THE INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF RANDALL WEAVER

Errors of the Investigation and Prosecution of Randall Weaver



Errors of the Investigation and Prosecution of Randall Weaver

Introduction

The case of investigation and prosecution of Randall Weaver, there were many mistakes, which were made during the incident and during the trial. Weaver was accused of selling illegal weapons to a BATF informant. It is said that Weaver was tricked in selling the illegal weapons. When Weaver was charged of selling the illegal weapons, he was notified that the trial was on February 19, 1991. However, when the date of the trial was changed to February 20, Weaver received a notice saying that the trial has been changed to March 20, 1991. This was the first of the many mistakes, which were made in this case. The research will focus on the errors and mistakes, which were made during the investigation of Randal Weaver.

Thesis Statement

There were many errors and mistakes in the investigation and prosecution of Randall Weaver.

Discussion

After the first mistake, which was made in the investigation of sending the wrong date to Randall Weaver, the court issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Weaver for failure to appear to the trail. Weaver and his wife Vicki were convinced that they would not receive a fair trial, which is the reason why they decided to isolate themselves. Weaver decided to fight against the arrest rather than to surrender. The Marshall services started to gather information about Weaver and developing plans for arresting him. They decided to conduct an undercover operation to arrest Weaver without causing any incident.

In August 1992, U.S. Marshalls went to survey the Weaver property. The Weaver's dogs detected their presence and started barking. Weaver's son, Sammy and their guest, Kevin, went to investigate. It is unclear as to who fired the first shot but Sammy was shot on the arm and U.S. Marshal William Degan was shot on the chest. Both of them died. This was another mistake of the army. The police are not supposed to use deadly force especially on a child. The officials should have announced their presence and should have made their identification known which would have avoided all the shootings. The next day, Randy Weaver, Harris, and Weaver's 16-year-old daughter Sara were seen outside the cabin, FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi attempted to shot Weaver, whose back was turned to him. Weaver moved his position just as the shot was fired and hit him in the shoulder. This research will focus on an in-depth analysis of all the mistakes, which were made in the investigation and the trials (Walter, 2002).

Research Methods

The research method, which will be used in the research, is qualitative research. The secondary resource data will be utilized in collecting data for this research. The secondary source of data includes relevant literature, periodicals & journal articles. In this research study the data collected from the secondary research methods extracted from numerous sources. These sources were online libraries, peer review journals, and criminal ...