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The tactic is used by both sides of a debate, happens all the time. Concerning that underlined part, haven't we heard the cry for names of the independent reviewers of Ketchum's data? Same standard right?

+1000 to WSA here. I'm no lawyer, but have spent some time reading up on such things some years ago when getting my HCP. Drew, I think perhaps your Canadian citizenship (if I understood your earlier post correctly) gives you some warped sense of how justice is dispensed here in the US, much less in Oklahoma. You seem to be of the misguided belief that when Man A shoots Man B, that automatically Man A goes to jail for a very long time. Our system is nowhere near that simplistic. Depending on circumstances (intent and so forth) it is not uncommon for a shooter such as Man A to receive a "no bill" ruling from a grand jury which means there is insufficient criminal evidence to put a person on trial. It can also be, if I understand correctly, that a prosecutor or district attorney may choose to not pursue a case if he feels that a criminal prosecution is not warranted. I believe you may also find that in rural regions such as Oklahoma, it is even possible that the county sheriff may choose to not pursue a criminal investigation, though in the past 20-30 years that may not be so true anymore. However, I can almost guarantee you that in rural Oklahoma, you would never find a jury who would charge a suspect for killing an unknown (to the shooter) victim wearing a monkey suit in the night on private property which is in an exceptionally remote location and clearly marked with no trespassing signs. The simple fact is, that I am certain there are all kinds of cases in the history of this country where a man in the woods has accidentally shot and killed another human and was not criminally charged (and no I'm not going to look it up to prove my point, you can do that yourself if you choose). This type of incident is nowhere near being "premeditated." Tragic? Yes. Criminal? Absolutely not. BTW...Drew, this was all covered back in early to mid November in this thread. Go back to page 54 or so. You should know as you were spouting this same scare speech back then.

Mulder, come on man!

Bold for emphasis is mine. Not really, it depends on what a person is hanging onto. For the sake of argument, I'll allow that the paper seems unsupportable. However, I don't through out the ideas with it. Even with Dr Ketchum's study out of the picture, there are just too many instances where DNA testing was done in the past that came back human and was presumed to be contamination. Until we revisit those samples and dig a bit deeper, I have to consider the probability, not mere possibility, that the flawed study, messed up politics, and general chaos are obscuring what has been the right answer all along. MIB

And Drew...I owed you and explanation as to why I thought your legal analysis was flawed. In doing that, I realize I'm talking out my posterior, as would anyone who is not on the ground in area X, experiencing these situations. With the usual caveats and disclaimers, etc., etc., let me just hit on my perception of the issues that might be presented if a human were indeed mistakenly killed by a member of one of the OP teams. From the standpoint of a civil suit, my understanding of OK law is that the standard of proof for a plaintiff is a modified contributory negligence standard, or modified comparative negligence. As I recall, a plaintiff must show he was less than 50% negligent to recover. (As opposed to the jurisdiction where I practice, where ANY contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff would defeat recovery) That is a pretty tough bar to clear when you are talking about a trespasser who is behaving in an (presumed) irrational and reckless way. Wantonness is a different matter alltogether, and is not subject to a comparison standard. But, I would presume OK law would require a conscious act with the knowledge that injury is likely to result, even a higher burden of proof for a plaintiff. On the criminal side of things, we have even less of a basis to armchair Bipto's team. So much is left to the discretion of the State's Attorney to submit/not the matter to a grand jury, which may or may not return an indictment. Politics and local sentiment are a huge driver of those decisions on all sides and, sadly, budget as well. In the most general terms though, anyone is entitled to exercise deadly force in their own defense, subject to the requirement of a duty to retreat (and modified by any applicable "stand your ground" statutes). All that would matter for the shooter to successfully raise the defense is the fact they reasonably thought they were threatened. That would be on a charge of manslaughter or criminal negligence...and again, just going on general legal precepts and not based on any specific knowledge I have of OK law. Premeditation is a very poor fit for the scenarios we are discussing. Specific intent to kill an individual would need to be shown to the satisfaction of a jury. If I had to hazard a prediction, at most, discharging a firearm towards an unknown thing in the woods at night, which turned out to be a human who gets injured or killed, is equivalent to reckless endangerment, or a similar such charge under OK law. Do these shooters run some risk in proceeding like they are? Absolutely, as nothing is for certain, but they've obviously sized up the risk/benefits and come to their obvious conclusions. One part of me would like to see the existence/not of the Wood Ape thrashed out in front of a rural jury in OK. Unless I miss my guess, you'd have many members in your venire who had either seen or heard of someone seeing such an animal and would have not the least hesitancy in pronouncing their actions reasonable. (Not since the Scopes "Monkey" trial, eh.....? ) As has been pointed out already, rural people have very little tolerance for people who lack the common sense to avoid obvious dangers, especially while trespassing. If somebody wants to plug away at sounds in the bushes (to presume how you would characterize their actions) that is their by-Gawd right as citizens, I would expect them to conclude. On a much simpler level of analysis though, you've got to not overlook the reported outcome when the "things" were shot at by Bipto's team the first time: They came back and persisted. One, as has been reported, was wounded. Still these "things" persisted. I don't know about you, but that is a real indication to me these are not hoaxers or even humans, whatever else you might believe.