A bit of a spin off from Skalds thread here. I thought it was a little slanted so made my own hypo. Poll to come. Here is my post from the thread:
Let’s change things a bit. Instead of Josie, there’s Joe. Joe’s not a bad guy. A couple of days ago, he saw an elderly couple stranded by the side of the road and gave them a jump start. A week before that he saw his cute neighbor Josie trying to move some furniture into her house and gave her a hand. Even though he’s smitten with her, he did this simply because he likes helping, with no expectation of sex. But even his close friends will admit he’s got a temper. He’s got a few misdemeanor assaults on his record, and a couple of drunk and disorderlys. Even his bartender friends will admit that though they like him (he’s a great tipper) they do need to keep an eye on him.
Joe’s also not a racist, as such. His heroes include Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Rice. His Black and Hispanic co-workers all speak highly of him. (He’s a union certified electrician, and a damn good one.) His mentor was a very dark skinned Dominican. If he saw a Black guy being bullied by some White guys He would intervene on that guy’s behalf. And when Joe intervenes on your behalf, your ass has been intervened on and you will know it. He practices MMA fighting and briefly considered a pro wrestling career. However, in his deep heart, in the places he doesn’t really talk about or even admit to himself, he does think that Blacks are not as smart as Whites, and are more prone to criminality.
Joe comes home from the bar one night. He’s a little over the legal limit–let’s say .10, which for him is practically sober–but gets home safely. He sees a light on in his kitchen, but doesn’t think much of it. His only housemate is his cat, Marvin Straighte ( It’s a black cat with a very deep meow), but he figures he must have just left the light on. When he enters the house he hears some clattering in his kitchen. Now he is concerned. No way is Marvin making that noise. In fact he can see Marvin’s tail, from where Marvin is hiding under the couch. He retrieves one of his guns (He’s got a CCW but is self aware enough not to carry when he drinks) and goes to the kitchen. Good move on his part because there’s some skinny black dude, looks about fifty, drinking from his milk carton. There’s no sign of forced entry, so he must have left the back door open, which he knows he sometimes does. He points his gun at the intruder and tells him to get on the floor with his hands up. The intruder doesn’t comply–a novelty for Joe–and instead takes a step toward him, babbling incoherently about Jesus and how electricity equals mind control. Joe is alarmed and yells again. The intruder takes another step toward him and Joe empties his gun, all shots in the ten ring. He immediately calls the cops and gives them the bare details, but asks to speak to his lawyer. The cops understand. No charges are filed.
If he were charged, would he use the “Chewbacca defense, which I learned from my good friend Johnnie Cochran, who I might mention is black, and we ate dinner together once, and did I mention he was my black friend? I would’ve hired him to represent me even though he is black if he weren’t already dead.”
In other words, the third paragraph is odd, and would be a minor circumstance at best. The last paragraph is pretty much all that matters. Legally justified? Absolutely. Morally? Depends on more information.
I put the third para in there for color, and also because race is always an issue in these things. See George Zimmerman for more details. Also it establishes that Joe is a badass who could have easily taken the intruder unarmed. However he didn’t know that when he got his gun. There’s always a bigger badass, or multiple badasses, or a non-badass with a gun.
Target was talking about Jesus; that indicates a mentally unstable individual who should be considered an extreme danger to society. Shoot = justified.
100% justified. Homeowner discovers an intruder in his home. Confronts intruder with a firearm and orders the intruder to put his hands up and drop to the floor. The intruder advances, is warned again and continues to advance. Why would there be any doubt if this was a justifiable shoot? Legally he’s in the clear and in my opinion he is morally in the clear.
You don’t wait in this situation for the intruder to produce his own weapon and kill you. You certainly don’t unload your firearm just because he’s there, but if someone advances on you, after being warned twice, you do what is necessary to protect yourself.
Also, it seems to me that the intruder in this scenario wanted to be shot. Suicide by homeowner perhaps? Why else would you advance on someone who is not only holding a gun, but had given you multiple warnings?
