Tulsa Criminal Defense Attorney | Expertise | Cale Law Office
This content was written for Cale Law Office
Are you looking for a criminal lawyer? Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale focuses his practice on criminal defense. He has nearly 20 years of experience. Call the Cale law office at 918-277-4800. Your initial consultation is free.
Prosecutors charged the defendant with murder. However, the jury found him guilty of manslaughter. The judge sentenced him to 45 years in prison. But, the defendant appealed. Here are the facts of the case.
Someone shot Tucker in the head while she was alone with the defendant’s basals house. A revolver was the murder weapon. The defendant testified on his own behalf. He denied that he shot Tucker. He argued that she committed suicide. The victim was the defendant’s niece. Should come to live him from the West Coast. During the time that they live together, the two had a sexual relationship. Later, the started living with a young man.
Sometime later the defendant try to persuade the needs to connect to live in his house. When she said that she would not go to the defendant, he kept on begging her to go it would not leave. The officer related that a woman advised him that she was in defendant’s custody and that he wanted to take in California. But she told she did not want to go because of numerous occasions he had forced her to have sex with him. This conversation the quietly.
Several hours later, the defendant returned to the bar with his mother. A short time later met up with a group of other people. The defendant’s mother followed the group to the PlayStation when to talk to police about the needs. The officers testified that one woman expressed fear was going to her uncle because the passing forced her to have sex with him. Please give the choice to a girl has going to a shelter or go back to the defendant if the grandmother would long.
The girls test fine that he resides in California on that afternoon he returned a call to his daughter. She told him that the defendant the grandmother was down looking for her and she did not want to leave Oklahoma with them. She said that she was going to marry her boyfriend. The father told his daughter to call the police if anyone tries to bother her.
An acquaintance of the defendant testified that the morning that the skein to his house with the defendant. They want to stay at his house for a few days. The defendant’s knees left the house and returned the next morning. He was trying to get money to take his knees to California. The defendant testified that his knees did not want to leave Oklahoma with him. However, he said that she loved him and that the past that it has an affair.
The defendant testified that on the day the shooting his niece had taken all her close tried to force herself on him. They eventually had sex. He testified that after having sex, these tried to persuade him to run away with her because she did not want to go back to the West Coast. He gave contradictory statements to law enforcement officers will be questioned about the shooting. Prosecutors to reduce the statement evidence. Show that the defendant had related that he merely after having sex, that these told him that she was going to return to her boyfriend.
The defendant then testified that he started playing a game in the knees began cooking a meal. Shortly after that, he went outside to work in his car. He testified that while he was in the bathroom, he shot, rented to the house and found his knee slumped over on the couch with one arm up. He stated that he try to pick her up and couldn’t related to the for which the neighbors house for help.
A neighbor testified that in the morning, the defendant came running after the home of Mister to call an ambulance because it’s these chops that they had. On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court should have sustained his demurrer to the evidence and challenged circumstantial evidence at trial saying that it was not sufficient to establish the corpus delicti. The one can be convicted of murder or manslaughter lessened if a person alleged to be killed is establishes the unoriginal doubt.
In every criminal prosecution, the state has the burden of proving the corpus delicti I am unoriginal doubt, said Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale. In the prosecution for homicide, the corpus delicti by consists of two fundamental and necessary facts. First, the prosecution must show the death of a person. Secondly, the state must show criminal agency of another is the cause of the death. As replied to this case, the state to show first that the deceased died from the effects of the wounds, and secondly, that the defendant unlawfully inflicted the wound.
Proof of this does not depend upon direct deposit evidence. The prosecution may prove this by circumstantial evidence. The Oklahoma court criminal appeals have previously set forth the following standard of proof is required when the state relies on purely circumstantial evidence for proof of the corpus delicti I. The state uses circumstantial evidence, the question should be submitted to the jury along with other questions of fact in the case. These questions are as to whether or not the state is established the corpus delicti I am unoriginal doubt.
In this case, the proof is unoriginal doubt of the first element is the woman’s violent and a natural death cost by a gunshot wound. No evidence controverted this fact. Michael testimony establishes that a certain cause of her death was a gunshot wound to the left of the head. The state’s evidence revealed that a bullet fired from the defendant’s revolver entered the girls for the head. Given that the state proved the girls a natural death, the next step is to look at the sufficiency of the evidence upon which the jury determined that the defendant unlawfully inflicted the fatal wound.
If you or someone you know has been charged with a homicide whether it’s murder, negligent homicide, manslaughter, or some other killing, call Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale at 918-277-4800. Your initial consultation with the Cale law office is free.