Nomdeplume wrote in message news:
If she was such a great and wonderful dog, why was she in the shelter
in the first place? Owner get sick and die or something like that?

Whoa, Sara, this must be very confusing without
the background on the case. She wasn't a great &
wonderful dog and she was a police impound in a
murder case, not an owner surrender to the shelter. This was one of 2
Presa Canarios who
attacked and killed a woman in the hallway of her
apartment building, resulting in murder & manslaughter convictions of
the owners.

Lynn K.

I'm
wondering what exactly were the requirements for this to have been
considered murder 2? If I recall a jury did convict them of murder 2
which
was then overturned by the trial judge. Most judges are very wary to
overturn a jury verdict unless there was a gross error. I always wondered
why the judge overturned the murder 2 and then reduced it to voluntary
manslaughter or some such.

If I recall correctly from my law class...

Murder 2 is a situation where you deliberately allowed someone to die and
did so intentionally--BUT it was not pre-meditated. Murder 2 could be a
situation of road rage, or when your neighbors play music at 2 a.m. and you
murder them because you can't sleep.

Voluntary Manslaughter is, I *believe* negligence but not intent. For
example, driving drunk and killing someone is manslaughter and not murder 2
in most states, as you didn't set out to kill someone but did it anyways.

~Emily


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