Miss Lizzie.. Isn't this in your area?

[ChiTownScion]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tired-of-thefts-maine-man-buys-gun-and-shoots-burglar-hours-later/

I'm wondering how the use of deadly force would be justified as a matter of law at a point in time where the intruder was fleeing and had abandoned his criminal activity (flight). The common law recognizes the right of protection of self and protection of others through deadly force when necessary and reasonable to prevent further commission of a crime, but not the right of retribution. Methinks the decision to not charge the homeowner could be tempered more by compassion and the reality of a conviction being unlikely... but perhaps Maine has a statute that treats this sort of situation differently.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, that's just a few blocks from where I live. We have an epidemic of home invasions going on right now, all of them drug related, and this kind of stuff is pretty much becoming a matter of course.

In this particular case, the householder is probably not going to face charges, but his landlord, a management company which owns quite a large number of apartments in town, is requiring him to get rid of the gun because his lease prohibits firearms.

 

[ChiTownScion]

What's interesting to me are some of the online comments that want to turn this into a Second Amendment issue. It's not. The invader was fleeing/ retreating and once that commences, the right under common law to use deadly force no longer exists, just as the right of a cop to use deadly force disappears once the perp no longer poses a lethal threat. That isn't "bleeding heart liberalism:" that's just the law.

Still and all, a disabled man shooting a guy who tried to rob him does earn my empathy and emotional support. As much as I deeply respect the rule of law I also recognize the reality of jury nullification. I don't see cops and prosecutors wanting to put their head on the block to nail this old guy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Particularly since the guy who got shot is a known local POS. I suspect most of the cops in town regret only that the old guy didn't have better aim.

 

[tonyb]

It's reminiscent of an incident on a warm summer night of about 40 years ago, when Kevin, a guy who resided in the same big old house I did, witnessed a young man rifling through his VW bus. Kevin retrieved his handgun from his room and I and the other housemates sat back and observed the ensuing show. One of us thought to call the cops. But before the boys in blue showed up Kevin had his gun trained on the junkie and commanded him to lie face down on the pavement. I recall the junkie saying, "Don't shoot me, man."

About that time the fellow who had called the cops called them back and gave an update, adding, "If you don't get here soon, I think he's gonna shoot him."

Cop cars came from all directions. The helicopter appeared overhead. Handguns drawn, the cops told Kevin to drop his weapon, which he did.

After ascertaining what all the excitement was about, the cops returned Kevin's gun -- first the empty clip, then the bullets, then the gun. They took the junkie downtown.

In retrospect, we should have gone down to the street with Kevin, the bunch of us, and held the junkie while awaiting the cops. I don't know what Kevin would have done had the junkie attempted to flee.

 

[Harp]

I suspect most of the cops in town regret only that the old guy didn't have better aim.

A far cry from Katko, a law school Prosser recollect.
An "inchoate" burglary leads to a pistol shot fired by the homeowner within his residence; foiling burglar.

 

[tonyb]

Had me consulting the interwebs there, Harp. Not all of us have been to law school (thank the god of your choice).

 

[Harp]

Had me consulting the interwebs there, Harp....

Musing about the Chicago White Sox and the Black Sox scandal...
My criminal law prof had actually met Katko and the case stands out in memory....

 

[tonyb]

Yeah, it's an interesting one, for sure. Reading about it jogged my memory of having heard of it before. One takeaway from the entire affair is Briney's comments later that his greatest regret over the incident was that he didn't aim the shotgun a couple-three feet higher.

 

[tonyb]

Particularly since the guy who got shot is a known local POS. I suspect most of the cops in town regret only that the old guy didn't have better aim.

The more practical-minded members of the local constabulary might view such a POS as job security. Sure, a cop might prefer a quiet workday over a hectic one, but string too many of those leisurely days together and the taxpayers might get to thinking they're paying for too many cops.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The more practical-minded members of the local constabulary might view such a POS as job security. Sure, a cop might prefer a quiet workday over a hectic one, but string too many of those leisurely days together and the taxpayers might get to thinking they're paying for too many cops.

Or...they may be genuinely glad someone took care of the POS, a la Marjorie Nugent.*

*For those who don't know, Marjorie Nugent was a rich old woman in Texas, who was despised by pretty much everyone she ever met. She was killed by a one Bernie Tiede, who was universally beloved by everyone he ever met. So beloved was Tiede, and despised was Nugent, that prosecutors had to request a change of venue to get a fair trail in Tiede's murder trial, as no locals would ever convict him, even though he confessed and explained everything about the murder. The event was a the subject a movie called Bernie, with Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine as the principals.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Katko v. Briney.... Dang! The cobwebs got shaken trying to recollect THAT one, Brother Harp!

