We have another Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground controversy this week. In Whitestown, Indiana, Maria Florinda Rios Perez, 32, died in her husband’s arms after the couple went to the wrong address to clean a house. The unidentified homeowner reportedly shot through the door. A GoFundMe site has been set up for her family. She was the mother of four.
Reports indicate that the couple was trying to use a key on the door. The occupants called the police in the early morning about someone trying to open their door. As they continued to try to gain entry with the wrong key, a bullet came through the door and struck Perez.
Police responded to a call of a possible home invasion, but later concluded that “the facts gathered do not support that a residential entry occurred.” However, the department added that “It was later determined that the individuals attempting to enter the home were members of a cleaning crew who had mistakenly arrived at the wrong address.”
The matter is currently under review by the Boone County Prosecutor’s Office. Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood stated that the case is complex due to language in the state’s stand-your-ground law.
Indiana has a robust law (below) that allows the use of lethal force to prevent a forcible entry into a home. It specifically provides for the use of deadly force “to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.” The “curtilage” includes the area immediately adjacent to a home
In this case, the police indicated that the couple was “attempting to enter the home.” That is why this case is particularly challenging for prosecutors. Under the law, the homeowner was not required to wait for actual entry or confirm whether the person was armed.
The common law has long offered protections even for reasonable mistakes. Castle doctrine states codified and, in some states, expanded on those common law protections. They have resulted in some highly controversial cases, such as that of Tom Horn in Texas.
The case reminds me of the Donofrio case that we discussed earlier. He was shot and killed on the front porch of a house in Columbia, South Carolina after trying to enter the wrong home near the campus around 2 am.
It is also reminiscent of the shooting of a Japanese student in Baton Rouge. The 16-year-old Japanese exchange student, Yoshihiro Hattori, was looking for a Halloween party and scared the wife of Rodney Peairs when he spoke a strange language and approached the house. Peairs shot him in the chest with a .44 Magnum handgun and was later cleared under a Make My Day law as mistaken defense of his home and self. We also discussed a tragic case involving the killing of a law student.
The state law also supplies civil immunity for homeowners in such cases.
You can make your own assessment based on the language of the statute. The Indiana law states in part:
Sec. 2. (a) In enacting this section, the general assembly finds and declares that it is the policy of this state to recognize the unique character of a citizen’s home and to ensure that a citizen feels secure in his or her own home against unlawful intrusion by another individual or a public servant.
…
(c) A person is justified in using reasonable force against any other person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person:
(1) is justified in using deadly force; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person, employer, or estate of a person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.
(d) A person:
(1) is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against any other person; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.
(e) With respect to property other than a dwelling, curtilage, or an occupied motor vehicle, a person is justified in using reasonable force against any other person if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to immediately prevent or terminate the other person’s trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person’s possession, lawfully in possession of a member of the person’s immediate family, or belonging to a person whose property the person has authority to protect. However, a person:
(1) is justified in using deadly force; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
only if that force is justified under subsection (c).
We have another Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground controversy this week.
Why don’t we call it a “controversy” the multiple times every single week that a woman threatened by her husband, boyfriend, etc is badly injured or killed in jurisdictions that refused her a permit to purchase a firearm for self protection? Or why never a column when an intended victim’s life is saved because the Second Amendment in conjunction with Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground resulted in them using a firearm to stop a deadly attack?
Jonathan has never heard of either of THOSE happening? Despite that other embarrassing civil right that’s right beside the First Amendment – the only one the Founders felt sufficiently important to safeguard by including the words “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED”?
He certainly hasn’t written a single column devoted to either of those happening since he started writing here back around 2007.
There are lots of questions that can be asked if this shooting was legitimate, with or without any Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground laws. Beginning with the homeowners choice not to shout a warning and then blindly firing a shot through the door panel. However this individual circumstance is ultimately decided on, over all the other incidents in the USA, being chosen for use to pick fly poop out of pepper by focusing on only questionable instances like this, is a piss poor way to debate the issue.
Or to appear to be apolitical and unbiased on the issue. Professor Turley’s Democrat slip is showing on Bill Of Rights Amendments – yet again.
‘No one helped her’: NJ woman murdered by ex while awaiting gun permit
https://www.foxnews.com/us/no-one-helped-her-nj-woman-murdered-by-ex-while-awaiting-gun-permit
Carol Bowne knew her best shot at defending herself from a violent ex was a gun, and not a piece of paper. And it was paperwork that left her unprotected when Michael Eitel showed up at her New Jersey home last week and stabbed her to death. Bowne, 39, had a restraining order against Eitel when he killed her in her driveway last Wednesday, but she was still waiting for Berlin Township Police Chief Leonard Check to approve the gun permit she had applied for on April 21.
