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Daniel Adkins case

Yeah, okay, maybe I went a bit over the top there, but when you've got two people dismissing the notion that a dead body constitutes enough "actual evidence" to justify an arrest (not even a conviction, just an arrest!), and one trying to draw some bizarre parallel between this case and "a granny shooting someone in her home", it's not that big of a stretch.
 
Horatius said:
Yeah, okay, maybe I went a bit over the top there, but when you've got two people dismissing the notion that a dead body constitutes enough "actual evidence" to justify an arrest (not even a conviction, just an arrest!), and one trying to draw some bizarre parallel between this case and "a granny shooting someone in her home", it's not that big of a stretch.
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Those examples where used to show how details matter, they were not presented as correlates. Civil rights are important. I imagine just like the Treyvon Martin case this one likely has details the media either does not have, or is not inclined to share with us.

Our justice system is not perfect, but the alternative would cause more harm IMHO.
 
Cylinder said:
No one is questioning that. What I am questioning is the idea that police should go around arresting people and jailing for years before a determination is made that a crime was actually committed. No matter the circumstance, the police need a threshold of actual evidence that a crime has occurred before making an arrest. Full stop.

How are we to determine, other that by actual evidence, that a crime has been committed?

Do you really think that police and DAs are less likely to withhold charges from a person whose guilt is apparent by evidence or more likely to charge someone who is innocent with less than conclusive evidence?
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Police don't need evidence to make an arrest, just probable cause.

But an arraignment must be held before a judge (within 2 to 3 days) in order to hold them any longer (at which point the date for a preliminary hearing is set). Nobody's claiming that "police should go around arresting people and jailing for years before a determination is made that a crime was actually committed".

Why should police need evidence before making an arrest? Sure, they'd definitely need evidence to hold someone in jail, but not merely to make an arrest. In some cases they might need to arrest a suspect to prevent them from fleeing while evidence is collected.
 
Horatius said:
Yeah, okay, maybe I went a bit over the top there, but when you've got two people dismissing the notion that a dead body constitutes enough "actual evidence" to justify an arrest (not even a conviction, just an arrest!), and one trying to draw some bizarre parallel between this case and "a granny shooting someone in her home", it's not that big of a stretch.
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Well, it is frustrating to think that someone could just go gun crazy and then laugh at attempts to bring them to justice, but I still think we need to see a whole lot more facts in this case, because what we've heard so far simply isn't adding up, even for Arizona's 'user friendly' climate.
 
Horatius said:
Yeah, okay, maybe I went a bit over the top there, but when you've got two people dismissing the notion that a dead body constitutes enough "actual evidence" to justify an arrest (not even a conviction, just an arrest!), and one trying to draw some bizarre parallel between this case and "a granny shooting someone in her home", it's not that big of a stretch.
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A dead body isn't enough. What evidence exists about who caused the death? Here, it's easy because we presumably have a person taking responsibility. Was the homicide illegal? We really don't know what evidence exists in this regard. Presumably the police do not believe they have that threshold of evidence at this point in the investigation.

Without evidence, how do you distinguish this from granny shooting the home intruder? Do you think granny should face trial as well?
 
Cylinder said:
A dead body isn't enough. What evidence exists about who caused the death? Here, it's easy because we presumably have a person taking responsibility. Was the homicide illegal? We really don't know what evidence exists in this regard. Presumably the police do not believe they have that threshold of evidence at this point in the investigation.

Without evidence, how do you distinguish this from granny shooting the home intruder? Do you think granny should face trial as well?
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Arrest ≠ Trial
Arrest ≠ Charges

It's possible to arrest someone and then release them without charge. Plus, this can be distinguished from "granny shooting the home intruder" by the fact that the person shot was a pedestrian standing on the sidewalk, not an intruder breaking into a house.

Why are you arguing that the police shouldn't arrest someone for fatally shooting an unarmed pedestrian? They can always arrest the shooter and then let him go a few hours later if they decide the shooting was justified.

