Armed Citizen: Oklahoma Pharmacist Defends Employees from Robbers

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Outcast, please go back and read my post again. I did not say I was a defense attorney. I am a computer professional. I said that if I were a defense attorney I would... Of course many people rebutted the movement as simply a movement around the counter, so no hint of a threat renewed.

I said if I were on the jury I would go for Voluntary Manslaughter since this is intent to kill without premeditation. I would reject Second Degree Murder because that says there was no intent to kill, just to harm, and no premeditation. It appears to me that there was intent to kill as Ersland approached Parker. To convict on 1st degree the prosecution would have prove Ersland had premeditated to kill. So, based on the legal definitions and the little evidence we have seen, I believe that Voluntary Manslaughter is the crime that was committed.

Putting myself in Ersland’s place, and regarding a movement of the a person just trying to rob me as part of am armed team, whom I shot and was down after the first shot, how much movement would be considered a renewed threat? If I were in a gun fight and one of the persons I had shot moved even a little I am certain my heart rate would jump and my adrenalin would pump. So, how much and what type of movement would signal a renewed threat? Please base you answers on the situation as if you were there and had no more time that Ersland to respond to the situation.
 
I am certain my heart rate would jump and my adrenalin would pump.
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If this were a fair defense, than the police could kick the snot out of everyone after a pursuit?:eek:
My heart rate and adrenaline is amped to the max when I arrive at a dog caught hog but I don't go nuts and inhumanely treat it and it is just a stinkin', mean boar hog that is trying to kill my dogs...:rolleyes:
Brent
 
Ersland deliberately lied on camera, to police, and in front of the media.
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So you can say with 100% certainty that he was intentionally lying? Or is it that memories become smeared and distorted during such a quick and traumatic event.

I gave a description to an officer about what happened when I hit a deer last year. I said at the time and, I still remember it as such, the deer going under the car, but the evidence clearly shows that it went up and over the car. I wasn't lying to the officer, I was telling him what I remembered of the event. Those memories turned out to be incorrect.

I agree that we don't have all the evidence. The DA probably released just enough to keep most people quiet. We'll get everything in the courtroom. The problem is that we don't see what the perp was doing. Lots of reasonable doubt in the whole thing.
 
As I said to another similar comment. We do know that memories can be distorted. If the gentleman is unbalanced - then he could become quite convinced of whatever he confabulated.

If he admits to that, then he admits that he did wrong and constructed a positive bias to his statements. Same deal as a diminished capacity defense.

But it does show, that you are an fool if you start to blab away. Every self-defense expert I've run across stresses the need to shut up.
 
I had asked the question earlier whether or not anyone knew whether Ersland was in the pharmacy when the first robbery occurred. Glenn mentioned a potential diminished capacity defense. That was the reason that I asked my question. If in fact Ersland had been robbed in the pharmacy, then the defense could argue, (with mental health expertise and testimony), that Ersland was visualizing the first robbery when he shot the kid. In other words Ersland saw the movement from the BG because in his mind he saw the first robbery. I'm not sure what the proper mental health term is currently. I remember it is Post-traumatic stress syndrome (PST). Usually it referred to servicemen who returned from battle. Just a thought.
 
If he goes that way, he admits to wrong doing. You don't necessarily go scott-free if you pull this off. If he doesn't have a documented history of stress symptoms - that might be difficult. There are strict standards for PTSD to be diagnosed.

He is not in a good place with some type of psychological malfunction defense but I ain't his lawyer - just from my reading of this stuff.

It might help in a plea.
 
Hey now, wait just a minute. I've been out of the threads for a bit, but I could of sworn this guy was an American hero?
Oops. Guess some foot n mouth disease is going round.
Harhar. Jk

Moral of the story: even in such situations, we must remember that action brings reaction and your case better hold, or you might get a KB in the face.

Stay cool out there guys. Really, it sounds simple, but it is important.
 
