Constitutional Law

Robber gets popped...

OUCH!!

Hat tip to Jay Printz...

UPDATE: yup, this is a situation where the official legal standard -- you can shoot only if you reasonably believe your own life is in danger at the time -- poses a problem. But it's been my experience that police and, when it gets that far, grand jurors, figure that (1) shooting a robber is a public service and (2) shooting him in the back is the safest way to deal with that situation.

Don Kates has pointed out that the legal doctrines of self-defense have a peculiar background. At common law, you could pretty much always kill a felon (it usually carried the death penalty anyway). So in that setting nobody worried about self-defense. Self-defense evolved outside of robbery, rape, etc., where it usually involved a brawl or similar between two otherwise non-criminal types. In that setting, there was little wrong with considering the two roughly equal, and allowing use of lethal force only if it was "him or you." As applied to a robber, tho, it gets far out of kilter with how most people's values.

Legally, her shot is questionable at best, and will have to cook up some excuse unless everyone overlooks it. But the way 99% of us will look at it -- good, he might have robbed me next, and no sense requiring her to put her life at risk by trying to outdraw him. A back shot on the battlefield is a good shot, why should it be different here? The only questionable action is that if she'd aimed higher, she'd have spared us the expense of a trial as well.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).