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Trial Begins of Joseph Walker, NJ Cop Involved in “Road Rage” Killing

Trial Begins of Joseph Walker, NJ Cop Involved in “Road Rage” Killing

New Jersey copJoseph Walker is charged with murder in the road-side shooting death of the unarmed Joseph Harvey, Jr. in Maryland

Today begins the trial of black New Jersey police officer Joseph Walker over the “road rage” killing of white victim Joseph Harvey (Jury selection begins in road-rage murder case).

Unfortunately, it does not appear that this case will be televised, as were the Zimmerman and Dunn trials in Florida, and as a result there seems no opportunity for the kind of live coverage we were able to conduct in those cases.  

We will keep you up to date based on news reports of the trial.

To date we’ve covered the Walker case closely, and we’ll continue to do so as available information allows–subject as always to the invariably biased and incorrect news reporting of the mainstream media.  Our past coverage can be reviewed below:

“Road Rage” Murder Trial: Witness Says Walker Shot Stopped Harvey ~40′ Away 

“Road Rage” Murder Trial: Walker Appeared to Goad Harvey: “Come on.”

“Road Rage” Murder Trial Delayed to July

 “Road Rage” Murder Trial: Motion to Dismiss, Grand Jury Testimony

. . . and much more.

–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense


Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He holds many state-specific Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and produces free online self-defense law educational video- and podcasts at the Law of Self Defense University.

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Comments

Hm, I’m very disappointed we can’t get live coverage.

Are there going to be any people on-sceen that are actually covering the trial exclusively, rather than just getting press releases from the prosecuting/defense attorney?

JackRussellTerrierist | July 21, 2014 at 3:01 pm

Let’s see….um….gee….I wonder why THIS trial will not be covered.

Let’s put our little thinking caps on and see if we can figure it out.

Humphrey's Executor | July 21, 2014 at 3:17 pm

Its a mixed blessing for me. Andrew’s running commentary from the Zimmerman trial was so witty and insightful, it was hard to get any work done.

I love this self-defense stuff whether the defendant is really guilty or acting in self defense. It must be incredibly difficult to serve on a jury hearing one of these cases.

Gremlin1974 | July 21, 2014 at 5:17 pm

This should be an interesting one to keep track of and to see the outcome. Unfortunately, since its not being televised it means that the courtroom part won’t come out until it is made public record. The media coverage will be interesting though.

I hope Walker, like Zimm, will reflect long and hard on the fact that he has voted (98% likely anyway) to institute the very sort of leftist regime that is now trying to immolate him.

His defense will be foolish to argue the fine points of a self defense law actually intended to preclude self defense.

Discredit the extremely vulnerable prosecution witnesses, stress the Walker family, put the unsympathetic Harvey on trial and nullify the jury.

    JackRussellTerrierist in reply to bildung. | July 21, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    Spoken like a true fascist.

      Oh I’m sorry–did I offend you by showing no respect for hard left legalism?

      Some people , IE libs and their running dog enablers, just have the hardest time grasping that dangerous behavior can get you dead without anyone else being criminally liable.

      The ‘self defense’ laws in MD are themselves nothing but a nullification of classic doctrine and deserve nothing but nullification in return.

    Your meds.

    Take ’em.

    You’re welcome.

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

    tom swift in reply to bildung. | July 22, 2014 at 1:10 am

    Walker’s big problem won’t be rampant leftoidism, it will be showing that he has a case of self defense at all. Recall that his story about stopping to check his tires, not noticing Harvey’s approach, etc. is either unsupported or contradicted by all the witness statements we’ve seen so far.

      bildung in reply to tom swift. | July 22, 2014 at 8:45 am

      How can he not have a case at all if in the very next sentence you point out that Harvey did advance on him?

      That is the case and all of your ‘witnesses’ either have credibility problems, didn’t actually see anything, and/or contradict one another.

      Though I would tend to agree with you that, under leftist laws designed not to define self defense, but to render it virtually impossible, arguing a strictly technical case would be a bad idea.

      It needs to boil down to this for the jury: just as in the Michael Dunn case, who everyone here had swinging from a crane, Iranian style, Walker didn’t start it.

      And despite all the brilliant legalistic commentary here, if Dunn hadn’t fired at a fleeing vehicle, he’d be walking the streets today.

        “And despite all the brilliant legalistic commentary here, if Dunn hadn’t fired at a fleeing vehicle, he’d be walking the streets today.”

        Hahaha, no.

        He wasn’t acquitted on the murder charges, the jury hung. He’s scheduled to be re-tried on those charges.

