Michigan Court Case Puts ‘Brandishing’ Charges On Trial

By Tom Knighton

Anytime you pull your firearm, you’ve got potential problems. There are a thousand different things running through your head at that moment, and whether you should or shouldn’t be pulling this gun is just one of them. When your life is on the line, though, there’s no time for second-guessing things.

However, a woman in Michigan claims she pulled her gun out in self-defense, but the police charged her with brandishing a gun. The fact that she was a black woman only made this case more fraught as it came on the wake of several high-profile self-defense shootings where those shooters walked away, and this woman was being prosecuted. Especially after she was convicted.

Recently, though, justice was served when she was released after an appeal.

As David French explains over at the National Review, we should all be happy with this outcome.

Yesterday the Michigan Court of Appeals threw out her conviction. It didn’t hold that the jury got the outcome wrong but rather that it didn’t have a true opportunity to get it right. It was improperly instructed on the law, and the trial court placed too high a burden on Ra to justify her decision …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms