4 ms·

I'm pretty sure the castle doctrine applies in most states? Hell, 'stand your ground' applies in a decent plurality of states these days.

by jbooth 13y ago

hga 13y ago
Weak Castle Doctrine, no duty to retreat in your home, exists in 46 states according to Wikipedia, which sounds about right. E.g. assume you have to retreat from your home in Massachusetts, no matter the current law, case law or circumstances. Stand Your Ground in 22 states. As in no duty to retreat any place you have a right to be, which prevents second guessing from the calm and comfort of a courtroom. Or as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it in the 1921 US Supreme Court case Brown v. United States, "Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife."
- jbooth 13y ago
  "E.g. assume you have to retreat from your home in Massachusetts, no matter the current law, case law or circumstances." Why?
  - hga 13y ago
    Because that's what the courts want very badly, at least as of the '80s. Several rounds of the solidly Democratic legislature passing "this time we mean it!" laws and the courts judicially nullifying as much as they could. In one case I "watched" by reading the Boston Globe as it was tried, a man was sent to prison because he wasn't willing to leave his sleep daughter to the tender mercies of an home invader. Too many people wonder why Michael Dukakis won only 10 states in 1988; not those of us in the the state who were paying attention to e.g. these judges he elevated to the bench.
    - jbooth 13y ago
      In the 80s? It's 2013, man, get with the times and start ripping on Chicago. In this decade, I'd go to the anecdote from WI last year of the dude who, upon a high school party being broken up by the cops next door, shot a kid hiding from the cops on his porch and wasn't charged.
      - cobrausn 13y ago
        I think he was referencing the events of the 80s because there was such a backlash to it that it led directly to events like you describe. The middle ground is dead.
        hga 13y ago
        The backlash from the nation's "soft on crime" policies started much earlier, e.g. see Dirty Harry in 1971 and I gather Death Wish in 1974. Real world traction on reversing them, I think seriously started in the '80s. But see my other reply in this sub-sub-thread: what middle ground is there between being forced by the law to retreat from your home and being allowed to use lethal force upon a reasonable apprehension of a sufficient threat? Do you really believe in allowing criminals to chase you out of your home, abandoning your loved ones who can't defend themselves? It's ancient, ancient doctrine; per Wikipedia "The legal concept of the inviolability of the home has been known in Western Civilization since the age of the Roman Republic." When it comes to Western law you can't get older than the Twelve Tables in 450 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tables http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tables), in which I assume this was codified.
        cobrausn 13y ago
        No, I don't, but I was trying to clarify the statement. A middle ground for this is difficult, because it basically depends upon determining after the fact whether or not you or anyone else in the home was actually threatened (or whether you could reasonably perceive it that way).
        hga 13y ago
        Errr, the latter is how these incidents are judged. E.g. the woman who recently ran down a man carrying a sawed off air soft shotgun; especially with the orange tip removed, she could not tell that he wasn't actually threatening in that way. Similarly, a criminal using a fake gun to commit a robbery gets a charge of armed or aggravated robbery. This is determined after the fact all the time, presumably in the Wisconsin case, and definitely in the Zimmerman/Martin case before it was politicized.

I'm pretty sure the castle doctrine applies in most states? Hell, 'stand your ground' applies in a decent plurality of states these days.

by jbooth 13y ago

I'm pretty sure the castle doctrine applies in most states? Hell, 'stand your ground' applies in a decent plurality of states these days.

hga 13y ago

Weak Castle Doctrine, no duty to retreat in your home, exists in 46 states according to Wikipedia, which sounds about right. E.g. assume you have to retreat from your home in Massachusetts, no matter the current law, case law or circumstances. Stand Your Ground in 22 states. As in no duty to retreat any place you have a right to be, which prevents second guessing from the calm and comfort of a courtroom. Or as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it in the 1921 US Supreme Court case Brown v. United States, "Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife."

jbooth 13y ago
"E.g. assume you have to retreat from your home in Massachusetts, no matter the current law, case law or circumstances." Why?
- hga 13y ago
  Because that's what the courts want very badly, at least as of the '80s. Several rounds of the solidly Democratic legislature passing "this time we mean it!" laws and the courts judicially nullifying as much as they could. In one case I "watched" by reading the Boston Globe as it was tried, a man was sent to prison because he wasn't willing to leave his sleep daughter to the tender mercies of an home invader. Too many people wonder why Michael Dukakis won only 10 states in 1988; not those of us in the the state who were paying attention to e.g. these judges he elevated to the bench.
  - jbooth 13y ago
    In the 80s? It's 2013, man, get with the times and start ripping on Chicago. In this decade, I'd go to the anecdote from WI last year of the dude who, upon a high school party being broken up by the cops next door, shot a kid hiding from the cops on his porch and wasn't charged.
    - cobrausn 13y ago
      I think he was referencing the events of the 80s because there was such a backlash to it that it led directly to events like you describe. The middle ground is dead.
      - hga 13y ago
        The backlash from the nation's "soft on crime" policies started much earlier, e.g. see Dirty Harry in 1971 and I gather Death Wish in 1974. Real world traction on reversing them, I think seriously started in the '80s. But see my other reply in this sub-sub-thread: what middle ground is there between being forced by the law to retreat from your home and being allowed to use lethal force upon a reasonable apprehension of a sufficient threat? Do you really believe in allowing criminals to chase you out of your home, abandoning your loved ones who can't defend themselves? It's ancient, ancient doctrine; per Wikipedia "The legal concept of the inviolability of the home has been known in Western Civilization since the age of the Roman Republic." When it comes to Western law you can't get older than the Twelve Tables in 450 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tables http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tables), in which I assume this was codified.
        cobrausn 13y ago
        No, I don't, but I was trying to clarify the statement. A middle ground for this is difficult, because it basically depends upon determining after the fact whether or not you or anyone else in the home was actually threatened (or whether you could reasonably perceive it that way).
        hga 13y ago
        Errr, the latter is how these incidents are judged. E.g. the woman who recently ran down a man carrying a sawed off air soft shotgun; especially with the orange tip removed, she could not tell that he wasn't actually threatening in that way. Similarly, a criminal using a fake gun to commit a robbery gets a charge of armed or aggravated robbery. This is determined after the fact all the time, presumably in the Wisconsin case, and definitely in the Zimmerman/Martin case before it was politicized.