Battered Woman Turns In Husband's Weapons After He Is Jailed For DV, And SHE is Arrested

[zukiphile]

So she took the, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6" route. She knew she was breaking the law. She picked what she assumed was the lesser of the evils and voluntarily confessed to the crime.

Possibly. It's also possible she is a harpy who falsely accused her husband of the vehicular assault and stole his guns because she it would make him more miserable.

Or they could both be awful people. Sometimes knowing what is really going on in a case you are involved in it isn't easy. Figuring out the true villain from newspaper accounts is nearly impossible in this sort of thing.

 

[JohnKSa]

Figuring out the true villain from newspaper accounts is nearly impossible in this sort of thing.

Always has been. Every time I have had special insight into a news story, I have found that the reporting has been inaccurate in multiple ways. In one case it wasn't just inaccurate, a false statement was made that was not only obviously intended to mislead, but also carefully crafted to avoid potential legal consequences.

In this case, all we have to go on is the reporting. Maybe it's right, maybe it's not, but either way, we can have the discussion based on the facts (as reported) and come to conclusions based on that analysis.

I think we all understand that reporting isn't always accurate, but if we are going to have discussions about incidents in the news, we can only base them on the reporting. The alternative is to lock every single thread related to a news report, opening them only after there has been some sort of official legal disposition made public in the case.

Anyway, based on the reporting, the ramming incident doesn't appear to be in much debate as she was (reportedly) on the phone with the authorities when it occurred.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Possibly. It's also possible she is a harpy who falsely accused her husband of the vehicular assault and stole his guns because she it would make him more miserable.

Or they could both be awful people. Sometimes knowing what is really going on in a case you are involved in it isn't easy. Figuring out the true villain from newspaper accounts is nearly impossible in this sort of thing.

By the account reported, she knew what she was doing was not legal and claimed to do so for the purposes of her safety, hence the 'judged by 12 and carried by 6' argument. She did confess to committing the crimes. She did have several restraining orders against him in the past. So there is an established legal history of her apparent fear of him.

As to your suggestion that she is a harpy who falsely accused her husband, she was on the phone with the police as he was attempting to run her off the road and was ramming her vehicle with his. https://www.clickorlando.com/news/f...-husbands-guns-after-he-tried-to-run-her-over

 

[zukiphile]

By the account reported, she knew what she was doing was not legal and claimed to do so for the purposes of her safety, hence the 'judged by 12 and carried by 6' argument. She did confess to committing the crimes.

From the article, it certainly appears that she asserted that she committed the act with which she is charged.

She did have several restraining orders against him in the past. So there is an established legal history of her apparent fear of him.

She told them that she's had several restraining orders against her husband in the past, the report said.

She might be telling the truth, but let's recognize that this reporter's source for that is the woman herself.

As to your suggestion that she is a harpy who falsely accused her husband, she was on the phone with the police as he was attempting to run her off the road and was ramming her vehicle with his.

Yet,

While Courtney Irby was with officers, Joseph Irby sent a photo indicating that he was at their child's day camp, according to the affidavit.
Joseph Irby claimed the scratches and transferred paint on his vehicle were old damages, the report said.

I'm not telling you that your narrative about the acts and motives of these people is false, just that the only undisputed part of the story is that the woman broke into the fellow's home and took his arms.

 

[JohnKSa]

I'm not telling you that your narrative about the acts and motives of these people is false, just that the only undisputed part of the story is that the woman broke into the fellow's home and took his arms.

We have a written statement from the officer who accepted the firearms from her which includes her stated motive--which is not being disputed by anyone at this time.

"When she told a Lakeland police officer she had the guns with her to turn them in, he replied, “So are you telling me that you committed an armed burglary?” and Irby answered, “Yes, I am, but he wasn’t going to turn them in, so I am doing it,” according to reports."​

From the statement, it is clear that she knew she was breaking the law and also that she was doing so in support of the restraining order.

So, her motive is not currently in dispute. Speculating about what her motive might be, without any evidence to support the speculation is not disputing her motive--it's merely speculating. In other words, this statement:

Possibly. It's also possible...

doesn't work.

You can't pretend reported evidence is speculation and then attempt to replace it with your own speculation just to keep an argument alive.

Presumably there is some point to your comments--in the interest of insuring that we're going somewhere productive, it would be good to start by asking yourself this question:

What premise relating to the "support of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by promoting Responsible Firearms Ownership" am I trying to prove using logic and reported evidence that relates to this issue or others like it? (Notice that speculation isn't included in the acceptable methodology because it doesn't support anything, it just spreads uncertainty and doubt and that's not what this forum is about.)

