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Third Party Threats

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LawyerJan:
New Nebraska Supreme court ruling states: "Assuming without deciding that third-party threats would be admissible in cases of self-defense, the district court did not err in excluding the testimony of the third-party threats."  Huh???  You can offer third party threat evidence but it wasn't err to deny him the ability??? 

Case involves gang fight in Omaha.  A must read on lawful use of deadly force.

It probably didn't help his case that the shooter kept shooting after the victim had already turned appearing to flee.  State of Nebraska  v. Goynes, 278 N Neb. 230.

May be time to look at some legislation.

iiranger:
Please continue to keep us informed.

AAllen:
It would be important to look at the sentence immediately before the one quoted to gain understanding; "Other courts have held that evidence of third-party threats are admissible to support a claim of self-defense if there is also evidence from which the fact finder may find that the defendant reasonably connected the victim with those threats."

In reading the filings and Supreme Court Decision it does not appear that the defendants attorney did enough if anything at all that would "reasonably" tie the victim to the treats.  So without making a ruling on the admissibility of third party threats even making room that they would be admissible, the evidence that was being put forth would not be because there had not been a connection made between the threats and the victim.  Just having a relationship with a group of people does not make you party to everything that group does, especially if you did not participate.

I am not a lawyer, had a chance to play one on stage once though.

LawyerJan, welcome to the forum.  Discussion on these topics is good, and we can use someone with some credits to keep us in line at times (man, can we come up with some strange interpretations).

armed and humorous:
Yes, welcome aboard LawyerJan!  My son will be in his final year of law school in the fall, and his fiance just graduated and took the bar exam.  Between the three of you, I ought to be able to figure out what I can do and what I can't!  ;)

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