The real question is, is it "burglary", "robbery", or "theft in the nighttime" OR "burglary", "robbery", or "theft" in the nighttime.

Since it lists criminal mischief during the nighttime as well as theft during the nighttime as two separate things, I don't see "during the nighttime" applying to the rest of the passage. If your proposed construction were true, the first "during the nighttime" would be redundant.

I'll bet if you go to the Texas Penal Code, you'll find that those two things are distinct crimes.

Quite possibly, but I'm not that bored today ;) I have to read enough laws and codes at work.

I'm still not convinced though. Particularly since his story does NOT mesh with the 911 call, and he (or his attorney) doesn't claim to be defending his neighbor's property but his own.

Well 9.42 and 9.41 are even more liberal than 9.43, so if he was defending his own property, it only comes down to whether or not he reasonably believed it threatened.

True, and that's probably why it's his story, except it doesn't fit with the 911 call showing he had intent to shoot and kill them before he left his house and "discovered" they were on his property. And I'm not sure their location been confirmed by the police at this point.

Add to that my fundamental disagreement with the idea that after calling 911 you should get to go outside and kill someone over a TV - the death penalty isn't used for burglary, even in Texas - and suffice to say I won't be contented with the fact that he might have followed the law. Particularly when all he has to do is lie, or get his neighbor to do so.

The counter to that is that the 911 call is only probative of his mindset prior to the killings. It cannot be used to describe with any accuracy Horn's mindset when he pulled the trigger, nor can it be used to indicate whether Horn's belief is reasonable pursuant to sections 9.41 et seq.

And no, in Texas, the penalty for burglary is not death. I don't see how that's even relevant though. This wasn't a killing pursuant to a penal statute.

This was a killing in defense of property. If Horn is charged with murder, 9.41 et seq. will serve as an affirmative defense just like self-defense would be.

The Texas legislature in their infinite wisdom saw fit to allow citizens to use deadly force to defend their property (but not man traps, see 9.44). Your beef would be with the Texas legislature, not Joe Horn in that regard.

Perhaps the overarching theme here and the wisdom we can glean from all of this is that if you don't want bad things to happen to you, don't be a burglar.

Easy enough :)

If you think the Horn case is interesting, check this one out. Three robbers break into a house. Homeowner kills two. Third robber gets charged with felony murder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21824930/

For making it legal, yeah my beef would be with them, my beef is with him for doing it.

I'd say that the 911 call shows he intended to shoot/kill them no matter where they were. I don't know how that legally impacts the case if they actually showed up on his property when he opened the door (and the lawyer makes it sound like they were a foot away:rolleyes:) but it would impact me as a juror. HE escalated the situation to a deadly one, not the robbers.

I mention that the penalty for burglary isn't death because that is not what the burglars should have gotten for their crime. Their lives were worth more than that, no matter how screwed up they were.

The problem is that when you allow the escalation that Texas allows, burglars aren't necessarily the only ones to have bad things happen to them because of it. This man was lucky he didn't shoot a cop in the process of shooting the burglars. If he had, this would be a whole different story no matter how "threatened" he felt at the time.

Is the "shot in the back" vs "shot in the front" issue at all relevant in Texas?

If he had shot a cop or someone innocent, he would have been criminally liable. Gun owners are generally pretty careful about these sorts of things.

At any rate, I don't have a problem with the law. Perhaps if word gets out about this statute, it'll be a deterrent?

The profession of burglar is now more hazardous. I have no problem with that whatsoever.

hey....now there is a question.....was his firearm registered?

Does a shotgun in Texas have to be registered?

I have no idea.

In general yes, but this guy was going to go out there and shoot someone, I'm not convinced he wouldn't have slipped up. But that's hypothetical.

I think everyone knows that in Texas they can shoot you fairly easily. I doubt that it deters much of anything as these guys were targeting a house that was empty.

I have a big problem with letting any gun-holder be the distributor of justice. His life wasn't in danger until he stepped out the door (and doubtful even then). Something he did knowing exactly what was going on outside. Police were on the way, he had the advice of an expert in these matters not to go out because it could be dangerous. I don't see this as self-defense. And I think there's a big difference between vigilantism and justice. Justice wasn't served here. Yeah, getting shot is an "occupational hazard" of being a burglar, but it would have been far better for these guys to have been caught by the authorities, and tried for their crimes because that's the way it is supposed to work and even criminals should have civil rights.

Homeowners have rights as well -- the right to be secure in their own homes from burglars, for example.

I think the policy here is that the law allows the homeowner to shoot before a situation threatening her life comes to fruition.

When legislators write these sorts of statutes, they're looking at a situation where if they define homeowners' rights too broadly, a few burglars will lose their lives. On the other hand, if they define homeowners' rights too narrowly, either there will be deaths or injuries dealt to those who are trying to comply with the law, e.g., observing a duty to retreat, etc., or there will be prosecutions of individuals who are really only trying to defend their homes.

Yeah, vigilantism is bad. I think that from a law and order standpoint, what this guy did was morally corrupt, however, I don't know if he actually broke the law -- I don't really think he did.

You have to have a permit in Texas to carry a handgun. That's about it.

Rifles and Shotguns don't have to be registered and you don't have to have a permit or license.


Personally, I don't think he broke the law either. Also, how are many of you stating that he was in no danger, didn't feel threatened, etc. Were you all there? Do you know the guy?

Well Texas does clearly warn everyone not to mess with it... guess that's proving to be sound advice.

OK, have any of you ever fired a SHOTGUN? I haven't either, but I've shot plenty of other guns (pistols and rifles) and learned enough about them to know that a shotgun is by no means a particularly accurate firearm. Honestly, if he cared about gun safety and being "careful" and accurate when he fired it, he wouldn't have used a shotgun. A homeowner that brings out a shotgun to confront some guys on his lawn is doing it to scare the crap out of them, not as a cautious response.

I think we all agree that it's unclear whether this guy broke the law (though the scale is weighing in his favor), but that even if he didn't break the law, that doesn't mean that what he did was right. And that the law is too generous regarding when it is OK to go after someone with deadly force.