A Colorado jury has rendered a rare award to the family of a burglar killed in the course of a crime. Verdicts like this one are likely to be used by advocates of Castle Doctrine or “Make-My-Day laws — laws designed to protect citizens from criminal liability in the protection of their homes, or in some cases, their businesses. The El Paso jury awarded roughly $300,000 to the family of Robert Johnson Fox, who was shot in the course of an attempted burglary of a car lot.
Fox broke into Southwest Auto Sales in 2009 with a friend, Brian Corbin. Corbin testified that two armed men came running toward them — one shouting “we’re gonna get you.” Numerous shots were fired and Fox, who went into a small shed, was hit by a .45-caliber rifle bullet that passed through the shed’s door. Notably, Fox had knives in his pockets and one strapped to his ankle, but the police found that he presented no threat to Milanovic or father Ljuban Milanovic and brother-in-law Srdjan Milanovic.
Fox, 20, left a three-year-old daughter who will receive $269,500 for loss of companionship and loss of future earnings. The six-person jury deliberated for over two days before rendering the verdict.
There have relatively few cases of civil liability for the killing or shooting of burglars. The premise of such liability is that you cannot kill or maim for property. However, make-my-day laws statutorily dictate that any entrance into a dwelling constitutes a threat to person not property. This triggers the privilege of self-defense. This protection has been extended to include not just homes but their curtilage. One such case was Katko v. Briney, 183 N.W.2d 657 (Iowa 1971), where the defendant owned an unoccupied farmhouse left to him by his parents. It was repeatedly broken into despite no trespass signs and boards on the windows. Briney then wired the house with a snare gun and shot Katko. He was found liable. While this case also addresses the common law rule against man traps or snare guns, it was premised on the principle that that no property is worth more than a human life. The court held:
“The intentional infliction upon another of harmful or offensive contact or other bodily harm by a means which is intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily harm, for the purpose of preventing or terminating the other’s intrusion upon the actor’s possession of land or chattels, is privileged if, but only if, the actor reasonably believes that the intruder, unless expelled or excluded, is likely to cause death or serious bodily harm to the actor or to a third person whom the actor is privileged to protect.”
This case presents a more difficult case for the defense as a business rather than a home. Notably, if Fox was brandishing a knife, the result would likely have been different. However, the witness insisted that the shooting began without any threat. Notably, there is no record of a criminal charge in the case.
We have seen cases, including the Horn case in Texas, where there was no threat to a homeowner, but no criminal charges were brought.
Source: Gazette
Jonathan Turley
“People in groups are jerks.”
Gyges,
Forgive me the temerity to add to that formulation:
People in groups are jerks, who are led by scoundrels/
AY,
No, it’s not just you… — who doesn’t need an assist from time to time? And AN is my one and only nom de plume here…, but I, too, am happy to have met up with you… Well… off to dreamland…
AN,
Have we met before under another nom de plume….If not, I am pleased to have met you under this one….and thanks for the assist….Sometimes, I feel like its just me…I do appreciates culheaths and OS assists today as well….
AY,
🙂
And I know that you can defend yourself…, but sometimes I just can’t keep my mouth shut…
Rest well tonight… (Note to self: Check mattress before retiring… 😉 )
Ah ha….Now you shall rest better…I am back…I am exhausted…did not sleep worth a dang either…must be the after shocks of the earth quake and hurricane…..
Thank you for defending me….I shall return the favor…so….now I am busy I have work to doing….going to hide another pea….
Sorry, AY. I didn’t know when you’d be back… and K’s comment rankled me… maybe d/t not enough sleep… a lumpy mattress… found a damn pea under it this morning… 😉
Thank you Anon Nurse….
