Arson, going back to to Common Law roots, has been considered a particularly serious, violent crime because --R.W.Dale said:
- Someone could be present and thus endangered.
- Fighting a fire is dangerous.
- Fires can spread uncontrollably.
Can deadly force be used to recover property?
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tyeo098
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If you rob a robber who robbed you to get your robbed stuff back... are you the bad guy?
Also, I may be mistaken, but isn't threat of deadly force and use deadly force two completely different things?
Also, I may be mistaken, but isn't threat of deadly force and use deadly force two completely different things?
X-Rap
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I wonder what the law would be regarding someone walking into your occupied house and not using violence or threat but still stealing your silver and piggy bank while you watched?
How many states offer a physical deterrent to such a violation.
Colorado's make my day law?
How many states offer a physical deterrent to such a violation.
Colorado's make my day law?
Almost, but not quite:R.W.Dale said:
Arkansas General Assembly said:
Well, I'm sorry, I must be getting stupid in my old age. I thought that Prosecutors and District Attorneys were the triers of fact??? Are you telling me there is some secret triers that are neither District Attorneys nor Prosecutors that are being hidden from us common folk?
This could prove to be extremely difficult. There can be no case law and no jury instructions when as a matter or practice these cases DO NOT GO TO TRIAL because the shootings are declared justified and the shooters are no billed by the grand juries.
You can put an end to this immediately. The article and my previous post list several cases where individuals were not charged in defense of their property. Find us a case, in Texas, where someone was charged with murder for defending their property from a burglar (day or night) or common thief (after dark). Let's stipulate that stabbing someone over your camera in broad daylight on the beach after you have retrieved your camera cannot be that case.
Surely our defense attorney friend has access to LexisNexis and can find that case and post the details in a matter of seconds.
I've always heard the term "finders of fact." No, neither prosecutors nor DAs are finders of fact. Judges and juries are.verge said:
NO. Those would be judges and jurors.
Case law and resultant jury instructions are created whan there has been a conviction that was appealed on the basis of a particular aspect of the case, and the appellate court has rendered a relevant opinion and has published its ruling.
But it is quite possible for a professional attorney to gain a pretty good understanding of the overall tapestry of related statutes and of the relevant legal principles with having appellate rulings to review.
Yes, the folklore has it that "as a matter of practice these cases do not go to trial". But in point of fact, some of them do, and some of them do not for the simple reason that the defendant enters a plea of guilt of some kind beforehand. This subject has been discussed at length here over the years.
We have no need to do so. We have what a Texas attorney has told us here, and what other Texans have told us in the past.
And the OP is not in Texas.
In Florida recently a man was arrested and tried for murder when he followed a man who had stolen the radio out of his car/truck. It was not the first time his radio had been stolen from the parking lot or his apartment complex. I don't know all the details but he was acquitted using Stand Your Ground laws.
In this hypothetical situation(which I think is a great question)I think you would be up the proverbial creek if you shot someone. We all know juries differ in how they view actions but I think in MOST cases you would be in big trouble, criminally and civilly. I live in Alabama and I think this is one of the few states where you would be able to do this and not be convicted as most of our courts and juries tend to lean towards "frontier justice". I also recommend that you not listen to anything I say regarding laws and courts.
In this hypothetical situation(which I think is a great question)I think you would be up the proverbial creek if you shot someone. We all know juries differ in how they view actions but I think in MOST cases you would be in big trouble, criminally and civilly. I live in Alabama and I think this is one of the few states where you would be able to do this and not be convicted as most of our courts and juries tend to lean towards "frontier justice". I also recommend that you not listen to anything I say regarding laws and courts.
Bartholomew Roberts
Member
verge said:
The way that attorney was quoted it could lead someone to believe that whether the incident happened at night or not was always relevant. It may be relevant but not always (per the earlier comment in thread confusing the same issue).
As to the rest of the article, I don't believe anyone said you cannot use lethal force in defense of property in Texas. What everyone was pointing out was that even in Texas, which has very strong property laws in this regard, there are still many preconditions that must be met and you are placing your life in the hands of the Grand Jury who will determine if they were met.
I'll see if I can find our discussion of the gas station clerk who got murder for shooting a beer thief at night. Here it is: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=301020. Great read on Sec. 9.42 and associated law.
