Malvo Convicted
Just in case someone out there has had their head in the sand, Malvo was convicted yesterday. Not that it wasn't expected. Some of the jury undoubtedly did not find the Defense's theory credible and even those who did had little incentive to find the young man not guilty. I've heard the reason for this explained a couple different ways. One of the best was by a lawyer warning about the dangers of doing a death case in rural areas. He said that what you have to worry about is the "farmer mentality." If something goes wrong with one of your cows you get rid of it to save the others. You don't ask if it's the cows fault; you could care less about its mens rea. But, you say, Chesapeake is not exactly Iowa. Well, O.K., then look at it this way: animals who group together will often expel members who cause trouble for the pack/herd/tribe. We are not above this. How many lepers have been expelled from societies over the centuries? How many serfs thrown off the thane's land for not raising enough grain to pay his tribute? Or put in more modern terms, if Bob can't or won't keep up at the plant's assembly line how long before he is shunted into some meaningless side job or fired? Removal is an instinctive reaction meant to save the group as a whole. And, even assuming that the jurors knew that a finding of insanity means commitment, I think it's a safe assumption that someone probably heard about Hinckley running around unsupervised nowadays. The question now is whether the jury will excise the failed/dangerous member of society thru banishment or death.
Well, enough of my rambling here's some other Malvo stories:
(1) Reactions of victims' family members.
(2) Conjecture that the insanity defense will have set the stage for the Defense to keep the jury from approving the killing of Malvo.
(3) Malvo's doodling throughout the trial was constant. Now comes news that he was using a stab proof pencil. You know, we could have used a few of those in elementary school. Every kid I knew got stabbed by a pencil at least once. Of course we used to play "sword fight" with them so maybe we deserved what we got.
(4) A timeline of the shootings.
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