Your home is your castle, but if Mr. Bad Guy is breaking out the window, it may not be such a good idea to open fire before he (or she, in the name of equality) clambors their felonious gluteus maximus (or maximuses) into your abode.
If you shoot while they are outside, you better hope it’s after dark in Texas – at least in the parts of Texas that have the “He needed shooin'” defense. Because if you do it in places where prosecutors are tougher on law-abiding gun owners than felonious thugs, then you might be in staying as a guest of your local county, like this guy.
WJBK photo.
PONTIAC, Mich. (WJBK) – A legal gun owner opens fire on a would be burglar at a home in Pontiac. That suspect died from his injuries and the shooter is sitting behind bars.
Police get a call that a 23-year-old was trying to break in through a bedroom window. But the resident, a 23-year-old living inside the house, shoots and kills him.
“Somebody tried to get in the house after we had all went to bed,” said David, the homeowner who allowed the gun owner to live in his house. “And evidently, and I don’t know what his purpose was.”
The intruder was wearing dark colors and didn’t know anybody in the house.
He did society a favor though he should have warned him not to enter.
He’s being prosecuted yes, and as much as it sucks, he’s alive. Conviction is not yet assured. This is where a good attorney is important. There’s a good deal of a information that needs to come out. What would a “reasonable man” in such a situation in Pontiac Michigan in the middle of the night reasonably assume a person breaking into his residence with breaking glass and commotion and Violent effort, conclude was happening?
There’s a Supreme Court case, Grahm vs Connor, where a police officer was completely wrong, but his actions were deemed “reasonable”‘ and prevailed in court. Cops are held to a higher standard than citizens. I think given the bad guys history and the means of gaining entry to a place he had no reason to be, will cause the homeowner to be acquitted. In a perfect world he could have held off a bit and fired once bad guy was totally inside, but that’s for the court to decide. There may be reasons this is being pursued, but ultimately there will be a finding of not guilty.
Please follow up on this one, I’d like to hear the outcome.
I’m with Seamus. A good lawyer should be able to get an acquittal if it goes that far. I seem to remember something about “detached reflection isn’t demanded in the presence of an upraised knife” from the excellent legal lecture notes from my GSL Defense Training CCW class.
Thank you Frank Wright.
The case was prosecuted probably to send a message that the powers that be don’t like it when you shoot goblins outside your castle.
Sam
After shooting, DON’T GIVE STATEMENT OR TALK TO COPS other than info needed to render aid. Watch some youtube videos of expert defense attorneys and former police detectives telling you why you should never talk to cops. The less you tell the cops the easier the job for your lawyer. Cops get a huge amount of convictions (90%+?) based on people verbally incriminating themselves during police contact.