No, restraining orders are for those who want to survive the gun battle AND the legal battle. If he violates the restraining order, there's NO doubt that there was malice on his part AND that you were in reasonable fear of your life when you shot him.
Michigan has Castle Doctrine, and when the State Trooper who takes a complaint reminds someone of that... Kinda says a lot. If someone who has threatened not only my livlihood by my life and the lives of my family members enters my home forcefully and gets killed, with a complaint already filed against him for those threats, there won't be much of a legal battle. A retraining order, in this case, will fuel the fire, and offer him opportunity where he already has motive.
Respectfully disagree. Granted, a restraining order won't actually restrain anyone. It is however useful from a legal perspective if you believe some jerk is likely to or will immenently put you into a position of having to use lethal force against them.
By giving this guy my address, as I would have to do in a RO, I may just as likely be forcing myself into a situation where I might have to use lethal force. He doesn't know where I live, and since I honestly know very little about him, or what he is capable of, I'm not going to give him any help. For now, I'm letting the situation ride. If there is any further contact, by advice of the Michigan state troopers, a RO shouldn't be necessary, pressing charges for harassment and telephone stalking should suffice.
If he does show up one day threatening me, he will be doing so staring down the barrel of a gun, face in the dirt waiting for the cops to haul him away. At that point, a restraining order will go into effect, as he would already know where I am. I'm not overly concerned about brandishing a weapon against a known criminal with a complaint filed against him, be me, on my own property.
I think this is a very good idea. In a lot of states, if he is property of the Department of Corrections, you can get his photo right off the DOC website. Anybody in custody has their photo right there for the searching.
At the moment, he is a guest of the County, not the state. County Jail doesn't post a mug shot on their website, but all other pertinenet info regarding his stay is available. When and if I do find his photo somewhere, even if its a facebook page, I'll pass it around.
how old is this guy, and does he have violent convictions? either way, unlikely $300 would be worth much in the way of actual action, unless he is truly psychotic and majorly violence prone. The problems i see are if he only called you by phone, possible neither of you really know who you are dealing with? have you ever met in person? He threatened to have you fired? not with violence? this is a clown and a half, but also sneaky. Possibly intentionally only making threats he thinks are "legal" over the phone/ but more likely just a total lame. I think shadow 7d and posts along that line are the way to go
He is 37 years old, almost 38. None of his convictions thus far have been for violent crime, which is why he still has his right to bear arms, one of the main reasons I'm not being overly antagonistic towards him. I am fairly certain he is mostly talk, and if he really put his mind to it, he would realize $300 isn't worth his life, or spending the rest of it in prison. He and I have never met face to face. My wife has met him in passing. I really don't know who I'm dealing with, other than what I've managed to find in public record. He seems to be a lot of talk, but I'm not going to stake my life on it.
He asked if I liked my job, insinuating that he had influence over it. When I called him out on that, he immediately backpedaled and threatened my life and family. He is a clown, but he isn't at all sneaky. He has quite clearly broken the law with his death threats, and his threats to send others to my home in his stead.
I just checked, as of 12:15 pm EST today (about 2 hours ago) he is still incarcerated in the county jail. He's been in there almost a week now, his arraignment has come and gone, I'm not sure if bail has been set, but I doubt he could pay it, after all. His current charges are still not known to me, I'm working on getting them, but the charges are coming from the Michigan State Police.
