I remember the Kesler case very well - it was in 1987. Kesler ran a pharmacy, and like many small business people, his only staff were his family. On the day in question, two guys come in and hold up his wife and teenage child working the till, while Kesler was in the back. I don't think they were unarmed -- if memory serves, they had a pistol. Seeing his family threatened, Kesler grabbed the shotgun and fired. One perp was lightly wounded, the other ran. Kesler ran after him and shot him on the street outside of the store.
There were similarities to some of the more recent incidents we've talked about -- Kesler had been robbed several times prior to this. Indeed, in an irony worthy of a Darwin nomination, Smith, the guy Kesler killed, was on parole -- for robbing Kesler's pharmacy.
While I did chip in a dollar bill or two for Kesler's defense fund, I didn't agree that he should have gone completely free. Not that I considered what he did murder. But I figured that he should at least have been convicted of dangerous use of a firearm -- he fired a shot gun on a public sidewalk, for God's sake. Anyway, the jury gave him a clean walk, and 8 out of 10 people thought that was perfectly appropriate.
One thing the Kesler case should remind us is the value of the jury system in interjecting some common sense into the justice system. Tried by a judge alone, Kesler would still be in jail. There is a move in certain circles to restrict the access to juries in order to "streamline" the system. IMHO that would be a very dangerous thing. |
