How could this man possibly be "not guilty?"?

Curious, is he pleading not guilty by reason of insanity? if he is, this doesn’t work all that often and people who use this successfully don’t get off Scot free at all
Is he pleading not guilty to the charges like premeditated murder/manslaughter (I forget what it’s called)?
Could be for a multitude of reasons especially with an exceptionally oily defense attorney looking for a “win” ratio.

Anyway, if the circumstances surrounding the case are as you say they are, there really isn’t much of a chance he’ll actually walk free of this. I get more of the feeling he might be trying for a plea bargain or some sort of deal to try and lessen his potential sentence.

I’m not all that familiar with the justice system, but I’m pretty sure anyone can plea not guilty to whatever charges even if there is hard irrefutable evidence against them.

You can plead anything you want. In fact, from the point of view of the criminal, it would be really stupid to plead guilty (from the start) – because a good lawyer might get the charges reduced , or come up with a plea bargain, or something.

Pleading guilty right off the bat forecloses any options that might come up during the legal process. It would be malpractice for a lawyer to tell him to do anything else.

That said, if the police have the evidence, then they guy is going to be found guilty. The legal process will take longer, but the result will be the same.

He lawyered up. He has nothing to lose, as no doubt, we the people are paying for his defense, and there is a small chance he might get off on a technicality.

Right. Even if he pleads not guilty, that has very little connection to the actual outcome.

I heard from another source that the parents are claiming that he is autistic and couldn’t help it because of his anger issues. If the murder was spontaneous and came from an argument he had in the park (and for some reason he happened to have a gun on him..) I could see MAYBE this having a chance. But it was very well planned out in advance.

The only thing I can think that would get the kid off is if for some reason the note isn’t allowed in trial. And to me that could be a strong possibility. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be allowed as evidence, but I could see it happening. The note is the most damning piece of evidence, and without it, you could claim that it was unplanned or an accident.

Another victim of society. A ‘not guilty plea’ is the logical starting point for any murder. I just came of 5 weeks of jury duty and you would be amazed at what some people require to find someone guilty.

There is a presumption of innocence in the United States. The prosecution has to prove he committed the murder, not just planned it and someone else committed it.

Also, if there are any extenuating circumstances like mental health issues, that cannot be discussed or even brought up if he pleads guilty at arraignment.

People have been convicted on a lot less evidence, it’s why we have so many people on death row that are found to be innocent.

They are pleading Not Guilty to force the DA to reveal all the evidence against him. When it gets close to the trial date, he will cut a deal, and plead out.

We don’t know what forensics they have on him, even though he might think he left none of him at the crime scene, or took any of it with him, he might have.

He left all sorts of evidence—not just the note and being eyewitnessed at the crime scene. The gun was registered to his parents, there was a knife with his fingerprints (he slit the throat of his victim and took a “trophy”)

As for mental health issues—I don’t think ANYONE would get a clean bill of mental health if they were capable of committing murder. Every single person in prison for murder could argue for mental health issues. You have to be pretty screwed up to plan out a murder and commit it. There is a basic empathy you have to lack to commit murder—especially a murder that had no motive except to “enjoy killing”. There has to be something broken inside you.

I think autism is a lame excuse too. I could go on about this because of some personal experience, but I think it’s just the new excuse du jour. I don’t think autism causes people to plot out and act out murder. IF this happened on the spur of the moment with no forethought or planning.. MAYBE..

Your description of the murderer as a teenage psychopath, is telling. Of course he’s guilty of murdering the man. The question is whether or not he is insane. And here I think the reason the insanity defense is so effective is readily understood. Ask yourself, what would it take for you to walk into a park and murder some random individual? Is there any circumstance in which you can imagine yourself capable of such a thing?

In some cases (death penalty cases, I think) the court automatically enters a not guilty plea.

@keobooks Not guilty by reason of insanity has very specific guidelines. It’s a positive defense, so instead of the burden of proof being on the State to prove murder, it gets shifted to the defendant to prove that that their actions were beyond their control. Also these people, if found not guilty will likely spend a very long time in a state psychiatric hospital (in some cases this is much longer than if they had served out their sentence).

I think anyone who kills someone—especially if it’s just a random person with no motive except for the thrill of the kill—has a mental illness, but not guilty by reason of insanity? This is what I thought fit the criteria.

1. You killed someone because you were psychotic (meaning hallucinating or having delusions)—you thought the random stranger was a demon chasing you down and you honestly believed you were defending yourself.

2. You were unable to to determine what you were doing was wrong.

3. You had little or no impulse control

I can’t think of others, but I think no matter what was wrong with you, if you could intellectually understand that it was a bad thing to do, and you planned it out carefully and succeeded in doing it, no matter what mental illnesses you had, you shouuld be held accountable.

@gorillapaws —You beat me to the punch.

Everyone is Not Guilty until they are found guilty by a court of law.

”I don’t think ANYONE would get a clean bill of mental health if they were capable of committing murder”. This is not the case at all, it happens all the time. And if you truly feel that way, prison isn’t what mentally ill people need, but medication and therapy instead, to address whatever mental illness they have. Unless they were taken care of, medicated, and did have optimal functioning brains at the time of the murder, I don’t see why mentally ill people should spend time in prison.

There are parents who have walked in on people raping their children and who have then attacked and killed the rapist. It is murder. Are they mentally ill, as well? Ask many parents if they would kill someone in that situation and they would have no problem saying yes, right now, which in a way is even premeditated.

I’m only saying these things because the distinction does matter. Also, even if he is confirmed to be autistic, there is a spectrum. Because he left the note and seems perfectly coherent, I highly doubt an insanity plea will get him far. I have a cousin who is severely autistic and he can barely communicate – if he were to plead his innocence, I could easily understand why, and I would fully agree that he should not go to prison – and not because he’s my cousin.

See above.
Not guilty is the default state until the State proves otherwise.
There is a difference between metaphysical guilt and judicial guilt.

Odds are that that “Not Guilty” plea will not get very far in a case like this. However, there has been enough cases where either innocent people have been punished for crimes they didn’t commit or the authorities committed worse crimes in the attempt to arrest/prosecute than the defendant was charged with (not in murder cases, but in more minor crimes) that the courts really have to play it cautiously.

@Jaxk Not always. Despite our earlier dealings, I still believe that a small minority of people out there are just sick, twisted bastards. I just don’t start with that being my default assumption about everyone who gets arrested.

@jerv – I’m not sure why you need to whisper but I am confused on how you discern who is ‘sick/twisted’ and who is not. Yet you declared one a victim and one is a twisted bastard. Both this guy and Jaylen planned the killings (premeditated), so that can’t be the difference. Both were teenagers, so that can’t be the difference.

Jaylen killed 4 people, this guy only one. Is that the difference? Jaylen killed friends, this guy killed a stranger. Is that the difference? One killed himself after the murders and one did not. Is that the difference? Or is it simply that one was a minority (native American) and one was not?

I guess I’m just not aware of the rules on when you should have sympathy for a murderer and when you should not.

@Jaxk First, formatting reasons, really. It was a comment directed at your post rather than the thread at large, just as this one is. Second, you’re making an association I never made, so you’re basing your post on (once again) attributing to me some position I don’t hold, so of course you don’t understand the rules; you don’t understand my words! I was merely pointing out a difference in our default states of mind. But given your choice of avatar, I really shouldn’t be surprised.