[quote=“monkey”]BTW, In the UK, you can be fined and disqualified from driving for merely sitting in your stationary car while drunk (even in the back seat) and to mount a defense against this you have to prove you had no intention of driving the car - a virtually impossible undertaking. This clearly shows the “burden of proof” isn’t always on the prosecution. If you are in your car, you are assumed to be in control of it unless you can prove otherwise.[/quote] In the UK, can a person be* convicted of a homicide upon mere proof that he or she was sitting in his or her stationary car while drunk?
For me, the main issue under discussion is whether Zain Dean killed a man. I’m pretty sure that’s what they indicted him and convicted him for. Being drunk in a car, without more, or even driving drunk, without more, doesn’t shift any kind of burden to defendant on that one.
Some of the posters have talked about the act of trying to have the car junked, and so on, as if that somehow proves he killed a man. It doesn’t. Some of them seem to think he was conscious when the man was killed. Even if he were, that wouldn’t prove that he killed a man. Some of them think he’s lying about this or that side issue. Even if he were, that wouldn’t prove that he killed a man. I don’t think those other issues, even were they all to be resolved against him, would prove that he killed a man. I don’t think that being caught using pirated software proves that he killed a man. I don’t think that living in what in the old days would be called “open concubinage” (sometimes informally known as “shacking up”) proves that he killed a man; nor would lying about it prove that he killed a man. Cussing and fussing and boogieing all night long wouldn’t prove that he killed a man. Wearing daggy clothes wouldn’t prove it, either. Why, even breaking the Sabbath, believe it or not, wouldn’t prove it.
I’m not saying that being drunk wouldn’t have anything to do with it if he killed a man. I’m simply saying it doesn’t prove he killed a man, which is the main issue to me.
*edited