People don't have a right to kill people unless their lives are in danger. I don't know if this was the case with the old man. The article doesn't say if the men were armed.
the guy intended to kill these people from the moment he saw it. he had ample time to cool down. he had the 911 operator telling him over and over not to go out and get involved. he ignored it all, went out and killed them. it will be interesting to see what the prosecutor does with this. i was unaware the penal code read that way. i remember studying this stuff in law school, but i don't do criminal law at all. i still don't feel like this fact-scenario matches the legislature's intent for defense of another person's property with deadly force.
youre right but according to the law, if the neighbor reasonably believes that there is danger to a third party or third party's property, he is justified in using deadly force to defend him or it. (as posted previously) some people may disagree but that is the law.
If the burglars were ARMED, shooting them was OK. You will never know the intentions of these people. The ywill kill if they have to. The huge amount of cash that were found from those burglars indicates that the use of force was necessary. If the shooter was white, then he's 100 percent clean. (just4kicks).
its debatable if the guy really intended to kill the burglars or he was venting. like i said previously, i wanna know if he gave a warning before he started shooting. if he didnt give a warning, then he is being reckless. as far as the prosecutor/grand jury... this is texas. i doubt it will be brought to court.
nearly everything's debateable. but i don't think it would be very believable to a jury if they would listen to him say over and over again to the 911 operator (on tape) "i'm gonna go kill 'em!!!" and then not think he intended to do just that when he left his house with a gun...followed closely by him doing exactly what he said he'd do.
id like to hear his tone of voice on the tape. nervous, angry, calm... did he give the burglars a verbal warning? i think the prosecution would be wasting time trying to take this to trial...
The bottom line is that it was just stuff. No amount of stuff, especially somebody else's is worth taking a life for. That is it in a nutshell. Peoples belongings aren't worth killing to protect. The person who did the shooting should be prosecuted. Whether burglars knew that was a risk or not does't make it less wrong to kill someone over a few possessions.
well the burglars shouldnt have risked their lives for this stuff... under the law, the neighbor is in the clear. he has the right to use deadly force in order to defend a third person or their property. if you dont like it, write to your state rep to get the law changed.
I agree the burglars shouldn't have. They shouldn't have burgled at all. If they were caught they deserved to be punished as well. That doesn't make it OK that another person took their lives. An unjust law is no law at all, and citizens have an obligation not to follow unjust laws.
I didn't know that it was "ok" to kill people for robbing your neighbor...This was in Pasadena off of Fairmont Pkwy/Beltway 8 and its a fairly nice neighborhood...I do think that the burglars should have been punished but shot dead, I don't think so...
I understand that. But there is a higher authority than the state of Texas. Many states once said interracial marriage and segregation was forbidden. They said that was just as well. They were wrong at that time as well. There isn't much that can be done if the law says it's ok to kill somebody to keep them from stealing a third person's x-box 360 or whatever. That still doesn't make it right.
So, in a nutshell, you would prosecute your neighbor who killed a burgler doing a B&E on your home? I appreciate your opinion from a spiritual standpoint. People are more important than possessions. But man, sooner or later, you're going to put your foot down and say "these ARE my possessions, these ARE my family hierlooms, these ARE what I worked hard for, and I'll be damned if I let one more punk come into my home and take my possessions." If that would never crosses your mind, I guess you're a better person than I...spiritual speaking of course.
In what seems like a strange legal distinction, if you listen to the 911 call the shooter clearly states that the burglary is occuring in broad daylight and from the link that danny317 provided earlier: [rquoter] "A person is justified in using deadly force against another to pervent the other who is fleeing after committing burglary, robbery, or theft during the nighttime, from escaping with the property and he reasonable believes that the property cannot be recovered by any other means; or, the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the property would expose him or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury. (Nighttime is defined as the period 30 minutes after sunset until 30 minutes before sunrise.)" [/rquoter] Listening to the 911 call, it is also clear that he shot these burglars as they were trying to flee. He appears to only be protected legally if he does so after sunset. As I read that law, this gentleman is not legally justified in his use of force.
I don't think calling the authorities is letting them take your stuff. There is a way to stop them. The point that sooner or later you have to put your foot down is also debatable. if a person is willing to risk their lives and break the law to get those things, they might have more need for that stuff than I do. It doesn't make what they are doing right, because it isn't. But if someone is willing to sell out their principles for that , then they must have a greater need for those possessions than I. To a lesser extreme it might even be ok to try and bodily stop the burglars, but not use deadly force in that effort.
i can honestly tell you i don't own one single thing that i would even consider defending by taking another person's life. not for one second. i don't think that makes me gandhi. again...as i understand it, most states around the country don't have laws that allow you to protect property with deadly force. it's been a long time since i've looked at that...but if i remember correctly, texas was in the distinct minority on that point.
I agree there wouldn't and shouldn't be burglars. But the fact that a burglar does something wrong, doesn't make it ok for others to do something wrong. In the end what the burglars did wrong results in somebody losing some material possessions. What the shooter did wrong, results in the loss of life.
