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Seems a bit of a stretch...
LAKEPORT, Calif. - Three young black men break into a white man's home in rural northern California.
The homeowner shoots two of them dead - but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder. In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes, 22, was charged by prosecutors in an overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.
"It was pandemonium" inside the house that night, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said.
Hughes was responsible for "setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices."
Prosecutors said homeowner Shannon Edmonds opened fire Dec. 7 after three young men rampaged through the Clearlake house demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.
Hughes was charged with first-degree murder under California's Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.
The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill.
Instead, "they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner," said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defence lawyer unconnected to the case.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People complained prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, 160 kilometres north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 per cent white and two per cent black.
Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.
"This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said.
"They were shot in the back. They had fled."
On Thursday, a judge granted a defence motion for a change of venue because of media attention and the inability of Hughes to have a jury of his peers in the county. A new location for the trial will be selected Dec. 14.
The district attorney said race played no part in the charges against Hughes and the homeowner was spared prosecution because of evidence he was defending himself and his family, who were asleep when the assailants barged in at 4 a.m.
Edmonds' stepson, Dale Lafferty, suffered brain damage from a baseball bat beating he took during the melee. The 19-year-old lives in a rehabilitation centre and can no longer feed himself.
"I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was defend my family and my children's lives," said Edmonds, 33.
"I'm sad the kids are dead, I didn't mean to kill them."
He added: "Race has nothing to do with it other than this was a gang of black people who thought they were going to beat up this white family."
California's Provocative Act doctrine has primarily been used to charge people whose actions led to shooting deaths.
However, in one notable case in southern California in 1999, a man who robbed a family at gunpoint in their home was convicted of murder because a police officer pursuing him in a car chase slammed into another driver in an intersection, killing her.
Hughes' mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn't intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana. She called the case against her son a "legal lynching."
"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said.
"But this I know: my son did not murder his childhood friends."
The homeowner shoots two of them dead - but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder. In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes, 22, was charged by prosecutors in an overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.
"It was pandemonium" inside the house that night, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said.
Hughes was responsible for "setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices."
Prosecutors said homeowner Shannon Edmonds opened fire Dec. 7 after three young men rampaged through the Clearlake house demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.
Hughes was charged with first-degree murder under California's Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.
The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill.
Instead, "they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner," said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defence lawyer unconnected to the case.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People complained prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, 160 kilometres north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 per cent white and two per cent black.
Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.
"This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said.
"They were shot in the back. They had fled."
On Thursday, a judge granted a defence motion for a change of venue because of media attention and the inability of Hughes to have a jury of his peers in the county. A new location for the trial will be selected Dec. 14.
The district attorney said race played no part in the charges against Hughes and the homeowner was spared prosecution because of evidence he was defending himself and his family, who were asleep when the assailants barged in at 4 a.m.
Edmonds' stepson, Dale Lafferty, suffered brain damage from a baseball bat beating he took during the melee. The 19-year-old lives in a rehabilitation centre and can no longer feed himself.
"I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was defend my family and my children's lives," said Edmonds, 33.
"I'm sad the kids are dead, I didn't mean to kill them."
He added: "Race has nothing to do with it other than this was a gang of black people who thought they were going to beat up this white family."
California's Provocative Act doctrine has primarily been used to charge people whose actions led to shooting deaths.
However, in one notable case in southern California in 1999, a man who robbed a family at gunpoint in their home was convicted of murder because a police officer pursuing him in a car chase slammed into another driver in an intersection, killing her.
Hughes' mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn't intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana. She called the case against her son a "legal lynching."
"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said.
"But this I know: my son did not murder his childhood friends."
Donegeal doesn't believe it's right but I do. That's so weird. The fact that they hit the stepson in the head with a baseball bat convinces me on this one. Guilty.
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