Carrying Handloads, yes or no?

parisite said:

As I've said here in the past, a justified shooting is a justified shooting, no matter the ammunition.

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This is completely bogus. The reality is that you will not be the one deciding if you were justified. If you're really unlucky, the question will be decided by a jury at your trial. The issues can arise when you need to establish that your act of extreme violence was justified.

And if you use handloads and it would be desirable to support your clam of justification with expert opinion based on certain ballistic testing, such opinion will in general not be admissible as evidence.

For an extensive discussion of the subject covering several years start here.

longdayjake said:

...Cause California is all kinds of messed up.

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Really? You think it's just a California issue? Ask these folks if they agree.

• This couple, arrested in early April and finally exonerated under Missouri's Castle Doctrine in early June. And no doubt after incurring expenses for bail and a lawyer, as well as a couple of month's anxiety, before being cleared.
  
  
• Larry Hickey, in gun friendly Arizona: He was arrested, spent 71 days in jail, went through two different trials ending in hung juries, was forced to move from his house, etc., before the DA decided it was a good shoot and dismissed the charges.
  
  
• Mark Abshire in Oklahoma: Despite defending himself against multiple attackers on his own lawn in a fairly gun-friendly state with a "Stand Your Ground" law, he was arrested, went to jail, charged, lost his job and his house, and spent two and a half years in the legal meat-grinder before finally being acquitted.
  
  
• Harold Fish, also in gun friendly Arizona: He was still convicted and sent to prison. He won his appeal, his conviction was overturned, and a new trial was ordered. The DA chose to dismiss the charges rather than retry Mr. Fish.
  
  
• Gerald Ung: He was attacked by several men, and the attack was captured on video. He was nonetheless charged and brought to trial. He was ultimately acquitted.
  
  
• Some good folks in clear jeopardy and with no way to preserve their lives except by the use of lethal force against other humans. Yet that happened under circumstances in which their justification for the use of lethal force was not immediately clear. While each was finally exonerated, it came at great emotional and financial cost. And perhaps there but for the grace of God will go one of us.
  
  
• And note also that two of those cases arose in States with a Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground law in effect at the time.

And for a more in depth discussion of the legal issues associated with the use of force see here and here.

Use what you like, but there is widespread misunderstanding of the legal issues.

ngnrd said:

Frank, did any of those cases hinge on the shooter using handloads?

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In the Hickey case, ballistic evidence became very important for the purposes of confirming Hickey's story. But Hickey was put at a significant disadvantage because gunshot residue swaps weren't taken and the GSR stippling pattern from one of the assailants wasn't recorded.

In the materials I linked to you will also find a discussion (in several places) of the case of Randy Willems (here, for example). Because he used factory ammunition he was able to introduce expert testimony to establish the distance at which he fired the shot that saved his life and thus be clearly exonerated from both criminal and civil liability, as described here:
But the evidentiary issues are discussed at much greater length in the material I linked to, and there's no good reason to cover yet again such well trod ground.

Lj1941 said:

..My feeling is if the shooting is justified-no problem....

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We see that sort of silliness all the time and it is a bogus argument. As outlined in post 29, you are not the one who decides if the shooting was justified.

Carry handloads if you must, but folks should not persist in this fundamental error. If everyone agrees that the shooting was justified, there's no problem. But sometimes everyone does not agree, and it will be up to you to convince a DA, a grand jury or a trial jury that your act of violence against another human was justified.

Lj1941 said:

...I have bought some self defense loads. I have decided that I can not afford to shoot enough of these rounds to get good with them at $1/ pop,...

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That's easily fixed. Make handloads that are ballistically equivalent and use those for practice, but carry factory.

Sam1911 said:

...Basically a man who killed his wife in their own home used handloads tried to claim self-defense and there was a theory that his own loads could not be used to support his claims of self-defense due to the inadmissibility of GSR evidence becauase he made the ammo -- though those claims proved to be unfounded....

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That's not quite it, but for our purposes what's important is that Bias attempted to introduce expert opinion testimony based on testing of his handloads, which he claimed were identical to the cartridges his wife was killed with. The opinion would have been than the testing supported Bias' claim that his wife shot herself based on the distance from which the shot was fired.

The judge would not permit the introduction of the opinion testimony by the defense into evidence because since handloads were involved there was only Bias' claim that the death round was identical to the cartridges tested.