I was was going to set the record straight as it came from the actual article….I not being familiar with the names of the El Paso newspapers was not aware that the gazette was from Colorado….I took it for a fact that the article was correct and it did not mention that it was Colorado…
I see the banner line has not been changed as I posted this…
I was thinking and LOL when I read this…..
kima
1, August 29, 2011 at 8:42 pm
anonymously yours:
Get your facts straight. The El Paso being written about is El Paso, Colorado. And how do you know the business owners are political refugees? How do you know they are from Yugoslavia? Perhaps they are of Yugoslav heritage but born here. By the way, there is no Yugoslavia anymore.
Apparently, Kima did not take the time to read the article albeit, she or he would have gleaned from the article that they were Yugo citizens and came here in 1998….
kima 1, August 29, 2011 at 8:42 pm
anonymously yours:
Get your facts straight. The El Paso being written about is El Paso, Colorado. And how do you know the business owners are political refugees? How do you know they are from Yugoslavia? Perhaps they are of Yugoslav heritage but born here. By the way, there is no Yugoslavia anymore.
========================
1) Originally, Professor Turley mistakenly noted that this took place in Texas. (Most of us think of Texas, when we hear “El Paso”…) The reference to Texas was changed to Colorado before you posted your comment at 8:42 pm.
2) From the Gazette article cited by Professor Turley:
“The men are refugees who came to the United States from the former Yugoslavia in 1998.”
Subscribed.
Most states require a homeowner to retreat. You can’t shoot a burglar unless he’s about to shoot you. Texas allows deadly force to protect property:
http://www.texashuntfish.com/app/view/Post/17437/-Castle-law-arms-Texas-homeowners-with-right-to-shoot
The Republican-controlled Minnesota legislature is contemplating similar legislation.
I’ve held robbers and burglars at gunpoint until the police arrive.
1. I’d rented a new house. The first night, a burglar began crawling into my bedroom window immediately over my bed. I shoved my revolver into his throat and told him I’d paint my ceiling with his brains if he moved. My wife called the police and mentioned my having a gun on the burglar. When I heard the police call out to me from the yard, and my wife told me they were real police officers, I removed my weapon from his throat and went outside. The burglar was 17. He “thought the house was empty and wanted to look around.” He was charged with a curfew violation. Neither officer asked about my gun.
2. In an apartment complex, I returned from visiting a neighbor. I saw an older teenager struggling to open a car door – mine. I pointed a revolver at him, told him it was my car, told him to wait for the police, and sent my wife in to call the police. When the officers arrived, I told them what happened. They asked if my gun was registered, but they did not ask why I had it outdoors. (I had a gun permit, but I don’t know that they knew that.)
3. On a 1300 mile trip, I’d just re-entered my home state and still had 300 miles of driving. I stopped at a rest area about 3:00 AM. I removed my revolver from my trunk, reloaded it, and put it in a driver-door pocket. My gun permit was valid again after I crossed the state line. I walked to the men’s room. As I returned to my car, a huge man approached me on foot with some story about hitchhiking to this rest stop to meet his brother. I kept walking. As I opened my driver door and put one leg into the car, he squeezed my left shoulder and said, “What if I ask for your wallet, or I beat you up?” With my right hand, I pulled my revolver from the door and said, “What if I blow your head off?” The gun was far enough inside the car that he couldn’t grab for it. When he backed away, I made him put his hands up and kneel. He said, “I’m not kneeling, because you’ll shoot me.” I bluffed that I’d shoot him if he didn’t kneel. He kneeled. Pointing the revolver through the window, I backed out of the parking space and zipped toward the expressway. From a call box, I notified the State Police of the rest stop name and the robber’s description. I never hear anything else.
