We are starting to get a play by play of a murder trial where the defendant claims self defense

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Jeff White

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A year ago a fight in a bar in St Louis ended with one man dead. The shooter is claiming self defense under Missouri’s Stand Your Ground Law. The trial started this week and the details are starting to come out. The defendant is represented by one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the area. I don’t think Scott Rosenblum would try this defense if he didn’t think he could sell it to the jury.

Right now it’s the prosecution’s turn and it doesn’t look good for the defendant.

A barroom spat about a dog ended in gunfire at Show-Me's in Florissant. But was it murder?
  • By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  • 1 hr ago
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Police officers guard the scene on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018, outside of the Show-Me Sports Bar & Grill in Florissant after two people were shot inside the establishment. Photo by J.B. Forbes, [email protected]


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A regular bar patron (foreground) talks with one of the bar's managers (both declined to give their names) on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018, outside of the Show-Me Sports Bar & Grill in Florissant. The bar patron said the shooting took place where he normally sits in the establishment. Photo by J.B. Forbes, [email protected]


CLAYTON • Neal Myers shot Scott Beary twice — once to the heart — after a drunken barroom spat last year over the weight and ferocity of police dogs.

That much is undisputed, but who’s to blame for Beary’s death Feb. 7, 2018, at the Florissant Show-Me’s Sports Bar & Grill is what a St. Louis County jury will be asked to decide this week at Myers’ murder trial.

The case tests Missouri’s self-defense law, which says people may legally use deadly force if they reasonably believe it’s necessary to protect against death or serious injury, and hinges on who was the aggressor.

In opening statements Tuesday, a prosecutor said that after an afternoon of drinking at Show-Me’s, Myers murdered Beary because he was irritated by a protracted argument over the weight and toughness of German shepherds trained for police work.

“Neal Myers instigated confrontation while secretly gripping his firearm, endangering everyone in the bar,” assistant prosecutor Ryan Kemper told the jury. “It was an unjustified, unreasonable and unnecessary shooting.”

A defense lawyer countered that Myers “chose life” by defending himself against an enraged and intoxicated Beary, who “bum-rushed” Myers inside the bar.

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Scott Beary, 43, of Winchester, was killed in a shooting at Show-Me’s Sports Bar & Grill in Florissant on Wednesday, Feb. 7. Beary was a husband and father of three who worked in emergency construction. Photo courtesy of Don Beary.

Myers “was attacked. For no reason. Attacked,” defense lawyer Scott Rosenblum told jurors. “This happened in a blink of an eye, and from (Myers’) perspective, he sees a 6-foot, 324-pound man rolling up his sleeves, taking off his hat, charging at him.”

Beary 43, was a construction worker, husband and father of three who lived in Winchester.

Myers, 55, who also worked in construction, is standing trial on charges of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and two counts of armed criminal action. He is also accused of shooting and wounding Beary’s friend in the encounter.

Surveillance cameras inside Show-Me’s captured the run-up to and the shooting itself on video, which was played for the jury Tuesday.

The shooting, about 3:45 p.m. that day, followed hours of drinking and a conversation among Beary, Myers and two other men about dogs. The discussion grew heated as Beary rejected a claim by one of the men that he owned and trained a German shepherd that was at least 290 pounds. The conversation continued for more than 20 minutes, even after the man who claimed to have the dog left.

At some point, Myers moved his .38-caliber revolver from a holster to his pocket, prosecutors said.

As Beary and his friend were leaving, Beary patted Myers’ shoulder and told him, “No hard feelings,” Kemper told jurors.



“Whatever danger Neal Myers perceived was literally walking out the bar,” Kemper said.

Myers then responded as Beary walked toward the door by saying “(expletive) you, fat ass. Keep walking, you fat ass. You smell like pork,” while “secretly gripping” the gun in his pocket, Kemper said.

Beary turned around, rolled up his sleeves and charged at Myers and tried to hit him, prompting Myers to shoot several times, lawyers on both sides said.

