Posted on 01/25/2003 10:44:57 PM PST by kattracks
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:00:33 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A good position to assure the future of trial lawyers.
You don't know, apparently, the long history of the law on this point. The law makes a huge distinction on moral grounds between your rights to use force, especially lethal force, when protecting YOUR OWN LIFE or the LIFE OF OTHERS versus mere property. I suggest you do a google search and find a nice dissertation on the subject.
Under the facts of this matter, we have someone dead and someone holding a gun claiming self defense. And you suggest -- that the law just believes the assertion of the person claiming self-defense, and no trial takes place to prove it? Are you insane?
Whether or not I know the law on that point is immaterial your honor. My morals don't follow from the law, and so I repeat that I don't see what difference it makes how they chose to use their property. I realize, however, that the law can contain any ridiculous notions that legislators stipulate. All the more reason for not judging right and wrong based upon law.
They were charged with first degree homicide for shooting a burglar on their private property. That's my definition of insane, unless you're proposing they conspired and entrapped the burglar, thus premeditation.
Well said!
You'd make a poor lawyer, as you have difficulty following the point. The point is not how you USE your property -- it is whether the relative value of your "property" (as opposed to your life and physical safety) ever allows you to take another's life in the defense thereof. And the longheld legal reasoning in British-US jurisprudence (not "statutory" law, so you don't understand that distinction either) is that the defense of property, although strongly protected under the law, does not by itself EVER justify the taking of another's life. Period.
You emphasize "private" property -- what does THAT mean -- as opposed to their PUBLIC property? You don't know WHAT you're talking about.
The only useful distinction re property in your example is your HOME, your domicile, versus some other property. Here we're talking about a commercial place of business. A presumption arises in some jurisdictions when you are protecting your HOME against intruders. That presumption does not arise when one's residence is not involved.
Certainly you can defend yourself against threat-of-physical-violence, wherever you are, but YOU insinuated on your earlier post that the use of deadly force in this instance is self-apparent, hence no prosection was justified. Huh? There are no impartial witnesses. The burglar was not even in possession of an unambigous weapon, as in a gun -- here he had a hammer only.
Could they have restrained the attacker without shooting to death? Were they angry about prior breakins and determined to kill the intruder (explaining why they were so heavily armed in their workshop -- did they 'always' have such guns around, for example?).
These are questions for a jury, where I come from.
You ask the wrong question. Premediation does not arise as an issue until you have a homicide. If you have a valid right to self-defense then there is no homicide. You can defend yourself - "defense of self" -- using reasonable force, including lethal force if the circumstances warrant -- you can also defend your family under the same principle, since each person in your family has the right to self-defense -- but you do NOT have the right to use deadly force to defend PROPERTY.
The facts in any particular case will dictate the difference -- and in this case the prosecution was warranted in failing to accept, on its face, that this was a valid case of self-defense.
No. I'd make a poor lawyer b/c I would never be able to find the motivation to argue from edict rather than principle. As I said, I have little interest in the stipulations of lawmakers--from any century and in any role. About my only interest in the law is in trying to avoid trouble--which is what my experience with the law has been, trouble.
The point is not how you USE your property -- it is whether the relative value of your "property" (as opposed to your life and physical safety) ever allows you to take another's life in the defense thereof.
It's you who have trouble *understanding* a point. I have never argued from the law. What the law says about property (which BTW if is as you say, is, not surprisingly, absurd) was never part of my argument or thought. I DON'T CARE WHAT THE LAW SAYS. I'm talking about principles. Whether or not my property has a bed in it IS irrelevent. If an intruder confronts me on my property, I'm not going to stop and consider what "British-US jurisprudence" may have to say about the nature of my property.
Would you prosecute a woman attacked in her bed who shoots a career rapist only because her word was the only testimony?
Obviously I don't agree. Your hypo is significantly different than the facts at hand. "In bed" means "in residence", the ability to defend with non-lethal force is drastically different -- so I suggest you try me again with a better example.
Under Texas law, a person can protect their property with deadly force if there is the chance the property can never be recovered. Absolute statements about the law between different locales is a risky business.
Well, if you follow such reasoning you may end up sharing a cell with your best friend "Bubba" waking you up at night. The "law" is what makes society work. I suggest you live on a mountaintop in Idaho somewhere so you can stay out of trouble -- else you may need me to defend you someday.
Prove it. Where is the cite? And -- is it still good law, or something from cattle-rustling days?
Now what the hell are you talking about? Your posts have gone from mistaken to asinine.
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