Castle Doctrine, Someone Else's Castle

[zukiphile]

Let's be clear about terminology. This is important, because the media are NOT especially careful in how they throw around words, and politicians and activists are even less careful.
***
"Homicide" is simply the taking of a human life. All murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murders.

I've intentionally used the term homicide rather than murder so that we wouldn't become bogged down in the morality and legality of the act.

The crux of the misconceptions supra appear to be that if one acts with intent he either intends to merely wound, or he intends to kill, and he must do one or the other.

Where there is a legal and moral justification of a killing, it is justified on the basis that death is an effect of the act, but the intent of the actor is to stop a threat, incapacitate a combatant, or undertake a course of action to save another. Where the intent of the actor is to achieve another's death, he acts to kill. Life's ambiguities and absence of proof of one's state of mind may obscure an intent to kill, but the concept of that intent removes an act from conventional legal and moral justifications.

 

[cjwils]

Just a few minutes ago, ABC news stated that jurors told them that her statement about intending to kill was all they needed to convict her of murder. I think all of us, LEO or otherwise, need to understand that using lethal force to stop a threat is not the same as intending to kill.

 

[davidsog]

"Homicide" is simply the taking of a human life. All murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murders.

Right. Ok, I was thinking murder.

Where you undertake an act with an intent to kill a person, you have attempted homicide.

That's not sugar coating. That's what the words mean.

Yeah, and the waters have been muddied for no real good reason. In the context of just taking a life, you sentence makes little sense.

So, to be clear, Lethal force use by police is done with the intention of homicide.

Intentionally using deadly force is not the same as intending to kill.

Absolutely not.

By the very act of using lethal force, you are intending to kill.

I am going to put two in his chest and one in his brain housing group but killing him was not my intent.

Ok, I have some land in Florida to sell you if you believe that nonsense. I do not believe our system is predicated on perpetuating this fiction.

In fact, it is defined in the CFR's....

Deadly force means that force which a reasonable person would consider likely to cause death or serious bodily harm.

It says nothing about the force you use when you do not intend to kill.

It says, if you do this, it is reasonable to think it will result in death.

 

[MTT TL]

Even where there is a legitimate objective tied to acts resulting in death, where the collateral effects are deemed disproportionate, the propriety of the killing is dubious. Arthur Harris wasn't tried for war crimes, partly because we won, but he was socially ostracized after the war.

Arthur Harris killed civilians indiscriminately, this was thought by a lot of people at the time to not be his mission. The killing itself was never in dispute. It is who he killed that was the problem.

The US Military gave us names of people they wanted dead. That wasn't just a casual admission of training to kill, it was the actual mission. The military always does mission focused training when they can. The mission wasn't always to kill certain people. Most missions focus on seizing terrain or objectives or denying the enemy from doing the same. But killing was certainly a part of it and still is.

 

[zukiphile]

Even where there is a legitimate objective tied to acts resulting in death, where the collateral effects are deemed disproportionate, the propriety of the killing is dubious. Arthur Harris wasn't tried for war crimes, partly because we won, but he was socially ostracized after the war.

Arthur Harris killed civilians indiscriminately, this was thought by a lot of people at the time to not be his mission. The killing itself was never in dispute. It is who he killed that was the problem.

Exactly. The number of civilian dead were the disproportionate collateral effect of bombing cities.

In fact, it is defined in the CFR's....

Deadly force means that force which a reasonable person would consider likely to cause death or serious bodily harm.

It says nothing about the force you use when you do not intend to kill.

Yes, it does. Deadly force above is that which you consider likely to cause serious bodily harm. One can easily foresee serious bodily harm in an act he undertakes with an intent other than killing.

By the very act of using lethal force, you are intending to kill.

That succinctly states your position. It is wrong.

A pertinent illustration:

1. Shooting someone is using lethal force. You shoot someone advancing toward you intending to stop his advance. You shoot him in the pelvis, he stops, bleeds and dies.

2. Shooting someone is using lethal force. You shoot someone advancing toward you intending to kill him. You shoot him in the pelvis, he stops, bleeds and dies.

