NOLA cops convicted in bridge shooting

For any lawyers out there, two questions:
1) How can the jury determine the cops fired guns unlawfully into a crowd and not find them guilty of murder?
2) These same cops were tried in state court and acquitted of charges stemming from the same incident. So how can the Feds try them without running afoul of double jeopardy?

 

Every day you are subjected to both state jurisdiction (laws) and federal jurisdiction (laws).

As for murder or lack thereof, its a matter of intent, traditionally for murder you must find that the person premeditated, already had the intent to kill before acting.

Manslaughter is usually killing someone without the premeditated intent to kill.

 

Charged them with civil rights violations, same as the Rodney King cops.

 

Misunderstood the question, then read the story closer, federal law does not cover murder, that's left to the states. However, federal laws cover criminal violation of a person's civil rights, which covers taking someone's life under color of law (as a representative of a govt. entity).

 

A lot of unlawful shit happened in NOLA in 2005 by law enforcement officers after Katrina rolled through.

 

Sadly, law enforcment types were responsible for a lot of unlawful shit in NOLA long before Katrina.

 

Yeah, anybody who was shocked at how chaotic things were in New Orleans after Katrina clearly hadn't been paying attention in the years previous. And I say that as a great lover of that city.

By the way, here's the link to the Times-Picayune coverage:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/08/danziger_bridge_verdict_do_not.html

 

There was also a lot of unlawful shit being done by the general population, who saw the chaos of Katrina as a license to do whatever the hell they wanted.

No question, N.O. cops have always been hard core and a lot of them are as dirty as it gets, but I'm not sure I can blame them for taking a shoot-first mentality considering the anarchy they were up against in that period.