The legal definition of recklessness doesn’t appear to embrace or even consider the mistaking of a gun for a taser. In fact: The converse appears to be true.
There is literally no question that she made the tragic horrifying mistake. The question is whether that particular mistake comports with the legal definition of recklessness. I believe it does not.
If a dolt is playing with a loaded gun (especially knowing that it’s loaded and operable) and stupidly and carelessly fires off some rounds while being unconcerned with the prospect that some living people might be hurt in the process, that’s reckless.
By contrast, here, she had to have both a gun and a taser. She didn’t act recklessly. She made a simple mistake. A tragic one for sure. But just a mistake. By pulling the trigger on the gun (under the mistaken Assumption that she was holding her taser), she didn’t have any reason to believe that anyone was being put at risk of grave injury or death. It wasn’t, in that legal sense, “recklessness” as it is defined in Minnesota’s law.
Because we know that in such thorny legal analyses even judges can make mistakes, there are layers of appellate review. Here, I believe the definition of “recklessness” was either given incorrectly OR the jury failed to apply the actual evidence to the law in a legally acceptable fashion.
I don’t get a vote on their appellate bench. So, we will have to wait and see.
