Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire prosecution of harold fish and use of 10mm

I'm sure Mister Fish used a 10mm only because he found 11mm and 12mm ammo were hard to come by.

If I remember the case, the prosecutor threw all kinds of stuff on the wall trying to paint Fish as the bad guy. The biggest was keeping the mental history of the deceased out of the hands of the jury. He was a violent nut job.

Good news (If I remember correctly) Fish finally got the case overturned on appeal.

The video mentioned that the prosecutor was convicted for prosecutorial misconduct; GREAT! That should be a slam-dunk for Fish to get a big settlement against him.

Fish is dead.

they were both a little nuts, the first decedent especially.

fish was a little goofy too.

as I recall the news. was tried in town here, happened at the southern end of our county.

I still don't see any relevance where he was prosecuted for using a 10mm.

He was exonerated by the appeals court though.

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=42

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On May 11, 2004, 57-year-old Harold Fish, a retired high school teacher, was completing a solo hike in a remote area of the Coconino National Forest near Strawberry, Arizona, when he saw 43-year-old Grant Kuenzli lying on the ground near a car. Fish waved at Kuenzli, whom he did not know, and two unleashed dogs came charging at him.

Fish yelled at Kuenzli to corral the dogs and, when nothing happened, he pulled a 10-millimeter semi-automatic pistol from his backpack and fired a warning shot into the ground. The dogs scattered, but then, according to Fish, Kuenzli himself charged at Fish, threatening to kill him.

Fish fired three shots and killed Kuenzli, a former firefighter who was living out of his car in the forest. Fish covered Kuenzli’s body with a tarp and walked to a highway where he flagged down a motorist who summoned emergency personnel.

In the days after the shooting, a Coconino County deputy sheriff stated publicly that the shooting was a case of self-defense, sparking a public debate between citizens who believed the shooting was unwarranted and the National Rifle Association, which supported Fish. The deputy was removed from the case and on June 4, 2004, Fish was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

By the time Fish, who had no criminal record, went on trial in Coconino County Superior Court in the summer of 2006, the case had become the focal point of a public debate over what constitutes self-defense, the dangers of unleashed dogs and hiker safety on public land.

At trial, the prosecution presented testimony from a forensic expert that the angle of entry of the bullets into Kuenzli’s body showed the wounds were defensive. One of the bullets pierced Kuenzli’s hand and arm before striking his chest, the expert said, indicating he had a hand raised in self-defense, and, therefore, that Fish was not acting in self-defense. Fish’s attorneys had sought to bar the testimony as speculative, but the judge permitted the testimony. On the other hand, the judge barred the defense from presenting the testimony of a defense investigator who had examined the crime scene and the path taken by Kuenzli and would have testified that the evidence showed Kuenzli was aggressively moving toward Fish.

Fish did not testify, but his wife and daughter, as well as several witnesses testified to the dogs’ propensity for aggression and violence. The jury also heard a portion of Fish’s grand jury testimony in which he said that he felt in fear of his life when Kuenzli charged him. The incident lasted no more than 10 seconds, according to the testimony.

Fish’s defense attorneys tried to present evidence of Kuenzli’s violent behavior on other occasions when he thought his dogs were attacked, but the judge refused to allow the jury to hear that evidence.

On June 14, 2006, Fish was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to the minimum term, 10 years in prison.

Later that same year, the Arizona legislature enacted a law that expands the rights of citizens to use lethal force when attacked and requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a criminal defendant was not acting in self-defense in order to get a conviction. Before that the defendant had to prove that he was acting in self-defense.

In July 2009, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed Fish’s conviction because the trial judge failed to give necessary jury instructions, and because the judge improperly excluded evidence of Kuenzli’s past acts of violence which Fish attempted to present to support his claim that Kuenzli was the aggressor.

The appellate court noted that the evidence about Kuenzli’s background was “highly sanitized,” and that if permitted, numerous witnesses would have described Kuenzli as “irrationally aggressive and violent and extremely frightening.”

Fish was released from prison on bond on July 21, 2009. On December 1, 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected the prosecution’s request to review the case. The Coconino County District Attorney’s office then dismissed the case.

And the jury had another issue to think about: Fish’s gun.

The firearms investigator said that Fish’s gun — a 10mm — is more powerful than what police officers use and is not typically used for personal protection. And the ammunition Fish used to shoot Kuenzli three times, called “a hollow-point bullet,” is made to expand when it enters the body.[/b]

When he decided to pull the trigger, the prosecutor said, Fish should have known what the consequences would be.

Lessler: Mr. Fish knew well what a hollow-point bullet does.

Larson: And the end product of his shooting is going to be death?

Lessler: Yes.

And this juror was disturbed by the type of bullets Fish used.

[b]Elliot: The whole hollow point thing bothered me. That bullet is designed to do as much damage as absolutely possible. It’s designed to kill.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15199221/ns/dateline_nbc-crime_reports/t/trail-evidence/#.XCqPEDBKiUk

This happened in AZ.....is anyone surprised that he was prosecuted?

...and to the OP, NO.
I do not select the caliber or cartridge of my Carry and SD firearms based on anything but personal choice. I do not carry a 25 because the 380 is to big and I don not carry a 380 because a 9mm is to big and I do not carry a 40 S&W because...etc.

I also carry the ammo I carry due to personal choice. Depending on the firearm, I may carry HP or FMJ or handloads, or even cast lead handloads.

What bullet did these idiots think a person would avail themselves for self defense, other than the best for that application?

Fuzzy rainbow colored ones.

Just had to Google up this case. Looks like it was a questionable shoot, questionable prosecution, and an overall goatfugk.

The 10mm angle seems to have had little if anything to do with his conviction.

He's dead now anyway.

Steve 4102, thanks for posting a link that actually pertained to introduction into the trial what the OP was referencing about the 10mm, I don't know why he didn't. A question to anyone, don't LEOs in AZ use hollow points?

I carry Black Talons in my Delta Elite....Lord I'd be toast.

No need to read the link posted.

The link posted is is for Harold Fish's APPEAL Not the original trial transcript.

Of course it wouldn't have the entire lower court transcripts listed.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that, even in the case of law enforcement, the use of deadly force didn’t used to be a given. That there was a ‘shoot to stop’ vs. ‘shoot to kill’ dichotomy.

I remember my uncle, who was a LEO at the time, explaining that his department discouraged cartridges bearing a “magnum” designation for duty use. Officers in this department could choose their duty weapon. He explained that there was concern about how a jury would respond to the term “magnum” in the case of a fatal officer involved shooting.

The idea was that magnums were commonly understood by the public to have increased lethality (thanks to movies like Dirty Harry, etc.) and would imply an intent to kill rather than stop. This was a small town police department in the 80’s. The tone of the prosecution in the Harold Fish case seems to be a product of that same era.

Old wive's tale bullschit.

Kingston, there could be differences in departments, but when I went through the basic academy in '85, the emphasis was that you were shooting to stop, but, you must recognize that the use of a firearm constituted deadly force, and that the need to stop the assailant was so great that death was an acceptable result. I think this was because if you said you were shooting to kill it made you sound bloodthirsty. If you had said you were shooting to stop but differentiated that from shooting to kill, you would be in reckless disregard of human life.

edit: One also needs to recognize that when shot, an assailant may immediately desist, and to continue "shooting to kill" is then murder.

Yeah, well...

You're retired. Grin...

Happy New Year.

Read my posts above, the transcript he read are for the APPEAL not the lower court transcripts.