CT convicts Jeffery Sumpter, assault victim
AnotherPat sends us a link from Fox News which tells the story of 21-year-old Jeffery Sumpter who was convicted in Connecticut court for stabbing in the leg one of three criminals who jumped him at his job at Dunkin’ Donuts;
“I was defending myself,” Sumpter said during the hearing.
Judge John Blawie told Sumpter that he believed his version of events, but had to follow the letter of the law.
Under Connecticut law, assault victims cannot use deadly force if they are able to retreat from their attackers.
Sumpter was convicted of felony first-degree assault, sentenced to eighteen months in prison and three years probation. I would be an ex-Connecticut resident yesterday. What a shithole.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
SMH
Disband connecticutt! The are insane! Someone stab that judge in the head to let the air out, a stab in the leg is NOT DEADLY FORCE! That stupid ass judge needs to go clean out chicken sheds! He believes the kid story but sentences him? what about the a.h.’s that attacked him? free dunkin donuts?
This clean cut kid is probably the only one in his neighborhood working! Now he is going to be labeled an ex-con and damned hard to get a job, hope this prick judge is happy! Kid is going to be VERY DISGRUNTlED when he gets out and who in hell could blame him? Prez Trump, USE YOUR PARDON PRIVILEGE on the kids behalf!!imho
And THAT is the real basis for stand Your Ground law, not the made-up BS you hear from the media.
How in the world are you suppose to break contact and run away from three men who are beaten on you (without throwing a handy trashcan at them).
He should contact his Senator…Oh wait.
Guess he should have just taken the beating. That’ll teach him to use deadly force while others are trying to kill him! /s
I also wonder what the perpetrators got. Apparently they were juveniles, so my guess is they got off with a lighter sentence than he did.
https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Police-Bridgeport-man-charged-in-weekend-stabbing-12249306.php
another fine example of the results of giving liberals control of your state….
And this, boys and girls, is reason #1 to never live permanently in a place that qualifies as a Socialist_run sh!thole.
This is another example of one party rule…the government doesn’t represent you, the government owns you. And you’re not free to act as you will you’re only as free as they allow which in CT these days ain’t very free.
At first glance, this looks wrong. But when you read the articles, he had been attacked, the attackers left and he was no longer in danger, then he grabbed a knife, left his place of safety and went outside and stabbed a guy.
This is not the self-defense case hill you want to die on, folks. And yes, I recently fled CT because it does in fact suck for anyone who is a fan of the 2A or who isn’t a batcrap crazy socialist.
Understand what you are saying, but a case could be made that if the bad guys remained on the property, peril continued to exist.
Congrats on your escape!
The Fox News article makes no mention of that, only stating that he stabbed someone during the altercation. Guess they can’t be trusted for the whole picture either.
I’m with Retired LEO on this one. Grabbing a weapon and hunting down one’s assailants is revenge, not self defense.
YMMV
If he felt they were an immediate danger to others in the vicinity then he would be doing his duty as a citizen to stop them. Or something to that effect…your honor sir.
Big “if” there, I just going with what’s posted. “If” it was indeed as Ret. Leo described, call the cops and then go.
All accounts agree that after the judge (Blewit/Blewie/Whatavere heard from Sumpter, the judge stated that he agreed with Sumpter’s version. The lawyer in the black robe then told Sumpter that he had to follow the letter of the law. Talk about bullshit. See, there’s this thing in the trial process, just before sentencing, called mitigation. The judge could have done a great many things less than giving him 18 mos. Of course, we don’t know what, if anything, Sumpter’s history is. That could have been a factor in the sentencing. No matter. The judge was full of shit in what he said.
“Judges don’t really have to follow the letter of the law, BUT we’ll tell you that we do if we need to use the law as an excuse to do what we want to. Just remember, you can’t sue us, so fuck off and have a nice day.”
Stupid. Just too stupid for words.
Mr. Sumpter will be forced to continue to live in CT for a while, but after that there are many states which would welcome his move there. He has already demonstrated a willingness to protect himself and defend his employer’s business. Good qualities.
I left Connecticut in 2002, came back a couple times on leave, and now have resided here for 5 years.
It ain’t the same place by a stretch.
That good ol’ New Englander pragmatism is gone, supplanted with some commie, social justice, feel good BS.
Taxing and legislating our way into the trash bin of history.
Freedom to pursue Happiness? As long as you have the proper permit or you’re grandfathered in.
Step out of line, even slightly like this poor fellow, and the jackboots will hem you up for the good of the herd.
“He who transplants, sustains” indeed.
Transplanting one’s self out of this sh*thole is the only avenue to sustain or attaining position for succeeding.
I hate you Connecticut. You’re the Maxine Waters of States.
Couldn’t have said it better myself Dog. Already bought a house down south and will be out of this shithole state by Christmas.