In both scenarios, the foreseeable result is the same. In no. 1, your intent is not to kill, but to stop his advance.

You are confusing what one intends with what he can foresee. They are different things.

 

[davidsog]

Shooting someone is using lethal force.

Negative Ghostrider.

There is a reason why you have a bowling pin on an FBI standard silhouette.

Why? There are plenty of places you can shoot someone are that not likely to result in death.

Aiming for the bowling pin is intent to kill. LEO are trained using stimulus response training to aim for the bowling pin.

 

[mikejonestkd]

A firearm is always considered a lethal weapon in the legal world.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/l/lethal-weapon

https://codes.findlaw.com/ny/penal-law/pen-sect-10-00.html

There are plenty of places you can shoot someone are that not likely to result in death.

regardless of where the LEO aims, the used of a firearm is considered using lethal force.

 

[MTT TL]

Negative Ghostrider.

There is a reason why you have a bowling pin on an FBI standard silhouette.

Why? There are plenty of places you can shoot someone are that not likely to result in death.

Aiming for the bowling pin is intent to kill. LEO are trained using stimulus response training to aim for the bowling pin.

Nope. Notice you said "not likely to result in death". It can still result in death. I can shoot someone practically anywhere on or around their body and kill them. Even if they die of infection months later I can still be charged with their murder.

Shooting someone is using lethal force.

You have a rather unique perception that it is not.

 

[davidsog]

Notice you said "not likely to result in death".

Which is a much stronger case for intent than shooting the bowling pin. In fact, to say you intended to kill someone and then aimed for anything other than the bowling pin or pelvic girdle is patently ridiculous. It is valid but unsound.

Are you saying Police are not trained to shoot the bowling pin?

As for my original assertion:

they are trained to apply lethal force quickly and efficiently when required.

That tidbit was told to me by LEO's during a CQB training exercise when we asked about their intense focus on lethality.

Shooting someone is using lethal force.

Absolutely it is lethal intent.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Under the laws of most (possibly all) states, the use of a firearm is considered to be use of deadly force. This applies even if you only draw the firearm from the holster and point it in the general direction of your perceived assailant. In some jurisdictions, according to reports I have read, even placing your hand on the butt of a holstered handgun can be viewed as using deadly force. It should be obvious, then, that not all uses of deadly force include the intent to kill the adversary.

For one example, here's the Pennsylvania law on the use of force and deadly force for self defense:

https://codes.findlaw.com/pa/title-18-pacsa-crimes-and-offenses/pa-csa-sect-18-505.html

(a) Use of force justifiable for protection of the person.--The use of force upon or toward another person is justifiable when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion.

(b) Limitations on justifying necessity for use of force.--
...


(2) The use of deadly force is not justifiable under this section unless the actor believes that such force is necessary to protect himself against death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping or sexual intercourse compelled by force or threat;  nor is it justifiable if:

(i) the actor, with the intent of causing death or serious bodily injury, provoked the use of force against himself in the same encounter;  or

(ii) the actor knows that he can avoid the necessity of using such force with complete safety by retreating, except the actor is not obliged to retreat from his dwelling or place of work, unless he was the initial aggressor or is assailed in his place of work by another person whose place of work the actor knows it to be.

(2.1) Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (2.2), an actor is presumed to have a reasonable belief that deadly force is immediately necessary to protect himself against death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping or sexual intercourse compelled by force or threat if both of the following conditions exist:

(i) The person against whom the force is used is in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or has unlawfully and forcefully entered and is present within, a dwelling, residence or occupied vehicle;  or the person against whom the force is used is or is attempting to unlawfully and forcefully remove another against that other's will from the dwelling, residence or occupied vehicle.

(ii) The actor knows or has reason to believe that the unlawful and forceful entry or act is occurring or has occurred.

(2.2) The presumption set forth in paragraph (2.1) does not apply if:

(i) the person against whom the force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence or vehicle, such as an owner or lessee;

(ii) the person sought to be removed is a child or grandchild or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of the person against whom the protective force is used;

(iii) the actor is engaged in a criminal activity or is using the dwelling, residence or occupied vehicle to further a criminal activity;  or

(iv) the person against whom the force is used is a peace officer acting in the performance of his official duties and the actor using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a peace officer.

