the technicalities of LM’s statement on 8/14 (+ DJ)
hi guys!! i actually shared some of this in the replies on another subreddit, but i thought i’d share it here as well.
i’ve seen some confusion on other media platforms as to why LM would admit to the shooting in federal court if he “only had to admit to stalking,” and i thought i’d pass on the explanation i saw + my own understanding of everything after reading more into the federal case law :)
so i follow a lawyer on tumblr who supports LM and always breaks down things relating to his case, and she explained how his statement had lawyer language all over it and was essentially just a check list of him admitting guilt to each element of the stalking charges, which he has to do in order for the judge to accept his plea and also for the NY double jeopardy law to be triggered. she thinks that’s why his wording was so intentional, using words like “traveled,” “intent”, “fear of bodily harm or death,” “illegal,” etc. i actually read the penal code myself, and it’s basically verbatim what he said. the stalking has to include:
travel across state lines ✅
with the intent to kill, harm, or harass ✅
and the conduct places the victim in reasonable fear of bodily harm or death ✅
his statement reflects all of these elements, saying he traveled from outside of NY state, with the intent to kill BT, and he knew it would place BT in fear of bodily harm/death.
this is also why he said “i shot BT and he died,” because both of these federal stalking charges include the element of “resulting in death.” to my understanding, the “resulting in death” element doesn’t necessarily have to mean outright murder, just that the stalking conduct eventually led to the victim’s death in one way or another. again, in order for his plea to be accepted, LM had to admit that his stalking conduct resulted in BT’s death, which he did through that statement. that’s also why he didn’t frame it as “i murdered BT,” because these federal charges have nothing to do with murder, and he pleaded guilty to stalking, not murder.
obviously there’s a lot of nuances here, and we all know the implication. BUT from a strictly legal standpoint, he just adhered to the exact stalking statutes and didn’t actually admit to anything more than he had to. all he did was admit to each element of the stalking + that the stalking led to the shooting, which led to BT’s death, hence “stalking resulting in death.” think of it kind of like a sequence of events, maybe?
there’s also been a lot of uproar over LM saying “i knew what i was doing was illegal,” vs. “i knew what i was doing was wrong,” which are two totally different things. i think that he very well could’ve chosen his words for the reasons we all suspect— a morality vs. law type of scenario, or him not believing what he did was morally wrong, just barred by the law. but i sat and thought about it for a while, and thought that maybe he could’ve chosen the word “illegal” to also reflect that he understood the consequences of his actions. this would mean that he’s not insane in legal speak and understands right from wrong, which really boils down to legal from illegal in terms of the courts. but obviously him and his legal team are the only ones who know the reasoning, and that word could’ve been said for a combination of reasons. either way, i think it was a great choice 🤭
one more thing i want to discuss:
what does this mean for the double jeopardy argument?
from my knowledge (i am not a legal expert lol but i did read a lot about NY DJ and the exceptions), it sounds like his defense team will need to successfully prove a few things in order for the NY state case to be tossed due to double jeopardy. whether all of these things actually have to be proven or just one needs to be is unknown to me, but i’d assume that the more they can prove, the stronger the argument would obviously be. but in my head, one should suffice?
anyway, according to NY DJ, i’d say this is what the defense could argue:
a) the federal stalking charges + state murder and weapons charges all come from the same crime, criminal transaction, underlying conduct, etc. (aka, the killing of BT).
b) the federal and state charges have “substantially similar elements” AND/OR that the charges prevent the same kind of “harm or evil.”
i would say that the second degree murder charge is much more likely to go, since it could be argued that the murder charge and stalking resulting in death charges both prevent the same evil of intentionally taking a life + both have the element of an intent to kill (which sounds like the same thing lol but i’d imagine they could be argued as separate points because they kind of are). and again, the stalking and murder could be argued as being a part of the same overall crime or act, and the weapons charges could be argued the same way since the gun was possessed solely to carry out the murder. he also admitted in his statement to printing/having the gun before he crossed state lines into NY, which i think could’ve been intentionally said to trigger DJ for the weapons charges specifically. veryyy strategic if you ask me.
i do think that the weapons charges will be a bit harder to argue for the defense just because the elements of stalking and weapons are nowhere near similar, but they could still argue that it’s part of the same criminal transaction as the stalking and murder. the NY prosecution will likely fight this and say that the charges are substantially different enough, etc, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.
i didn’t read the entire motion that his defense filed about DJ, but i skimmed it, and it seems like they’re mainly running with the argument of the charges all being part of the exact same crime, against the exact same person, on the exact same day, in the exact same city, etc, hence LM technically already being prosecuted for the crime itself now that he pleaded guilty in federal court.
KFA’s statement after the hearing on 8/14 also seems to be pushing back against the dual sovereignty doctrine, which is what initially eradicated their previous DJ arguments. typically, the dual sovereignty doctrine is an exception to DJ because the federal and state courts are considered separate jurisdictions and their own free standing entities, meaning people can be prosecuted in both jurisdictions for the same crime. the thing about that is that normally, federal and state court work separately. however, KFA is arguing that they worked together in this case to both prosecute LM and i think she mentioned how they allowed the state trial to go first solely to avoid DJ? this argument seems to insinuate that in this case, the two courts were not separate because they worked together and therefore dual sovereignty doesn’t work here.
i just wanted to share this and my thoughts because i found all of this to be really interesting, and i initially was confused myself as to why he admitted to the shooting in federal court when the murder charge was dropped months ago. but hopefully this all makes sense and i’m sorry if i didn’t explain it well lol 😅
TLDR: LM’s statement was clearly very intentional and was required in order for his plea to be accepted. he admitted to each element of the federal stalking charges, which included him needing to admit to the shooting as well. in a technical, legal sense, he did not admit to murder, just that the stalking resulted in BT’s death. there’s no way to know how the double jeopardy argument could go, but i would predict that the second degree murder charge is more likely to be dropped than the weapons. but hopefully they’re both dropped and judge carro stops being a partial little bitch.