “He’s got a gun!”
Gilbert fired at the car four times. A bullet struck Frago at the base of the skull, paralyzing her. Months later, she died as the result of the shooting. Gilbert was charged with murder. He admitted that the basic facts I just recounted were true.
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This—of course—is about Texas laws on guns. We’re getting to the point in this state where maiming or killing anyone can be justified as legal so long as a gun is involved. Under this unbelievably expansive statute, someone can use deadly force “to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime.”
Read those words carefully. Under Texas law, if I see some kid getting ready to spray-paint his name on an underpass after dark, I can kill him. Criminal mischief at night can be a Class C misdemeanor involving less than $50 in damages, but in Texas, it effectively carries the death penalty. (Unless—and I can say this for damn sure—the youngster is a wealthy white boy. Then the murder charges will come raining down.) The enraged shooter can also kill anyone fleeing with a piece of property that isn’t his.
Still, Gilbert’s case seems ridiculous. Essentially, he is claiming that he is able to compel the commission of a crime—prostitution—if he simply believed he was paying for sex, or demand his money back for the service he was promised and did receive. (On the other hand, the cops testified in the case that Gilbert never suggested he was stopping a theft of his money.)
Think of the possibilities. A guy buys some pot from a drug dealer, but it turns out to be oregano. If the drug dealer attempts to drive away—at night, of course—the purchaser can kill him. Or suppose someone buys something for what is advertised as the best price in town, later finds a lower one, goes back to the store manager, demands his money back, and is refused. Can the buyer then legally shoot the manager as he heads home that night? I don’t see why not—at least that transaction involved a dispute about a legal transaction, rather than the crime Gilbert wanted performed.
What about if someone suspects a person at a store is shoplifting, and the potential thief gets in a car to drive away? Can the suspicious witness shoot? (That was a trick question: that exact scenario just played out in Alabama. For pure horror, take a look at the informal online poll by a local news station, WSFA. Some 42 percent of the respondents believe that an armed civilian has the right to shoot someone if they only think the other person may have committed a crime.)
It’s insane. Look, I believe people have the right to own guns. But arguing that deadly force can be used without some rational basis only serves to make this country look dangerous and unhinged. Truthfully, I fear the day that someone shoots someone in my family because he or she decided to interpret the law beyond any level of reason, and then is not punished for it. My home state is getting dangerous, because the standards to exert deadly force have sunk below any level of logic.
But it’s all good for Gilbert. He gets to go home, while the daughter of the woman he killed grows up without a mother. After the killer heard the verdict, he hugged his lawyers and cried. Then he went outside, where he spoke with reporters. There, he thanked God for his acquittal.
Sorry, Ezekiel. The Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not kill unless the escort doesn’t have sex with you.” Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are the johns of prostitutes.”
No, I don’t think God had much to do with this obscene and absurd outcome. But, really, I do hope you are a religious man, Ezekiel. Because then you know, whatever the verdict, you’re a killer who’s going straight to hell.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/05/why-ezekiel-gilbert-s-acquittal-proves-the-lunacy-of-texas-s-gun-laws
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