(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Young Matt Skillern over at the new Greater Houston Criminal Defense Law Blog (another LexBlog product; not everyone can roll his own blawg. I’ve added it to the blawgroll nevertheless) writes about the no-bill of Joe Horn for the shotgunning of two burglars (illegal immigrants from Colombia) after they left his neighbor’s house:
What do I think? Well if you ask, based on the facts as presented in the media, Joe Horn did not have a legal right to shoot those men. The evidence presented through the news was that Joe Horn was in his home and not in danger, but chose to go outside and confront these men. If you look at it morally, it gets a little cloudier.
Cloudy indeed. In fact, one could reasonably take exactly the opposite of Young Matt’s position: legally cloudy though morally unjustified. I think Mr. Horn’s lawyer, Tom Lambright, got it right in the Chronicle article by Brian Rogers and Ruth Rendon:
“Was it a mistake from a legal standpoint? No. But a mistake in his life? Yes,” Lambright said. “Because it’s affected him terribly. And if he had it to do over again, he would stay inside.”
It was a bad call that he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life. But not every bad decision — not even every horrifically bad decision that ends in the death of a two human beings — should be treated as a crime.
Burglarizing a home in Harris County, Texas, is an activity that is so inherently dangerous that nobody engaged in it should be the least bit surprised to wind up dead, but stupid is not generally a capital offense in Texas.
In a Texas murder case, though, the focus is often not on the accused and his “legal right” to shoot the decedent, but instead on the decedent and whether he needed killing. Then the only question is whether the decedent was the right guy to do it.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if in this case the grand jury was convinced that Mr. Torres and Mr. Ortiz had needed killing, and that Mr. Horn was the right guy to do it.
“According to a transcript of Horn’s 911 call, which he made about 2 p.m., the operator repeatedly urged Horn to stay in his house, but Horn said he did not believe it would be right to let the burglars get away.”
“Well, here it goes, buddy,” Horn can be heard telling the operator. “You hear the shotgun clicking and I’m going.”
The operator replies: “Don’t go outside.”
Then the tape records Horn warning someone: “Move and you’re dead!” Two quick shots can be heard, followed by a pause and then a third shot.
“Ortiz and Torres died a short distance from Horn’s house, both shot in the back”
Not exactly a textbook justified homicide!!
The reason Horn was no-billed was because Harris County has very conservative (and very white) grand jurors. The act may or may not have been legal (I think it was not). But there was never any doubt that a Harris County grand jury would refuse to indict, in view of who did the shooting and who got shot. A more racially and politically diverse grand jury would have indicted. Perhaps more damning, I also think this same grand jury would have indicted had the races of the shooter and victims been reversed.
In my view, the endorsement of this kind of vigilantism is troubling.
I think Horn regrets his decision. I wouldn’t want my neighbor to have to live with the thought of killing 2 people to protect my crap.
Matt, if it were a textbook justified homicide, we wouldn’t be talking about it, would we? “Homeowner shoots, kills intruder” makes page 3 of the City/State section once; the no-bill in that case isn’t news.
PJ, you may be right.
Ron, It sounds like he does.
we have seen this story over here in the uk, although I did not know that the man was up before a grand jury.
A few years ago a british man was drunk and he went to a house to ask for directions as he had got lost. The house holder panicked and he shot and killed the man. I cannot remember what part of the usa this took place in.
Regards John Gibson
John, yep. Houston again.
Sorry, even as a PD I think this is total BS. Race probably had a lot to do with it and that’s unfortunate.
The man was repeatedly warned by the police dispatcher not to go; that the cops were on their way. He wanted to shoot them - for no other reason than to shoot them and he did and the great state of Texas rewarded him.
He should feel bad. He murdered two people. I’ll defend him, but he won’t get any sympathy from me.
The absence of a punishment is a reward? There’s something Orwellian about that; you sound like a prosecutor.
Sure he should feel bad. He was wrong. It was morally unjustified. But not every morally-unjustified act should lead to prosecution.
[...] thinks Horn met the requirements of the statute; I disagree. I’ll tell you [...]
In this case - yes. I strongly dislike the castle doctrine. Always have, always will. I don’t think use of deadly force in any case is justified to protect property and especially in this case, given the facts.
Yes, it’s Orwellian, or incongruous with our “stated purpose” as defense lawyer. I don’t care. There is still loss of life and I don’t have to gloat over this “no-bill” just because I’m a defense lawyer.
He killed two people in cold blood. It’s that simple. He gets away with it. That’s a reward. Call it a “good result” if you want, but there’s nothing in common with this guy and a majority of my clients.
Gideon wrote: “I strongly dislike the castle doctrine. Always have, always will. I don’t think use of deadly force in any case is justified to protect property and especially in this case, given the facts.”
