One more thought: My understanding (admittedly imperfect) is that Texas’ “shoot the burglar” law only applies to nighttime burglaries. That’s a bit of a different situation from the simple theft you describe above, in the same way that, if someone steals a bike left unlocked leaning against a street lamp pole it is quite a bit different from if someone were to break into your home at night to steal the bicycle out of your garage.
I think the original post is disingenuous.
In fact, I hope it is, because if it isn’t disingenuous then the OP is actually proposing to murder a bunch of people to satisfy an abstract notion of liberty.
Depends, are the protesters workers from a federal office building?
Joe Horn, which I cited earlier, shot two burglars (not robbers) stealing from Horn’s neighbor’s house. The events occurred around 2pm so it was not dark at all.
The motorist would presumably be the defendant in this case. The norm in our system is for the plaintiff to bear the burden of proof. I don’t see how it is “a flip of the innocent till proven guilty bit”. The motorist is innocent until proven guilty. In this case, part of that “proven guilty” would require that the person injured / killed demonstrate that they did “not obstruct or interfere with the regular flow of vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway during a protest or demonstration for which a public assembly permit or other applicable special event permit has not been issued by a county or municipality.” It would have protected the driver from the lawsuit from that dumb bitch from UCSD. I see that as good public policy.
In his case, I believe the grand jury no-billed him because he reasonably feared for his life (the burglars moved towards him when they exited the home), not because of Texas’ law about nighttime burglaries. I’m certainly open to correction if you or others think I have that bit wrong.
ETA: in other words, I think Joe Horn’s case was basically one of simple self-defense.
It is blocking roads to protest and inconveniencing people to do so. Permit or no permit. In many of the photos I linked to the surface streets were major thoroughfares and arguably more disruptive of traffic than blocking a freeway.
You are nitpicking details when the upshot is roughly the same in all cases.
I don’t think it is “nitpicking details”. I see a huge difference between a protest that is planned ahead, notifies and obtains a permit from the municipality, allowing police time to plan and close the roads to vehicular traffic (and allowing drivers time to plan alternate routes to avoid the closed roads and protesters) vs a spontaneous protest that springs up and tries to march onto the freeway and block traffic. The former is relatively safe for all involved, the latter is dangerous as hell.
Yes. That is what the grand jury did. Of course it is almost unheard of for a DA in the US to not get an indictment from a grand jury if they want one. At a federal level they get indictments in 99.99% of all cases (over 162,000 and lost 11 of them in 2010). I doubt Texas is much different in this regard. Grand jury trials are nothing like a regular trial. The DA has all the power, the defense none.
The burglars were in Horn’s neighbor’s house. Horn called police and was told not to go outside, that they’d take care of it. Horn was worked up about not letting them get away and saying as much so left his home with a gun. He confronted the burglars shouting a warning and mere moments later fired. Supposedly they ran towards him so he “feared for his life” but somehow the burglars managed to get shot in the back (both of them). In short, had he listened to the police he would have been safe and no shooting would have occurred.
Either the DA threw the case or this is just good ole boy justice looking out for their own, southern style.
No, but jurors who acquit a guy who intentionally plows through a group of protesters because they’re blocking the street would be.
Every now and then juries, and even grand juries, will ruin a prosecutor’s plans, but I agree, it’s quite rare. And sometimes I feel that prosecutors may present a weak case to a grand jury, expecting / hoping to “lose” so that they can wash their hands of an unattractive / politically volatile case and tell the masses “i did the best I could, but aww shucks, that mean ole grand jury just wouldn’t let me do my job”.
Whatever it was in this case, there are several useful lessons that can be drawn from the case:
#1) don’t break into people’s homes and steal stuff in Texas.
#2) if you’ve ignored #1, and you get caught by a neighbor wielding a shotgun, you should sure as hell not run towards him.
It would not surprise me if something like that was the message the grand jury wanted to send to would-be burglars, more than it wanted to send a message to the Joe Horns of the world to not shoot criminals running towards them. I don’t find it terribly unreasonable. That doesn’t mean that “simple theft deserves the death penalty”, but it might mean that one should exercise caution to not make reasonable people fear for their life / safety.
Even in the hypothetical example I gave in post #20 (quoted below for your convenience)?
It is dangerous. It was also dangerous for civil rights protestors to protest even with permits. Do you want photos of the police attacking civil rights protestors?
Heck, police attacked peaceful, not blocking anything Occupy Wall Street protestors.
Plenty of danger to go around.
Whatever the case permitting murder is a ridiculous outcome.
The bill in question would not “permit murder”. You don’t appear to understand what we are discussing here. SB 1096 would only have applied to “A motor vehicle operator who unintentionally causes injury or death to a person who obstructs or interferes with the regular flow of vehicular traffic in violation of subsection (1)”. I emphasize, for your sake, the word “unintentionally”.
I emphasize, for your sake, that the burden of proof to show intention is on the person who was injured (or their representative). That is a very hard thing to do. Honestly it looks like the same bar needed to prosecute first degree murder and there is no lesser charge that can attach (near as I can tell).
Just as it should be. That person is the plaintiff. The defendant is innocent until proven guilty.
Yes but the burden of proof is dramatically higher. Vehicular manslaughter charges (or equivalent) are a far lower burden. “Even if the death was the result of a mistake or accident, it is still possible to be charged with vehicular manslaughter.”
Now you have to prove the person meant to run you over. Premeditation. Barring a smoking gun admission a very difficult burden of proof to manage.
If we wait for a case involving the police, like this, to be a test case, we’ll be waiting a LONG time, regardless of what the law says.
Besides that is not really a test for the case I was talking about. If that hadn’t been a cop driving, it would be an open and shut case (the inclination, or otherwise of the authorities to charge and successfully prosecute cops in the US is a whole different issue). The protesters (and the woman who was run over specifically) were clearly not threatening the car’s occupants, and the car accelerated into her.
I was specifically talking about a case where the cars occupants did have a reasonable reason to fear for their safety. I cannot believe they would have legal carte blanc to run over whoever they want (even if the people being run over are not ones doing the threatening)
:smack: Of course! I can see how this perfectly fits into historical tradition. When those uppity folks got to asserting themselves too much, sometimes they needed a good old hanging. Trouble with that was it was too easy to prove intent. This way is much more convenient.
(Of course, this idea of intent is ridiculous from a legal standpoint. If there’s folks in front of you and you’re controlling a motor vehicle and you move forward, then that’s really good enough to establish intent in any normal case. You intend to move the vehicle forward with full knowledge of the likely outcome. That there is legal intent.)