Tragically, she had gone to the township police department just two days before her death to check on the status of her languishing application. In another indication of her fear of Eitel, Bowne had recently installed surveillance cameras around her home, and the equipment recorded the 45-year-old ex-con attacking her as she arrived home and got out of her car. Second Amendment advocates say it is normal for Garden State police chiefs to take several months to approve handgun permits for qualified applicants despite the 30 day time period allowed for processing.
No law can erase a murder.
You might need to look up the definition of “murder” as opposed to “killing”. This was not a “murder”. It was a homicide. It was a killing.
“No law can erase a murder.”
And no individual circumstance, if it was indeed criminal rather than negligence, can make between 2.5 and 3 MILLION yearly defensive uses of firearms to stop violent criminals disappear.
But you and every Democrat politician out there would sure like to hope that happens! Probably because in most of those defensive uses, when the attacking criminal actually does it shot, it’s usually a member of your identity politics group voters.
Doesn’t this law put cops at risk conducting No-Knock warrants?
A judge grants a valid N.K. warrant and the person served (homeowner) carelessly shoots through the door putting police officers at risk.
You are probably correct.
But you expect the lunatic MAGA mob to be able to think rationally.
Good luck with that.
“But you expect the lunatic MAGA mob to be able to think rationally.”
We got us a brilliant Democrat Marxist Useful Idiot here from the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe, who believes men like him can cosplay that they’re female and get pregnant.
Now there’s some rational Democrat intellectual thinkers showing how their idea of rationality works.
This pretty much sums up the thought processes, or lack thereof, of the lunatic MAGA mob.
Facts are completely irrelevant.
When confronted with a rational argument, simply attack the commenter with pathetic childish insults.
“This pretty much sums up the thought processes, or lack thereof, of the lunatic MAGA mob (but please, don’t call this my childish insult).”
We got us a brilliant Democrat Marxist Useful Idiot here from Biden’s Bolshevik Birthing Boyz, who told us for years that Birbery Biden, the Oval Office House Plant, was an intellectual giant, working his army of brilliant young aids to exhaustion every single day.
Now there’s some rational Democrat intellectual thinkers showing how their idea of rationality works.
Yes to gun rights for responsible and mature adults. Shooting through doors is not that.
At minimum, shouldn’t the homeowner be required to shout a verbal warning first before firing? Or fire into the ground as a warning first?
Legal or not don’t shoot through doors. Especially when it’s not a violent invasion.
Many of us today (myself included) have mentioned factors that might/should/could be considered in this case. Although the Indiana law appears to be deferential to homeowners, there IS the insertion of the word “reasonable” in “(e)…the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to immediately prevent or terminate the other person’s trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person’s possession…”
So, contrary to carte blanche protection/immunity for homeowners, there is at least a requisite consideration of whether any lethal force was “reasonably” proportional to the perceived threat. I think the law would unequivocally protect the homeowner but for the insertion of the word “reasonably” which at least demands an initial or some breakdown/analysis of factors.
Time of day would impact “reasonable” I think. The article only says “in the early morning”. What does that mean? I imagine it being 4 or 5 a.m.
Would it be more reasonable to assume the person rattling your door was breaking in if they did it at 4 a.m., compared to (for example) 8 a.m.?
Something doesn’t add up here. This guy had time to hear the attempted entrance, go get his gun, and phone 911, presumably talk to the 911 operator, and become so scared that he shot through the door… how long did this process take? From what I can tell, all the press reports are coming from the husband. How do we know he’s telling the truth? What’s the other half of the story?
The husband declared that they walked up to the house, and were searching the keyring without even having touched the door when the shot was fired. He declared that they are “self-employed cleaners”, who checked the address twice and drove around the entire subdivision once…
Maybe he’s telling the truth… or maybe this is another “hands up don’t shoot” lie and that there “cleaning services” are of the involuntary kind… Initial press reports are always something to be VERY skeptical about.
Anonymous 1:58 PM- many good points. I think they need charges and a trial to settle this issue
“What’s the other half of the story?”
That’s one reason why trial by public is always a bad idea.
Maybe a clean out service.
Obviously, we don’t know enough to determine on which side to be- but one thing is sure- get a video doorbell!!
I’m sorry, but ANYONE who uses force, and in this instance a Gun, without determination of actual threat should be found liable for their actions. If guilt can be placed on Law Enforcement for negligence so must Average Joe Citizen. America is losing it’s soul….!
What is Soul?
As defined by Ai refers to spiritual, or a person’s emotional and moral nature, (divinity).
In Hindi it’s the immaterial aspect or essence of life.
Islam has four parts: heart, spirit, ego, mind which all belong to God.
Parsing these meaning I cannot understand where any individual would applaud the taking of life for thought. America is descending into a morass where the egocentric morons of the left reside, having the putrid smell of hatred for no other reason than spite of non-believers.
