Judge rules jury can apply Castle Doctrine in Amber Guyger murder trial

This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 2 months ago by waterfield.

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September 30, 2019 at 11:29 pm #106030

nittany ram
Moderator

A white off-duty Police officer inadvertently broke into a black man’s apartment and shot him to death as he ate ice cream and watched TV. She thought it was her apartment. She got off on the wrong floor and somehow didn’t notice the large mat outside the door that she didn’t have. The Judge rules that the Castle Doctrine can be applied.

The Castle Doctrine, similar to the Stand Your Ground Law, allows a person to use “or using force (even deadly force) in the protection of a home, vehicle, or other property if someone attempts to forcibly enter or remove an individual from the premises.

So…someone can do something unimaginably stupid like mistaking someone else’s home for theirs, brutally gun down the innocent person who actually owns the home, and still be protected by a law that says you have the right to use lethal force against an intruder in your home even if it is YOU that’s the intruder in the murdered person’s home.

Does anybody think a judge would rule this way if a black man had broken into a white woman’s apartment and shot her?

Link: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2019/09/30/jury-consider-castle-doctrine-amber-guyger-murder-trial/

October 1, 2019 at 1:02 am #106037

zn
Moderator

nittany ram wrote:

Does anybody think a judge would rule this way if a black man had broken into a white woman’s apartment and shot her?

I enjoy a good use of rhetorical questions.

Or…do you think I like well-used rhetorical questions?

October 1, 2019 at 12:01 pm #106055

wv
Participant

Damn. What the heck do you do with ‘that’ fact pattern.

What ‘is’ she guilty of, exactly. Somethin. But ‘what’ exactly?

w
v

October 1, 2019 at 12:15 pm #106057

zn
Moderator

wv wrote:

Damn. What the heck do you do with ‘that’ fact pattern.

What ‘is’ she guilty of, exactly. Somethin. But ‘what’ exactly?

w
v

Well I don’t know me all the nuu-ahnsez of the law.

But it’s at least manslaughter right.

I mean, you can’t jist shoot someone dead, and say “oops my bad.”

October 1, 2019 at 2:11 pm #106059

nittany ram
Moderator

To me the issue is how the Castle Doctrine is allowed to be applied to this case. I suppose the judge allowed it because the defendant claims to have believed she was in her own home.

But she wasn’t, so the Castle Doctrine shouldn’t apply because believing something is true doesn’t make it true.

“I believed I was sober even though I had a blood alcohol level of 2.5, so I shouldn’t be convicted of drunk driving.”

She is certainly guilty of manslaughter at least. But it’s possible she could get a much reduced sentence or even acquitted by a jury based on the Castle Doctrine.

October 1, 2019 at 6:46 pm #106064

waterfield
Participant

She was just convicted of murdering the black man.
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