The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 15: It Was Either Him or Me
Self-Defense pg 3: Mere Property
Eddie argues with Arnold, as Rico and his horse sneakily drag the steer away
EDDIE
What the hell is your problem, Arnold?
ARNOLD
You can’t use deadly force to prevent someone from stealing mere property!
Eddie and Arnold get in each other’s faces
EDDIE
I can threaten to shoot, can’t I?
ARNOLD
In some states, maybe.
But you were gonna shoot. (I know you, Arnold.) And you can never kill someone just to stop them from taking your stuff.
Eddie gives in as Arnold climbs onto (the wrong side, artistic license) of his horse.
EDDIE
All right, I get that mere stuff isn’t worth taking a life. But what can we do instead?
ARNOLD
We can use non-deadly force.
Now mount up. We’ve got ourselves a rustler to catch.
This seems to no longer be the case, at least in Texas: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/jilted-john-acquitted-texas-prostitute-death-article-1.1365975
Yeah, Texas just has to be different. There (IIRC) you can use deadly force to protect property from arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, nighttime theft, or nighttime “criminal mischief” — IF it is reasonable for you to believe that deadly force was immediately necessary. It also has to be reasonable for you to believe that there was either (1) no other way to protect or recover the property, apart from using deadly force, or (2) using force that wasn’t deadly would expose you to a substantial risk of death or serious injury. (Ask a Texas lawyer if you need to know that statute for real.)
That’s been the law there for a while, though. It’s not new.
In that case you cited, the jury apparently thought it was reasonable to spray a car with bullets from an AK-47 to stop a woman from fleeing with the $150 she’d just scammed you out of.
Note, however, that the law didn’t say it was reasonable; the jury did. Other juries may not think the same way. And the authorities clearly didn’t think it was reasonable — that’s how a jury got involved in the first place. So don’t go thinking this is something you can necessarily get away with, even in Texas.
Hi, Texas here. The predominant attitude here, both legal and of a hypothetical reasonable person, is “fuck criminals and all they stand for, with lead when available.”
We have the highest execution rate. And the lowest recidivism rate.
sure you guys do, everyone is dead from all the executons
Looking in the other direction, I understand horse theft used to be a hanging offense (when handled through the law, that is) simply because people would die if deprived of their horse, when in areas without what we call “civilization”.
A corollary to that would be that if someone tries to steal your horse outside a town, lethal force is justified by reason of self-defense. It’s not “just” stealing any more, it meets the standards for murder 2.
Doesn’t this run afoul of Florida’s much publicized “Stand your Ground” law?
What the hell does this have to do with “Stand Your Ground” laws? I can’t see how anyone could possibly mistake the two.
Nopeasaurus. Florida’s law still requires a person to reasonably be in fear of death or serious harm to oneself or another before deadly force is ever justified.
Where exactly does “non-deadly force” end and the deadly kind begin? For instance, suppose I shoot the rustler’s horse from under him. Is that OK, or is it deadly force merely because I used a gun to do it?
A gun is something that’s pretty likely to kill or severely wound someone, so it’s deadly force. Using the gun — shooting it — is using deadly force. The fact that you didn’t mean to kill anyone by shooting the gun doesn’t change the fact that you were using deadly force.
Does the law have provision for the nonlethal rounds you can get for shotguns, or would someone using one be in the same boat as someone who used normal shot?
If you point a gun at me, it’d be foolish for me to assume that it’s not deadly.
Even non-deadly rounds can be deadly in the right situation, and only an idiot would assume that the gun doesn’t have deadly rounds — or that a third-party didn’t replace the bullets.