Chicago Man Who Shot Cops in Self-Defense Found Not Guilty by Jury

[Ares]

September 1, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A South Side Chicago man who admitted shooting and wounding two Chicago Police officers has been found not guilty and released from custody. In this Intelligence Report: How did the shooter's lawyer manage to win such a case?

Twenty-one-year-old Kenneth Green was asleep in his Roseland apartment two years ago when a Chicago Police team showed up with a search warrant for drugs.

Cops used a battering ram to get in.

When police kicked through the bottom of Green's bedroom door, he shot through the door wounding two of the officers. Despite admitting all that, Green got off claiming self-defense.

The early morning raid by police on Green's Roseland apartment building ended in almost three dozen shots fired, mostly by police, after veteran officers Scott McKenna and Danny O'Toole were wounded through the door. The officers would survive, but that day in 2009, Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis used the incident to take a stand.

"People are trying to murder police officers left and right," Weis said.

After he shot two policeman, Green was arrested on the spot and charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery with a gun and held without bond.

Last week, after a several day trial, Green was found not guilty. His attorney, Marcus Schantz, told the I-Team that he convinced the jury that Green didn't know they were police outside his door executing a legal search warrant.

"There was testimony that my client had been threatened by some guys from the neighborhood," Schantz said. "He had a real reasonable fear that some people might try to enter his home and harm him or his family. Based on that fear he purchased the handgun and only had it two or three days before this incident."

Schantz disputed police records indicating Green is a gang member and says he has no felony convictions.

"It was my initial assessment of Mr. Green that he was a very good young man who was caught in an unfortunate circumstance and acted within seconds in a way that I probably would have as well," said Schantz.

After the verdict, a police union spokesman said, "Somebody dropped the ball here. It is the fault of the state's attorney. I understand the jury system but what kind of a case did they present? How the hell did a defense attorney convince a jury it was self-defense?"

"He took an act to defend himself, his home and his family, and nothing he did was unreasonable," said Schantz.

A spokesperson for the state's attorney said, "Prosecutors are extremely disappointed with this verdict. The case was charged and prosecuted based on significant and credible evidence. It is unclear what led the jurors to this decision given the fact that there were inconsistencies in (Green's) testimony."

Green's lawyer said, since the verdict, there has been racist reaction on some unofficial police websites. "There's been Ku Klux Klan references. There's been references to my client being killed," said Schantz.

Because of the threats, Schantz said he has concerns for Green's safety and has advised him to leave Chicago.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=8339076

[Serpo]

1 in a 1000 isnt bad

[Ponce]

I forgot the law number but you can claim self defence when shooting a cop.....if anyone remember who posted it then please repost......

[optionT]

That neighborhood, Roseland, looks like a bombed out Baghdad these days. That place is as ghetto as it gets.

[po boy]

I forgot the law number but you can claim self defence when shooting a cop.....if anyone remember who posted it then please repost......

Ponce here's a few cases for you to look at.

"Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”

“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.

“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.

“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.

“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).

“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).

“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910).

“Story affirmed the right of self-defense by persons held illegally. In his own writings, he had admitted that ‘a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.’ There would be no usual remedy by changing the law or passing an amendment to the Constitution, should the oppressed party be a minority. Story concluded, ‘If there be any remedy at all ... it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions.’ That was the ‘ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’” (From Mutiny on the Amistad by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, 1987, an account of the reading of the decision in the case by Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court.

As for grounds for arrest: “The carrying of arms in a quiet, peaceable, and orderly manner, concealed on or about the person, is not a breach of the peace. Nor does such an act of itself, lead to a breach of the peace.” (Wharton’s Criminal and Civil Procedure, 12th Ed., Vol.2: Judy v. Lashley, 5 W. Va. 628, 41 S.E. 197)"

[mick silver]

good news for once ... thanks

[Glass]

No one was killed which is both surprising and good for all concerned. Cops union should learn the law and stop trying to use the media to claim the law is some thing that it is not.