4. As a college student, I was midnight manager of a convenience store. The company prohibited employee guns, but I kept a .38 revolver in a reinforced, deep back pants pocket. I’d never shoot a robber over $50, but I intended to protect myself. In the middle of the night, a tall man in a hooded parka came in and told me he had a gun in his jacket pocket. I opened the till and dropped $50 in coins and singles into a paper bag. When he looked into the bag, he said it wasn’t enough. I explained that I could only keep $50 and had to drop bills bigger than $5 into a floor safe. He told me to open it. I explained that I just dropped bills into a slot and didn’t have other access to the safe. He said he’d shoot me if he didn’t get $100. When I said I had no more than $50, he said, “Okay, let’s go to the cooler.” I wasn’t planning to go to the cooler. I said that I had three $20s in my wallet. He should have told me to turn around, so he could take my wallet, but he just said okay. I reached into my back pocket and gripped my .38. I hesitated before pulling it out, so that I wouldn’t hesitate when I pointed it at him. I resolved that I would shoot him. I pulled the gun, thumbed the hammer, and pointed at – – – nothing! He’d dropped to the floor. I scrambled onto the counter, ready to shoot him before he shot me. He was flat on his back, his hand in his right pocket. As I squeezed my trigger, he brought his bare hands out of his jacket pockets and screamed “Don’t shoot. I don’t have a gun!” I eased my finger off the trigger and aimed at the floor to the side of him. He kept telling me he would get up and walk out. I kept screaming that I’d shoot him. I kept him on the floor, until a customer walked in. The payphone was on a wall far removed from the cash register. When the police arrived, I pointed my gun at the ceiling until an officer told me to put it away. The robber was a 17-year-old high school junior. He was unarmed. He said he was only taking me to the cooler to lock me in it. (There was no lock.) Before he could be tried, a homeowner shot and killed him while he was stealing the homeowner’s car battery.
anonymously yours:
Get your facts straight. The El Paso being written about is El Paso, Colorado. And how do you know the business owners are political refugees? How do you know they are from Yugoslavia? Perhaps they are of Yugoslav heritage but born here. By the way, there is no Yugoslavia anymore.
Since this was in CO from what I read in the article, the law only allows for armed defense in peoples homes, not businesses. The grand jury decided that the men had done a public service in getting rid of the crook, and did not indict though they could have. In Texas, it is perfectly legal to use deadly force in case of burglary, robbery, theft at night, etc..As I tell my fellow Texans, the rule is if they drop the loot, you CANNOT shoot. You can only shoot to prevent the loss of the property.
Don Horn acted completely within the parameters of Texas law, but he would have gone to prison if the crook did not decide that the property was worth their lives. The reason is that an undercover cop was a witness to the shooting and he could not have lied his way out.
maybe the milonovic’s should have testified they mistook their pistols for tasers.
Erykah,
Now that’s not true. The white people “fixed” the problem by declaring it was their land. Just like wave after wave of cultural expansions since the second migration out of Africa. Heck, just look in the Torah. The Europeans and the Hebrew tribes even used the same excuse: God wanted them to have the land.
People in groups are jerks.
I think that if it was in Colorado like the paper states that it is, this is a much more likely result….As has been stated the argument was framed clearly from the context of the article and as such, it should also be posted on the correction thread SWM as you have pointed out that there is a glaring mistake. I think the professor would even acknowledge your pointing this out to him, but what do I know, SWM.
Speaking of “perception” – I think that the fact that this was out in a parking lot, not inside a building would play a big role in the jury’s thinking (not necessarily consciously, though.) Yes, technically, climbing over the fence is the same as climbing in a window, but from a “common sense” perspective, the two are very different. Had the burglars gotten into the repair garage or offices and been shot, I suspect that the litigation would have gone differently.
Mahtso,
That story sounds familiar. Where have I heard it before? Oh yeah. My Native American relatives used to talk about how White folk always trespassed on their land. Nothing was ever done about it.
Swarthmore mom: Thank you! I live in El Paso, Texas, and never heard about this story, thought I was missing big news, especially the part about the six-person jury.
I believe that when people set out to rob, steal, loot, whatever, they should be aware that not all victims are knowledgeable about the law and that fatal injuries may occur. Here in Texas most people would follow the Rule of the Old West : shoot first, ask questions later.
This happened in Colorado Springs, Co which is in El Paso county. Not in Texas.
Ummmmm…3 mechanics with big arms…would that Allah allow that they be fat also?