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Gable Tostee

Hard Cheese said:
If the jury can't come to a unanimous decision on murder, then they can apply a majority verdict (11 of 12) to a lesser charge of manslaughter
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That raises an interesting permutation, does an 11 1 not guilty of manslaughter fly to acquit completely?
 
lionking said:
Your hero has been charged with and is being tried for murder.
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It is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is also possible to believe Tostee and Pistorius are not murderers, but to not regard them as heros. Clearly neither should be considered leaders of the moral free world.
 
Shiner said:
My only point of contention there is your last. If I threw the intruder onto my front lawn, they are free to leave my property.
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I see what you are saying. But the law doesn't place any conditions on what you can do, other than you can only use reasonable force. I think you'd be hard pressed to claim that closing and locking a sliding door was unreasonable force.

I guess the question here might be, at what point does self defence/removing of a person from your property turn into deprivation of liberty? Was the intention of closing the sliding door to protect himself/defuse the situation, or to keep her trapped? I think you can make a case for either.
 
Hard Cheese said:
I see what you are saying. But the law doesn't place any conditions on what you can do, other than you can only use reasonable force. I think you'd be hard pressed to claim that closing and locking a sliding door was unreasonable force.

I guess the question here might be, at what point does self defence/removing of a person from your property turn into deprivation of liberty? Was the intention of closing the sliding door to protect himself/defuse the situation, or to keep her trapped? I think you can make a case for either.
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Oh for goodness sake. This buffed, large body builder couldn't simply put her out the door and call the police? He simply had to "defend" himself by putting her on a high balcony and threaten her? Seriously?
 
Samson said:
That raises an interesting permutation, does an 11 1 not guilty of manslaughter fly to acquit completely?
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Yes

lionking said:
It's a long way from that possibility. And 11 out of 12? Dream away.
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By s 59 unanimous verdicts are still required in trials on indictment for the following offences:
(a) murder (s 59(1)(a)(i));

if on the trial of an offence mentioned in s 59(1)(a)(i) or (ii), the jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict and the defendant is liable to be convicted of another offence not mentioned in those provisions, then in relation to the conviction for the other offence, s 59A (which allows for a majority verdict) applies as if the defendant were originally charged with the other offence: s 59(4).
A “majority verdict” is defined as a verdict, where the jury consists of 12 jurors, on which at least 11 jurors agree....etc...etc
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Very interesting from what little I know of the Judge's summary, he's made the situation clear but the Jury seem to be struggling with the concepts. Would be an interesting Jury room.
 
lionking said:
Are you serious? What makes you think it would be 11-1 to acquit and not 11-1 to convict?
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I know only what I read and hear, but I can see a difficulty. Because he has been charged with murder, it may not be possible to resolve it by 1 jury member sticking out for manslaughter while 11 wish to acquit of manslaughter. I am not doing a good job of this, maybe Hard Cheese can figure it.

ETA I see HC has already answered.
 
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Fixit said:
Very interesting from what little I know of the Judge's summary, he's made the situation clear but the Jury seem to be struggling with the concepts. Would be an interesting Jury room.
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Maybe the prosecution were looking for 12 dimwits and rounded up the Lundy jury :)

Some of the questions they asked this morning were daft. What age was Tostee? I bet the judge was trying not to roll his eyes at that one.
 
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Hard Cheese said:
Maybe the prosecution were looking for 12 dimwits and rounded up the Lundy jury :) Some of the questions they asked this morning were daft. What age was Tostee? I bet the judge was trying not to roll his eyes at that one.
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Not even Queensland would come up with the equivalent of 12 NZ dimwits.
 
Hard Cheese said:
Sure he could have. But he's not required to.
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We will see about that.

Even if, hypothetically, he was not required to put her out the front door, why didn't he? This is the question the Tostee apologists (groupies?) are not prepared to answer. And a young woman is dead as a result.
 
gareththomasnz said:
Awaiting the next trial 2018

Aside: Large black man gets drunk with Tostee. Beats Tostee up for an hour and after wrestling Tostee locks him on the balcony. As Tostee is calling the cops he gets a carving knife from the kitchen to defend himself and scare the baddy.

