I don't need authority to issue commands. I can issue any command I want. There may not be any authority behind it, but I can certainly issue commands (I issue them at home all the time - nobody listens, but the commands are issued!).
Your point?
Is there perhaps some liability associated with giving certain commands?
The idea is to get the guy to stop doing what he is doing. By authoritatively telling him to get on the ground, you might get him to listen (he may not know that he doesn't have to follow your orders).
I agree that that's the idea, so
why tell him to
get on the ground if the idea is to get him to stop or go away??
A man with a disparity of force, who has beat you before is apporaching you at 4:30am after (obviously) waiting for you to arrive home. That sounds lilke imminent danger.
Certainly sounds like it has the potential to get that way, but the man has approached you in a "pleading" manner. Does that fulfill the jeopardy requirement? Does the existence of the restraining order do so sufficiently? How much will the answers vary by jurisdiction?
In your scenario (where you give no verbal commands to stop), the witnesses will say that you shot without warning. Which is worse? Shooting after telling the attacker to stop, or shooting without telling the attacker to stop?
Witnesses at 4:30 AM? Hmmmm. Well, if it was a "good shoot" and they were not friends of his, you're in luck!
You apparently missed my comment to Skydiver, in which I agreed with his recommendation to firmly tell the person to stop and that I was prepared to defend myself.
Nor did you address my concern. To answer your question, however, yes, I think it probably would be better to have fired at someone from whom the evidence would show I had been trying to escape than to have the authorities selecting from among my words that I said that he refused to get on the ground when I told him to and I shot him, particularly when I am permitted to respond only with "yes" or "no." Lay opinion.
Seems to me there is no one right answer:...
Probably true. There are probably a lot of wrong ones, however.
If I can get him on the ground at gun point because the first two options are not feasable, I will.
I still do not understand the point of getting him on the ground rather than getting him going in the other direction.
Nor do I know what one would expect to do after he was on the ground. I would want him gone, not lying near my driveway.
And if I have gotten him on the ground, what criminal and/or civil liabilities might I have assumed?
Consider the case of trespass. In some jurisdictions, the property owner or tenant is to ask the trespasser to leave, and if he refuses, the remedy is to call the police. Should he try to restrain the trespasser, the property owner or tenant can be charged criminally, and after the trespasser considers
his legal options, "then the fun begins."
Here too, the issue may be jurisdiction-specific, and Pax's recommendation that the OP seek qualified advice is a very good one. Another key thing that may be jurisdiction-specific is whether and/or how the existence of a restraining order may influence the determination of when deadly force may be indicated.
Should you ultimately shoot someone while carrying a pepper blaster, you now must convince the AG and possibly a jury that not only were you in danger, but the danger was such that your pepper blaster would not have worked (subjective, of course). That means that the BG better have had a gun (or you have a great lawyer). If all you have is a firearm, then you don't have to overcome that intermediate hurdle. Just that you were in imminent danger.
I should think one would use the pepper blaster first, and if it did not work, I think that fact would go a long way toward establishing the fact of imminent danger. Lay opinion.
But, I'm not 58 I'm 30 & pretty big so, I would just whip his ass. 
hadda throw that in.
But even if the OP has a dog, I don't think he's likely to have that dog with him when he's getting home from work at 4:30 AM.
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