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Sat 31 Mar, 2007 06:55 am
I dedicate this story to Reyn.........but I found it first! 
Quote:ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -- Darrell Roberson came home from a card game late one night to find his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway.
Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson -- thinking quickly, if not clearly -- cried rape, authorities say. Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.
On Thursday, a grand jury handed up a manslaughter indictment -- against the wife, not the husband.
In a case likely to reinforce the state's reputation for don't-mess-with-Texas justice, the grand jury declined to charge the husband with murder, the charge on which he was arrested by police.
"If I found somebody with my wife or with my kids in my house, there's no telling what I might do," said Juan Muniz, 33, who was having lunch Friday with one of his two small children at a restaurant in the middle-class suburban Dallas neighborhood where the Robersons lived. "I probably would have done the same thing."
Tracy Roberson, 35, could get two to 20 years in prison in the slaying of Devin LaSalle, a 32-year-old UPS employee.
Assistant District Attorney Sean Colston declined to comment on specifics of the case or the grand jury proceedings but said Texas law allows a defendant to claim justification if he has "a reasonable belief that his actions are necessary, even though what they believe at the time turns out not to be true."
Mark Osler, a Baylor University law school professor and a former federal prosecutor, said the grand jurors evidently put themselves in the husband's place: "I can see one of them saying, `I would have shot the guy, too. I was just protecting my wife."'
The December night before the shooting, Tracy Roberson sent LaSalle a text message that read in part, "Hi friend, come see me please! I need to feel your warm embrace!" according to court papers. LaSalle apparently agreed.
Darrell Roberson, a 38-year-old employee of a real estate firm, discovered the two, his wife clad in a robe and underwear.
When Tracy Roberson cried that she was being raped, LaSalle tried to drive away and her husband drew the gun he happened to be carrying and fired several shots at the truck, authorities said.
Darrell Roberson's attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.
His wife also was charged with making a false report to a police officer -- for allegedly saying she was raped -- and could get up to six months behind bars on that offense. It was not immediately clear whether she had a lawyer.
She had not been arrested as of Friday afternoon.
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It's an open and shut case, if she cried rape. He thought he was avenging/protecting his wife.
If you say protecting, I agree. Avenging, no!
agreed. The main lesson here, women can't be trusted.
It's like a trip back in time, when women were property that needed "protecting" as Edgar claims, but still got the privilege of paying for the crimes of their partner.
Based on the information given ~ she's a stupid, adulterous, lying, cheating woman who, in a fair world, should not be allowed to pollute the gene pool by breeding. She is not a murderer, however, her husband is.
Under Texan law, if the conviction holds, will she get capital punishment?
Changing my answer. Just reread the description. The husband shot the man who was trying to get away. Protection was really not an issue at that point.
I think the shooting was understandable, but I don't know if it was justified.
I do believe that the woman committed a crime.
Gonna have to to additional pondering about the husband.
In a perfect world, the husband would civilly ask the man to wait here while we sort this thing out. In a world that positively dotes on violence and death penalties, the man acts to protect his wife. If an element of vengence enters, it is human nature, especially in light of the conditioning Americans receive. If, in a similar situation, a man found his son getting attacked, he would have acted the same. The 'women as property' angle doesn't seem to me to be valid here.
Tico- I am a woman, and if I had a gun, and saw someone attacking my husband with deadly force, I probably would use it. The woman led her husband to believe that she was being raped. I think that he was within his rights to use deadly force.
I mentioned that I saw a great difference between avenging and protecting someone that you love. If the husband had come home, and the wife had said that she had just been raped, but the man was no longer there, there would be no excuse for the husband to go after the guy and kill him. That would be "avenging". I thought that sort of thing went out with hoop skirts and high button shoes. The right thing for the husband to do in that scenario, would be to call the police.
But here he thought that he was actually observing a rape. I agree those who believe that he should not be prosecuted.
I don't think I agree that the use of deadly force was justified here, even if the woman had been raped and especially since the man was trying to escape. The hubby could have wounded him, no?
Is rape really a killing offense?
It doesn't matter to me whether he thought she was being attacked or not. The question is, should she be convicted of murder. To that, I say "no" because she did not kill anyone. You can dress this up in any amount of emotion, or precedence, or whatever, but she did not pull the trigger.
I'm not saying that she's not guilty (of many things), I'm saying that she did not kill anyone and therefore should not be convicted of murder.
I agree with you Phoenix. When I read it the second time, I thought the wife was no longer in the truck.
Just read it yet again. Not sure. If the wife was still in the truck, justifiable homicide. If the wife wasn't in the truck, not sure but probably murder.
Either way, the wife yelling rape caused the shooting. She's responsible. Without being sure of where the wife was when the shooting took place, I'm now on the fence about the husband.
This one's a doozy.
I'm betting that this woman's in-laws are sitting around their kitchen tables congratulating themselves that finally That Woman has shown her true colors.
perhaps I misunderstand, from the news I saw last night, the husband went outside his home to find a truck parked with his wife and a man inside it, she was in her underware and started screaming "rape" at which time the other man started to drive away with the woman still screaming rape (the other man ws driving away with the woman and that's when shots were fired.)
Thanks, dys. Off the fence. Justifiable homicide for the man. The woman is responsible for her lover's death.
dyslexia wrote:perhaps I misunderstand, from the news I saw last night, the husband went outside his home to find a truck parked with his wife and a man inside it, she was in her underware and started screaming "rape" at which time the other man started to drive away with the woman still screaming rape (the other man ws driving away with the woman and that's when shots were fired.)
If that's the way it went down, then I agree with Roberta.
) What she did was unconscionable, and caused the death of another human being.
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