(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Oh, Texas. You so wacky!

Short version:

Woman is having an affair. Her husband comes home. She, thinking quickly, starts screaming that she's being raped. Her lover understandably freaks out and takes off running as the husband goes for a gun. He is driving away when the husband shoots him five times.

She's been convicted of manslaughter. The trigger-happy "shoot the innocent unarmed man in the back" husband's been let off entirely.

Comments

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Wait a cotton-pickin' minute.

You're saying the problem is that the husband had a gun?

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

Yes. He should have called 911 and waited the 9 minutes for the police to come help him.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm saying there's problems all around here, and the only person we're sure WASN'T committing a crime was the dead guy.

[mr-rubix.livejournal.com]

An interesting spin. Thoughts on this take, then?
Man comes home to find his wife with another man, clearly engaged in sexual activity. His wife screams that she is being/has been raped. Man, trusting his wife, grabs his gun and threatens the rapist. When the rapist tries to flee the scene in his pickup truck the man fires several shots into the vehicle killing the rapist directly after that rapist committed assault on the man's wife.

Later the wife explains that the guy really wasn't a rapist... oops?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Your take is the same as mine. It's the "man shoots fleeing innocent man in the back" part that's the problem.

An "oops" that winds up with an innocent person being dead is commonly referred to as "criminal negligence causing death" in civilised countries, or as "involuntary manslaughter" in third-world banana-republic shitholes. Which is what *she* was convicted of, and what he *also did*.

Put another way: She yelled "Fire" in a crowded theatre, which is a crime. He killed somebody on his way to the exit, which is ALSO a crime, although not one he would have committed if she hadn't been yelling fire.

[shemale.livejournal.com]

damn what a fucked up situation

they should both be convicted of manslaughter.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

The guy who deliberately shot a man to death despite the victim not being an immediate threat to anyone shouldn't be charged with murder?

[anivair.livejournal.com]

in his defence, the man certainly didn't seem innocent from his point of view. If I were in hat position, I'd kill the guy, too. Why would be be expected to assume that his wife might be lying about some guy raping her? She certainly *should* be convicted.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I think SHE should be convicted of murder, and he of manslaughter.

What the hell did she THINK her husband would do if she cried rape? Ask the dude if he wanted to talk things out?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Without more details, I'm not willing to say that's *murder* on her part - it might be, it might not be - but the husband *definitely* needed a manslaughter conviction, too.

[geminiknight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm solidly in the camp of "husband didn't do anything go"...

If I came off to see a guy on top of my wife, and she's hollering rape...well, if dude isn't dead, it won't be for lack of me trying.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on the second, but not on the first. As soon as that guy was in his car and leaving, he wasn't a threat to anyone, and so shooting him is no longer self-defense, it's *murder*.

[evilgrins.livejournal.com]

now see, this is why they say "don't mess with Texas"

[hadesflower.livejournal.com]

didn't I see this on an episode of some inane sitcom or another, without the shooting resulting in death of course...

[publius1.livejournal.com]

I really think that this is a good social lesson why vigilante justice really is a bad idea. Had the man NOT shot at the fleeing person, and instead tried to find out who he was (as you say, get his license plate number, or distinguishing characteristics), he would have found out in time that this person had NOT raped his wife. Instead, he took the law into his own hands.

While a lot of people are applauding that he took action to defend his wife, I actually agree with your take on this (even though I'm not as pro-gun control as you are); he acted wrongly and should be punished in some way for it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm not even really pro gun control, so much as being strongly against stupid people doing dangerous things.

The problem is not guns. The problem is that a significant percentage of the "I want a gun to protect myself at all times" crowd can't be trusted with anything more dangerous than a spoon.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

> While a lot of people are applauding that he took action to defend
> his wife,

He didn't. The guy wasn't anywhere *near* his wife.

commodorified had a post which pointed out, pretty coherently, how generally counter-productive the mad "let's beat the shit out of the rapist" approach generally is.

I mean, seriously. He thinks his wife just got raped, and he's running out of the house shooting at a car instead of trying to make sure she's okay? Gee, thanks, you macho whackjob.

[mistresschewtoy.livejournal.com]

Being a gun owner and living in Texas I think I know exactly why he was not charged.