 

[davidsog]

I can just see an airline pilot faced with the choices Sullenberger faced on January 05 2009 using some of the logic here.

NTSB:

Why did you crash into downtown Manhattan?

Sullenberger:

My intent was to have a safe outcome so I simply aimed for the largest building I could find and flew the airplane into it knowing the passengers had a chance of survival.

What really happenend:

NTSB:

Why did you ignore the ATC suggestions to land at LGA, JFK, or EWR?

Sullenberger:

Because my intent was for all the crew and passengers to survive so I placed the aircraft down in the area most likely to return that result.

 

[davidsog]

Pennsylvania Statutes Title 18 Pa.C.S.A. Crimes and Offenses § 505. Use of force in self-protection

Is not for Police Officers...You are using 505.

You need 508:

508. Use of force in law enforcement.

(a) Peace officer's use of force in making arrest.--

(1) A peace officer, or any person whom he has summoned or directed to assist him, need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest. He is justified in the use of any force which he believes to be necessary to effect the arrest and of any force which he believes to be necessary to defend himself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest. However, he is justified in using deadly force only when he believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to himself or such other person, or when he believes both that:

(i) such force is necessary to prevent the arrest from being defeated by resistance or escape; and

(ii) the person to be arrested has committed or attempted a forcible felony or is attempting to escape and possesses a deadly weapon, or otherwise indicates that he will endanger human life or inflict serious bodily injury unless arrested without delay.

(2) A peace officer making an arrest pursuant to an invalid warrant is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if the warrant were valid, unless he knows that the warrant is invalid.

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&ttl=18&div=0&chpt=5

 

[MTT TL]

Nothing you have posted changes the fact that shooting someone is the application of deadly or lethal force. Intent has nothing to do with it. Doesn't matter who you are or your reasons for doing it. Again your perspective is rather unique and does not inhabit our legal system as a concept.

 

[zukiphile]

Shooting someone is using lethal force.

Negative Ghostrider.

There is a reason why you have a bowling pin on an FBI standard silhouette.

Why? There are plenty of places you can shoot someone are that not likely to result in death.

David, you are sidestepping the definition of deadly force you offered from the CFR.

In fact, it is defined in the CFR's....

Deadly force means that force which a reasonable person would consider likely to cause death or serious bodily harm.

Emphasis added.

Shooting someone is using lethal force.

Absolutely it is lethal intent.

Shooting someone is an act, not an intent.

That tidbit was told to me by LEO's during a CQB training exercise when we asked about their intense focus on lethality.

I once had a PO tell me that the shell casings he found outside a building were his basis for concluding that there were shootings inside the building. I don't think he was lying under oath, just that he hadn't given the matter sufficient thought before speaking. POs are people with all the virtues and vices of people generally, so it may not be prudent to attribute accuracy or even correct understanding of what he'd been taught to what some LEOs told you.

 

[rickyrick]

LEOs give terrible legal advice.

I had one LEO tell me that if you had to shoot someone on your property to drag the person into the house afterwards... just to be safe.

I also was told by a LEO that a problem I had would take a long expensive court battle to fix... the officer had mis-identified me as a violent felon on parole during a traffic stop; which was an awkward situation to be in because I was also in the possession of a couple of firearms, but a five minute phone call to the DA’s office cleared it right up on my own.

 

[davidsog]

Again your perspective is rather unique and does not inhabit our legal system as a concept.

I hardly think my perspective is unique, you just do not recognize it. Every LEO organization and military unit in the nation uses stimulus response training when they wish to overcome our instinctive inhibitions against killing our own species.

That is the intent of stimulus response training.

 

[davidsog]

LEOs give terrible legal advice.

Certainly

The LEO's that mentioned that were not deputy Fifes or patrolman. They were quite high up on the LEO food chain with almost everyone having graduated law school before joining their organization.

 

[44 AMP]

... having graduated law school ...

