Not Guilty verdict in TX "hooker theft" murder

[chitoryu12]

So if she had had sex with him, illegal prostitution would have happened. If she had returned the money and left, a canceled prostitution would have happened (illegal?). Instead she took the money and left (illegal) from an intended prostitution (illegal?) and he used deadly force to recover it (legal).

If my understanding is correct, she was specifically from an "escort service", which operates legally through ostensibly denying that their escorts provide sex in return for money. There's a sort of understanding that escorts are basically hookers with a different name, but there are, in fact, escort services that don't offer sex. This lets them operate in the open legally, as they repeatedly put up disclaimers that no sexual activity is meant to take place and reminders of how illegal prostitution is....then they let the girls do their thing in private.

What this means is that in the eyes of the laws regarding escorts, the girl didn't do anything wrong. The man was never guaranteed sex in the first place by the contract; usually it's a more vague "companionship." In short, he got exactly what he paid for. It's comparable to asking for a hamburger at McDonalds, getting a burger, and then murdering the cook because it didn't have the pickles that you didn't ask for on it and you just assumed that all hamburgers come with pickles.

Also, on the subject of "shooting without intent to kill".....no. No sane judge would accept that as a response, because a firearm is a deadly weapon. You do not shoot to wound or scare, and you do not draw a gun to prove a point. Pointing a gun at someone is an implicit statement of "I will kill you," and firing at them is an implicit statement of "I am now killing you."

[chitoryu12]

As an addendum to my last point there, I specifically said "No sane judge." I said nothing about JURIES.

[Jaepheth]

I blame this on the jury.

Jury selection is a fucked up process.

The lawyer who knows the facts aren't on their side tries to get the most gullible group they can and convince them to vote their side of a case by using any set of fallacies they can think of.

Hell, the lawyer that has the facts on their side may also blackball more logic oriented candidates in favor of appealing to emotion in a murder case.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

According to the article the guy used a fucking assault rifle to shoot her

I'm much more concerned over the message this ordeal says about male ownership of the bodies and sexual encounters with women than what manner of gun was used. Even ignoring that the sex wasn't in the contract, which makes it worse, imagine if this were a house cleaning service, and a guy showed up and cleaned some and left, but the owner of the house felt he was owed more work so he shot the cleaner. Is there any chance this would've gone anywhere like this? But since there's the idea that women give their bodies for sex, and that female sex workers sell their body, it suddenly clicks that this is actual theft of property.

I mean there's probably a bit extra from the feeling that sex workers aren't really people, but I'm pretty sure that up there's most of it.

[SirNitram]

Florida and Texas seem to be working hard to make it legal to murder.

[chitoryu12]

Technically under this ruling, the prostitute should have been let off the hook if the man refused to pay her and she shot him in the throat.

Of course, that's not what would have happened to her when she got dragged in front of the court. She'd probably be executed.

[Feil]

Given that literally the only thing we know about the victim here is her name, the circumstances of her death, and the fact that she refused to provide sex for money, why exactly are you referring to her as a prostitute?

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Given that literally the only thing we know about the victim here is her name, the circumstances of her death, and the fact that she refused to provide sex for money, why exactly are you referring to her as a prostitute?

I don't know if this is a general question or specific for someone, but chitryu pointed out it's one of these 'everybody knows' things.

But now that I think of it, I agree with you. Let's assume we are the jury: if we keep referring to her as a prostitute, we imply that she actually had to give sex to the guy*, which means the guy was correct in getting worked up, so his behavior now becomes more understandable. We are basically operating on the same presumptions that led the jury to declare him innocent. So fuck this 'everybody knows' business.

*Unless we want to redefine half the English language.

[PeZook]

Even if she actually was there's a reason why sane places recognize the difference between the concepts of theft, and breach of contract/fraud. This interpretation of the law means that as long as the situation ocurred at night, then even if the woman was a maid or painter or electrician and the guy was dissatisfied with her service and shot her to get his money back, he'd be in the right!

[TheFeniX]

Even if she actually was there's a reason why sane places recognize the difference between the concepts of theft, and breach of contract/fraud. This interpretation of the law means that as long as the situation ocurred at night, then even if the woman was a maid or painter or electrician and the guy was dissatisfied with her service and shot her to get his money back, he'd be in the right!

Um, no. Poor service isn't theft. The defense argued not only that no service was given (even under the dumbfuck assertion that illegal service should have been provided) and that this was the plan all along: to steal Gilbert's money under the guise of paid sex, basically a fraud system worked out between the "prostitute" and her "pimp." I'm sure there was shitloads of character assassination as well considering her profession, but nothing against Gilbert who had no problem hiring a "woman of ill repute."

People are going to jail for shooting the at&t guy for fucking up a u-verse install. However, this same idiocy might be able to play out if you hired, say, an installer to illegally hook up your cable and he instead just took your money and walked out the door.

All of this assumes that Gilbert isn't a lying fuck which seems unlikely considering he only told the original officers that he was firing warning shots and never mentioned the theft. It's more likely his lawyer came up with the defense after the fact and blitzed a jury with a whole load of bullshit and managed to convince one person that Gilbert didn't specifically intend to murder Frago.

[chitoryu12]

Not to mention that in a sane location (i.e. not Texas), even firing warning shots would get you arrested for attempted murder. Here, it's perfectly possible for someone to justify firing warning shots at someone for "theft" with a rifle (actually a denial of an illegal transaction, since escorts can take your money, but legally can't offer sex to avoid running afoul of prostitution laws; technically she did everything appropriately in the eyes of the law) and "accidentally" cause fatal wounds and have the jury go "Well, she deserved it."

There's probably an implicit "....because she's a whore" attached to the end of that.

[PeZook]

Um, no. Poor service isn't theft. The defense argued not only that no service was given (even under the dumbfuck assertion that illegal service should have been provided) and that this was the plan all along: to steal Gilbert's money under the guise of paid sex, basically a fraud system worked out between the "prostitute" and her "pimp." I'm sure there was shitloads of character assassination as well considering her profession, but nothing against Gilbert who had no problem hiring a "woman of ill repute."

Yes, but you could use the very same argumentation if, say, an electrician found no problem with the house's wiring despite one clearly being there, took the money and walked out. Of course no jury would let the guy go in such a situation because the "dirty whore" effect would not be present.

People are going to jail for shooting the at&t guy for fucking up a u-verse install. However, this same idiocy might be able to play out if you hired, say, an installer to illegally hook up your cable and he instead just took your money and walked out the door.

Yeah...it really sounds fucked up to let people kill each other over 150 dollars. It's worse than Saudi policies and that's saying something.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Not to mention that in a sane location (i.e. not Texas), even firing warning shots would get you arrested for attempted murder. Here, it's perfectly possible for someone to justify firing warning shots at someone for "theft" with a rifle (actually a denial of an illegal transaction, since escorts can take your money, but legally can't offer sex to avoid running afoul of prostitution laws; technically she did everything appropriately in the eyes of the law) and "accidentally" cause fatal wounds and have the jury go "Well, she deserved it."

There's probably an implicit "....because she's a whore" attached to the end of that.

This is the bad side of jury nullification.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ok Serial Killers Bundy was right, move to Florida or Texas, if your white they will find a way to let you get off on offing people....

[Saxtonite]

Technically under this ruling, the prostitute should have been let off the hook if the man refused to pay her and she shot him in the throat.

Of course, that's not what would have happened to her when she got dragged in front of the court. She'd probably be executed.

Some woman was put in jail for castrating a guy who refused to pay for having sex with her, and she got the "Red carpet" treatment by the other women in jail. It's not the same but related...