More total fun Gun Fun In Colorado = Not!

http://www.ecola.com/go/?f=&r=co&u=www.denverpost.com

Article Published: Wednesday, November 26, 2003  
Hunter guilty in gun death
Unintended shot killed Denver man in '01

By Electa Draper, Denver Post Four Corners Bureau

 
Special 
Troy McLaughlin, right, and his attorney David Greenberg listen to
testimony Tuesday during McLaughlin's trial in Durango in the
unintended shooting death of Jon Grosjean two years ago.
 

 
 

DURANGO - The shot that killed a 27-year- old Denver man was one in a
million, a freak accident or even fate, defense attorneys and experts
said at trial.

The jury disagreed.

Prosecutors argued that 53-year-old Troy McLaughlin, a hunter with
almost 40 years of firearms experience, was guilty of reckless
manslaughter, or at least criminal negligence, in pulling the trigger
of a gun he mistakenly thought was not loaded.

The unintended shot killed Jon Grosjean, an insurance agent, as he
slowly drove up McLaughlin's driveway just southeast of Durango to
keep a midday business appointment on Nov. 15, 2001.

"This was not fate. ... I don't believe that Jon Grosjean just drove
into a bullet," Assistant District Attorney Craig Westberg said. "This
happened because Mr. McLaughlin was way too careless, way too blasé
about ... a thing that is designed to kill."


Advertisement
 
Tuesday afternoon, after eight hours of deliberation, a jury composed
largely of gun owners found McLaughlin guilty of criminal negligence
in Grosjean's death, even though the rifle involved had malfunctioned.
A shell that should have ejected remained stuck in the gun's chamber.

Two years ago, after returning from the family's traditional hunting
camp, McLaughlin was standing alone in the bedroom of his trailer home
readying several guns for storage. He ran the action of a high-powered
30.06 rifle to make sure it was empty. No shells ejected. McLaughlin
believed the gun was empty, he testified Monday.

To release the tension of the rifle's firing pin he quickly raised the
gun to his shoulder, pointed it out a window and pulled the trigger,
aiming toward a distant hillside, he said.

An unexpected blast shattered the double panes of the bedroom window.
The bullet hit the windshield of Grosjean's truck about 100 yards away
and then pierced his skull.

McLaughlin said the bedroom curtains were fluttering in the blast, and
he caught his first sight of a black truck. He said he was relieved to
see it continue to travel straight down his road. "It's OK," he said
he recalled thinking to himself.

He turned and set the rifle down on his bed. When he turned back to
the window he saw the truck veer sharply into a ravine.

Grosjean, sent to the property to review the safety practices of
McLaughlin's home-based construction company, was soon dead.

A young man from the Midwest who dreamed of coming to Colorado,
Grosjean left behind a girlfriend in Denver and family in Iowa.

Westberg said prosecutors do not believe McLaughlin meant to shoot and
kill Grosjean, but they do believe he was tracking the black truck
with the rifle scope when he pulled the trigger.

"We know he was indeed sighting in on the Grosjean vehicle," Westberg
said. "He thought (the gun) would go 'click.' It didn't go 'click.' It
went 'bang."'

Defense attorney David Greenberg told the jury that McLaughlin could
see only "curtains and conifers" when he pulled the trigger of a gun
aimed at an embankment. Prosecutors had no evidence that the rifle
scope was on Grosjean, he said, adding there was no evidence for
reckless manslaughter.

Assistant District Attorney Dondi Osborne said McLaughlin was at
fault, regardless of any rifle malfunction. It also did not matter,
she said, which experts jurors believed about what McLaughlin could or
could not see. It did not matter whether the shot was impossible to
make on purpose, either, as one sharpshooter testified.

"Treat every gun with the respect due a loaded gun," Osborne said,
again reciting in her closing arguments some of the "10 commandments"
taught in hunter-safety courses twice attended by McLaughlin. "Be sure
of your target. Never point a gun at something you don't want to
shoot."

Osborne recited a phrase popular among gun owners: "Guns don't kill
people. People kill people."

Greenberg said that in this case it is right to blame the
malfunctioning rifle, which McLaughlin had known was problematic but
thought he had repaired. Sometimes a spent shell would not eject, but
in tens of thousands of rounds fired by McLaughlin, a live round had
never before been stuck in the chamber, Greenberg said.

He said McLaughlin's act - merely running the action that typically
empties the gun, without checking the chamber - was not criminal
negligence. That is defined as a gross deviation from the standard of
care a reasonable person would exercise.

The presumptive sentencing range for a felony conviction of criminally
negligent homicide is six months to six years, roughly that for a
reckless manslaughter conviction. District Judge Jeff Wilson set
sentencing for Jan. 30.

Wilson denied defense motions for a mistrial. Defense attorneys Lisa
Ward and Greenberg asked for a mistrial because they said they
believed one juror was upset enough to be biased against the defense
team. One of its members inadvertently had pointed a rifle, one of the
exhibits, in the juror's general direction during the trial.

The juror ducked. The judge later instructed the jury that all
firearms in the courtroom were completely disabled with locks and
could not fire.

The defense also asked for a mistrial because three jurors
accidentally and briefly saw a political cartoon from a local paper
about "The New 10 Commandments" for gun users.