But, wasn't that the spring loaded shotgun in the empty farmhouse case? (Special note to Miss Lizzie: I know that you're mechanically inclined.. but please don't try this one at home. The bad guy who got shot sued the homeowner and won.)

 

[tonyb]

Maybe some of our brothers and sisters in law enforcement can weigh in here.

I don't know how reliable this information is, but I've heard it said that a relatively small number of criminals commit a waaaay disproportionate number of crimes. I don't know what sort of methodology might have had a person concluding that (it isn't like a crook is gonna readily confess to every crime he ever committed, after all), but intuition says there's something to it. I suspect that a person given to, say, residential burglary, will keep on committing residential burglaries until he is made to stop.

 

[Harp]

Katko v. Briney....

But, wasn't that the spring loaded shotgun in the empty farmhouse case?

Katko directly addressed the Second Amendment with a balanced perspective regarding responsible firearms usage.
Briney had clearly crossed the line of common sense with his spring gun trap, and his unsuccessful appeal served justice to that extent; however skewered the entire case.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Maybe some of our brothers and sisters in law enforcement can weigh in here.

I don't know how reliable this information is, but I've heard it said that a relatively small number of criminals commit a waaaay disproportionate number of crimes. I don't know what sort of methodology might have had a person concluding that (it isn't like a crook is gonna readily confess to every crime he ever committed, after all), but intuition says there's something to it. I suspect that a person given to, say, residential burglary, will keep on committing residential burglaries until he is made to stop.

That certainly seems to be the case here. One of the best stories I ever covered in my reporter days involved a sad sack who did a stretch making number plates after a string of convenience store robberies around the area, where he made off with beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. *The very night after he was released* he knocked over a country store and took beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. Unfortunately for him it had snowed that night, and the police followed his footprints and cornered him on a bridge over a stream. He jumped off the bridge and landed on a drifting ice chunk in the water with his beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. The cops drove over to the next bridge, waited for him to come drifting along, and jumped onto the ice with him. Back to the jug he went.

 

[Bamaboots]

Maybe some of our brothers and sisters in law enforcement can weigh in here.

I don't know how reliable this information is, but I've heard it said that a relatively small number of criminals commit a waaaay disproportionate number of crimes. I don't know what sort of methodology might have had a person concluding that (it isn't like a crook is gonna readily confess to every crime he ever committed, after all), but intuition says there's something to it. I suspect that a person given to, say, residential burglary, will keep on committing residential burglaries until he is made to stop.

tonyb, you're exactly right. I worked so many residential burglaries and thefts that when arrests were made, I've seen as many as forty individual cases cleared in regards to residential thefts and more than twenty five residential burglaries. I've seen similar numbers in regards to business burglaries cleared by tha arrest of a single individual. We made an arrest of a "crackhead" who was stealing nothing but bicycles and lawnmowers, including mine and that arrest alone cleared over fifty theft cases. It was just crimes of opportunity for this nit-wit. The scary part is what can't be cleared. The last time I read the FBI's statistics from their national UCR the clearance rate of property crimes was around 16%.

 

[tonyb]

Yeah, I can see the dismal clearance rate. No property crime committed against me has ever been "cleared."

A few years ago there was an uptick in bank robberies which was largely attributed to heroin addicts. The junkies would present a note to a teller, take a relatively small amount of cash, and walk out, sometimes making their "getaway" aboard a city bus. Most got nabbed after a couple three or four robberies, and most were expecting exactly that. They'd get enough money in the robberies to keep themselves in junk for a short while. And when they got caught they "got clean."

 

[ingineer]

I will resist the temptation to tell you my John Lott views but
I had to due some banking recently here locally, when i got there the doors were locked at several
Found out why
http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime-and-courts/police-man-robbed-3-city-banks-in-3-days-1.1403597.
Older guys.. no wiser and they avoided the branch with the burly uniformed guy with the Glock

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yeah, I can see the dismal clearance rate. No property crime committed against me has ever been "cleared."

Around here, the police strongly discourage the reporting of property crimes, because they know they won't solve them, and they don't want to mess up their crime-rate statistics. My car gets broken into an average of once a year, as does every other car on my street, and nobody's ever shown any inclination toward doing anything about it. But they'll point with pride to numbers on a chart saying crime here is "the lowest it's been in twenty years."

 

[Bamaboots]

Around here, the police strongly discourage the reporting of property crimes, because they know they won't solve them, and they don't want to mess up their crime-rate statistics. My car gets broken into an average of once a year, as does every other car on my street, and nobody's ever shown any inclination toward doing anything about it. But they'll point with pride to numbers on a chart saying crime here is "the lowest it's been in twenty years."

Lizzie, you just caused me to laugh out loud. When I left uniform and moved to plain clothes (very), and was responsible for filing some of those UCR numbers, I was surprised how my superiors encouraged (told) me to modify and or manipulate the clearance rates to lower our stats in regards to particular crimes.