For anyone who hasn’t seen Gran Torino, and may want to; just a warning, this will spoil the end of the movie.
At the end of Gran Torino, the viewer has been led to believe that Walt is going to confront the gang members with guns blazing. However, it turns out that his plan for revenge is to show up unarmed, knowing he is going to be killed and, as a result, get the gang members arrested. I’m curious, though, of how well his plan would have hypothetically played out in court. I mean I’m glad they were arrested at the end of the movie, cause f*ck them. But could a reasonable defense be made against murder charges against the gang members? How would this have hypothetically played out in court?
What I’m thinking is that there are so many technicalities that can be exploited in court that could possibly work against murder charges. When Walt arrived at the gang house, he was unarmed, and did not specifically threaten them. But, it seems as though a self defense case could be made. They had had confrontations with Walt before, so they could reason he was there to do harm to them. And when looking at the details, Walt knew that he was going to be killed by going to the residence. Would this have had an effect on a court case? I think that we maybe rely too heavy on our rationale that, “they are bad guys so they will be found guilty.”
Lets say that opposite events took place in the movie. Say, instead, 1 or 2 gang members arrived unarmed on Walt’s lawn. Walt sees them, grabs his gun, and points it at them assuming them to be hostile. They proceed to talk in the obscure manner that Walt had, not implicitly suggesting that they intended harm. One of them reaches into their pocket to get a lighter. Walter assumes he is reaching for a gun, so he shoots and kills them. Would Walt be automatically convicted of murder? Or would there be a rational self-defense argument to be made? They were unarmed, but Walt had reason to believe, from past confrontations, that they may be hostile. Is this not the same situation seen in the movie, just up-side-down?
I do realize that they could be charged with other crimes; such as illegal firearms, any drugs in the residence, or other litigations brought out by a court hearing. But I’m specifically thinking about a murder charge.