(But that's a moot point now. They know who he is and where he lives, and he's already had ample time to flee if that's what he intended to do, so there's no point arresting him unless they plan on pressing charges.)
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Quote:
Police don't need evidence to make an arrest, just probable cause.



For instance ?
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People seem to be conflating 2 possible uses of the word evidence.

Police need to develop probable cause to make a warrantless arrest as a general rule.

Probable cause is 'any information, observation, or set of circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed'.

Then there is the kind of evidence that is offered in court proceedings.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
That's what I had in mind..

I was just wondering what Xulld had in mind...
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Yup, PC requires evidence. Not all evidence is equal, but RAS requires much less evidence, PC requires more, and a conviction requires it to be conclusive.

Traffic stop is a great example.

Officer pulls you over for a broken tail light. He flashes his light in your eyes and notices you have very red eyes and when he asks you a question he notices your slurring. He has RAS, based on this evidence. He flashes his light through the windows and sees a 4 foot bong in the floor boards. He has probable cause to search the vehicle, but not before seeing the bong. Seeing the bong is evidence, so was the red eyes and slurring, but evidence of a lesser kind, less conclusive evidence, but enough to be suspicious, which promotes the visual search, which reveals additional evidence which provides probable cause.

Evidence all along the way is needed to move along the path toward arrest.

(I am not an officer of law, if any of the steps I presented are incorrect feel free to correct them, but the theme I believe is accurate.)

If the officer had none of these factors, but still wanted to search the vehicle, found nothing, and still arrested the guy, the officer could get in a lot of trouble over a civil rights violation.

ie, you cant just arrest someone without evidence and not have some accountability. (I understand that its not unheard of for officers to make up stuff, or abuse their authority, but that is a different matter entirely)

They can always arrest the shooter and then let him go a few hours later if they decide the shooting was justified.
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The police are granted powers to detain without arresting a suspect in the course of an initial investigation. This is what happens while they develop probable cause, or if they fail to . . . then they release the chap.

If by arrest you mean, hand cuff and hold on to vs the actual legal definition then we are not really arguing so much as defining terms.

The moral of the story is that Probable cause for an arrest does in fact require evidence that a crime has been committed. Detainment only requires RAS, which stands for Reasonable Articulable Suspicion. Check out Terry v. Ohio for a good example and the case law involved with the distinctions.
 
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Random connection:

Halle Berry is in the news yelling at paparazzi who were taking photos near her child's school. She was yelling at them, waiving her arms in the air, walking up to their cars. So if one of the paparazzi mistakes her cell phone for a weapon will they get away with pulling out a gun and shooting her dead on the spot? Being that it's Halle Berry I somehow think not.
 
Xulld said:
Yup, PC requires evidence. Not all evidence is equal, but RAS requires much less evidence, PC requires more, and a conviction requires it to be conclusive.

Traffic stop is a great example.

Officer pulls you over for a broken tail light. He flashes his light in your eyes and notices you have very red eyes and when he asks you a question he notices your slurring. He has RAS, based on this evidence. He flashes his light through the windows and sees a 4 foot bong in the floor boards. He has probable cause to search the vehicle, but not before seeing the bong. Seeing the bong is evidence, so was the red eyes and slurring, but evidence of a lesser kind, less conclusive evidence, but enough to be suspicious, which promotes the visual search, which reveals additional evidence which provides probable cause.
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They can look from outside, including shining flashlights into the car, without anything more than just enough to pull you over in the first place. Anything they might see by doing that is in plain sight. That isn't a Fourth Amendment search.

Also, the PC threshold isn't as demanding as you suggest. The smell of pot during a traffic stop has been upheld as sufficient by itself for probable cause. And red eyes plus slurring means your ass is out of the car for sobriety tests.

It used to be that if they arrested you for anything, they could search your car for evidence of any crime. Now they can only search the car for evidence of a crime if there is probable cause to think there is evidence of the crime of arrest. Of course, if they impound your car they do an "inventory search," which requires no probable cause, because it isn't a search for evidence, but merely to document your possessions. (Right.) Anything found in such a search is admissible.