        And just as was the case prior to his first trial–during which he was held in jail awaiting trial, without bail, and was NOT “walking the streets”–he’d be held in jail awaiting re-trial, without bail, and would NOT be “walking the streets.”

        As for “who started” it, the relevant question in a deadly-force self-defense case is “who started the deadly force confrontation.” There is a great deal of evidence that Dunn used deadly force and absolutely none–other than Dunn’s self-serving testimony–that any of the victims used or threatened deadly force at all. No one else heard a threat from the victims, no one else saw anything resembling a weapon wielded by the victims. All this in an environment fairly rich in witnesses.

        And while there’s nothing inherently defective about a defendant’s self-serving testimony in a self-defense case–indeed, it’s quite common that’s all the evidence the defendant has–it does mean that the defendant’s credibility is of critical importance to the jury buying his narrative of innocence.

        Dunn destroyed his credibility when he fled the scene far beyond the need for immediately safety, and the police had to call him the following day rather than he calling the police.

        Had he stayed on scene, or as close as a reasonable need for safety permitted, and immediately communicated with responding officers–“I had to defend myself, they threatened my life and pointed a shotgun-like object at me, you might look for it over there where they briefly stopped”–his narrative of innocence would have been far more consistent with genuine self-defense, and therefore far more compelling.

        But he didn’t. He fled. And blamed the need for flight on his girlfriend’s concern for her dog. Oofah.

        Maybe he’ll do a better time telling his story the second time around. But I doubt it.

        –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

        Ragspierre in reply to bildung. | July 22, 2014 at 10:21 am

        Just as a frame of reference on our loopy “friend”, Buldung…

        remember he can telepathically diagnose teenaged young men as “psychopaths” on the sole indicator of their “aggressive” playing of loud music.

        tom swift in reply to bildung. | July 22, 2014 at 11:21 am

        all of your ‘witnesses’ either have credibility problems, didn’t actually see anything, and/or contradict one another.

        The obvious point is that they don’t support Walker’s story. And without that story, there’s no self defense case.

Every time I see Walker’s picture I think he looks a lot like Nate Dogg. http://uptownmagazine.com/files/2014/04/uptown-nate-dogg.jpg

This whole case is very interesting, This is due to the fact I’ve never seen the long arm of the law come against one of its own,the way its come down on Detective Walker. Walker’s case is very common in law enforcement. What’s uncommon is the way Harvey the unarmed person shot is having the long arm of the law on his side in such a vigorous manner.In my opinion this is due to Walker being Black and Harvey being White.I also notice the lack of support for Walker.Again in my opinion,if Harvey were the cop and Walker unarmed person shot to death ,Harvey would have more supportive commentary.

    Ragspierre in reply to m1. | July 22, 2014 at 1:37 pm

    Well, you are wrong.

    In my opinion this is due to Walker being Black and Harvey being White.I also notice the lack of support for Walker.

    See my response to you on the previous comment thread.

    Not everything is about race. Truly, it’s not.

      I never said every thing is about race. I look at cases from a historic context. When you see things in that sense,you can only come to the conclusion that Walker is being treated differently than white cops in the same situation. No unarmed black victim shot to death by a white cop,has had the law come against a cop the way Harvey has.

        Walker wasn’t acting as a cop in this situation. He’s a New Jersey cop who gets to play cop in New Jersey. In Maryland, he’s not a cop.

        Could you provide me with a case where an off-duty white cop who is well out of his state’s jurisdiction (and in a duty to retreat state at that) shoots and kills an unarmed black guy he feels dissed by and claims “self defense” and gets away with it?

        If a white off-duty Florida cop carried his weapon up to Bal’more and shot some unarmed black man over some petty “road rage” incident that he could have actually avoided, do you think Maryland would treat him less harshly than they did Walker? I don’t.

        …you can only come to the conclusion that Walker is being treated differently than white cops* in the same situation.”

        Speak for yourself. Race is obviously much more of thing to you than it is to me. That’s your problem, not mine.

        *reminder: Mr Walker is a New Jersey cop; he has no jurisdiction in Maryland. They actually have their own cops there.

    Gremlin1974 in reply to m1. | July 23, 2014 at 7:18 pm

    So anyone who doesn’t support Walker for shooting an unarmed man after letting him advance 150 feet is racist, is that your point? If so then I name the “Moron”.

    Also you are ignoring the fact that this particular “long arm of the law” was a cop from a different state and New Jersey has a reputation for coming down hard on law enforcement officers from other states. So turn about is fair play.

    I don’t care what color who was, Walker had ample time to retreat safely, imho, in a state the requires retreat. Instead he chose to stand there and then shoot a guy for, imho, no reason. Race has nothing to do with it.