In many jurisdictions traps are illegal because they cannot be considered part of self defense. In those jurisdictions, you have to use reasonable means to avoid the conflict before self-defense is justified. So if a burglar breaks in and you shoot him in the back with no warning, it’s not self defense; you’d have to explore options like firing warning shots, fleeing the house, etc. This varies from state to state.
But, the point is that a poisoned donut or a booby trap is unable to use those methods. You’ve set up something with an intent to harm someone, you set it up when your safety was not threatened and you did not take reasonable steps to avoid the conflict.
The poisoned bottle in the trunk was a common “anti-theft device” on my youth years (80’s) in Venezuela. The rationale ranging from simple revenge to the hope of the guy dying and the car being abandoned to be found out.
The way it was normally done was to leave half a bottle of rum (rum being the cheap booze in Venezuela) with some poison which ranged from rat poison to medications to only-god-knows. Having half bottles of non-poisoned rum was very common as there were no open container laws. I normally had 5-6 bottles in my trunk at all times (along with a white shirt, a tie and a swimsuit).
The point of the bottle being only half full (or half empty) was first to avoid wastage, but also to give the impression of an already drunk bottle which made it look safer :rolleyes:.
This was common enough that I have a whole series of first hand stories (not FOAF) of everything from actual “success” stories, to friendly fire casualties, to fights among friends trying to stop each other from drinking both safe and poisoned bottles.
Eventually this became so common that it stopped being effective as thieves just assumed all bottles to be poisoned and would then break them inside your car if they abandoned it (stolen for a robbery or the such)
Thanks for the responses so far. I can see that the DoD could be seen as a premeditated attempt at hurting someone and thus criminal. How about if it were somehow made to pass as pest trap (say donuts for cockroaches or hamburgers for mice)?. Would that even make sense?
The reason for asking is that the old poisoned bottle thing just came up in conversation with an old friend and I was wondering if that could translate here or even if it was ever common or even rarely used. I assume that an open bottle in the car is already enough of a problem in itself that adding the issue of poison to it would be just stupid, hence the domestic spin on it.
If you’re not justified in using deadly force, you’re not justified in shooting a warning shot. A warning shot will make you look worse at your trial, because it proves to the jury that you didn’t feel your life was in danger. Goodbye to your self-defense claim.
I didn’t see anyone address this. Are you liable for any undo suffering you inflict on the crook? If you leave some cookies frosted with capsicum out and the crook eats one are you in trouble?
What if your pain tolerances are high and you actually like habenero donuts? Are you responsable if the crook eats one and can’t handle it?
Wouldn’t that depend on the situation? I mean if I fire a warning shot and he starts approaching me isn’t he a threat?
Our legal system is built on intent. So, what are your intentions in leaving out the poisoned donuts? Your intent is to hurt thieves, right? Well if you hurt someone and you intended to hurt them, you are going to be held responsible for it. Maybe you could convince a jury you had some other reason to leave out poisoned donuts. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Also its worth noting that in the ex-lax brownie situation, someone could have removed the “do not eat sign” early on. Now the question would be did you properly warn your co-workers that you had ex-lax brownies? Is a little sign enough? Can you even prove you left that sign up?
Heaven forbid someone with an allergy or other health condition eats those things and dies, now youre looking at murder. If I was a juror I would vote guilty for murder 2nd degree in that scenario pretty easily. Youre the guy who poisoned someone with intent over something extremely petty. You wont get much sympathy from people.
Also, what is defined as a “booby trap”? I read a case awhile ago where a storeowner kept getting breakins. The theives would apparently jump to the room of his store from an adjacent building and enter through the ceiling somehow. Eventually he strung up piano wire or fishing line to some other hard to see high tensile strength line to trip up people jumping to his roof and ended up seriously injuring a would-be thief. I believe he was either arrested or sued.
However, you see concertina wire, wrought iron spike fences, thorn bushes and so on all designed to deter intruders. All of them could be extremely dangerous to someone stupid enough to try to go through them. Are you legally liable if someone impales themselves on your gate?
But the question is whether the homeowner hurt the burglar, or whether the burglar hurt himself. So the argument that intent is everything is probably wrong. At common law, most crimes (including attempted murder) require not only intent but ALSO a substantial step taken in commission of the crime. It is not enough to merely “plan” a crime; for attempt to lie, you have to actually try to do it.
It is highly questionable whether merely leaving available the means for self-harm, would rise to the level of a substantial step taken to accomplish the death or injury of the other person. This isn’t a loaded gun and a six-year-old; it’s a burglar and a donut. The burglar doesn’t have to eat the donut; for all you know, the burglar doesn’t even like donuts.
If you were somehow certain that the burglar would have to eat the DoD, then, yeah, I think you’ve got an argument that the DoD is effectively an impermissible mantrap. But that’s not the case. Whether or not the poison is consumed is entirely up to the victim.
Right. Evident defensive measures (within the constraints of law*), or posted warnings of hazard (“WARNING: Electrified Fence! [picture of a guy getting zapped]”) are allowed.
(*obviously, a quad-.50 cal machine gun mount on top of your garage is a visible deterrent measure, but your Zoning Board may have some reservations about it…)
Deterrence requires that the threat know (or believe) that the deterrent measure is in place, so that he can decide it’s not worth it.
The prosecution will argue that a reasonable homeowner would place the pest-poison bait somewhere where it would not be casually accessible to humans, or would post a note “Don’t eat These! Rat Poison!”. Otherwise he’ll be accused of acting with reckless disregard for human life and safety.
Around here the lethal-poison donut would be at a minimum culpable manslaughter and the prosecutor could get the charge ratcheted up to murder if he can convince the court that you had reason to suspect or expect the break-in and deliberately set it out as bait with the intent to kill.
It really boils down to that in most jurisdictions only the State has the power to take steps to kill someone for his/her crimes, absent an imminent self-defense situation.
As Dewey Finn points out, one key difference is whether the defense is open and obvious, or whether it is likely to cause injury through means the trespasser cannot see and avoid. The difference is that a hidden mechanism is obviously intended not merely to deter the behavior but actually to cause injury – otherwise it would be open, not hidden.
The leading mantrap case for the last forty years is Katko v. Briney, out of IIRC Nebraska. It stood and still stands for the proposition that human safety is worth more than mere property. It is the basis for the general rule that while a homeowner may use deadly force in defense of himself or another person, he may not use deadly force in defense of only property. Thus, if the burglar is in your bedroom with you, you may shoot him if you fear for you life. But you may not rig your gun to shoot the burglar when he enters your unoccupied bedroom.
Well, the homeowner **poisoned **the donut. With a dose lethal to humans. That’s a pretty substantial step. May not rise to murder in the jurisdiction but it’s pretty culpable.