I’m gonna go with a “Yes, justified” on this one, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to empty the clip on the intruder. I firmly believe in self-defense and acknowledge that death may be a likely result, but this makes it sound like his goal was to kill someone, regardless of whether there was a threat. My answer might depend a little on the type of weapon used and how quickly all the shots could be fired. Nerves and panic will buy you a little leniency…
Being drunk, leaving the door unlocked and the lack of a weapon for the intruder are unimportant ***if ***I accept the story in the OP as true. These factors might be important, however, if this were real life and the OP was just Joe’s story, as related to the press by a defense attorney.
People always get bothered by this. Firing one round or all rounds from a firearm are irrelevant. What matters is should the trigger have been pulled at all? Round count does not matter, since the first shot can very likely be fatal. In a situation where a person makes the often instant decision to discharge their gun, they are quite likely absolutely terrified and in a hard fight or flight survival mental state. Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-slide locked open (10 bangs for California) is expected. Remember, the goal is to stop the threat from someone who you perceive an immediate mortal danger to you. Many rounds fired = increased chance of stopping the threat. Dead is dead, whether you got dead with one bullet or ten.
I voted both morally and legally justified in the “Josie” poll.
Joe was legally justified (in many states, anyway, including mine.) But morally…I’d say probably yes, although as an armed, large and basically sober man facing an unarmed, smaller, probably crazy man, he probably could have de-escalated the situation without going the legally-justified lethal route.
Were I on a jury and no new and startling facts came up besides the basic premise of the OP, I’d probably vote to acquit. I would consider the racial aspect irrelevant, unless at trial it would come to light that Joe was a Klan member, or something like that. In other words, if I was presented with evidence that he was probably quicker to shoot and kill a non-white intruder than a white intruder.
You didn’t stack the deck nearly as much as Skald did, but yes, still justified. Tragic, in that the dude really needed help, but just because he’s crazy doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.
I voted no. Joe had no need to kill the guy. He has martial arts skills and is larger and obviously more sane, he could restrain the guy if necessary. Talk is sometimes the best way to diffuse a bad situation.
Years ago, I got a job in a California prison as a Correctional Officer (fancy title for a guard). There were 600 convicted felons in the Quad where I was working, two officers in each 300-unit housing building. All inmate’s cells were opened at 7:30 am. When I first started, I assumed that I would have a gun or a billy club or something to protect myself. My sergeant set me straight right away. He told me: “We hired you because you have a brain. That’s your best defense. Any weapon can be taken away from you and used against you. A lot of these guys are body-builders. It’s your job to keep order using your brain.” Very good advice as I learned over the next two years that I worked there.
This is basically my thought on the matter. Do you intend to kill or not? If you don’t intend to kill, you don’t shoot. If you do intend to kill, you shoot to make sure. There isn’t a realistic in-between.
It’s quite easy to construct examples that make it obvious that there’s a line there somewhere.
For example, I’m defending myself with a Civil War muzzle-loader. I shoot the victim ten times, even though this action requires more than three minutes of complex, multi-step reloading. Still OK?
Or, I shoot him once, and he falls over so that my aim is now impeded by a couch. I go around the couch, where the intruder is already unconscious, so that I can continue shooting the other nine rounds. You’d agree that this is clearly wrong, right?
Or, I punch the victim, knocking him out cold. Then I go to the garage, grab a hammer and smash his skull in, arguing that I was worried he might regain consciousness before the police arrived.
There is clearly a point at which “I had to kill him to save myself” transforms into “I was determined to kill him, regardless of any danger to myself.”
In situations like this, it would be great if one could step back analyze the situation and decide what the best course of action is. But that’s just not reality. It’s a high stress moment, your hearts thumping like a rabbit, and you need to make a decision NOW!
In that situation, I’m not going to roll the dice on some altruistic principle. The man is going to die or debilitated if he’s lucky. I’m shooting to kill though.
No, because there has been a change in situation since the first shot. The threat has been stopped. That is the goal. I agree that there are lines, tenuous and broad as the almost infinite number of constructed scenarios demonstrate.
The OP’s scenario is sad, unfortunate and justified. Joe must stack the odds in his favor when confronted by an intruder in his own home.
This is justified for the same reason as the original thread: an unknown trespasser challenged the homeowner. The circumstances of the trespasser and the reason for his or her approach toward the homeowner, no matter how tragic or fantastical they are painted, don’t matter.