 

[Aguila Blanca]

But her stated motive was speculation. She told the officer that her husband wasn't going to turn in his guns. My understanding of the chronology is that the husband was behind bars when she broke in, so he was obviously unable to turn anything in. How do we -- and how did she -- know that he wasn't going to turn them in? Her statement of belief doesn't make it a fact.

I don't doubt that she believed that -- but belief isn't fact. Remember, for a very long time people believed that the world was flat, and the the sun revolved around the earth.

Also, I'm confused by the charge of "armed" burglary. I mean, she stole firearms, so I guess if the guns were loaded it can be said that she was armed when she left the husband's apartment, but I've seen nothing to indicate that she was armed when she entered.

I think we should all just sit back and wait for some updates.

 

[JohnKSa]

That speculation was on her part and she provided it as a motive for her illegal actions. It is, in effect, part of the reported evidence and that's true regardless of whether she was speculating correctly or in error.

That's different from US speculating about what might have happened in the past, or what might have happened in recent encounters or what his motives or her motives might have been.

If this were a court, then it would be beneficial for the defense attorney to speculate in the interest of creating reasonable doubt of innocence by generating uncertainty about the evidence.

But our goal isn't to generate doubt or uncertainty. Especially in this subforum of TFL, we are trying to learn real-world lessons and draw practical conclusions based on reported evidence and logic. A constructive approach to that goal doesn't include speculation because virtually any conclusion or lesson can be supported by speculation and we don't want to just make up lessons or conclusions--we want them to be useful and practical.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

But our goal isn't to generate doubt or uncertainty. Especially in this subforum of TFL, we are trying to learn real-world lessons and draw practical conclusions based on reported evidence and logic. A constructive approach to that goal doesn't include speculation because virtually any conclusion or lesson can be supported by speculation and we don't want to just make up lessons or conclusions--we want them to be useful and practical.

So what lessons can we learn from this?

• Don't marry crazy chicks
• Don't do crazy stuff
• Don't steal things from your estranged spouse
• When in a divorce situation, let your lawyer do all the talking

 

[Aguila Blanca]

In reality, this is such a abnormal and messed-up situation that IMHO there just isn't much we can learn from it. Especially since, at this point, the only thing we seem to know is that she did steal the guns and she did bring them to the police. Was she battered? We don't know. Did her husband really try to run her car off the road? He seems to have an alibi. We don't know.

 

[JohnKSa]

There's a lot to learn from it.

1. Don't take the law into your own hands. Just because it might be legal for the authorities to do something doesn't mean it's legal for you to do it. A protective order may give the police the right to confiscate weapons from a person, but that doesn't mean that it gives other persons the right to do the same. Even if it is something you know that the police should and would do, if it is illegal for you to do it and you do it anyway, you will still be prosecuted for it.

2. While the law does offer citizens the right to defend themselves against an imminent threat under the proper conditions (e.g. she might have possibly been justified in using deadly force to stop him from ramming her vehicle while she was in it) it does not give a person the right to take direct action against another citizen to stop a potential attack that could happen in the future. You can't go commit a felony against someone just because you believe that they pose a credible threat in the future.

3. Being the victim of crime does not give a person the right to commit illegal acts against the perpetrator well after the fact. While we may have the right to take action to prevent an imminent crime, or to stop one that is actually in progress, it doesn't give us the right to retaliate against the person the next day by committing a crime against them.

4. Don't believe what you see in the movies, hear about in country songs, or hear in "legal advice" at the gun store. From what I have read about this incident, a lot of people feel that what this person did was justified. Clearly those people didn't get that information from studying the law, or from getting good legal advice. It's important for us to learn enough of the law to be sure that we don't do something that "seems right", or that seems to follow popular opinion but that in reality makes us criminals.

 

[zukiphile]

We have a written statement from the officer who accepted the firearms from her which includes her stated motive--which is not being disputed by anyone at this time.
"When she told a Lakeland police officer she had the guns with her to turn them in, he replied, “So are you telling me that you committed an armed burglary?” and Irby answered, “Yes, I am, but he wasn’t going to turn them in, so I am doing it,” according to reports."
From the statement, it is clear that she knew she was breaking the law and also that she was doing so in support of the restraining order.

From the conversation the PO documents, it is clear she understood she had committed an armed burglary after he posed the question, which is a more benign explanation than theft as a motive. A TRO isn't going to be supported by theft.

So, her motive is not currently in dispute. Speculating about what her motive might be, without any evidence to support the speculation is not disputing her motive--it's merely speculating. In other words, this statement:

Possibly. It's also possible...

doesn't work.

You can't pretend reported evidence is speculation and then attempt to replace it with your own speculation just to keep an argument alive.

