A jury convicted Ryan Frederick of voluntary manslaughter this afternoon in the January 2008 death of Chesapeake police Detective Jarrod Shivers.
It also convicted him of simple possession of marijuana.
In the process, the group opted against the two most serious charges filed against the 29-year-old – capital murder and manufacturing marijuana.
As I understand the case, in rejecting those charges, the jury saw through the attempted railroading and rejected the testimony of the informant and all the jailhouse snitches. Therefore, it all came down to a question of whether Frederick was firing in self-defense—based on what he could have known at the time and on what a reasonable person would have done in the same situation.
Based on what I heard about the shooting, it sounded like self-defense or an excusable error to me, but these cases are always complicated to analyze through media reports. The law of self defense varies from state to state—especially regarding the presumptions the shooter is allowed to make in determining whether his life is in danger—and news stories about these kinds of cases almost always omit crucial details. This could very well be the correct verdict.
But…God damn the Chesapeake Police Department for putting Ryan Frederick and Jarrod Shivers into a violent confrontation over a bunch of stupid plants.
Update: Ah, fuck it. The jury gave him ten years.
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