Ok. So what is the basis for your belief that the conviction will be overturned on appeal?
Because they guy was a threat.
Ok, we covered the reasons for an appeal in the previous answer. So the question now is was the Defense allowed to present that argument? Yes. That is obvious. They based the entire defense on that argument. They had an expert on the use of force who sounded stupid presenting the argument. They had Van Dyke testify and present the argument. So the facts were presented, and rejected.
This is the problem. When you use force, you are supposed to use it as needed, in other words, let’s use shooting someone as an example.
The legal principle is Shoot to Stop. It is recognized and accepted by pretty much everyone. Now, what does it mean to Shoot to Stop. You shoot because you believe the guy is a threat. Ok. Fine. But what Van Dyke did was not shoot to stop. She shot, and continued shooting. Long past where he could justify his actions as a reasonable use of Force to stop a threat.
This is where the old training came in very handy. You see, in the old days we were taught to shoot, shoot, assess. In other words, fire two rounds, and then see if you needed to shoot again. If no more shots are needed to stop the threat, then stop shooting.
Van Dyke shot five times and Laquan went down. The threat ended. Honestly, if Van Dyke had stopped shooting then he would have been able to justify it as a necessary action. He had shot to stop the threat. But Van Dyke did not stop shooting. The threat was stopped, the shooting was not. More than two thirds of the shots were after Laquan was on the ground, and unresponsive. Possibly already dead. Definitely already wounded, and possibly mortally wounded absent serious medical attention immediately. Van Dyke would have “gotten away with it”.
But the shooting when Laquan was on the ground, the eleven slow shots to the already seriously, possibly mortally, possibly dead young man on the ground went well beyond justified, beyond even excessive, into gratuitous carnage. Now, with the gratuitous additional shots, the argument that it was justified, and he shot to stop the threat goes up in smoke.
But beyond that, let’s look at it from a Tactical standpoint. Van Dyke emptied his pistol into a single threat, a vast majority of the rounds fired after the threat had stopped. What if there had been two or three potential hostile individuals? Van Dyke would run out of ammunition before he got to number three. That was another reason for the Shoot Shoot Assess technique. It allowed you to husband your ammunition to allow for additional threats that needed to be stopped.
So Van Dyke was not only a bad guy in murdering Laquan, a fact established by the Jury, but a bad cop for emptying his weapon when it was not needed and leaving himself, and fellow officers open to additional attacks that he would be unable to respond to because of his poor fire discipline.
Now, Van Dyke is looking at years in Prison, perhaps as few as six, and perhaps as many as thirty. His family is going to be left with the stigma, and the unpleasant action of visiting him in Prison, unless the wife is wise enough to Divorce him and move on with her life, and with a name change to give the kids a better chance at a future than the child of a convicted murderer.
Now, why do you think Van Dyke will have the conviction overturned on appeal again? There is one very narrow possibility. I’ll give you time to try and think of it. It is unlikely to work, but it is an actual possibility that leaves one small open window for a successful appeal and a retrial of the case.