“as defined by AI”
Why are you taking anything spat out by AI as fact? AI is just an interface to the internet. It’s the same thing as writing “It’s true because I read it on the internet”. That used to happen a lot 20-30 years ago. People first getting on the the internet would see something someone wrote in a forum and declare it true because “it’s on the internet”.
Stop that. AI is just a portal into the internet. It isn’t an arbiter of truth. It’s no different than using google search with the “I’m feeling lucky” button and assuming the result is 100% correct.
*. Did the key fit the lock after police picked it up? Did any key on Mr. Velasquez’s key ring fit the lock?
Chasing down the links in PT article cites several such cases. Two in Florida, Texas, South Carolina and this in Indiana. One case in Florida involved a pool cleaning man in the backyard at 9PM at which time the owner sprayed 30 rounds from an AR 15 into the backyard. The pool man survived and said he was running late. The other burglary case in Florida involved two illegal Guatemalans one on parole was shot , the other ran but was caught by police.
RIP Mrs. Perez and condolences to the family. There is an ongoing investigation. The family has been in the US for one year. Mrs. Perez will be taken back to Guatemala for burial.
Dial M for murder? Maybe someone set up the homeowner knowing he was a gun guy republican.
One of the rules of gun ownership. No shooting unless you see the threat. That means no shooting through doors.
The idiot officer shot a woman during J6 through a door. This shit happens all the time because people buy a gun, which is their right, but have no idea about laws and principles of gun ownership. The officer is a pathetic poiser.
Talk about revisionist history !!!!
The door in question at the Capitol on J6 had a glass panel that was the top half of the door.
The glass had already been broken and the woman in question had climbed half way through the panel.
There were congressional people in the background.
The officer had a clear view of a person attempting to climb through the broken glass panel to attack congress people and took appropriate action
She was going to kill members if Congress with her bare hands!!!
How was the officer supposed to know she was not armed.
This was apparent AFTER the attack, and under the circumstances the officer had no choice but to shoot at an individual screaming threats who was climbing through a broken window.
There was absolutely no evidence presented that Babbitt was “screaming threats.” Where did you get that?
(Not taking a position on the shooting; simply circumscribing your comment with facts.)
You can hear the screaming in the videos
identifying her as the screamer? doesn’t appear in the transcripts.
Why are you trying to reduce the argument to whether she was screaming ???
You are insane.
The officer was confronted with a screaming mob who broke the glass panels of the door and one of the screaming mob was climbing through the broken panel.
Is he supposed to ascertain who was actually doing the screaming ???
How exactly is he supposed to figure out who is screaming in the midst of such mayhem.
He simply took the appropriate action under the circumstances to eliminate the threat to the congress people in the background.
Pushing her out of the window of the door and back from where she was coming from would be reasonable as he knew fellow officers were in the outside area.
Are you insane ???
The officer had no way of knowing whether she was armed. She could have had a gun or a knife or some other weapon.
No officer in his right mind would physically confront such a person at close quarters in a riot situation.
Even if he had tried to do as you suggest, there is no doubt that the mob would have grabbed him and attacked him.
You are completely out of your mind and desperately trying to justify the criminal acts of a rioter who was a direct threat to the people the officer was required to defend.
Show us where in the video she was “an individual screaming threats who was climbing through a broken window.” she is shot near the end of the video.
You are a liar.
https://archive.org/details/nYiFQbNc65jwFYCWY?start=1993
Why are you so desperate to justify the criminal actions of a rioter breaking down a door to attack congressional people ???
She was committing a violent crime as part of rioting mob.
She got what she deserved.
How was the officer supposed to know she was not armed.
That’s some pretty feeble Democrat gaslighting! How did the officer who murdered her by shooting her point blank while she was in the act of crawling over the window sill (NOT screaming threats as liars would hope you believe) have no option to physically subdue her instead?
How did that bloated LEO with a record of threatening others with violence have a credible belief that despite his police training, outweighing her by over 100 lbs, and seeing armed and armored SWAT officers standing behind her, have a credible belief that she would swiftly subdue him if he attempted to physically restrain and arrest her instead of executing her?
No choice but to execute her at point blank range – endangering all the police officers standing a few feet behind him while doing so?
Oh! Wouldn’t it have been fun if those had been the police use of force rules during 2020’s Mostly Peaceful Political Rioting, Pillaging, Arson, Looting and Murder!
In riot control it’s known the sound of breaking glass sets off a mob into a riot.
You know this because….?
Still not a reason.
Tragic.
on a lighter note, Groucho Marx made fun of this Mexican contestant on his TV show in a way no comedian would dare do it today. Yet it was the Mexican who stole Groucho’s show, even making Groucho look like a chump
Off topic but still topical: I’m wondering if the filibuster should be reduced to 55 votes from 60.