However one thing to consider from a tactics perspective is if the person drops the property, your right to use lethal force ends. In terms of the time from observation to reaction, it makes it real easy to create a situation where someone gets shot after you have already recovered your property.
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Agreed but he spoke to the Trier of fact. Prosecutors Try cases not Judges.
No. Prosecutors present the state's case in criminal trials.
Juries try cases --they weigh the facts presented by the two sides and admitted into evidence by the judge--but if there is no jury, the judge is the trier of fact.
Kleanbore beat me to it. He is correct. And whenever a lawyer refers to the "trier of fact" he is referring to the jury, or, in the absence of a jury, the judge.
Another way to understand this is to remember that the purpose of a trial is to determine the facts when the facts are in dispute. The jury, or judge if there's no jury, decide what's true based on the evidence. If facts material to a question are not in dispute, the question can be answered solely by the judge as a matter of law.
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NO, those would be Finders of Fact not Triers of Fact as you stated. Judges and Jurors do not TRY cases. Perhaps you meant to say Finders of Fact but in Fact you did NOT.
But CASE LAW does not and in fact cannot exist in the absence of any CASES.
Discussion as you have pointed out means NOTHING. You say these case do go to trial. All I am saying is PROVE it. This is no more than you have stated is necessary for you to believe something. I have provided not folklore but multiple examples of cases NOT going to trial. I am simply asking you to provide ONE that has. At this point you are providing folklore rather than facts.
You are the one that said an opinion absent relevant case law carries no weight with you. Frankly, I do not give a DEFENSE attorney the same weight about PROSECUTIONS as I give the PROSECUTORS. So far the PROSECUTORS say they do not PROSECUTE these cases.
The OP did not ask specifically about his state law.
Both terms are equally acceptable.
In order to do that, one would have to read the transcripts of every trial involving charges alleging the unlawful use of force in all of Texas.
The fact that I am not going to do that does not support the contention that if someone in Texas uses deadly force and, in an effort to justify his action, claims that he did so to protect his property, he will not be charged and face trial.
No, I did not.
What I said was that a lay person should not base his understanding of what a statute really means on the basis of his interpretation of the wording of that statute in isolation, without a knowledge of other related statutes, case law, jury instructions embodying case law, and a basic founding in legal principles.
I also said that I have learned to attribute no significance at all the statements of professors, prosecutors, district attorneys and police [that are quoted in articles]. I explained that one finds professors of various ilks, defense attorneys, district attorneys, legislators, police chiefs, sheriffs, and patrolmen who have publicly opined that the castle doctrine laws in Colorado, Florida, Missouri, and other locales essentially legalize murder, and make lawful the shooting of innocents by virtue of their mere presence in someone's home, yet the facts have not borne out such hyperbole, and that the same thing can be said about stand your ground laws.
Why? How do you you know that what was reported was not said in the context of a veiled complaint about a law with which the prosecutor does not agree?
Have you consulted a defense attorney for his or her advice on the risk?
Do you know what it is that they say that they do not prosecute, and would you bet your life on it? Do you know that there are no prosecutors who do prosecute cases in with parts of Texas Code 9.42 may have been raised by the defense?
We have had members from Texas say that there are.
@verge: spend some time carefully reading through this.
There are some actual cases mentioned, and there is a lot to be learned here about how the judicial system works, including the mandatory Grand Jury referrals in Texas, the fact that a "no bill" does not constitute exoneration, about civil liability, and about some nuances of Texas Code Section 9.42.
Another thing that one can learn is the wisdom of my advice against reliance upon lay interpretations of the black law, which incidentally, is not at all original with me. I originally had it driven into my thinking by Fred Fuller.
After you have gone through the above thread a couple of times, read this and book mark it.
This part is relevant here:
Thanks to Bartholomew Roberts for taking the time and effort to find the above thread for us.
There are some actual cases mentioned, and there is a lot to be learned here about how the judicial system works, including the mandatory Grand Jury referrals in Texas, the fact that a "no bill" does not constitute exoneration, about civil liability, and about some nuances of Texas Code Section 9.42.
Another thing that one can learn is the wisdom of my advice against reliance upon lay interpretations of the black law, which incidentally, is not at all original with me. I originally had it driven into my thinking by Fred Fuller.
