This doesn't look like self defense to me

In My Humble Opinion
101

I have experienced the aftermath of burglaries (came home to find my place rifled through). It is an extremely unpleasant experience, and it is not about my stuff.

  • this is my home, the place I retreat to with the expectation of feeling safe
  • without my invitation, you have entered this place of safety: you have not merely encroached upon my space, you have violated it
  • this is about the same as if you had just stepped on my face, the same as physically striking me – how a person responds to such an assault is wildly unpredictable
  • I may want to firmly instill in you the sense that you do not want to attempt this again, which may include a retaliatory attack on your person (as you have on mine) – YMMV

This is how it looks to me. Violating my safe space is a pretty extreme provocation which basically negates any component of intent. Most criminal acts require some component of intent. The (homeowner’s) defense would frame their argument in a manner similar to this, and a jury would almost certainly acquit. And the issue would never get tested in higher courts, because acquittals do not beget appeals (why bother).

102

Clearly IANAL but if they acquitted on that argument, that it was a justified retaliation, they would have to go against what the law actually states, and they would instructed on what the law actually states. You have no duty to retreat within “your castle”, and can use an appropriate level of force to prevent the trespass and to defend yourself, but retaliation is not part of it. A jury may have empathy for the desire for revenge but I do not think all would ignore what the law and the facts are.

Again though, in this case the homeowner hit on the hand that was opening a gate to leave, very consistent with an intent to detain until police could arrive with reasonable and not dangerous force, which is consistent with allowable action as a citizen’s arrest.

103

Here is the point where you have stepped outside the protections of self defense and it’s just plain old assault (or assault with a deadly weapon, or murder, depending on how you choose to retaliate)

If this happens once the intruder has left your dwelling, is leaving your property and is no longer an immediate threat to your life, this is just an attack on one person by another, just the same as if it had just a random passer by in the street you think stole your car last year. Hell, if that is your intent (and you are unwise enough to express it as “a retaliatory attack” to law enforcement) I’d expect you to face charges even if he was still in your dwelling

104

I always wonder what the motivation is of the people that apply so much scrutiny to self defense cases. It seems people are often hyper vigilant to any potential excess that anyone defending themselves makes in good faith in the heat of the moment in order to be lenient towards someone who violated the space and therefore threatened the life of the other person. I don’t understand the impulse at all.

When someone breaks into your home, they may only be looking to snatch your TV, but they may not. They may want to do all sorts of harms to you. As the person being surprised with an attack (often waking you up out of sleep although that may not be the case here) you have no idea what their intentions, capability, or even number are. Your fight or flight reflex is going crazy, you’re loaded with adrenaline, what you do in the next few moments could determine whether you, or your loved ones, live or die.

And yet people apply scrutiny to what you do as if they expect you to be a Navy Seal trained in zen buddhism with a perfect state of mind, with perfect awareness of what’s going on, and using only the absolute minimum force needed to repel the attack. There is no doubt that many times when someone in such a position has attempted to apply restraint to their response, it was insufficient to stop the threat and they and their loved ones were harmed because of their restraint.

The person breaking into the home of another is the one creating the one inflicting the harm and creating the dangerous situation for both parties. They do it with malice and intentionality. The blame for pretty much any sort of consequence short of the extreme is on them. The person defending their lives and the lives of those they protect, the one who had this situation thrust upon them unexpectedly and without any fault of their own, should be given every benefit of every doubt.

That isn’t to say that a person defending themselves can’t act excessively, but it would take a lot to convince me that they were. What we see in the video is absolutely consistent with someone whose adrenaline is through the roof, who is fighting to chase away a threat on instinct, and shows no malicious intent.

It’s certainly possible to use excessive force in a case like this, like if the homeowner hit him in the head with a frying pan and when the other guy was down on the ground unconcious he continued to beat him to death, that would make a reasonable excessive force use case, but what we see is not close to that. He’s still in the process of chasing a threat away.

But why are we trying to pin accusations of misbehavior on the guy who was thrust in the situation against his will for the benefit of someone maliciously broke into the home of the other? It’s so bizarre to me certainly people are always looking to do that and I don’t understand the motivation. Sure, some of it is ignorance of how scary it can be to be attacked in this way, and how much one can be caught up in the adrenaline of the moment and not to act perfectly, but there must be something more to it than that when people seem to care more about the criminal than the innocent.

