aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Castle Doctrine

The talk of the town this week here is a violent home invasion in which the invader shot the homeowner and was shot and killed himself by the homeowner’s son. As it happens, on the Talk of the Nation Thursday the focus was the Castle Doctrine:

The Castle Doctrine allows law-abiding citizens attacked in their own homes (their “castles") to respond with force, even deadly force, to protect themselves - though the law varies from state to state. Self-defense laws are back in the spotlight after two recent cases in which intruders were shot and killed by homeowners.

Jonathan Turley, professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, had written about those two cases on his blog and was one of the guests.

He explains that “Castle Laws” or “make-my-day laws” came about because the common law rule believed that “it’s not worth shooting someone for property.” So these laws became a politically expedient way to get rid of that by saying that anytime someone enters your domicile or home you are allowed to use lethal force.

The problem is…

Prof. TURLEY: ...they pretty much solved the problem that didn’t exist; that juries really didn’t convict people that shot burglars, you know? You didn’t - it’s hard to find a jury that says, gosh, you know, you were really harsh with that guy that kicked the door of your room in.

So there wasn’t a great need to pass the law, but it’s very popular politically. It resonates with people. But the ironic thing is that the laws are almost always used in mistake cases; that they involve people who shoot their spouses and shoot their neighbors.

Actually, this is a seasonal thing. We see most of these cases during the holidays. When people get drunk, they go to a development with a like-looking house and get shot by their neighbors… they drop their keys and they go through that side window and they end up staring right down the barrel of a gun.

Turley says that, as a consequence, the drive for more of these laws has slowed.

Law or no law (ours passed in March of ‘06 - though you’d be hard-pressed to find someone prosecuted for shooting a home invader prior to that) the sentiment here favors the armed homeowner, even among those in the more liberal college crowd I run with.

With a small police force spread across a much larger geographical distance, I understand it in a way I never had before. I even shot a gun for the first time in my life after moving here. Still, I don’t expect I’ll be shooting one again any time soon.