Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
Stanley did not exercise the due care expected of an average person in that situation. He pointed his gun at Colton thus failing in his duty of care when having a firearm.
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Not if you really believe that he thought his wife was under the truck and they were about to take off.
In that case an argument can easily be made that he responded with the due care expected of an average person - none. He's not going to go back to his barn to lock up his gun when he has mere fractions of a second to prevent them from, what he believed, running over his wife.
The drivers were driving erratically, apparently deliberately hitting their vehicles and then drove towards the last place he had seen his wife...with the lawnmower she was using direcetly in front of the vehicle. If he had already believed to have empty the gun, some could argue he had already done enough in a high-stress situation like that. Which is apparently what the jury believed.
Still, yes, I would be very hung up on the fact that he failed to point the gun away from the Colten, but the question the jury had to ask themselves if his actions were reasonable for the average person to make during the high-stress situation. They apparently found it reasonable ergo, he was not found guilty of manslaughter. They were convinced that a person who thought his wife was about to be run over did not have to have the reasonable state of mind of watching where his (apparent) empty gun was pointed.