tvc184

As to your question of trying to break in and do you need to wait for the person to actually enter, the Penal Code states you can use "self defense" if.... (1) knew or had reason to believe that the person against whom the force was used: (A) unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor's occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment; As you can see it says you had reason to believe the person had "entered" OR unlawfully "attempting to enter" a habitation, vehicle or business. If a guy is trying to kick in your door to get to you or your family, TX law is pretty open minded about using force to defend yourself. The idea of a person trying to gain entry is not just my opinion but spelled out in the TX PC. You will note that says entered or is trying to enter. It doesn't say fleeing after such as attempt. NOTE: This does not say deadly force and only says that "force" is justified. Deadly force is covered later but it still goes by "immediately necessary". I will bring up the case in the news a few months ago of the guy that shot and killed two teenagers (a boy and girl) that broke into his home and he was convicted of murder. He was probably justified in using deadly force but when it did not kill them outright, he put "kill shots" in them (head shots if I remember correctly) and told the police so. He was almost bragging about finally getting them. At that point it was not "necessary". He was going by his own rules of, once fair game, always fair game. Just as part of the "what if" game, what if you look outside and see it is your next door neighbor's 14 year old kid that is 5'4" and weighs 125 pounds trying to get in your home. He snuck out in the night with some friends and drank a couple of beers. Now being out of his head he is trying to get back inside of his house .... but he had the wrong one. He is too drunk to realize it. While you might get away with it by shooting through the door, the prosecutor had better not find out that you peaked outside and saw what was happening. In such a case you can stop the little kook from coming in but it would be hard to justify killing him. That is one of many examples that we might be able to come up with on "what if" situations where force might be great but deadly force will not. TX law also specifically does not give the authority of deadly force for trespassing. It says that you can use "force" for trespass and never mentions the use of "deadly force".

Here is part of what the Texas Penal Code says about "necessity" and "reasonableness" in Chapter 9. Sec. 9.22. NECESSITY. Conduct is justified if: (1) the actor reasonably believes the conduct is immediately necessary to avoid imminent harm; and (2) the desirability and urgency of avoiding the harm clearly outweigh, according to ordinary standards of reasonableness, the harm sought to be prevented by the law proscribing the conduct As you can see it says "immediately" necessary, meaning that it kind of had to be now or never. It doesn't say that a guy might be a threat five minutes from now or next week. That isn't the authority to use force which if covered later in the chapter for specific crimes and/or circumstances. That is only the beginning near the first of the chapter saying that to justify force, you must need to do so only if it is "immediately necessary" and "reasonable". Again, this section gives no right to use force, only that it must be needed to stop a threat "right now" (my words).

There is no requirement for "entry". It is the threat or the crime that you are trying stop, not when a person is standing. Of course we all hear the stories like, "A cop told my father to drag a guy inside of the house after I shoot him". Ooooookay.......... In truth moving a person at all other than trying to save his life or get him away from you would tend to make you guilty of a felony even if the shooting was justified. It is called tampering with evidence and generally carries up to 10 years in prison. I can almost assure you that you cannot drag a body without it being obvious. Those stories still persist however.

Any. Lawful force is to stop a threat or action. If that action has stopped, the force is no longer justified. It can be a punch in the nose or killing someone. The laws typically state something like "necessary" force. Then it usually adds "reasonable", meaning under the circumstances. It isn't necessary if someone if fleeing or is no longer a threat. If a guy is 50 yards away from you with a baseball bat and says that he is going to beat your brains in, I would venture to say that when he gets a good bit closer (since he can't typically hurt you from 50 yards with a club), you can probably justify shooting him. But let's say he makes that statement, but drops the bat and keeps coming. At that point all he has is his hands and while you would be justified in defending yourself, I doubt that any court would say that it is lawful to shoot him when is no really only a danger to give you a bloody nose. If you could use deadly force in such an encounter, every time two kids fight at school, the one that didn't start it could justify killing the other one. It all goes by "necessary" and "reasonable" and someone else other than you are the police is going to sit in judgment if that force fit both requirements.

We can play "what if". What if it was inside if the apartment? What if the dead guy was reaching for a knife? What if it was inside of the apartment, the suspect was actually on top of the woman, he had a gun in his hand and he threatened to kill everyone? We can toss 1000 different scenarios into it. All we have to go by however if simply the article. From the way the article states it, I see no justification to use deadly force. Now, back to what if............

