The Castle Doctrine v. SCOTUS
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Law, Supreme Court
So I posted yesterday about the SCOTUS’ decision to gut “knock and announce”, and reasoned that it was a bad idea because it’ll end up getting more cops shot.
While this is still a grave prediction, it seems that NRA-backed bills (based on the Castle Doctrine) have been passing in some states and they basically allow homeowners to shoot anybody who comes into their home without establishing whether or not that person is a danger to them or their family.
Now, the text of such Castle Doctrine laws don’t actually protect you if you shoot a police officer, but if the police don’t identify themselves when they enter a home, it’ll create a pretty bad legal tangle for juries when defendants can claim they thought the officer was an unknown intruder against whom they had the right to shoot on sight.
Listen, I believe in the Castle Doctrine. If somebody just comes into your house, there’s no way you can be sure they’re not going to pull a gun, etc. At that point, even if the person has made a mistake, it’s too bad for them.
Should people get prosecuted if cops bust in and they start shooting? Of course this assuming that they’ll say they didn’t know it was the police? Has Pandora’s box been officially opened?
This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 and is filed under Law, Supreme Court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 17th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Great post J.G..
The Florida Bill SB-436 identifies the person to be shot as “attacker or intruder.” If the cops have a valid search warrant, I doubt they would be defined as either as a matter of law. BUT if they violated the “knock” rule, the exclusionary rule may be replaced by the self-help “castle doctrine.” I like this SCOTUS — they have a Deadwood type jurisprudence that should make life more interesting for the next 100 years.
Some how I don’t think the local urban crack dealer (by far the most vulnerable to constitutionally-iffy police action) will really modify his behavior. I don’t think Pandoras Box has been opened, these decisions will effect the margin of cases, not the vast majority. Those cases will percolate in the trial courts and eventually wind its way in front of SCOTUS. Hopefully the court will have a greater appreciation of the “castle” the next time around. And hopefully, by that time, this nation will have made concession to reality in the War on Drugs.
June 19th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Two words: Cory Maye.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
I believe the “Castle Doctrine” puts the law abiding citizen in a better position to protect him/herself w/o fear of legal retribution. Overall, it will deter some criminals from violating others civil rights.