Fortunately, I didn't do that. I have accepted at face value her admission. It is not reported evidence that she took the "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6" route"; the specific language to which I responded in your quote above.

The evidence in support of spite playing a role in her conduct comes from the same source as much of the rest of the evidence in the piece, the PO's report. He reports that the man asserted and provided photographic evidence that he was elsewhere when the alleged vehicular assault occurred. He may be untruthful in that, but his assertion has the same evidentiary quality as the woman's assertions about her motives.

Note that the assertion "he may be untruthful about that" isn't speculation free of logic or evidence, but an acknowledgement that people do lie in these matters.

Presumably there is some point to your comments--in the interest of insuring that we're going somewhere productive, it would be good to start by asking yourself this question:

What premise relating to the "support of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by promoting Responsible Firearms Ownership" am I trying to prove using logic and reported evidence that relates to this issue or others like it? (Notice that speculation isn't included in the acceptable methodology because it doesn't support anything, it just spreads uncertainty and doubt and that's not what this forum is about.)

Thanks for the presumption.

Conspicuous in this story is political pressure in an individual case. We've Anna Eskamani who believes that this specific case is part of a larger domestic violence narrative that should have kept the woman from being arrested for the theft. Determining specific cases according to broad political biases does basic procedure no justice.

While I agree in principle that we, at the Firing Line, do have a specific focus on the second amendment, I would be remiss if I did not remind everyone that THIS particular sub-forum was designed to be able to discuss the broader implications of all civil rights, and the laws that affect those rights.

Despite the reported theft involving arms, this story doesn't involve a state actor taking them, or ordering them taken. The woman is a private actor, so if 2d Am issues are present, they aren't prominent.


I hope this helps and isn't a problem.

 

[P5 Guy]

Conflicting Reports

Conflicting reports on TV broadcast stations in the Tampa area have said, they are divorced, they are separated. Which is it?
Also the male drove at the female in a menacing manner, and contrarily the male bumped her vehicle leaving her residence. Which is it?
The only fact repeated is she broke in to her ex's place and removed property that may have only half belonged to her? Seems to me the husband should have had a better storage arrangement, like an 800# safe bolted to the floor.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

We have a written statement from the officer who accepted the firearms from her which includes her stated motive--which is not being disputed by anyone at this time.

"When she told a Lakeland police officer she had the guns with her to turn them in, he replied, “So are you telling me that you committed an armed burglary?” and Irby answered, “Yes, I am, but he wasn’t going to turn them in, so I am doing it,” according to reports."

From the statement, it is clear that she knew she was breaking the law and also that she was doing so in support of the restraining order.

So, her motive is not currently in dispute. Speculating about what her motive might be, without any evidence to support the speculation is not disputing her motive--it's merely speculating. In other words, this statement:

Possibly. It's also possible...

doesn't work.

You can't pretend reported evidence is speculation and then attempt to replace it with your own speculation just to keep an argument alive.

I respectfully submit that the police officer's written report is not evidence of anything other than what the woman said. Should she go to trial on the charges, I would certainly expect her motive(s) to be a central issue, in which case her motive would very much be in dispute.

To be honest, I think this entire thread is off-topic for TFL and especially for the L&CR discussion area. The criteria for posting in L&CR include the following:

Discussions in this forum will be centered upon legal issues as they relate to the 2nd Amendment and other Civil Rights. Constitutional law (which would encompass separation of powers, the impairment of contracts clause, the full faith and credit clause, etc., as well as the Bill of Rights) will also be on topic. Straight political discussions or partisan politics will be off topic. Our primary test for partisan politics in this forum is the mention of candidate's or party names. While some political discussion will necessarily crop up as an adjunct to the civil rights issue(s) of the individual thread(s), we expect that this will be a much smaller part of the discussion at hand.

This whole case is basically just a tabloid-like report about a contentious divorce. I see absolutely no Second Amendment issues raised whatsoever. I see no other civil rights issues raised at all. So why are we arguing over it? There are no Second Amendment/RKBA lessons to be learned from this other than those I somewhat facetiously noted a couple of posts above, namely, if you own guns don't get involved with crazy chicks.

Maybe this thread should just be closed for being off-topic.

 

[44 AMP]

Had she broken into his residence and stolen his art collection, then turned it over to the police, and got arrested for doing that, we wouldn't be having a discussion at all.

since, as pointed out, there is no direct "state vs citizen" action involving gun rights, this might have been better in General rather than L&CR.

However, there is the whole personal property rights thing, when the property is firearms, it can get murky. Would we be looking at this the same way, if the govt (through the police) had NOT arrested her, and simply patted her on the head and said "good girl" you got dangerous guns "off the street!" ???

