Legal rights questions

[On Watch]

First let me state that I have done a search prior to submitting this and was unable come up with a clear answer.


I live in a suburb of Los Angeles in the valley where there is a large amount of gang activity in the surrounding community. I keep a SigP220/Surefire in the night stand, and a Mossy 500 pump in the closet for my family's protection.

My question is this,

If my home was invaded by robbers or worse, and, in the act of self defense I ended up killing the bad guys, what are my rights as a citizen? Am I presumed innocent, that it was an act of self defense and I get to go home to my family?

Is there a guideline for what to do in such a situtation?

Just trying to cover my bases,

Thanks,

On Watch

 

[Redworm]

Check your state laws, talk to your local Sheriff's office and remember that regardless of what's on the books if you can't prove yourself in court none of it will matter. Hope that you never have to be put in that situation.

 

[SecDef]

If a situation comes up before you can find a slow, logical answer, protect yourself and your family and worry about the legal process later.

 

[BillCA]

For your edification:

California residents no longer have a duty to retreat within their own homes. If one or more persons enters your home with the obvious intent on committing a felony or great bodily injury to occupants therein, you are justified in protecting yourself (PC 197.2 & 197.3).

If you defend yourself at home, plan on spending a LOT of time with the police during the first 12-36 hours. Cops & Lawyers will tell you that your best post-shooting tactic is to provide minimal information to the police, tell them you are quite shaken and would like to talk to your lawyer. Minimal information is your name, address, etc., and that you were in fear for your life. Never admit that you shot the person, even if he has a .44 caliber hole in him and the only .44 in town is yours, still smoking on the kitchen table.

Plan ahead. Ask some friends, family or neighbors if they know a good criminal lawyer. Ask the cops who they'd go to for a lawyer. Often time court Baliffs can tell you who is well respected and good in the courtroom.

The following CA Penal Code sections are relevant reading.

197. Homicide is also justifiable when committed by any person in
any of the following cases:

1. When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person; or,
2. When committed in defense of habitation, property, or person,
   against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, in a violent, riotous or tumultuous manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any person therein; or,
3. When committed in the lawful defense of such person, or of a wife or husband, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant of such person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished; but such person, or the person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he was the assailant or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was committed; or,
4. When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, or in lawfully suppressing any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace.

Emphasis added.

197.1 says you can use lethal force to defend against murder or any felony or any attack that my result in great bodily injury.

197.2 says you can defend your home, property or self against someone who obviously intends to commit a violent felony, or against someone who is breaking down your door to commit violence on anyone inside.

197.3 Says homicide is justifiable when you can reasonably foresee the person will commit a felony or great bodily injury to you or another person specified and the attacker has the imminent means to do so. However, if the person being defended started the fight, they must have made an effort to stop further struggle before lethal force was used on their behalf.

198. A bare fear of the commission of any of the offenses mentioned in subdivisions 2 and 3 of Section 197, to prevent which homicide may be lawfully committed, is not sufficient to justify it. But the circumstances must be sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable person, and the party killing must have acted under the influence of such fears alone.

198 says "bare fear" does not justify a killing under 197.2 or 197.3. An obvious example is that you hear a noise and find an intoxicated person unconcious in your entry hall or livingroom. Nor would you be justified if the person merely entered your unlocked front door, sat down and started watching T.V. while ignoring you.

198.5. Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or great bodily injury within his or her residence shall be presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury to self, family, or a member of the household when that force is used against another person, not a member of the family or household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and forcibly entered the residence and the person using the force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred.

As used in this section, great bodily injury means a significant or substantial physical injury.

Emphasis added.

199. The homicide appearing to be justifiable or excusable, the person indicted must, upon his trial, be fully acquitted and discharged.

Find California laws here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html

 

[old 12 gauge]

Protect yourself and family, better to be judged by twelve then carried by six.
of coarse when your lawyers get done, you probably won't have the house anymore, they will own it.

 

[On Watch]

Thank you all for the replies.

BillCA, thats what I was specifically looking for,

thanks again,.

Forewarned is to be forearmed

 

[allenomics]

You should visit the NRA Web site (www.nra.org). You can search applicable laws by state.

In Florida, the Castle Doctrine would likely prevail. While your first obligation is to flee to a safer place, if possible; if a person fears that their loss of life is emminent, that person would generally be justified in firing their weapon in self-defense.

 

[yomama]

You are still in CA. AZ just passed a law that if you say you were acting in self defense, you are innocent until proven guilty. It's the duty of the prosecutor to prove you guilty, instead of you proving your innocent.

It's the reverse in CA, and almost everywhere else.