The various older threads linked to go through the Bias case in far more detail. In addition there are several lengthy discussions of the applicable principles of the rules of evidence and why the judge's ruling in Bias was probably correct, and why other judges in other cases where such ballistic testing was an issue would rule in similar ways.

So what does this mean for someone using handloads for self defense? Go back to post 34 and read about the case of Randy Willems:

If Willems had been using handloads, the sort of GSR testing he put into evidence at his trial, and which completely exonerated him, would not have been allowed into evidence and would not have been available to the jury to help convince them that the shooting was justified.

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longdayjake said:

Frank, you kinda proved my point. A California lawyer basing his opinion on his experience with California law....

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In your profile you claim to be a law student. You really should know better.

The laws of evidence are pretty much the same in every jurisdiction. And in the course of my career I had occasion to deal with the laws of many States. Furthermore, I have studied use of force and related law in many States.

In addition, other lawyers who have been involved in these threads here on THR and over at TFL, notably Spats McGee and Bartholomew Roberts, have been in agreement with me. Spats McGee practices in Arkansas. Bartholomew Roberts practices principally in Texas and is also, I believe, licensed in Oklahoma.

I practiced law for over thirty years. How long have you practiced law?

Sam1911 said:

...I think one of the major points of (educated) contention as that thread developed was that GSR is not such a cartridge-specific phenomenon that there would be any sound reason to not admit GSR evidence produced by similar (or almost ANY) handgun ammunition tested by an impartial lab such as the state's own forensic lab....

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Actually no.The only people making that claim have been non-lawyers, who apparently don't understand the business of actually getting things into evidence in court. The lawyers, me, Spats McGee and Bartholomew Roberts, when addressing this issue both here and on TFL (where it has also come up often) have been agreed on the inadmissibility of expert opinion based on GSR testing when handloads have been used.

The basic rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert opinion based on a scientific test is that it has to be relevant. In order to be relevant, a sufficient nexus between the test and the subject matter of the litigation must be shown -- in other words, the thing tested must be established to the satisfaction of the judge to be the same as the thing at issue in the litigation.

If the thing tested is a cartridge, the party submitting the opinion based on the test has to show that the cartridge fired in the test was the same as the cartridge fired in the incident that is the subject of the litigation. When handloads were used, the only way to connect the cartridge tested to the cartridge fired in the incident is the defendant's claim. That is inherently suspect and will not support a legally acceptable foundation for the introduction of the opinion based on the test.

If identifiable factory ammunition was involved, the manufacturer is a disinterested third party, and evidence from the manufacturer, such as quality control protocols, can be used to establish the comparability of the test cartridges and the incident cartridge.

longdayjake said:

...people involved in justified shootings often go to jail for a time and they often spend a lot of money defending themselves, BUT so far as I can tell this was never the fault of the type of ammunition used...

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I do need to specifically address this.

You should do some research into the case of Harold Fish (noted in post 29). He was initially convicted, and in post verdict interviews of members of his jury, at least one juror commented that the jury was very troubled by the fact that Fish used JHP ammunition. There we have an example of the type of ammunition used being a [negative] factor in the deliberations of a jury (in gun friendly Arizona).

Now we do prefer JHPs for self defense. So with regard to JHPs the lesson of the Fish jury is that we will need to be able to deal effectively with the possible negative implication of the use of that type of ammunition. There are indeed ways to deal with that issue, and the advantages offered by JHPs make it worthwhile to use them and prepare to deal with those negative implications.

If anyone thinks he realizes sufficient benefit from the use of handloads to justify the [minimal] risk, that's his choice.

On the other hand, while I've had excellent results in competition and practice with many tens of thousands of my reloads, I've also had excellent results with factory ammunition. I use factory for self defense, because it suits my needs and lets me take any possible handload issues completely off the table.

ngnrd said:

Frank Ettin said:

... at least one juror commented that the jury was very troubled by the fact that Fish used JHP ammunition. ...

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This is the basis of your argument? What does one juror's opinion regarding the type of projectile used have to do with the use of handloads in a self defense situation?

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I would have expected better reading comprehension skills from a civil engineer.

The statement was made that:Responding specifically to that comment, I pointed out a case in which we have reason to know that the type of ammunition used had a negative influence on a jury.