In this state you are allowed to fire upon any individual with an intent to kill if you believe they are a threat to your property and those who reside on it.

Not being a native Texan I find these stories outlandish every time they come up.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. However, you need to be able to successfully argue that the unarmed man driving away, in his car, leaving your property at his best speed, is a threat to your property and the people on it.

He isn't.

Making it murder, not self-defense. Not even under the Castle Doctrine.

[jerril]

It's called a crime of passion. Emphasis on the CRIME part, in that just because you were REALLY ANGRY about something that would make most people like you REALLY ANGRY doesn't excuse you committing a CRIME.

Shooting him while he's on top of your wife - understandable, although dangerous to your wife and you're safer hauling him off, you're still actively defending your wife.

If he goes after YOU with violent intent (rape or assault) - yes, fine, shoot him. I personally fall in the camp of absolute minimum force, and your local jurisdiction may think you overreacted if you shoot to kill a naked unarmed man, but at least you're on firmer ground here. "I panic'd and shot him!" is a lot more plausable.

Naked fucker runs out of your house and has time to get into his truck and start driving down the street and then you shoot him?

There is no "hot pursuit" rule for self-defence.

[mistresschewtoy.livejournal.com]

Oh and looked up the name of the Texas law. It's called the Castle Doctrine.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I'm on the fence. Points on the crime of passion issue and chances of getting a jury conviction are dead on.

Also, on the issue of getting the license plate, consider that all of this took place after a "late-night card game." It was dark. Many houses lack sufficient lighting in the driveway. Add rage, and bullets will fly.

As to threat level, many juries regard rapists as more of a threat than murderers.

I might also be biased. In that case, the tire was shot.

[atlasimpure.livejournal.com]

Rape was the last non-murder offense to be taken off the death penalty list in the States.

[atlasimpure.livejournal.com]

I'm uh...I'm remarkably okay with this one.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

You're ok with the guy having sex getting shot to death over it and the person doing it having no criminal charges brought against him?

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

I would probably agree with your stance, but I know that your logical conclusion of it is not "The husband should have disabled the guy long enough to get the full story from the wife, then killed/severely injured one or both of them, depending upon mood and reasons," so I disagree. I think Texas has done right by this situation. Incarcerate the lying party that caused all this brouhaha by cheating badly and then trying to throw the other party under the bus to save herself.

I'm partially hoping that the husband gets a reward, myself. Hitting a man-sized target in a likely-erratically moving vehicle with a handgun, not just grazing, but enough to kill outright? Kudos to him. He gets extra cookies at the next NRA meeting.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You're right, we disagree - since I figure that the victim did *absolutely* nothing wrong. Even *if* he knew she was married, which we aren't sure of, so the fuck what?

And even *if* there was punishment to be meted out to the wife, here, that dude doesn't get to do it, because that's how laws work.

Cuts about a thousand ways...

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

I think we can all agree that the woman is wrong to the thousandth degree.

I think we can agree that the man who died is innocent to the 999th degree, with a 1th degree chance of 'If he knew she was married he shouldn't have slept with her but it's not even vaguely wrong to the extent of getting shot at'.

Because there's two ways to paint the situation from the husband's perspective:

One: Your wife has just been raped and you've scared off the person who attacked her, you're certain that with what you've seen of him and the truck that the police will find him and you should go inside and comfort your wife.

Two: Your wife has just been raped and the bastard is trying to get away, there's no way the cops will be able to catch him and he's bold enough that he broke into your house to rape your wife... and now he's getting away.

The problem is, situation one requires a fair amount of even emotional keel... and I'm not sure who has that in the situation the guy finds himself with. Admittedly, if the guy doesn't have a gun, chances are there are no deaths involved... a thrown baseball bat isn't likely to kill the driver of the truck.

But I don't think we can just wave our hands and say 'Damn trigger happy texan'. Unfortunately, the one thing we don't really have any way of knowing is how this guy feels about what happened.

Still, from a strictly legal standpoint in most states: Shooting at someone, and killing them, without prior planning to do so is Murder 2. And I don't think I can be sold that he wasn't trying to kill him... because if I was him? I probably would have been.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

She is, naturally, at fault but he is not blameless. Shooting and killing someone who is running away is indefensible - high emotional state or not