Yeh, you may have seen that I arrived in that same neighborhood of thinking in my post/s above to wit: "If I were her I would try to plead on the lesser and get the prosecutor to agree to eight years and be out in four." Unfortunately the community pressured him into requesting the higher level charge after he had originally just charged the lower level. So there is dance there they seem to be locked into and she needs to fight that tooth and nail. But eventually it will come back to the lesser. The prosecutor can probably get a conviction without a plea but she would agree to not appeal or something to sweeten the pot. She needs to pay a price. Does not need to be crucified but she needs to get on with accepting that because if she or her lawyer are obnoxious in front of the jury that might not end well.
One has to wonder... how did she f that up? Hypothetically, could she use some kind of medical defense? Granted its hard to judge someone from a mugshot, but just looking at this woman, I can tell from a mile away she has issues. I don't care if it was a mugshot, I'd bet money she had other things going on in her life. And in the spirit of that, knowing how folks are these days, I bet she has at least 3 or 4 prescriptions for something. If a doctor recently changed a med, hypothetically, they could march in medical and pharmacological experts to testify that "yes, confusion and loss of situational awareness can be side effects, and in certain cases, the patient might not be aware of such". I'd try it if I was the defense. Find out what pills she's taking and when was the last time they were changed. I don't care what the pill is, there's always possible side effects a good lawyer could argue. I would think. And to quote what I wrote above: Hell it may in fact be what happened. I mean what if they upped her Prozac 3 days prior.... ? Or what if she was going thru "the change"? I didn't catch how old she was. I assume near 48, right there in that window. There's all kinds of drugs out there they write scripts for for that. But that's speculation on my part. I'd sure look if I was her counsel. Blame it on the system and make her the victim.
The thing is she clearly called out was going for her taser and then yelled Taser Taser Taser before firing and then afterwards was clear headed in commenting that she shot the person by accident. Lot of evidence that her head was somewhat clear. To use some type of defense of medication or medical issue there would have to be clear evidence of erratic behavior or abnormal actions. All of her actions seemed in line with what a police officer would do in that situation EXCEPT for negligently reaching for her gun rather than her taser. Prosecution can simply point out all of that and say there is no evidence of any medication or prescription affecting her judgment. She fucked up badly and killed someone and that is what criminal negligence requires. I am not sure what defense her attorney will try but pleaing out is the best option when you have no real clear defense and have to play games in front of a jury. She can claim stress of the situation but the facts can show she was rational before and after, etc.... Gonna be a tough case to defend without something more we dont know about.
I noted in that article it gave the maximum sentence's as 10 and 15, which you mentioned. But then it said the prosecution wants to push for more? How does that work? Isn't "the maximum" something set by state law? A judge can't change that. That's legislative right? I mean obviously I'm missing something. This: /////But prosecutors have also asked the judge to consider a stronger sentence than usual if Potter is convicted.//////
I think "than usual" is that with a maximum sentence of 10 years the usual sentence for most cases might be 3-4 years. Therefore the prosecution could be saying that want more than the usual up to the maximum. The jury decides Guilty or Innocent and then the judge determines the sentence based on sentencing guidelines but both parties get to make a case at a sentencing hearing what the penalty should be. That is really where a DA or defense attorney can make a case for a longer than usual sentence or ask for leniency.
As discussed, when you face a charge of criminal or culpable negligence or one of the 50 terms states use for the 4-5 levels and so on, it pretty much just matters whether you did it or not. And she did it. Also as discussed, she is free to put all sorts of police professionals experts on to show that she was not negligent or reckless because any good officer would have done the same thing under those circumstances. Good luck with that though, the prosecution fully intends to do the same. Have at it. Then she needs to start getting real about a plea but prosecution might not be willing since they need a conviction to hold their head up in the community. Of course, as I said, she is also facing a higher charge where some showing of intent would be required. I and I see that El Concho does as well, assume that that pretty much is going nowhere so the lesser charge is where she is at risk. Even the proscutor did not want to charge her that high but went back and upped it when the community mob demanded more. Her utterances after she fired are clear evidence that she had no intent. She fucked up. Nevertheless the higher charge will still be in her defense, and she has to defend against it, and they jury has to see reasons why it does or does not apply. That's why I said, they need to be careful about having an obnoxious defense team who says excessive or politically incorrect things about the victim because the jury could still lash out and conclude things that are nor necessarily fully supported by the law. In regard to what the defense will actually do, last I heard, a few days ago, they were planning to put on a defense that was mindboggingly stupid. They were pursuing a defense that says the victim was attempting to drive off and even though she fucked and not intend to shoot him that if he had driven off he would be a fleeing felon or would have been dangerous to others given his state of mind so she had the legal right to fire even though she made a mistake. Whoaaaaaaaaaaaa. do not try this game at home. They also, last I heard, are planning to put her on the stand. They figure she is highly remorseful and her best shot is to appear remorseful if only for a reduced sentence. Their call. Except they want her to just show up and cry a lot and express all sorts of sympathy to the family. In reality though if her defense team is working all sorts of convoluted arguments about what she intended to do or what she was entitled to do under the law they have to cross examine the bejessszus out of her. She is looking at 2-4 years. Actual in the slammer time. With longer actual sentences being longer but providing for early release. I repeat though, the defense needs to be careful about being too obnoxious and aggressive and talking about dirty toenails and that type of thing. And they need to be careful about highly convoluted defense arguments because it undermines their argument that their client really accepts that what happened was wrong and she is remorseful for it. What a mess. Hopefully, they have gotten some real lawyers in the last couple weeks. Rittenhouse had a disastrous team in the beginning too. Best thing he did was to get rid of them.