The Asshat Thread

[Gashouse]

Thankfully a jury convicted this asshat yesterday. He killed two teenagers who broke into his house and had his own audio recording of the whole thing. After they'd been shot and were dying in their own blood, he didn't call authorities. Instead, he stood over them and executed them.

The two jurors, speaking just hours after their verdicts were delivered, said the picture of Smith that emerged from days of often chilling testimony was of a man who methodically planned for a violent confrontation rather than a homeowner surprised by intruders.

Several other jurors declined to comment in detail, saying only that it was a tough case to hear but not a tough one to decide.

Smith’s planning before the shootings — from moving his truck off his property to a neighbor’s home, to surveillance devices set up inside and outside of the home, to laying a tarp at the foot of his stairs — pointed toward him preparing for what happened, Strandberg said.

“It seemed like he had done many things to either lure them into the house or into the basement itself,” Strandberg said. “Moving the truck was the very first big sign that he had planned something. And then moving the bodies and having the tarp handy had a lot to do with it.”

Beyond that, Strandberg said, “it seemed like he sat there and waited for it.”

“It appeared to be that it was, for lack of a better term, his kill zone, where he wanted them to come in and enter, so he could have ample opportunity to kill them,” Strandberg added.

Some of the jurors believed that Smith waited a full day before reporting the shootings because he wanted to see whether other burglars would show up — even unscrewing bulbs from fixtures as night fell so that any new intruders wouldn’t be able to see in his basement.

http://www.startribune.com/local/257265331.html

[longhornbaseball]

If you burglarize someone's home, I'm not going to feel sorry for you when he kills you. The guy sounds like a nutter butter, but he shouldn't be convicted of murder for killing asshats who broke into his house. Unbelievable.

[Gashouse]

In no way am I defending the kids' actions. If he was just doing his thing and then someone broke into his house, surprised him, and he shot and killed them in an attempt to defend himself...I'd agree with you. In this case, he really seemed to bait the kids and them ambushed them. He had surveillance set up around his house, so he knew when they were starting to break in. At that point, you call the cops and defend yourself if necessary. Instead had everything set up so he could kill. He went way past the line of self defense. He had intent to kill and helped make it happen by baiting them.

[longhornbaseball]

In no way am I defending the kids' actions. If he was just doing his thing and then someone broke into his house, surprised him, and he shot and killed them in an attempt to defend himself...I'd agree with you. In this case, he really seemed to bait the kids and them ambushed them. He had surveillance set up around his house, so he knew when they were starting to break in. At that point, you call the cops and defend yourself if necessary. Instead had everything set up so he could kill. He went way past the line of self defense. He had intent to kill and helped make it happen by baiting them.

I don't buy that he "baited" them. Moving his car to a neighbors house didn't make them break in. Nothing he did made them break into his house (apparently this was a regular occurrence). I really don't understand the difference between killing someone who surprises you and killing someone you knew was coming. I agree that the more humane thing to do would have been to call the cops once they broke in, but I really can't fault the guy for continually living in fear and taking action to do something about it. I wonder if he would have been convicted had the criminals been a couple black guys with police records instead of lily white suburban kids.

It's absurd to me that we live in a country where state law can determine the difference between going to jail for the rest of your life for killing criminals who invaded your home, versus getting off for stalking a kid, starting an altercation, and then shooting him when you lose the altercation (see Zimmerman, George).

[Gashouse]

I've also wondered about the perception if the burglars were 20-something black dudes.

Regardless, I think the guy's own audio recording of everything damned him. If he'd shot the kids, called the cops/ambulance, and the kids still die of their wounds, I think he's a free man. Instead he executed them and then waited a day to call the cops.

[longhornbaseball]

Regardless, I think the guy's own audio recording of everything damned him. If he'd shot the kids, called the cops/ambulance, and the kids still die of their wounds, I think he's a free man. Instead he executed them and then waited a day to call the cops.

The waiting a day is probably worthy of some sort of prosecution, but murder and life in prison is way, way too far, IMO.

[Vidor]

If you burglarize someone's home, I'm not going to feel sorry for you when he kills you. The guy sounds like a nutter butter, but he shouldn't be convicted of murder for killing asshats who broke into his house. Unbelievable.

Say what? Constructing a kill zone and lying in wait isn't murder?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Ddin't a guy in Tulsa, maybe a pharmacist, get sent to jail for shooting a burglar (African American, iirc) in the back, then shooting him in the head?

[lukethedrifter]

Darrell Issa.

[sighyoung]

I thought it was longstanding policy that if you shoot somebody on your property, you call the police ASAP. Similarly, you use enough force to thwart the crime, and that's it. If that means deadly force in reasonable self-defense, so be it. But if the perpetrators no longer pose a threat, you turn the matter over to authorities. Prosecution and judging are for others, not you.

So making it seem like he wasn't home wasn't a problem. But turning the scene into a criminal roach motel was.