Teen's lawyer: the fishermen intentionally shot at the teens, resulting in Summer Moody's death

[petronius]

70. I get that, but it doesn't mean the shooter shouldn't be charged, and there's no

reason the DA couldn't or shouldn't pursue both legitimate cases. It is certainly possible that two crimes occurred (or none, or just one on either side) and the DA is not in any way limited to just working one of them. A higher charge may be the most important, but DAs don't have a quota on how many cases they can file.

The question is whether the shooter had a legally valid reason to fire, and all I can see is a reasonable fear of injury/death (which hasn't been suggested) or an Alabama law allowing you to fire warning shots to communicate a message to halt or to interrupt a suspected crime. Not knowing she was there is not any sort of justification - blindly shooting someone is negligence under any circumstances.

So absent a valid justification for the shooting, the shooter deserves charges, and the outcome for the teens is wholly irrelevant to that.

Possible murder charges against the teens don't negate charges against the shooter: if a person catches someone committing a crime but doesn't have a legal justification to kill them, yet does anyway, any accomplices may be charged with murder but that doesn't erase the shooters crime in any way at all.

And, if there is a possibility that the precise actions of the teens has bearing on whether or not the shooter was justified, how can the DA say no "charges" before completing both inquiries?