105

You don’t need to wonder i was pretty clear in the OP. I wanted to know the legal justification (if there was one, other than the DA didn’t fancy prosecution him) for this being self defense.

As I said in the OP I’m not unsympathetic with the homeowner here. I just don’t see any legal reason this is self defense.

I think the answer is there isnt one. There might just be an argument for citizens arrest, that seems pretty flimsy to me

106

IANAL, but ISTM that you’ve ignored several reasons suggested: The burglar hadn’t completed fleeing yet and hitting him on the hand increases the motivation both to finish fleeing and to not return (because the homeowner will have proved he’s willing to use force); there’s no way for a normal, untrained human to have the perfect emotional regulation during such a terrifying event as a home invasion to stop using force at a specific exact threshold, especially if that threshold is asserted to be still on the property; hitting someone on the hand is not even close to “deadly force” and thus entirely within the acceptable levels of force for a home invasion; and probably more.

107

They want to avoid more Ralph Yarl incidents?

108

There is also the concept of Mens Rea, we generally have the expectation that a person committing a crime understands that they are committing a crime, or that they have to exhibit criminal negligence/indifference to human life.

This homeowner was almost certainly not in a criminal state of mind, nor were they indifferent to human life, they were acting as if they were in danger, and the human mind is such that a foray into “fight or flight” doesn’t just turn itself off like a switch when the source of danger changes tactics.

109

Suggested being operative word here. I could suggest that it’s legal to hit an Irishman with a frying pan in Chicago on a Sunday, but unless I can quote a law or case to that effect I wouldnt consider it particularly compelling

110

You haven’t quoted a law that invalidates those suggestions, AFAICT.

111

You haven’t quoted one that invalidates my suggestion that’s it’s legal in Illinois to hit an Irishman with a frying pan on a Sunday.

112

If that’s the best you got, then I’ll suggest that you don’t have a good reason to assert this wouldn’t be considered self-defense, legally speaking. You know, innocent until proven guilty and all.

113

The best I got is an actual Illinois law that describes when resident can use force (either regular or lethal force) in defense of their dwelling and, even if a frying pan counts as regular ol’ force, the events in the OP absolutely 100% do not count as a justified use of force under that law.

So all the other suggestions* absent an actual law or case that supports them don’t really amount to much more than my Irishman example.

* - except maybe the citizens arrest law which seems a bit of stretch, especially as everything I’ve seen indicates it needs to be explicitly communicated to the arrestee that you are performing a citizens arrest.

114

IANAL, but your interpretation of that Illinois law, for this instance, appears very incorrect to me.

115

That you’re comparing shooting someone through a door to a home invasion is wild and I imagine just be related to the impulse under discussion.

116

Claiming self-defense is essentially the standard defense for killing someone if it’s obvious you killed them.

IMO vigilantism and lynching should be extremely discouraged, which I think justifies extra scrutiny when someone ends up dead.

117

The key phrase in there is " … he reasonably believes …" – the law does not specify what is “reasonable” and cannot assess what the actor “believes”. The court can instruct the jury as to the law but cannot instruct them as to how to infer what the actor believed at the time.

118

True but there absolutely no way a reasonable person would infer that hitting someone with a frying pan as they attempt to leave via your front gate is preventing or terminating a attack on your dwelling.

It’s not a grey area or a matter of opinion. That is simply not a “reasonable belief”. The video in the OP does not meet the criteria for self defence laid out in that law. Unless there is some other law or case that can be cited, if they did decide to prosecute it would be an open and shut case.

119

Many people in this thread disagree. You’re free to call us unreasonable, but that doesn’t make it a legal fact.

120

What a “reasonable person” believes is almost by definition a matter of opinion.

In this case, does the reasonable person have to back off when a burglar appears to be attempting to leave? Because it is entirely possible that the reasonable person who backs off may find the burglar “attempting to leave” instead deciding to regroup and turn to face the homeowner. Yeah, I have the advantage with the frying pan while the guy is running away from me and I’m trying to crack him over the head, I don’t necessarily have that same advantage if I stop chasing and let him catch his breath since he’s running towards my gate.