As a former police officer and former prosecutor, the issue in the case is not the castle doctrine but the lack of evidence sufficient to rise to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt required for conviction.
The reporter should be holding that prosecutor’s feet to the fire. He openly admits that the law still allows for prosecution of shootings inside someone’s home. What the law does, rightfully, is prevent zealous prosecutors with an agenda from bringing a marginal case like this one to a jury in order to extort a plea bargain. The law forces prosecutors to truly evaluate the admissible evidence available to them before simply charging someone because they don’t approve of individuals exercising self defense.
I ask you, would you feel the same way about the castle doctrine if your wife or daughter were required to retreat in your home before shooting and killing a potential rapist? Because that is the crux of the law…in laymen’s terms - recognizing that in your own home you have ZERO duty to worry about killing a criminal.
As a prosecutor I routinely saw other prosecutors and police push marginal cases against people they had a personal bias against. One of the most egregious involved a shooting in someone’s apartment. Maryland has no castle doctrine because Maryland can’t stand anyone actually removing a criminal from the system other than the police. Multiple shooters who were gang members attempted to break into the apartment shared by one of gang members mother and her boyfriend with the intention of killing the boyfriend. They had to come up an interior stairwell to get to the second floor apartment. Boyfriend was able, under fire, to put rounds downrange (from top of stairwell) and hit two of the three gang members who then fled. I should mention that all individuals involved are black in a predominantly white county.
The investigators on the scene wanted to charge boyfriend with three counts of attempted murder and were supported by one of the prosecutors in our office simply because the boyfriend had a criminal record and he had stepped outside the apartment onto the landing outside the apartment door. They were arguing that he should have remained in the apartment and called police and should only have discharged his firearm if the three individuals breached the door.
Fortunately cooler heads prevailed, mostly because the elected State’s Attorney knew there was no way even an all-white jury would convict the boyfriend. (Rural people, contrary to popular belief, place more value on quaint concepts such as right and wrong over skin color.) A fellow prosecutor and I were simply arguing that would any of us wish to be held to the standard of self-defense that the police and the other prosecutor were attempting to create if we were threatened under similar circumstances.
So examine this particular incident.
Presumably the police subpoenaed the all three party’s phone records to see if there might be collusion between the wife and the paramour? I can’t tell because the article does not discuss that issue. Had the police found such evidence of collusion that would certainly provide the prosecutor with evidence to rebut the paramour’s reasonable fear of his life being threatened.
Presumably they checked records to either confirm or call into question wife’s assertion of domestic violence? I can’t tell because the article does not discuss that issue – it simply mentions the wife claims domestic violence occurred.
Presumably the police interrogated both the wife and the paramour?
What evidence does the prosecutor actually have available to them that I can glean from the article?
Deceased is deceased at hand of wife’s paramour.
Deceased legally intoxicated.
Confronts wife’s paramour at paramour’s home while legally intoxicated.
Deceased unarmed.
Deceased fired three times. (all the defense attorney would do is ask the testifying officer two questions: "isn't it true you are trained to keep shooting until y=the threat you perceive is no longer a threat?" (answer is "yes"); followed by "isn't it true that means the target stops moving?" (the answer is yes) and that eliminates the number of shots as evidence of anything other than three shots were fired)
What evidence does the defense have available?
Deceased legally intoxicated.
Confronts wife’s paramour at paramour’s home while legally intoxicated.
Wife will most definitely testify to evidence of domestic violence and that she communicated same to paramour. (makes fear reasonable)
Unarmed people still can be dangerous and people can reasonably fear imminent bodily harm from someone who has no weapon.
The available evidence other than than the fact that paramour killed deceased subject are the types of evidence that lead juries to acquit.
So without the castle doctrine if the paramour has no money they are at the mercy of the system and susceptible to extortion by plea offer. If they have money they have to spend a lot of it to get a good defense counsel and take a case all the way to a jury.
The castle doctrine cuts through all that and forces the State to ignore political pressure, it’s own biases and focus on facts and evidence available.
And before you finish this email thinking I’m a defense attorney think again…I just can’t defend guilty people which is the only way to pay your bills…
I could tell you what I do now, but then I'd have to kill you.
;^)
"The legislature changed that and made it a prosecutor’s responsibility to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was not justified in using deadly force."
As it should be, given the presumption of innocence, the accused should never have to proven a damn thing, including the reasonableness of their belief regarding imminent assault.
It should always be the responsibility of the State to prove that the conditions do not exist for use of deadly force by the defendant.
PERIOD.
BTW what if this whole thing was a set up by a scheming wife to get rid of her husband.???
Is there any charge that a prosecuting attorney could bring against her having already declared this shooting self-defense???
Looking through MT law references quickly the analyst caught my eye with the note that you'd need a court to decide on most any disputes.
Might even be the Mother In Law's car ~ and that could make a serious difference in further actions downstream.
MT is not a community property law.