self defense with long term effects. you don't want those criminial to come back at you when they're grown-ups and physicall able.
Following up on this thread. Byron Smith was found guilty on all counts. http://www.startribune.com/local/257169671.html Byron Smith gets life sentence for murdering Little Falls teens The 65 year old is sentenced to life in prison without parole. LITTLE FALLS — A Morrison County jury found Byron Smith guilty of premeditated murder. The jury of six men and six women deliberated for about three hours Tuesday in deciding that fate of the 65 year old Smith, who shot 18-year-old Haile Kifer and 17-year-old Nick Brady after they broke into his home on Thanksgiving Day in 2012. Smith had no reaction after the verdicts were read. Families of the slain teens hugged each other and cried. After the verdicts, Smith was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole. Asked if he wanted to speak, he said, “Thank you for the opportunity your honor. I decline.” Smith was taken into custody from the courtroom. The families of the cousins gave victim impact statements. “Smith was robbed of things; Nick and Haile were robbed of their lives,” Nick’s grandmother said. Brady’s mom, Kimberly, didn’t look at Smith as she read her statement. “This has filled our lives with a tremendous sadness,” she said. Prosecutor Pete Orput had asked for consecutive life sentences, saying it’s important to the families. Smith was found guilty of all four counts of first-degree and second-degree murder. Judge Douglas Anderson handed down concurrent life sentences, saying “a life sentence is indeed just that.” It’s life without the possibility of parole. The killings rocked this town of 8,300 on the Mississippi River and have become a flash point nationally as communities debate just how far homeowners can go to protect themselves and their property. “Justice was sought and we got it and we’re grateful,” Orput said outside the courtroom after the verdict. But, he said, he’s saddened by the case. “We’ve got two dead kids over nothing.” Efforts were made to obfuscate what this was and turn it into some type of referendum about being able to protect one’s home, Orput said. “This was a case about where the limits are,” Sheriff Michel Wetzel said in news conference after the verdicts. Waiting in ambush In closing arguments Tuesday, Orput hammered home the idea that Smith, 65, plotted the killings of the intruders as they descended his basement steps about 10 minutes apart on that fateful Thanksgiving Day in 2012. After repeated break-ins to his home and his adjacent property throughout that fall, Smith set up an ambush, the prosecutor argued. His gun was loaded; he moved his truck from his garage; he got a book, food and water, as he waited at the bottom of his basement steps. All of that points to premeditation, Orput said. Smith also had a tarp ready and quickly wrapped up Brady’s body to move it after the shooting. “Some of you hunters will think this sounds like deer hunting,” Orput said. Smith’s attorney, Steve Meshbesher said outside the courtroom after the verdict that there was a lot the jury didn’t see. Meshbesher had tried to make the case that Smith was living in fear after repeated break-ins to his home and an adjacent property in the weeks before the late November killings. Family applauded Sgt. Jeremy Luberts, who interviewed Smith after the shootings. “What Jeremy recovered I think had a great impact on the jury,” Orput said.
