<p>Seems that there are now approximately 20 states that have already adopted the Castle Laws that allow for deadly force against anyone who seems to might be a threat to a homeowner or business person at the home or business.</p>
<p>A recent one inTexas was a next door neighbor who heard 2 guys break into his neighbor’s house, called 911 and reported it in progress. When the 911 person told him to “hold on” and they would dispatch someone, the guy said heck no, actually mentioned that the law had changed since Sept (the date the Texas Castle law became effective) and said he’d go take care of this.</p>
<p>He left his cell phone on to 911, went outside with his handgun, yelled at the two men: “move and you’re dead.” He claims they moved towards him into his yard.</p>
<p>Yep, three shots were fired (all by the neighbor) and both men were dead.</p>
<p>This is taking a lot of the work load off the prosecutors, the court system and prison system. Some people object that the legal penalty for the theft crime (if apprehended by the police and tried by the courts) ISN’T the death penalty. </p>
<p>This apparantly did not keep the state elected officials from giving the citizens this “right.” And, according to an NRA spokesperson quoted in the newspaper article, more states are going to adopt these laws.</p>
<p>I’m not purportng to give legal advice-especially in Texas!–but I don’t think the incident you describe would come within the scope of most castle laws. It has to be your own home or business, as I understand it. And it has to be a situation in which the home or business owner genuinely feels threatened with physical harm. It would not apply to someone breaking into a house down the street.</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about the law. The laws may have come about in part because of some rather crazy results in civil cases. Joe Schmoe breaks into a home in the middle of the night, husband shoots Joe and Joe is permanently injured, Joe sues on basis husband used excessive force. (Joe didn’t even have a weapon.) However, when awakened from a sound sleep at 3 am by the noise of an intruder in the house, husband simply fired when Joe entered the bedroom where husband and his wife were, without waiting to see if Joe had a weapon, simply because husband was genuinely scared. </p>
<p>I think a compromise would be that you can still be criminally prosecuted–so you couldn’t do something wholly unreasonable, but nobody could seek civil damages for injuries received in the course of attempting to commit a crime.</p>
<p>DISCLAIMER: I’m reporting what I understand the NEWSPAPER article to report. You cannot rely on this post as an opinion or advice about Texas law.</p>
<p>My original post stated that once the neighbor called out, the two men walked toward him “into his yard.” Apparently, that is enough to get into the safe harbour about defense of HIS person.</p>
<p>Actually, the newspaper article indicated that defense of your property is also a basis now for use of this level of force. According to the newspaper report, the PURPOSE of the Castle laws was TO DO AWAY with second guessing the shooter on the issue of reasonable belief of a threat from the “bad guys.”</p>
<p>On the criminal side of the law, the article indicated there is now a statutory presumption that the shooter has a reasonable belief that his person or property was at risk. We’ve already had owners shoot (and kill) teens stealing their expensive rims off their cars in apartment parking lots. One business owner killed twice in the first few weeks of the new law when people broke into his shop where he also lives. </p>
<p>A relatively famous recent one was where the homeowner had a locked backyard and garage full of tools. He had break ins where tools were stolen out of the locked garage. He had a trained parrot in a cage next to the window looking out into the backyard. The parrot was trained to say “hello” whenever it saw a person. </p>
<p>The parrot saw the thief, said “hello,” which woke the owner who had a camara monitoring system recording the backyard. The owner recognized the man from tapes of previous break-ins. Owner got his gun went out and shot (and killed) the 47 year old addict. The newspaper article said that the policeman sent to the scene afterwards reviewed the monitoring tape (including the owner gunning down the thief) and told the owner he had gotten it “right” with the new Castle statute.</p>
<p>The newspaper article that I read that started this post recounted that in Fla. a drunk man came back home to his apartment and was locked out. He went around back and climbed through a window to get in. His fatal mistake was that the window was to the NEXT apartment. </p>
<p>The apartment resident heard the commotion when the drunk guy came through the window and when he shot (and killed) he thought it was an intruder. The shooter actually knew the deceased and really liked him.</p>
<p>07DAD, I think that a big part of the problem is that people’s idea of reality is so skewed by TV that they don’t realize how easy it is to misinterpret or misunderstand a situation they might find themselves in (at least most police agencies have training for ambiguous situations, and rules about when to shoot.) A lot of people just figure that the “bad guys” will be obvious, and they’ll just blow them away with that cool gun they bought, and they’ll be a hero. Yay! (Oops…)</p>
<p>The article makes this same point regarding the limitation on when the police can use their firearms. It observes that armed citizens without training will no longer face civil liability for an Ooops and that the Castle law’s presumption of a reasonable belief to shoot will make prosecution of the shooter very unlikely to result in a conviction.</p>
<p>One could make an argument that there is not much to counsel the shooter to be careful to correctly assess the situation.</p>
<p>It has to be your own house in Texas. The “duty to retreat” is gone, as well it should be. Even before this was the law, you’d have to be the best prosecutor of all time to find 12 people in Texas who would punish a man for protecting himself and his family within the confines of his own home.</p>
<p>If it were me, I’d yell freeze and force them to lie die hands behind their back, and then confiscate anything they stole or anything they could use as a weapon. If they complied I’d call the police and have them arrested. If they charged me, they’re gone.</p>