California: Man Released on Same Day He’s Convicted of Stabbing 2 Women to Death


Shawn Shirck is not a black guy

In California, even white guys can just kill women and have no punishment.

This is awesome and really the way it always should have been.

I have never understood how it could be against the law to kill women.

Los Angeles Times:

A man convicted of killing two women in a brutal slaying in Ojai Valley was sentenced — and then freed the same day — following a Tuesday morning hearing in Ventura County Superior Court.

Shawn Shirck, 29, was quickly identified as the prime suspect and arrested hours after deputies found the bodies of Margaret Dahl, 59, and her mother Phyllis Porter, 82, who had both been stabbed to death, on Aug. 24, 2019, in Oak View.

But the jury’s decision to convict Shirck on charges of involuntary manslaughter, instead of the more serious charge of murder, as well as court delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, meant Shirck was released Tuesday for time served, according to court records. He was released despite receiving the longest possible sentence for his conviction.


Margaret Dahl and Phyllis Porter

“We’re very disgusted, sick to our stomachs,” said Amanda Dahl, Margaret Dahl’s daughter-in-law. “I don’t think the justice system did us any justice. I don’t think 3½ years for murdering two women is a punishment.”

Had Shirck been convicted of murder, he could have faced a possible sentence of 52 years to life. However, defense attorneys argued Shirck was intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness during the attack and that he was also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of physical abuse during his childhood.

Next time I see some kid crying about his dad beating him, I’m gonna cheer him up by telling him that he can get away with murder in a couple of decades thanks to it.

Jurors found prosecutors did not meet the burden of proof required for a murder conviction and instead found Shirck guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

On Tuesday morning, Shirck was sentenced in Ventura County court to six years and four months for the two deaths.

Because he’d been in custody for nearly four years during the trial, and because state law gave him an additional day‘s credit for each day he spent in county jail, Shirck walked into his sentencing hearing Tuesday with a credit of 2,773 days served, or more than 7½ years, according to court records.

After Shirck was sentenced to the legal maximum for involuntary manslaughter, Judge Ryan Wright ruled he could be released for time served. Shirck was ordered to report to a parole office within 24 hours.

“He only has to do half that time,” Dahl said. “I don’t think being drunk is an OK escape from this. It’s just baffling.”

The unique set of circumstances has troubled relatives of the two victims, who said they’ve become committed to change state laws because of it.

“This is not justice,” Dahl said. “That’s not OK with me.”

Shirck had been reportedly upset on the day of the killings because he and his girlfriend broke up, according to family members who sat through the trial.

Shirck headed to his father’s house where Margaret Dahl, who had been in a relationship with his father, was staying with her mother.

Witnesses testified that Shirck had been physically abused at the home, and his defense attorney argued he was suffering from PTSD as well as drinking heavily that day.

PTSD is like Xanax – it makes the drinks three times as effective.

Shirck’s state of mind quickly became a central issue during the trial, as defense attorneys argued that he drank so much before the killings that he was unconscious when the crimes occurred.

According to the state penal code, “If someone dies as a result of the actions of a person who was unconscious due to voluntary intoxication, then the killing is involuntary manslaughter.”

Dahl had reportedly been stabbed about 20 times, according to the Ventura County Star. Prosecutors also argued during the trial Shirck showed signs that he was conscious during the attack, pointing to the multiple stabbings in the attack and the fact Shirck broke through two doors to reach Margaret Dahl during the attack.

One of the 12 jurors in the case told the Ojai Valley News that prosecutors failed to show intent, and failed to prove that Shirck was in fact conscious during the killings.

Yeah, I mean – whenever I’ve stabbed women to death, it’s been because I drank too much and had a tough childhood.

“I think what the verdict came down to, one fulcrum point in particular, the people have the burden of proving, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant was not unconscious in the legal sense,” the unnamed juror told the newspaper. “We agreed pretty clearly they did not do that.”

Chief Deputy Public Defender Ayala Benefraim, Shirck’s defense attorney, said that when she first took the case she wasn’t aware of the possibility of voluntary intoxication causing unconsciousness as a defense. Other attorneys she consulted with were also unaware of the unusual defense.

“It’s not a common situation, but I don’t think this is a common set of facts,” Benefraim said in an interview. “He was blacked out and had a PTSD episode. The more we looked into it, the more it collaborated with the details.”

Exactly.

No crime was committed.

Now, he should sue the state for keeping him incarcerated for too long.

California needs to put this on their brochures: “Kill women – you will not be punished!”

They should really implement some kind of “big game hunting” program against women.

They are, after all, the most dangerous prey. Except for like, lions and tigers. And boars. And like, hippos. Probably, actually, most animals are more dangerous than women. They could conceivably be the least dangerous prey. I’m not sure how they got that “most dangerous” label.

But yeah, I want to do Oak View woman hunting safari tours.

Before you shoot, you just have to yell “agh, I’m so drunk and I had a bad childhood!”