Title 2, Sec. 9.42.2.B DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property
Right after (B) was (3):
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.
That part was already over and the perp was running away. It could have constituted the use of force to recover the wallet, but the use of deady force was not required at that point. Please don’t think all force is alike. A man without a weapon can be taken easily by one who knows how without shooting him. The shooter failed in that he shot a man that was not an immediate danger thus used deadly force that wasn’t justified. You don’t kill someone for a wallet and the man at the pump was no longer in immediate danger unless the perp went back. And he never made an effort to do so. And if the shooter had yelled at him to freeze and drop his weapon, would he? Maybe, and the shooter wouldn’t have had to.
There are too many variables that can be considered, but the facts display a committed crime and a person using the wrong type of force at the moment trying to counter it. As an evaluator of the scenario you can’t assume something can or will happen and can only work with the actual exhibit of what happened. And the facts given were that the a man jumped another at the gas pumps, beat him, stole his wallet, and then tried to escape. That’s when the shooter dropped him and the perp never turned on him or the victim. Wasn’t justified.
And that’s what the jury is going to see on the video if it is allowed in court. If it is denied, then it’s word against word if the perp turned on anyone. And that can’t be observed so there is no hard evidence to back the “word” of the shooter. Thus the jury is working with forensic and witness trusting. And that probably won’t work for the shooter unless the jury doesn’t do its job and decides the perp deserved it.
You’ve got a dead perp, shot from an obtuse angle, right side, possibly 10 to fifteen yards from the victim, running away. Not a pretty picture. And the only witness we know about was in the car and may not have seen anything from that location except the victim she was riding with. That wasn’t described in the narrative and we couldn’t see in the video, a video that may not be admissible in court record.
wy69