The Joe Horn Law

 Posted on July 01, 2008 in Uncategorized

Gideon makes his objections to the Texas defense of property law on which Joe Horn based his defense known here.

He pares down Texas's defense-of-property-of-others law:

A person can use deadly force (as in this case) if he believes it is immediately necessary to terminate the trespass/burglary/robbery AND the property being taken cannot be recovered by any other means AND he has a reasonable belief that the third person asked him to protect the property.

I think he's got it wrong. He got it wrong at first. In Texas, you can use deadly force to protect the movable property of a third party (that is, not you and not the guy you're using the force against) when (among other situations inapplicable here):

1. You reasonably believe that the force is immediately necessary to prevent or terminate your target's unlawful interference with the property;

2. You reasonably believe that the deadly force is immediately necessary to prevent your target who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary from escaping with the property;

3. You reasonably believe that the property cannot be recovered by any other means; or that the use of force other than deadly force to recover the property would expose the you or another person to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury; and

4. You reasonably believe that your target's unlawful interference with the property of the third party constitutes attempted or consummated theft of the tangible, movable property.

(That's a mashup of Sections 9.41-9.43 of the Texas Penal Code, which deal with the use of force and deadly force in defense of your own property and the property of others.)

Gideon's real objection to Texas's law on the defense of property of others, I suspect, is that property isn't worth killing someone. I'm with him there. But was Joe Horn right under the law? I don't know. He apparently didn't know that the cops were right there, and so he might reasonably have believed that the only way to protect his neighbor's property without exposing himself to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury was to use deadly force. Even if he was wrong, though, there's enough there for a grand jury to hang its hat on that it could justify a no-bill based on its answer to The Real Harris County Self-Defense Special Issues:

Did the complainant need killing?Was the defendant the right guy to do it?