Bob Ward murder conviction; OrlandoSentinel.com...

C

ClydeFrog

Moderator
I wanted to share an important point on TFL with a few of forum members who say things like; "hey, so what" or "the type of gun doesn't matter in a shooting incident".
Robert "Bob" Ward was convicted of 2nd degree murder in the shooting of his wife near Orlando Florida.
Ward owned a newer model S&W Sc or Ti type revolver with a fiber optic front sight. This revolver fired the round that killed the woman in the incident.
The jury members asked to review the S&W revolver when they had to decide Bob Ward's fate.
A jury member told the local media source; www.OrlandoSentinel.com that the Smith & Wesson's 12lb trigger pull and the handgun design played factors in their conviction of Ward!
These jury members looked directly at the handgun & used it as part of the verdict.
This action should be clear to anyone who carrys a firearm or uses a loaded firearm for defense.
Be ready & able to justify your actions or decisions in court. ;)

Better URL - GEM http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...ob-ward-jurors-speak-20110927,0,7926447.story
 
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"the Smith & Wesson's 12lb trigger pull and the handgun design played factors in their conviction of Ward!"

defense said it went off accidentally. guess if he had a 2.5# pull 1911 it would have been more plausible.
 
This action should be clear to anyone who carrys a firearm or uses a loaded firearm for defense.
Be ready & able to justify your actions or decisions in court.
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While true, this case isn't exactly relevant to your statement. Ward never claimed to be shooting in self defense. He claimed his wife killed herself. Of course during the 911 call, Ward stated that he shot and killed his wife.

The reason the 12 lb. trigger pull was critical in the case was salient to Ward's claims that the gun "just went off." Apparently with such a heavy trigger, the jury didn't buy the claim at all. So it was a factor, but then again so were things like the distance of the shot, the fact that the wife was going to give a deposition a week later to an insurance company that was suing Ward for $20 million.

Diane Ward was shot between the eyes from 18" away. The jury requested a yard stick to use to assess how Diane Ward could have made such a shot. While maybe not impossible for such a shot to be made during suicide, they apparently didn't think it would be likely either.
 
I had thought, from previous Sentinel articles, that Ward's attorneys claimed he was trying to take the gun from his wife when it went off.

Hence, accidental shooting, with possible self-defense overtones. (Although I'd thought the story was he was trying to not let her shoot herself...)

Edit: I just checked. Ward's defense team did indeed claim that he was trying to stop his wife from committing suicide, and struggling with her over the gun, when it went off.

In addition to the jury's concerns over the distance from the victim's head, and the weight and length of pull of the revolver - and probably much more importantly - Ward OPTED NOT TO TESTIFY.

We all have a right not to take the stand. However, for factually innocent people, this is not usually a good idea. Whether we have the right or not, juries do not tend to look favorably on those who won't speak to defend themselves. Common assumption is the defendant does indeed have something to hide, or something that he does not want brought up in cross-examination.

In this case, there probably was reason for that, based on the evidence....
 
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Ward never claimed to be shooting in self defense. He claimed his wife killed herself. Of course during the 911 call, Ward stated that he shot and killed his wife.
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That would do it.
 
JerryM, DNS has it partially right.

While I don't believe Ward's defense team, the case they presented did explain Ward's 911 call.

He was trying to take the gun away from his suicidal wife, and in the struggle, it went off, killing her.

A grieving husband could very well feel at that point that he had shot his wife; after reflection, and objective inputs from outsiders, he could realize that he wasn't really guilty of that.

However, based on other factors, I don't think that's what really happened. Apparently, neither did the jury.
 
Apparently with such a heavy trigger, the jury didn't buy the claim at all
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Nor would I, even with a light 1911 (or any weapon) you must still activate the trigger.

Thus why you do not point a firearm at anything you do not intend to deatroy, even by accident.
 
JerryM, DNS has it partially right.

While I don't believe Ward's defense team, the case they presented did explain Ward's 911 call.

He was trying to take the gun away from his suicidal wife, and in the struggle, it went off, killing her.
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It still is not an issue relevant to self defense and the OP's premise. Ward never claimed to be protecting himself with his own carry gun. The trigger pull weights of our carry guns have nothing to do with us trying to stop somebody else from committing suicide with their gun (assuming the premise could even remotely be believed).

Trigger pull weights are an issue when there are claims of the gun going off unintentionally. Unintentional discharges are not generally what occurs in self defense shootings when the dishcharges are intentional.
 
"hey, so what" or "the type of gun doesn't matter in a shooting incident".
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There was no issue of a justifiable shooting in this incident.

It was either an accident or murder.

It has no relevance to a justifiable shooting.
 
I'd say the general point in this particular case is that the jury got it right and didn't allow red herrings to affect its decision. Occasionally juries make correct decisions too.
 
The funny thing is, I'm normally on the side that feels it's a bad idea to have a very sensitive trigger on a defense gun, because it makes accidental discharges that much easier to do under stress.

But there have been a few TFL members who've said, "But that longer, heavier pull could make it hard to make a case for accidental discharge, as opposed to homicide."

To which those on my side responded, "Well, yes, if you are actually guilty of homicide, that longer and heavier pull could be a bad thing."

And this case does seem to have borne that out.

Since I don't think most of us plan to try to cover up a homicide (by which I mean a murder, as opposed to justifiable self-defense), I am not too worried about the results of this case, either.
 
This is quite a different kettle of fish from the usual fears of being "crucified by the prosecutor" over one's choice of handgun/ammunition. In this particular case, Ward's choice of handgun was not used to attack his character (as was done in the Fish case), but rather to prove that the physical evidence of the case did not coroborate his story well. In an actual self-defense case, the weight of the trigger has very little bearing because, by the defendant's own admission, pulling the trigger was intentional. Ward's defense was not that he acted in self-defense, but rather that the shooting was a tragic accident, a defense which was not borne out by the physical evidence including the gun.
 
Ronbert said:
For the S&W ignorant among us - is the model a DAO type?
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It was a revolver. DA/SA or DAO, it can only be fired in DA mode unless it's a model that allows for manually cocking the hammer -- in which event they would not have been discussing a 12-pound trigger.
 
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For the S&W ignorant among us - is the model a DAO type?
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We don't know. I have not seen any information regarding exactly which model gun that Ward shot his wife with. S&W makes scandium-frame guns with both DAO and DA/SA lockwork.
 
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