[CaptainCrunch]

Article theorizing why the jury did what it did

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskat...dict-1.4532064

It has also prompted legal questions about the case and the basis on which the jury of five men and seven women may have reached its verdict.
CBC News spoke to legal experts to explain some of the issues the jury may have taken into consideration.

At the end of the trial, the jury was left with three choices: convict Stanley of second-degree murder, convict him of the lesser charge of manslaughter, or acquit.


"Any one of those three could be said to be reasonably supported by the evidence," said Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer David Butt.

Given that Boushie was shot in the head, as well as the fact Stanley arguably had a motive to use force, it wasn't unreasonable to suggest the killing was intentional, meaning second-degree murder was a viable charge, said Michael Plaxton, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Law.


However, he said some credibility issues with Crown witnesses likely made it harder to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was intentional.

If the jury did not believe Stanley intended to kill Boushie, the option of convicting him of manslaughter was available. Put simply, manslaughter is a dangerous act that causes death, but without intent to kill.


Canada has an extremely broad manslaughter law, in particular when a person is using a firearm in a careless manner, said Kent Roach, a University of Toronto law professor. A manslaughter conviction follows, then, whenever a person who is using a firearm in a careless manner ought to have known that someone could be seriously injured from the way he or she was was using the firearm, Roach said.


"For me, one of the enduring mysteries ... is why did [the jury] reject manslaughter," he said.


Penney agreed that an argument could certainly be made for a manslaughter conviction based on the evidence that Stanley was grossly negligent by brandishing a weapon in a way that was very dangerous and resulted in the death of Boushie.



But he said there's also an argument to be made that Stanley did take precautions, that he did attempt to figure out if the weapon was loaded at the time of his confrontation with Boushie. If that's true, or if there's a reasonable doubt, that could make a manslaughter conviction challenging, Penney said.


"I'm not suggesting that was the correct way to view it … but it's not crazy if that's the way the evidence was presented."

Plaxton, in a series of tweets, argued that based on the lack of statistical evidence of ''hang fire," the reasonableness for the jury to accept this theory seemed "pretty thin."


And if the jurors rejected the hang fire theory, Plaxton wrote, this means they may have felt they had been left two options: either convict Stanley of second-degree murder, or acquit.


"Once left with the all-or-nothing choice, the jury was left to ask whether it was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that, in the midst of all that chaos in a blindingly-quick period of time, Stanley intended to fire the fatal shot.
"We know what it decided."

So my question is this, if the Crown appeals can they retrial by dropping the second degree murder option and appeal based only on Manslaughter or laughter.

Reading the above makes the verdict more logical.

It sounds like the Prosecution beyond having lousy witnesses, and cloudy evidence, over reached by giving three options. But is that enough to appeal?