Large black man with tatoo's & biker jacket then climbs over balcony to escape, screaming and hollering but falls to his death.



You see all fof the fuss is because it was a pretty girl. She has the exact same rights and responsibilities as any other adult. But because it is a pretty girl who screamed at the end just the same as had she been an actual victim - there is a knee jerk reaction.

She was not actually a victim in this incident IMHO

<snip>
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You see all fof the fuss is because it was a pretty girl.
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There have definitely been some biased and inaccurate stories and opinion pieces covering this, which is definitely worthy of (a separate) discussion. I think it's irrelevant to the point of whether he was responsible for her death or not.

It seems pretty clear that at the very least he used intimidation to defuse the situation; the problem with this is that he verbally threatened her too, and also I think it's fair to say that she would have found him physically imposing when things got serious.

His statements on the BB forums don't match up with the recording.

From his post:
She never tried to get back in, bang on the door or even cry out to me or anyone else.
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http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=165463311


From the transcripts of the recording:
Female: 'No no no no no no no no no no no no. Just let me go home.'
Male: 'I would but you have been a bad girl.' Sound of door sliding shut.
2.20am: 'Just let me go home. Just let me go home.' Last words of 'just let me go home'. Male - heavy breathing. Faint scream detected.
2.21.23am: Very heavy breathing from male.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-final-struggle-plus-happened-afterwards.html

I'm all for defending the indefensible but this doesn't add up. Even taking into account alcoholic state, and stress of the situation, I find it impossible to believe he didn't hear her. She was asking to be let back in; the way he tells it, she didn't.

Any way you look at it, and however he justified it - he still intimidated her and pushed her out onto a 14 story balcony. She was obviously in fear, so I think there is a good case for criminal negligence.

I'm very interested in seeing the outcome, and I predict a manslaughter verdict.
 
Shiner said:
My only point of contention there is your last. If I threw the intruder onto my front lawn, they are free to leave my property. On a 14th floor balcony? Not so much.
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I thought that was an interesting point. Judge Byrne says that the removal of a person to a balcony does constitute removal from a property.

Makes sense at ground level.. 14th level not so much :/
 
alex04 said:
There have definitely been some biased and inaccurate stories and opinion pieces covering this, which is definitely worthy of (a separate) discussion. I think it's irrelevant to the point of whether he was responsible for her death or not.

It seems pretty clear that at the very least he used intimidation to defuse the situation; the problem with this is that he verbally threatened her too, and also I think it's fair to say that she would have found him physically imposing when things got serious.

His statements on the BB forums don't match up with the recording.

From his post:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=165463311


From the transcripts of the recording:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-final-struggle-plus-happened-afterwards.html

I'm all for defending the indefensible but this doesn't add up. Even taking into account alcoholic state, and stress of the situation, I find it impossible to believe he didn't hear her. She was asking to be let back in; the way he tells it, she didn't.

Any way you look at it, and however he justified it - he still intimidated her and pushed her out onto a 14 story balcony. She was obviously in fear, so I think there is a good case for criminal negligence.

I'm very interested in seeing the outcome, and I predict a manslaughter verdict.
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Good post. Murder or manslaughter. I still think the former.
 
Hard Cheese said:
I didn't say either way. I lean towards acquittal given the judge's comments and the time it is taking them to get to a unanimous decision.
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Huh? This is nothing for a murder trial. They can take many days and even weeks in Australia.
 
Are they debating murder or aquittal? I say acquittal with 2-3 stubbornly calling it manslaughter

You are not allowed to discriminate LionKing you dont seem to get it. If a woman assaults you you may smack her in the chops & it is self defense.

Also amusing - the the only other two forums I could find one is largely in favour of acquittal, a recent thread probably 80% but a fair number of replies

The other old fitness forum thread is about 60-70% in favour of not guilty

So you guys here I think are 80-90% in favour of a guilty verdict

Which I think is quite unusual.

[edit]

Just found the one on bodybuilding.com thats 3 forums all largely supportive of the accused and this one against the accused. There was also some mention of drugs in her system being suppressed by the prosecution.

I think its a frame up - apalling
 
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