WW2

Sorry if I mis-understood, but you said;

As a defense attorney I would point out
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^ ^ ^

Also;

I said if I were on the jury I would go for Voluntary Manslaughter since this is intent to kill without premeditation. I would reject Second Degree Murder because that says there was no intent to kill, just to harm, and no premeditation.
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You might want to re-read the material you posted,
2nd Degree murder is an intentional homicide, where the intent was to kill, just without the premeditation.

Manslaughter is a homicide that occurs when the intent was to harm, rather than kill but death occurred as a direct result. Your materials are a bit "contradictory".

I believe you have the terms a bit confused. ;)
 
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Voluntary Manslaughter

Just re-read the definitions at http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/manslaughter and I stick to my original post since the definition of voluntary manslaughter is:

Voluntary Manslaughter In most jurisdictions, voluntary manslaughter consists of an intentional killing (emphasis added) that is accompanied by additional circumstances that mitigate, but do not excuse, the killing. The most common type of voluntary manslaughter occurs when a defendant is provoked to commit the Homicide. It is sometimes described as a heat of passion killing. In most cases, the provocation must induce rage or anger in the defendant, although some cases have held that fright, terror, or desperation will suffice.

If adequate provocation is established, a murder charge may be reduced to manslaughter. Generally there are four conditions that must be fulfilled to warrant the reduction: (1) the provocation must cause rage or fear in a reasonable person; (2) the defendant must have actually been provoked; (3) there should not be a time period between the provocation and the killing within which a reasonable person would cool off; and (4) the defendant should not have cooled off during that period.
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It is my opinion that the four conditions are met as follows:

(1) The armed robbery was sufficient provocation to cause rage or fear in Ersland or any other reasonable person.

(2) The defendant was actually provoked as seen in the video.

(3) Although time had passed, it was measured in seconds, certainly less than one minute, and most people I know do not calm down that quickly.

(4) Ersland did not cool off during that period (will be brought out in trial most likely).

To my mind, Ersland's actions are a good example of Voluntary Manslaughter.
 
Fight like a cornered cat!

I just want to add that this case, upon its conclusion, will be one that should be studied in any use of lethal force class.

Perhaps the best information I have gotten from this forum is from a poster that put links to a site called "The Cornered Cat" at http://www.corneredcat.com/ . That is you site isn't it PAX?

Read the site and see how it would have made a difference if Ersland had followed the recommendations their.
 
From your own material:

And finally from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedicti...egree murder

“first degree murder n. although it varies from state to state, it is generally a killing which is deliberate and premeditated (planned, after lying in wait, by poison or as part of a scheme), in conjunction with felonies such as rape, burglary, arson, involving multiple deaths, the killing of certain types of people (such as a child, a police officer, a prison guard, a fellow prisoner), or with certain weapons, particularly a gun. The specific criteria for first degree murder are established by statute in each state and by the United States Code in federal prosecutions. It is distinguished from second degree murder in which premeditation is usually absent, and from manslaughter which lacks premeditation and suggests that at most there was intent to harm rather than to kill.
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(2) The defendant was actually provoked as seen in the video.
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This is the part that will be the most subjective in the trial. While he was certainly provoked into his initial response, the provocation does not appear to exist for the final assault, He will be hard-pressed to claim that fear was the catalyst for the attack, and anger would certainly be a negative direction to take his defense.
 
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Just as I said before about Ersland's ability to discern what is real and having any truth in him, it is coming out today after loosing his battle to quash a subpoena filed for his military records, it is coming out that he is not, in fact, a Gulf War veteran, and his claim of being injured in the Gulf War to be as fictitious as his being fired upon 15 times......go figure...
 
KTOK radio reported it just an hour or so ago...I'll keep everyone posted as soon as I see something in print...
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That is not surprising at all. He so far fits into the very profile I described earlier for drug addicted medical professionals.
 
That is not surprising at all. He so far fits into the very profile I described earlier for drug addicted medical professionals.
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Or a person who lies so pathologically that they believe, in fact live, their own lies. I've known people like that before. Everything they say, to everyone they speak to, is a lie and they believe it. Ironically, usually they're the only ones who do.
 
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