Sheep, wolves and sheepdogs. The sheep are afraid of the wolves so they legislate against teeth.

He made a hard choice and acted. I for one will not be second quessing him from the comfort and safety of my PC.

Thanks KiwiCraig. I was rather pleased with it for a Thursday!

and that last point is why some legal experts advocate an “excessive self defense” charge, or defence to murder… which rather than murder vs acquittal (or the jury choosing manslaughter as an interim step even where under the current law it isn’t really appropriate) would mean that if someone was truly acting in self-defense, but went “too far”, they would be culpable and accountable for committing a crime, but not the highest crime in the land…

The judge’s summing up to the jury would have included:
You are asked to consider first what the accused believed the
circumstances to be, from his or her point of view.

The second question is whether, bearing in mind that belief of the
accused about what was happening, he or she was acting in self defence
(again considered from his or her point of view). [note - the judge
may have said ...self defence or the defence of others]

The last question is whether, given that belief, the force used in
self-defence was actually reasonable.

The deceased was drunk and was aggressive against five people and then
tiuned his attention on to Mr Gundry who feared for his life so Mr
Gundry shot the deceased.

First question – what did Mr Gundry believe the circumstances to be -
that he feared for his life and took action in a “moment of crisis”.

Second question – was he acting in self defence (from his viewpoint) -
obviously yes.

Third question – Was force used actually reasonable? I can only read
between the lines if the newspaper reports. It seemed that Mr Gundry
believed that he had to take immediate action to prevent the deceased
causing serious harm to himself or someone else. I would say it was
right on the knife-edge, the deceased was apparently unarmed and
perhaps Mr Gundry could have restrained him with the help of others.
Or Mr Gundry did not have the confidence to deal with it without an
‘equaliser’.

Turning to the Crown Prosecutor. The Crown rejected Gundry’s evidence
that he feared for his life and did not believe he was provoked to an
extent he was incapable of knowing what he was doing. However Mr
Gundry’s belief is everything – it is not a matter whether he could
have or should have believed whatever. This is a major problem for the
prosecution in ‘self defence’ cases – the best they can do is to try
and bullshit the jury.

Actually I would not be too surprised if he brassed some jurors off. I
have been on two juries and in each case the Crown Prosecutor
succeeded in brassing me and possibly other jurors off.

The third question – this is an objective assessment of the
reasonableness of the force used, not the force that the accused
believed to be needed. With respect to this, the gods were on Mr
Gundry’s side today, it would have been touch and go. I would venture
to suggest there could have been a bit of retaliation against the
Crown Prosecutor here.

If the Crown Prosecutor had given Mr Gundry’s beliefs due respect and
concentrated on the alleged unreasonableness of the force used, he may
have scored a conviction.

The deceased’s supporters perhaps should have vented their spleen on
the Prosecutor rather than some hapless press photographers.

I’m guessing so you could say you fired a warning shot?

tremendous GPT, absolutely tremendous – I’m going to steal and use this at some stage…

That is absolute gold.

Seems a good description of a jury trial, actually.

No, I don’t think it is. I seem to recall a story about one in Greymouth or Westport soon after the law came into force. A sex trial of some sort, if I recall.

Hung juries weren’t as prevalent as the Law Commission liked to make out, but interesting that this shows at least one person wanted manslaughter. I wonder on what basis? If they rejected self-defence then it was murder. I actually hold the opinion that a number of manslaughter verdicts over the years have not been so much that the jury has found that was the correct charge, but more a compromise in not wanting to convict for murder but not wanting the person to get off completely, either.

“the verdict is absolutely the right one, from the media reports.”

It seems the deceased man’s family disagrees with you there.