Evidence all along the way is needed to move along the path toward arrest.

(I am not an officer of law, if any of the steps I presented are incorrect feel free to correct them, but the theme I believe is accurate.)

If the officer had none of these factors, but still wanted to search the vehicle, found nothing, and still arrested the guy, the officer could get in a lot of trouble over a civil rights violation.

ie, you cant just arrest someone without evidence and not have some accountability. (I understand that its not unheard of for officers to make up stuff, or abuse their authority, but that is a different matter entirely)
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Sure, but if they don't find anything they just let the guy go. And I'm not sure you can say that misconduct is "a different matter entirely" in a statement about accountability. The question is whether they can get away with making stuff up and abusing their authority. Because if they can, then they can arrest an innocent person and not be accountable, as long as they're not too stupid to cover their butts. There are plenty of charges where the only evidence most of the time is the cop's testimony, even if the charge is entirely legit.
 
Draca said:
Random connection:

Halle Berry is in the news yelling at paparazzi who were taking photos near her child's school. She was yelling at them, waiving her arms in the air, walking up to their cars. So if one of the paparazzi mistakes her cell phone for a weapon will they get away with pulling out a gun and shooting her dead on the spot? Being that it's Halle Berry I somehow think not.
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The part in bold seems sort of relevant to whether defensive force would be reasonable. I would answer in the negative. Of course, if it were Naomi Campbell wielding a cell phone in similar fashion, that would be entirely different.:)
 
Draca said:
Random connection:

Halle Berry is in the news yelling at paparazzi who were taking photos near her child's school. She was yelling at them, waiving her arms in the air, walking up to their cars. So if one of the paparazzi mistakes her cell phone for a weapon will they get away with pulling out a gun and shooting her dead on the spot? Being that it's Halle Berry I somehow think not.
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Was she wearing a hoodie?
 
Freddy: thanks for the extra imput.

My post was a response to the claim that PC requires no evidence, which is wrong. My scenario was a common one, and it's purpose was to show that suspicion is not the same as probable cause. I think my example did that, and its focus was only to do just that, that was why I said misconduct is another story entirely becuase it was not cogent to my point. Thanks for the added imput.

Back to the main OP, I have not found any additional information about the dead mans behavior, has anyone else heard anything additional?

Was she wearing a hoodie?
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I know this is tongue in cheek, but there are clothing arrangements which make you more suspicious, I think Geraldo is an idiot, and hoodies are fine in and of themselves, but it is not uncommon for gang bangers to cover there faces with bandana's during the commission of a crime and if you saw Hallie Barry don a bandanna, grab a large metal object and start swinging it around, yea, I could see her getting shot. Or if she ran around after donning the hoodie with bandanna combo, and stuck her hand in the large middle pocket like she had a gat. Yea, for sure.

I think law enforcement even has a term for this behavior (donning garb to conceal your identity in preparation for criminal activity), wish I could remember.
 
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Still no arrest of Daniel Adkin's shooter. Nothing in the news to report.

I wonder what the delay is?

I wonder if the Trayvon Martin case could affect the police decision in this. Could the police fear a backlash if they arrest the black shooter who shot the white hispanic, while in Florida the police didn't arrest the white hispanic shooter who killed a black teen until there was a media outcry?
 
The name of the shooter has been released - Cordell Jude.
 
"I look at the Trayvon Martin case, and what happened to my son is almost the same thing," says Daniel Adkins, 59, who mourns the death of his only son and namesake, Daniel Jr., 29. "I want justice. … Why haven't they arrested him?"

In Phoenix, family members of Daniel Adkins Jr. say they understand the frustration the Martin family felt when their son's killer was free.

"Why, with the police knowing what he did, is he still free? What are they waiting for?" Adkins' mother, Antonia, 63, asks in Spanish. "The law is the law, but it's an injustice."
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-27/stand-your-ground-law-trayvon-martin/55208980/1


So why has the shooter still not been arrested? I really don't understand what the police are waiting for. What is up with this case?
 
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