The state attorney says his office determined there was insufficient evidence to file a murder charge in the death of a woman fatally shot through a door. She is charged with manslaughter.
Susan Lorincz has been charged with manslaughter with a firearm and assault in the June 2 shooting death of Ajike Owens.
So she was charged. Just not with murder. Which still sucks, but it is much better to go to court and find her guilty of manslaughter with a firearm and assault than it is to charge her with murder and have her be acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Charging Lorincz with murder would require prosecutors to provide evidence of hatred, spite, ill will or evil intent toward the victim at the time of the killing.
The alleged shooter told detectives that she called the victim's children racist slurs in the months leading up to the slaying, admitting that she used "the n-word."
Fucking pathetic. She should spend the rest of her life behind bars.
aiming a firearm at the door, and pulling the trigger is legally insufficient to prove depraved mind.
That's my favorite part. Yes, because totally rational, normal human beings who aren't Danny DeVito just start blasting. Nothing to see here. What a clown show we've become.
Her lawyers would probably argue something along the lines of how she was in fear for her life at that moment. Yes, that's BS. But an important part of criminal law is the "beyond all reasonable doubt" part, and if her lawyer can create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that she really didn't want to kill someone then that's enough to get her off on that charge.
Frankly, I'd prefer the legal system to err on the side of caution and innocence. Even when the person on the stand is "obviously" a terrible person. It's easy for the media to depict someone as a terrible person even when they're not, so let's account for that situation before we account for the situation where she really is a terrible person.
Manslaughter's got the possibility of a lengthy sentence, let's see how that goes before we write the justice system off completely.
See, she was a racist piece of shit who hated blacks up until the day of the shooting but since she wasn't overtly racist while she murdered the children's mother it's okay, they let those things go in Florida. What they don't let go is things like letting people of color knock on doors in order to have conversations between adults.
Manslaughter with a firearm and assault, its not the charges we want but they will almost certainly be proven and she will go away for a long, long time.
Manslaughter is likely the only charge they can effectively prove unless discovery turns up legally admissible evidence of premeditation that would be needed for murder charges. Being a crazy racist bitch in an of itself doesn't necessarily equate to premeditation of murder, even if a fuck like the lady in this story seems to deserve such a charge.
For a good example of when manslaughter would be a more effective charge to pursue because its more likely to have actual punishment involved, look back at the George Zimmerman killing of Trayvon Martin case. Prosecutors fucked up by trying him for full on murder rather than a form of negligent manslaughter, which I continue to maintain that it was fully INTENTIONALLY done to throw the case by the States Attorneys office, maybe as a political strategy favor to Zimmerman's father, a former judge. At the time I spoke with some attorneys in my family with criminal court experience, it appeared manslaughter rather than murder was far more easily demonstrable when evidence showed Zimmerman ignored the instruction of the 911 operator to not follow him:
Dispatcher: Which entrance is that that he's heading towards?
Zimmerman: The back entrance... Fucking punks. These assholes, they always get away...
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay, we don't need you to do that.
Zimmerman: Okay.
A guilty verdict on murder requires intent and premeditation, and situationally a scenario can many times mask both intent and premeditation but it can't really mask demonstrable negligence that leads to a killing.
The only effective justice to be found in this case may be a manslaughter charge with the jail time and penalties it brings. A murder charge more than likely ends in a not guilty plea, since any reasonable doubt towards the intent and premeditation means a not guilty verdict.
Lorincz had been angry over Owens' children playing in a field close to her apartment.
The alleged shooter told detectives that she called the victim's children racist slurs in the months leading up to the slaying, admitting that she used "the n-word."
State Attorney William Gladson said his office determined there was insufficient evidence to file a murder charge against Lorincz. Charging Lorincz with murder would require prosecutors to provide evidence of hatred, spite, ill will, or evil intent toward the victim at the time of the killing.