This is truly dicked up. Where was he supposed to retreat to? The bathroom stall? Damn, it was three against one! The governor should immediately pardon this guy.
Dannel P. Malloy?
If there’s a camera around and he can make the pardon part of a multimillion public transportation boondoggle, it just might happen.
Then again what politician isn’t a camera hound. I suppose that’s not even a question.
As Retired LEO said in a previous post, Jeffery followed his assailants outside, and stabbed one of them.
Not a case of self defense.
Fair enough yet at the same time I’ve little problem with thugs getting a dose of their own medicine.
This is sickening. What PD arrested/charged this guy and what DA or prosecutor would pursue those charges? This is why there’s prosecutorial discretion. Many points of failure in the people who are supposed to protect this young man.
Sad thing indeed. This young man’s life is ruined. Because a judge said he had to follow the letter of the law. The same letter that he uses to release violent criminals and illegals every day.
Exactly! And the article doesn’t say what became of the three thugs. They were probably considered victims of climate change.
Other articles have the three being arrested after being discovered in an alley with one of them bleeding profusely from the leg.
BTW – this young man’s life was “ruined” prior to this incident.
“According to court records, Sumpter pleaded guilty on Feb. 10 to third-degree assault and carrying a dangerous weapon following a December arrest in Bridgeport. He also has a pending violation of probation charge.”
The prior conviction for assault may be the reason for the severity of this sentence.
May we presume that he can appeal the judges decision? Just suppose that it was one of those hideous Kennedy spawn who was in the same situation. That letter of the law shit goes right down the drain with the rest of the Camelot sewer trout.
Well, he can certainly move for a reconsideration of sentence. That’s something that frequently happens. Guy gets 10 years. Judge makes great speech from the bench. Sentence and parts of speech are printed in paper. Judge is happy. A month later, with no one watching, defendant reappears before judge who slices and dices the sentence originally imposed. It’s part of the game.
OTOH, it is possible that the prison will see their way to recommending some “slack” and getting him back into the world.
I have no experience in the penal system but, at a guess, they probably have pretty good intuition for picking out the shitbirds from folks caught up in the system.
AF Branco explains:
As a quick refresher, there are five elements to a claim of self-defense—innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonableness—and the issue of retreat falls under the element of avoidance. Avoidance has to do with whether there’s a legal duty to retreat, if safely possible, before using force in self-defense.
The large majority of states, about 36, have Stand-Your-Ground laws and do not impose the element of avoidance absent aggravating circumstances. In these states, there is no legal duty to retreat before defending oneself.
It’s true that Connecticut, where these events took place, is one of the few 14 or so remaining “duty-to-retreat” states. So, was the problem with Sumpter’s claim of self-defense that he had a safe avenue of retreat, but failed to take advantage of it before he stabbed one of his attackers? That’s certainly what the headline “Victim of assault gets 18 months for not retreating” would suggest, right?
Well, as you might have guessed, the answer is “no,” the failure of Sumpter’s claim of self-defense had nothing to do with him failing to take advantage of a safe avenue of retreat, and thus nothing to do with the element of avoidance.
Self-Defense Fails If Defender Becomes Aggressor
The failure of Sumpter’s claim of self-defense is found in the element of innocence. How can that be, you might ask, given that it’s uncontested that the three aggressors attacked HIM. Because, as the media itself reports: “After being assaulted inside the coffee shop, Sumpter ran outside and stabbed one of the men.”
That is a problem. In the eyes of the law what we have here is not a single fight in which Sumpter defended himself against the attack of the three aggressors. That fight did happen, but it also ended, when the aggressors left the coffee shop.
When Sumpter then pursued them and stabbed them, he became the aggressor in a second fight. As the aggressor in this second fight he lost the element of innocence, and thus lost self-defense as a justification for his stabbing one of the aggressors.
Read the whole thing.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/07/self-defense-claim-lost-when-defender-becomes-aggressor/
You may be confusing Andrew Branca with A.F. Branco. Agreed, all of Branca’s material is worth reading.
Branco is a genius, Branca is a lawyer, vowel for vowel, Legal Insurrection is worth a look, every day, right after TAH!
Sorry. Mixed up the names.
You are obviously correct.
But Branco does make the legal case of what many are missing here. Once the initial fight ended with the three thugs running away, Sumpter initiated a new fight and that is against the law.
Reasonable explanation for why the dude was arrested and jailed. Not that any of us would ever find ourselves in that position. Most of us have a CCP and would not have had to follow the perps out of the business. Perps would have all been DRT. As always, dead perps have no story to tell.
IMHO, this very short article has some good points, especially about the harsh punishment Sumpter received.
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/07/04/stand-ground-laws-vital-/
Your Honor all I remember is being hit and kicked till was semi-concious and bleeding. The folks around here would be saying to the attackers you are lucky he didn’t cut your throat. So shut up. When will you be sentanced ? Joe