Which means they have a piece of paper to hang on their wall stating that they didn't flunk out. Doesn't mean squat, beyond that.

Like engineers, DOCTORS, and many other professions, a diploma is not a guarantee of competence, let alone excellence. We (as a society) expect it to be, we assume it is, but reality is, it's not.

It's like a driver's license. All it really means is that they passed the required tests, at the time they took them.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Pennsylvania Statutes Title 18 Pa.C.S.A. Crimes and Offenses § 505. Use of force in self-protection

Is not for Police Officers...You are using 505.

You need 508:

No, we don't need Section 508. The question that was asked in the opening post of this discussion was

can you claim the Castle Doctrine if you walk into the wrong castle: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...trine-defense/

The question had nothing to do with law enforcement.

 

[JohnKSa]

Negative Ghostrider.

There is a reason why you have a bowling pin on an FBI standard silhouette.

Why? There are plenty of places you can shoot someone are that not likely to result in death.

Aiming for the bowling pin is intent to kill. LEO are trained using stimulus response training to aim for the bowling pin.

Aiming for the bowling pin is aiming for the area considered by experts most likely to result in the rapid cessation of violent criminal activity.

Justified deadly force is not about killing people or intending to kill people, it is about preventing violent criminal activity in certain limited circumstances.

It is accepted that the use of deadly force may result in the death of the attacker, but the death of the attacker is not the goal, it is just a possible and accepted "side effect" of the use of deadly force.

The law acknowledges that you may, under certain circumstances, need to use deadly force to prevent serious violent crimes from taking place or from being completed, but it does not give you the right to kill. Everyone understands that death may result, but while the attacker’s death is acceptable as a possible consequence, it is not the goal—the goal is preservation of innocent life. Keeping the proper goal in mind will help insure that you never overstep the justification in the law. Deadly force laws are put in place to save innocent life, not to legalize killing.

I’ve heard it said that the distinction between the use of deadly force and legalized killing is simply semantics, but that misses some important points. Our goals drive our actions and our speech. It is a tremendous mistake to fall into the mindset that the attacker's death is the goal for several reasons.

First of all, it creates a situation where the defender may take unnecessary risks to kill the attacker when the situation could actually be resolved with less danger to the defender. It can also generate a tendency for the defender to take actions that may later call his motives (and therefore the legality of his actions) into question. Remember the defender’s motive/mindset can be an important component of justifying self-defense. Finally, an improper mindset can increase the chances that the defender will make what appear to be self-incriminating comments to others. That can happen before or after the incident.

It's important that this not be misinterpreted to mean that defenders should shoot to wound.

One of the common requirements for the justification of deadly force is the realization by the defender that there is no other reasonable option for preventing the crime in question. If the defender, by his actions makes it clear that he does not believe that the situation was really a life or death scenario (by intentionally missing, or by intentionally trying NOT to cause a serious or life-threatening injury—i.e. attempting NOT to use deadly force), those actions may be legally interpreted as evidence that the defender did not believe that deadly force was the only reasonable option for resolving the situation.

That would, by definition, eliminate the justification for using deadly force and could classify the behavior of the shooter as criminal. In a widely publicized case in Florida, a woman fired a warning shot and was jailed as a result (although she did win the right to a retrial). The courts ruled that she could not claim self-defense because her actions and statements made it clear she hadn’t intended to use deadly force. Since she clearly didn’t feel that deadly force was warranted, therefore she had no legal justification for firing the gun in a situation that endangered bystanders.

You should shoot to stop the attack (not to kill and not to wound), but only if shooting is the only reasonable way to resolve the situation. If you find yourself wondering if you should shoot, if you can get away with “winging” the criminal, or if you should just aim near the attacker to scare him instead of aiming at him, you should almost certainly hold your fire.

Deadly force should be viewed as a last resort. Shooting someone, or even shooting at (or in the general direction of) someone is legally considered deadly force. That is true even if you aim to wound. Aiming close to someone but intentionally missing is almost certainly a criminal act since it implies that there was no intent by the defender to use deadly force and therefore eliminates the ability to claim justifiable self-defense to defend against the charges which will be brought against the shooter.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=557919