The filibuster can guard against reckless, slender majorities, but it’s still a question of degree. At some point, a filibuster rule can go from stopping a tyranny of the majority to installing a tyranny of the minority. I favor a filibuster rule, but I’ve sometimes felt 60 votes was too steep.
I do agree with Trump when he says the Democrats will likely dump the filibuster the first chance they get, but that is less likely if a President is allowed a successful administration. If the filibuster can be demonstrated to NOT be an impediment to reasonable governance, then it might be harder for Democrats to make a case for dumping it. The 60-vote threshold doesn’t seem to demonstrate anything but chaos.
Just my opinion. You may now resume your regularly scheduled programming.
Diogenes: Good food for thought, but are you referring to cloture?
(I have no idea what Trump said.)
Hi, Lin. Yes, I think specifically I’m talking about cloture to end a senate filibuster. Thanks for the clarification.
Trump said that he wanted to end the filibuster rules altogether. I’m not on board with that, but I could understand reducing the required cloture vote.
*. How about the president declare a budget emergency due to snap, airports, military pay other and implement GOP budget per month until congress settles. Do that by emergency unilateral executive order. Then let some Obama Biden judge declare an injunction putting the mess where it belongs.
That works, too.
All of these comments pro and con ignore two very important aspects of all these cases. 1. The decision to shoot or not shoot is made in a compressed period of time due to fear or other factors. 2. The shooter whether held criminally or civilly liable will live with their decision for the rest of their life.
Any coward can blather on under anonymity or pseudonyms without skin in the game behind their assertions. None of the postings I see here are willing to use their own names to support their opinions. But then, with the vindictive, mean spirit and evil we see in todays world, I guess it is defensible. But is it always necessary?
What’s the big deal? Mistakes happen. We are better off with Stand Your Ground and Castle Protection laws, than we are without them. Very sad that this innocent person was killed, but that is no different from “collateral damage” from a B-17 bombing run. Poop happens.
Let the homeowners insurance company make a payout, and move on.
Big deal ? Guess a dead immigrant means less than nothing. Gotta love MAGA.
Dead troll >>>>> Road kill
And if you or your family is next? Your coldness marks you as a psychopath. A danger to anyone in your vicinity.
I’m old and handicapped, unarmed. Anyone can break in. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.
This reminds me of the 2013 Michigan porch slaying. The homeowner was awakened at 4:30 AM by a woman pounding on his door. He grabbed his shotgun, and eventually fired a single shot through his screen door, killing her.
He was convicted of second-degree murder, and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Not being a lawyer, I’m guessing that a great deal will depend on a moment to moment analysis of exactly what happened and details of the location. Perhaps even the construction of the door. A glass pane in the middle that could be broken for illegal entry? Or solid wood with a substantial frame? Or…. I suspect that because of the SYG law, whoever fired the shot will not be prosecuted but I wonder if they have civil liability. I do think that responsible gun owners would not open fire through a closed door even if there were sounds of attempted entry and no communication or miscommunication. If I really felt threatened, I’d put one in the floor. That large load bang would send even the most determined crooks on their way. And yes, I’d have to have the floor fixed at my expense.
Yeah, me too being doc Holiday I’d just shoot the gun out of his hand after he’d entered.
Too many people here and elsewhere are sympathetically including the fact that the victim was the “mother of four” into the “fault” equation. While very sad, it is wholly inappropriate at this stage.
That being said, I understand prosecutorial conundrum. Early morning hours and darkness, no expectation of “visitors” at that time; persistent wiggling of lock/repeated attempts to trigger the key to open the door; the important fact that homeowners had first called 911 but obviously concluded (out of fear?) that no one was coming in time to help, and the recent rise in break-ins in affluent or larger-home communities.
STILL, while these may be mitigating facts, they are not conclusively exculpatory nor affirmative defenses to what objectively appears to be overreaction and perhaps a lack of alternative approaches or tactics (turning on porch light to frighten an intruder and enhance visibility; running out the back door with a gun; once outdoors, yelling out Help! to alert neighbors; issuing a warning shot; issuing a verbal warning (while still inside) “I have a gun pointed at you. Who are you and what do you want?” etc.)
AS concluding based on what is known by us, I would NOT side with complete innocence/immunity under Indiana law. I would side with some form of culpability/liability, the severity of which/and the appropriate charge to be determined according to ALL factors, including those above.
For the gun hater Anonymous and her friends on this forum why haven’t you told us how terrible it was to use a gun to kill Charlie Kirk and that a gun was used to attempt to kill President on two occasions? No Anonymous, you were rejoicing at Charlie Kirks death and you were sad and forlorn that the assassination attempts on President Trumps life were not successful. We know who you are in the dark depths if your soul.
“why haven’t you told us how terrible it”… why don’t you, you raised the issue?