That makes two of us. The accused in this case were the two Hispanic males. Horn acted as the State (judge, jury, and executioner). The (official) State then retroactively condoned his acts, despite the sentence he imposed having been exceeded the maximum under law. Under these circumstances, there is nothing incongruous about being a defense attorney and feeling dejected by the no bill. In my view, the State won. And what it won was a death sentence for two persons accused of burglary.
The notion that shooting each other over property should be legal is utterly absurd. As long as it is on the books, rational people should read it as narrowly as possible. In this case, for instance, what evidence reflected that Horn’s belief that the property could not be recovered by other means was reasonable?
Can we get off the “vigilante” talk? Horn was not seeking targets. He was on his own property. I think you got it right for the most part Mark. The action is morally problematic, and Horn will have to live with what he did. Anyone concerned with the morality of his deeds should consult a prayerbook. But a citizen has a presumption of safety on his own property and there is no legal compulsion to stay in-doors; a home needn’t be a hermitage. Even in Houston.v2008 we should insist that fear is an emotion, not a requirement.
IJ wrote: “Can we get off the ‘vigilante’ talk? Horn was not seeking targets.”
One meaning of vigilante is: “any person who takes the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime.” That is precisely what Horn did. Horn told the 911 operator just prior to shooting the two men: “I ain’t letting them get away with this shit. They stole something. They got a bag of something.” True enough, the law empowers Horn to use lethal force to “take the law into his own hands” to recover property under some circumstances (that I don’t believe were met here), but that’s just a technical distinction. It doesn’t remove Horn from the category of vigilante.
IJ wrote: “But a citizen has a presumption of safety on his own property and there is no legal compulsion to stay in-doors; a home needn’t be a hermitage. Even in Houston.v2008 we should insist that fear is an emotion, not a requirement.”
Neither should a citizen have the prerogative to shoot people he suspects of committing property crimes. Horn could have gone outside, even with his firearm as protection. What he should not have done is shoot two people.
I am not trying to vilify Horn, as he does appear to be sincerely remorseful for what he did, and I am confident he acted in a heightened state of fear and anxiety. But, if those two men he saw were white youths instead of Hispanic youths, something tells me Horn would not have felt as threatened and may not have shot them at all. That isn’t necessarily Horn’s fault, since those kind of associations can (and often do) occur at a completely subconscious level, but it should give serious pause to anybody seeking to justify (legally or morally) what Horn did.
Two comments about the Joe Horn matter. First, Joe Horn disregarded a police department representative’s order to not go outside. Horn put his life and any police officer responding to the call in jeopardy. If Horn stays inside, the crooks get caught red handed, case over.
Secondly, Horn had his case heard before a Grand Jury and if he had been true billed then a jury would have heard his case. This is a procedure not available to the two corpses he created. I really feel he should face civil rights charges for this act.
This happened in Pasadena, so I can’t say how long the typical wait is for police to show up. But I bet this incident was much quicker because the dispatcher had probably alerted nearby police about what was going on, and being said.
I live in Houston, and depending on quite a few things, the wait for police to show up can be very long. According to some, police don’t even show up at all (I’ve never seen this happen myself).
So the law makers come up with a new law that’s supposed to prevent homeowners from being sued by criminals that’ve broken into a home. Well they certainly worded their law loosely.
But is it REALLY racism, or is it that citizens are sick and tired of criminals not being caught, returning to a successful neighborhood for more stolen goodies? If those illegals hadn’t been shot by Mr. Horn, and the police hadn’t arrived in time to catch them, what are the chances they’d be caught later? If they left DNA, would they even be in the system to check against since they were illegals?
So they’d rob another house, maybe in the same neighborhood since they got away with it already, and what if the next home had people in it?
Citizens that obey the law, and work and save for their stuff are not only being robbed by criminals, including illegal citizens, but we’re also having our lives placed in danger by these worthless criminals. There’s not enough police to keep up with them, then they get out of jail after a short period of time.
Perhaps the grand jury was also tired of our protection system being broken.
I’m sure the lawmakers didn’t plan on their Castle Law loosely enabling neighbors to shoot criminals fleeing from the home they robbed, but I think the Grand Jury’s decision speaks for most law abiding citizens in Texas. The more liberal states can continue to allow criminals to do whatever they want with minimal punishment, IF they’re even caught. I would have no-billed Mr. Horn myself, just because he was asked to protect his neighbor’s home while he was out of town, and the law was gray’ish about how he over-protected his neighbor’s home.
And I’ll never cry and moan about a criminal losing his life or injured by a home-owner, because every home owner, and their family, is in mortal danger for most robberies (that wasn’t the case with Mr. Horn’s shooting, but if a criminal was inside a home with someone in it, we must protect ourselves against assumed threats — they are criminals!)
Finally, someone with a gravatar comments!
It’s not really a castle doctrine case — it’s a defense-of-property case. And Joe Horn wasn’t asked to protect his neighbor’s home (nor was he required to have been asked).