An appropriate charge

James Ihaka in the Herald reports:

A man who allegedly mistook a woman for a deer before shooting her dead at a campsite is to reappear in court today, this time charged with manslaughter.

Andrew Mears, a 25-year-old motor trimmer from Hamilton, originally pleaded guilty to a charge of carelessly using a firearm causing death when he appeared in the Taupo District Court on November 3.

But police sought a remand without plea on the charge pending the recommendations of the Crown Solicitor at Rotorua. Yesterday the officer leading the investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Todd Pearce, said Mears would now also face a charge of manslaughter.

As I blogged previously, I think this is appropriate.

Mr Mears seems very remorseful, and one can only feel sympathy for his family.

But at the end of the day, this was not an accident. A young woman was shot to death by Mr Mears. True he did not know he was aiming at her, but when using a gun the test can not be that you did not know what you were aiming at – it has to be you are certain what you are aiming at.

Add onto that the recklessness (and illegality) of shooting at night, and shooting from a moving car, and manslaughter is the necessary charge. There has to be a very clear message to gun users about such behaviour.

Having said that, this is one case where people won’t be calling for the maximum sentence. Manslaughter is the correct charge, and a jail term is inevitable, but I don’t think having Mears spend many years in prison will be of great benefit to anyone.