Myers fired several shots. One hit the ceiling. Another struck Beary’s friend, Ryan Jacobsmeyer of Troy, Mo., in the arm. Beary was shot in the heart and the side. Jacobsmeyer testified Tuesday that as pulled Beary into his lap in an attempt to stop Beary’s bleeding, “he looked up at me and said one time, ‘This is it.’”

After the shooting, Myers announced to the bar that he was provoked and shot the men in self-defense. He set the gun down on a stainless steel cooler and waited for police to arrive.

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It’s going to be interesting to see how the defense counters this narrative.
 

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I dont know Missouri law. Be interesting to see how it goes. I would think it would take more than a punch from an unarmed man to justify killing in self defense. Texas says it is justified in case of attack on head throat or spine, i think.

290 lb german shepherd? Not worth fighting over someone’s BS story in any case.
 
Question: If the defendant was in the bar with a gun, is it illegal in the first place to even be armed there? Or is it legal only if he has NOT been drinking alcoholic beverages? Just curious...
 
We just had a case where a convicted felon tried to claim self-defense when he shot a killed the police officer who was trying to arrest him. The jury saw through this ploy, and convicted him of murder. Automatic life without parole in addition to the 40 years in club fed for which he has already been sentenced.
 
Well I guess we will never know what the jury thought. The deadlocked and the defendant plead guilty to a reduced charge:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local...-7fcd-514d-9a32-860ad396a468.html?mode=nowapp

CLAYTON • After a jury deadlocked on a murder charge for a man who shot a fellow bar patron after an argument over a dog, the defendant struck a deal Friday and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Pleading guilty, Neal Myers accepted a five-year prison term.

Jurors deliberated more than seven hours but could not reach a verdict.

I guess he wasn’t willing to chance another trial.
 
Question: If the defendant was in the bar with a gun, is it illegal in the first place to even be armed there? Or is it legal only if he has NOT been drinking alcoholic beverages? Just curious...


It is legal to carry a gun in a bar in MO. It is legal to drink. It is not legal to carry while intoxicated.
 
Dang. I was hoping to see how that played out. The whole issue of 'an afternoon of drinking,' as the article puts it calls into question the reasonbleness of, well, pretty much any of the defendant's thoughts and beliefs about the situation at hand.
 
I dont know Missouri law. Be interesting to see how it goes. I would think it would take more than a punch from an unarmed man to justify killing in self defense. Texas says it is justified in case of attack on head throat or spine, i think.

290 lb german shepherd? Not worth fighting over someone’s BS story in any case.
Unarmed, but 12 years younger and over 300 lbs.
OTOH the drinking puts a lot of weight on the other side of the scale.

I see the case was resolved before I ever got to this thread. I guess five years gives him plenty of opportunity to think about his actions.
 
Unarmed, but 12 years younger and over 300 lbs.
OTOH the drinking puts a lot of weight on the other side of the scale.

I don't know MO law, but in general you can't provoke a fight then shoot the other guy. I mean, you can, but you can't claim self defense.
 
Seems to me he was guilty of murder because he taunted the other guy. I don’t see how he can claim he was deathly afraid of someone’s size and strength when he deliberately taunted him. Might hold water if he kept his mouth shut and the attack was unprovoked. Or if the attacker had landed blows already. But to taunt and be ready to shoot seems like murder.
 
The defense attorney's self-defense trial strategy appears to have reached its objective: achieve a reduced charge and shorter sentence for the offender. It was risky ("man killed following a drunken argument about dogs" had to have been a tough narrative to overcome) but it worked in this case. In our legal system, a trial defense only has to reach one juror...

We often think that guilt or innocence determinations are binary. Not so here.
 
I would not like to be seen holding a glass of wine I didn't sip from before an incident involving self-defense. We all know the assumptions that would bring.

Nevertheless, I think it's important to remember that even considerable inebriation shouldn't bring with it the assumption that the person acted wrongly. A person has the right to be judged on what he actually did as opposed to our perceptions of his capacity at the moment of the incident.