After you have gone through the above thread a couple of times, read this and book mark it.
This part is relevant here:
Thanks to Bartholomew Roberts for taking the time and effort to find the above thread for us.
daveyjones53
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One thing that was said in a CHL class I took and I thought was wise was this, "Can you convince 12 people it was necessary to take that persons life". The law is one thing, but how someone not so educated on a jury might interpret it is something totally different. Just look at all the people that respond by saying the police could have shot him in the leg or arm or whatever, when the police shoot someone running at them with a knife. Those people have no clue how difficult it would be to hit a moving target under stress and the fact that the attacker would probably still continue to attack even after being struck. You may be in the right, but the person in the jury box may not think so. So I would just save deadly force for when I believe someone else or myself may be seriously injured or killed. Get some pepper spray or a Taser or better yet both and light them up in all other circumstances LOL
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Say what you will, I have provided facts that prove without a doubt that you can defend your property in Texas with deadly force and in fact people have done so without being prosecuted.
Try to wrap it in circumstance or obfuscation if you like but the fact stands that it does happen and it happens with enough regularity that a simple Bing search can turn up multiple cases, articles and sources for the lay person to read for him or herself.
Follow this link: http://www.bing.com/search?q=no+bil...o+billed+texas+killed+thief&sc=0-34&sp=-1&sk=
For all practical purposes all you have stated is that it MAY not be what it seems and limitations MAY exist. You have offered no facts at all, no case law, nothing in fact other than your opinion and that of others that share your opinion who also have offered up no facts, no case law and no examples of these prosecutions you claim exist.
I did a search for you and here is the closest thing I could find. The prosecutor having admitted that state law does allow for using deadly force in the defense of property determined that the clerk didn't care about the property and shot simply out of anger.
"You saw from his demeanor ... from his look that this was about anger; it was not about defending property," Drummond said. "Under the law of the State of Texas, ... that's murder."
Not exactly what I would say is a textbook case since it was a clerk, in a place of business who destroyed evidence and seemed joyful after the shooting but hey beggars cannot be choosers I guess.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/prosecutor-defendant-shot-man-out-of-anger/nRWgt/
The clerk was convicted and ultimately given 8 years of probation.
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pbearperry
Member
Using lethal force to save property only is very unwise.Especially in this anti gun climate we call the US.
The linked thread is useless and full of bunk. The clerk never claimed the thief had or used or showed a gun. It is not provable but I would argue that if the clerk had called and reported the crime and his actions, not erased the tapes (showing guilt about his actions) and not looked gleeful after the shooting, he would have been no billed like so many others.
Mind you, I AM NOT ADVOCATING shooting anyone to recover property. I AN NOT SAYING I would shoot someone in defense of property. I am saying, in Texas, it is legal. Are there limitations, certainly, Texas dose not grant an indiscriminant right to apply the death penalty on anyone at any time but if you can shoot a thief stealing your hubcaps in the parking lot from your apartment and get no billed, I would say the limitations are limited.
No one disputes that. That has not been in question.
The limitations are set forth in the law itself.
Why do I have the strong impression that you have not studied the link provided by Texas attorney Bartholomew Roberts?
The prosecutor was trying to prove murder. What would you have expected him to say?
Then there is no reason for this conversation to continue because that is all I and others have ever stated.
I did and found the conversation around the clerk case to be useless. Perhaps I missed a link to a case you wanted me to see. Could you be so kind as to point that out for me?
mgkdrgn
Member
Actually, as you "pursued and attacked" the BG in this case, it would likely be considered "mutual combat".What if you ran up behind him and kicked him in the butt while he was ignoring your lawful orders to stop??
Then, when he turned around to attack you??
Never mind!
Probably a bad idea!
rc
X-Rap
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verge, you must be so proud, your state allows you to kill a boy stealing hubcaps but won't trust you in church or the bar with the same gun.
I doubt you will find a single thread in which any topic close to this is discussed in which someone from the lone star state proudly proclaims their right to shoot anyone in their sights after dark if he is trespassing.
I doubt you will find a single thread in which any topic close to this is discussed in which someone from the lone star state proudly proclaims their right to shoot anyone in their sights after dark if he is trespassing.
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