You assert that this was the situation, but as I pointed out before, you have no evidence to back it up, only the vague description in the news story which you have embellished.
They were partially responsible for the death of their companion, and have been required by law to pay for it by prison sentence. If it’s injustice (and it may be) it’s certainly not at the top of the list of “horrible things that must be fixed right now.”
Certainly there are many more people who engage in similar activities that avoid stuff like this happening to them only by virtue of sheer luck.
I hope you don’t mind if I take this just a bit more seriously than you, and not applaud the killing and injuring(legally justified or not) of juvenile perpetrators who were trying to escape when they realized there were people in the house.
It’s a bit late at that point. About their only option at that late stage in the game would be to throw up their hands and beg for mercy and try to appear as non-threatening as possible. Think of it as the equivalent of trying for an on-side kick, Hail Mary pass, and two-point conversion with seconds left on the clock of a football game. Is it likely to work? No, but you shouldn’t have let yourself wind up in that situation to begin with.
As an aside, I think the fact that Angie Johnson heard gunshots from four blocks away and “she became worried and started calling her son’s phone” speaks volumes about the quality of her parenting and the type of child she had.
I’m skeptical of pretty much everything the criminals claim, from “we thought it was unoccupied” to “we were trying to escape” and even “I was just helping my wounded comrade”. I’d rather see 10,000 dead teen burglars and 50,000 of their accomplices locked away for life, than one more Petit family situation.
So, sounds like he just started shooting - which is perfectly understandable, and is (and should be) legal.
Surrender, or flee. That’s about their only options. I’d vote surrender, as a Monday morning quarterback: hands up, yell “Unarmed!” or “Don’t shoot” or “Please” and hope for the best.
The homeowner didn’t commit murder (or any crime). The 4 burglars did commit felony murder. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. That the homeowner’s actions are justified doesn’t mean that a crime wasn’t committed.
If you’ve got a cite with more on it about this case, you are more than welcome to post it. I can only work with the data that is put forth.
Was the death ruled Justifiable Homicide on the part of the person that actually pulled the trigger? If so, then I don’t see a basis for giving a totally different ruling on the death when it comes to those who didn’t pull the trigger. Was it Justifiable Homicide or not?
I don’t applaud the death of these folks - but the homeowner has no idea (nor do you) if the group of four were trying to run at the time it’s happening. We also don’t know they were trying to target an empty house.
I do know that I would consider it justice if they all the robbers ended up dead. I wouldn’t applaud it but I would be fine with the outcome. Long prison sentences don’t even register as something to be concerned about.
As has been stated elsewhere in the thread, these 2 things are not mutually exclusive.
The homeowner was deemed justified, AND the burglars were deemed responsible.
I’m not understanding why this doesn’t seem reasonable to you, especially since it’s clear that if a pack of burglars goes into a home that the entire pack is responsible for what happens subsequently.
Or at least that is what gels with my common sense.
Does it follow that you’d support imposing the death penalty on convicted robbers?
There is a legal basis: for the boys, it’s a murder, because it was death that occured as a reasonably foreseable outcome of a felony they committed. For the homeowner, it’s not, because Indiana’s Castle Doctine justifies the use of force to repel an unlawful entry into a home.
Their only hope is that the homeowner misses and they can either flee or present themselves to be such a non threat and that the homeower has time to realize it. Maybe by handcuffing themselves and then bashing themselves unconscious.
The traditional basis is that “kills” encompasses the criminal act which is the proximate cause for the death, like so: I have the specific intent to commit a burglary, which is such a violent act that it is naturally accompanied by a risk of death-by-homeowner, so that a co-conspirator’s getting shot by a homeowner is a naturally foreseeable consequence of my actions in conspiring to commit the burglary. Because I intentionally committed the burglary, and the foreseeable result of a death occurred, I “killed” my co-conspirator for the purposes of the statute.
Felony murder by the burglars, justifiable homicide by the homeowner. It’s really not that complex - different actors can have different roles in a crime.
If a bank guard shoots and kills a robber during a shootout is it justifiable homicide? Is it still felony murder for the remaining robbers? Both are true and there’s no contradiction involved. How else would you deal with the death?
No. The criminal justice system must take a dispassionate view of events. If the only crime was robbery it does not follow that the penalty is death as administered by the state. I’m actually against the death penalty per se.
But for the homeowner in the heat of the moment without knowing the level of threat - dead robbers is a foreseeable outcome.