Would that be a 2nd A issue? There is the argument that whether she claims it or not, the woman acted on behalf of the state? Or that she usurped the authority of the state by acting on her own??

arguably not directly a 2nd A issue, but related??

moved to General Discussion

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Would that be a 2nd A issue? There is the argument that whether she claims it or not, the woman acted on behalf of the state? Or that she usurped the authority of the state by acting on her own??

arguably not directly a 2nd A issue, but related??

I don't even see it as indirectly a 2A issue. It might be a 2A/RKBA question to discuss whether or not restraining/protective orders that prohibit one party from possessing firearms are constitutional, but that question hasn't been raised in this discussion.

Was the woman acting on behalf of the state? I'd say no. If anything, the state acted on behalf of the woman by issuing a protective order against her husband. But she was not content to let the system work, so she went outside of the system and made an illegal preemptive strike by stealing the guns from the husband's apartment.

If the basis for her action was to enforce a general law -- perhaps in a state that has an assault weapons ban, for example -- and she took it upon herself to rat out her husband for having an illegal (or perhaps unregistered) "assault weapon," then perhaps one might argue that she was acting for the state's benefit (but not really on behalf of, and certainly not as an agent of, the state). But her basis for acting was an individual protective order, issued for her sole benefit and against only her husband. I think that takes it out of the realm of "was she acting on behalf of the state?".

 

[JohnKSa]

A TRO isn't going to be supported by theft.

That's one of the lessons of this story.

It is not reported evidence that she took the "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6" route"; the specific language to which I responded in your quote above.

The reported evidence is that she performed actions she understands to be illegal and said she did so because she felt he wasn't going to comply with the TRO requirements (which were for her protection). Short of an explicit quote using exactly the words "judged by 12/carried by 6" it's hard to get any closer.

We've Anna Eskamani who believes that this specific case is part of a larger domestic violence narrative that should have kept the woman from being arrested for the theft.

That is correct. And, although the law does not agree, as written, she may be able to convince a jury. But there's no jury to convince here--we're discussing the evidence as it has reported and looking for lessons related to TFL's mission.

The woman is a private actor, so if 2d Am issues are present, they aren't prominent.

The laws allowing confiscation of firearms are 2A related--but your comment is on point. The fact that the government may have some avenues under the law to confiscate firearms does not extend those options to private citizens. Not specifically due to 2A concerns, but due to normal rights that prevent one citizen from stealing from another. Based on what I see in the media, it seems that there are many people who are confused about that issue.

I respectfully submit that the police officer's written report is not evidence of anything other than what the woman said.

Pretty much the definition of reported evidence. She made a statement (which is now evidence) and he reported it.

Should she go to trial on the charges, I would certainly expect her motive(s) to be a central issue, in which case her motive would very much be in dispute.

We can't put her on trial here. This isn't a courtroom and we don't have the resources of a courtroom.

She may have been lying about why she did what she did, but we don't currently have any evidence to suggest that her confession was intended to be misleading in some way. Dismissing her confession on the basis of "possibly" and then substituting some other explanation also on the basis of "possibly" is pointless.

ANY evidence can be dismissed on the basis of "possibly" and any new "evidence" can be manufactured on the same basis.

That's a great strategy if you are a defense lawyer trying to protect your client in court. Here it's just a way to frustrate people and pointlessly prolong the discussion.

This whole case is basically just a tabloid-like report about a contentious divorce. I see absolutely no Second Amendment issues raised whatsoever. I see no other civil rights issues raised at all. So why are we arguing over it? There are no Second Amendment/RKBA lessons to be learned from this other than those I somewhat facetiously noted a couple of posts above, namely, if you own guns don't get involved with crazy chicks.

Maybe this thread should just be closed for being off-topic.

I provided some lessons learned that relate to 2A/RKBA and self-defense. So there are some on-topic elements to this story.

That said, if the discussion becomes about creative ways to dismiss the reported evidence, speculation about motives or other aspects of the incident, about marriage or about advice for dealing with contentious divorces, then it will be off-topic.

 

[zukiphile]

She may have been lying about why she did what she did, but we don't currently have any evidence to suggest that her confession was intended to be misleading in some way. Dismissing her confession on the basis of "possibly" and then substituting some other explanation also on the basis of "possibly" is pointless.

"It is also possible..." doesn't dismiss her confession. If you understand that, then you understand that the substitution about which you've complained at some length didn't occur.

This brief clarification isn't intended to pointlessly prolong the discussion.

 

[Tom Servo]

This brief clarification isn't intended to pointlessly prolong the discussion.

I think it's been prolonged enough.