Many self-defense incidents are clear cut: an unprovoked attack, and a successful counter. Whether the person has generally good judgment, whether we think he was a model citizen, or how much he had to drink, are, taken together, information that shouldn't be considered.

I'd go further: if a prosecutor relied too much on the bad character of the defendant and what he might have had to drink rather than the actual provable facts of the case, it would tend to raise my suspicions that he had a weak case rather than incite righteous indignation.
 
Nevertheless, I think it's important to remember that even considerable inebriation shouldn't bring with it the assumption that the person acted wrongly. A person has the right to be judged on what he actually did as opposed to our perceptions of his capacity at the moment of the incident.
While I don't disagree, you also have to act responsibly if you expect to be judged favorably.
If you are drunk, in a bar, in the afternoon, arguing about fat dogs with other drunks and you shoot and kill someone, you are going to prison.
 
While I don't disagree, you also have to act responsibly if you expect to be judged favorably.
If you are drunk, in a bar, in the afternoon, arguing about fat dogs with other drunks and you shoot and kill someone, you are going to prison.
From what little I know about this case, it does seem like this person reaped what he sowed. I'm just suggesting that being drunk and arguing about dogs is within a person's rights. You'll always have the right to do things good judgment suggests you shouldn't and that shouldn't be forgotten.

Nevertheless, bottom line, regardless of theoretical rights, you are correct. I doubt we disagree at all.

To say, "I have this right," doesn't necessarily mean following it to the extremes is going to end well.
 
Unfortunately, our criminal justice system has to deal with the mess of two individuals making stupid choices that resulted in the death of one person and the incarceration of the other.

One person stupidly thought that their size and strength would suffice to teach the guy with the smart mouth a lesson. He died trying to give that lesson resulting in the loss of a parent and spouse for his family. The other, stupidly thought that after provoking someone in a bar through insults and physical contact was wise. Then, despite the other guy's attempts to peaceably resolve their verbal conflict and retreat, the shooter rejected the opportunity to bury the hatchet and then proceeded to provoke an attack where the risk was that he would be severely beaten. He wrote checks that his body could not cash in other words. His response was to shoot the onrushing attacker after provoking a renewed fight. His life will now be ruined for the foreseeable future with prison and probably he will learn that size and strength do matter in a prison setting and he will have no firearm to ward off assaults due to his insults.

You can see what a certain someone said, "Blessed be the peacemakers."
 
Fair enough, but I would have enjoyed seeing how the attorneys had to argue impairment vs. reasonableness in front of a jury in a self-defense/shooting context.

Spats, please correct me if I am wrong,

In general, I believed that voluntary impairment such as drug or alcohol by the defendant and/or the attacker was suitable to mitigate the sentence received but not allowed as a factor in the calculus of a "reasonable" objective actions that were justified. After all, does the actions of an LSD taking defendant shooting someone in the elevator become "reasonable" to the objective societal std. if the LSD taker thought a person was Marvin the Martian with a raygun pointing at them. Or would you use that argument to debunk an element of the charge such as knowingly or carelessly committing a homicide if the LSD taker was charged with the old 2nd Degree murder without the lesser and included charge of manslaughter.
 
Spats, please correct me if I am wrong,

In general, I believed that voluntary impairment such as drug or alcohol by the defendant and/or the attacker was suitable to mitigate the sentence received but not allowed as a factor in the calculus of a "reasonable" objective actions that were justified. After all, does the actions of an LSD taking defendant shooting someone in the elevator become "reasonable" to the objective societal std. if the LSD taker thought a person was Marvin the Martian with a raygun pointing at them. Or would you use that argument to debunk an element of the charge such as knowingly or carelessly committing a homicide if the LSD taker was charged with the old 2nd Degree murder without the lesser and included charge of manslaughter.
To be honest, I don't know enough about MO law to really answer that one. I think your assessment is spot on, but you know how juries can be. Just because the law says "you can't take X into account" doesn't mean one side won't ring that bell, and it doesn't really mean the jury won't consider it.
 
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