Using deadly force to stop a break-in in progress? Yes. The news story said nothing about the man stopping a burglary. You are adding something that simply is not in the article. According to the story it was inside a building with apartments which is typically what you would see in New York. The article says the husband confronted the man in a hallway. Going just by that, it means to me the attack was over in the guy was leaving. There is nothing in the law that allows a civilian or police officer to kill someone in retaliation out of anger. The laws in most states generally give you the right to use force to stop a crime in progress. That use of force does not extend after-the-fact. That appears to be what happened in this case.

From the way I read it, not in Texas either. Protecting means stopping. Protecting doesn't mean retaliation. Accirding to the report, the suspect was not in the act of a sexual assault but was in a hallway. The husband got a pipe and beat him to death. That is not self defense or stopping a crime in progress. He technically committed murder but they are factoring in sudden emotion, making it manslaughter.

Hmmmm...... maybe because he broke the law?

Coons are too smart for that. They would send in the squirrels to recon.

Just supporting the rights of these poor waifs and their pursuit of equality.

I support the women in their endeavor.

Yes. I think the wings are better on Bluebonnet but I love the Twin City Salt and Pepper fried okra.

If you are just looking for "hot" wings or Buffalo style, I'm not sure. If you are looking for the best wings, Salt and Pepper from J&J on Bluebonnet and Gilham Cl in PA.

A waste of perfectly good meat.......

It is terrible...... That the whiners that are up in arms about this dead gorilla, can't trade places with that child and explain to all of us the correct course of action while being slung around by an animal that can rip your head off the moment he gets a notion. Tragic? Absolutely. The correc response? Same answer.

The CA senate just pass a bill that keeps a gun with a detachable magazine from being reloaded without tools to take it apart. They are like the frog in the boiling water. Heat it slow so he doesn't notice rather than toss him into hot water and letting him jump out. No, they don't want our guns. They are fine with us using flintlocks .... for now.

The NRA doesn't sell guns. Speaking of foolish.....................

There is no such thing in the law as protecting your family. If that was true I could shoot a guy walking down the street because he might have been a threat to my family. There are specific situations where for or deadly force is legally possible but nothing by relationship. If someone is trying to kill you or anyone else, it is lawful. If there is an armed robbery in progress, you can protect yourself or another person and so on. The idea of something dropping on you is ludicrous. The only way it would even remotely be a danger is directly overhead. So your response to something being directly over your head being a danger.... is to shoot it down while it is over you? Oooookay, that makes sense. The bottom line in the law is there is no self defense reasoning to shoot down a drone unless maybe a person was trying to ram you with it.

...... or at the Democratic convention coming up.

Except that the part you quoted is not correct.

No, you cannot legally kill a man for peeping in your window or for trespassing on your property.

Five years in prison seems like an expensive clay pigeon but that's just me.

Hmmm...... This took about a 30 second search on google to find the Tennessee state law on vandalism. 39-14-408. Vandalism. (a) Any person who knowingly causes damage to or the destruction of any real or personal property of another or of the state, the United States, any county, city, or town knowing that the person does not have the owner's effective consent is guilty of an offense under this section. Let's see, "causes damage.. to any real property". Yeah, I can see where an officer couldn't find out a law.... that every cop learns about two weeks into the police academy......... I am assuming that he didn't want to do the paperwork and came up with an "ignorance of the law" defense. I wonder if that works for other people.

I am kind of curious that the article says the responding deputy sheriff could not figure out any law that had been violated. I wonder if he has ever read his state laws on criminal mischief or vandalism.

I don't see the problem with them and I think the complaints are for the most part nonsense. If it is hovering over your back yard at 30 feet and videoing into your window I can see an issue. Most of them have GoPro type cameras and at 200 feet you almost can't even make out a person. You can see into someone's back yard on Google Earth although not in real time. Unless you have a privacy fence of 6 feet or more, there is nothing that you can't see from the neighbor's yard. I have read many comments on another forum where people talk about "my air space", the drones is "trespassing" and I have the right to shoot it over my property. I hate to tell someone but I can fly a drone over my property and take photos of probably 95% of any of my neighbor's back yards. I can fly it over public property such as roadways, alleys and other right of ways and do the same thing. Both from cost of the units, from federal law on aircraft and possibly firing a gun in a neighborhood, a person that does so might be guilty of up to 3 felonies for shooting one down.