Defending one's home in North Carolina

[DonaldD]

So, would these homeowners have been legally in their rights, while defending their home and themselves, to shoot to kill?

WaPo: Deputy led armed group to black teen’s home

WILMINGTON, N.C. — A sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina is facing criminal charges after authorities said he led a group of armed people to the wrong home in a search for a missing girl.
New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David said Friday that Jordan Kita, who worked in the New Hanover Sheriff’s Office, will be charged with trespassing and breaking and entering.
Kita led an armed group May 3 to the home of Dameon Shepard, a senior at Laney High School in Wilmington, according to James W. Lea, a lawyer for Shepard’s family who is preparing a civil lawsuit.
The all-white group tried unsuccessfully to force its way into the home of Shepard, who is black, news outlets reported.

[Kasandra]

The homeowner was black, which makes it unclear.

[wmLambert]

Statement posted is unclear. Was the home of the senior the wrong house? Why?

[DonaldD]

Re-read the first line in the quote.

Or re-read the second line in the quote.

Or read the linked story itself.

If you think the statement is not clear, you should ask yourself why it was not clear to you, specifically...

[rightleft22]

he led a group of armed people to the wrong home

In my opinion the deputy was wrong regardless of the home being the right or wrong one. There is a reason for process and rule of law.

I assume the wrong home belonged to a black family. Had that family thought their lives were in danger from what might have appeared as a mob fought back. They would probably be dead and if not dead in-jail.

If the home was known to belong to a white family It is unlikely the mob would have been assembled as the deputy would have taken more time to verify.

[wmLambert]

Re-read the first line in the quote.

Or re-read the second line in the quote.

Or read the linked story itself.

If you think the statement is not clear, you should ask yourself why it was not clear to you, specifically...

Sorry, I was reacting to the directed attention to Dameon Shepard. The pull quote emphasized him for some reason. It seemed to indicate the deputy thought he was involved with the missing girl. It didn't quite come up to the level of interest for me to open a link for more details.

[DonaldD]

It didn't quite come up to the level of interest for me to open a link for more details.

Really?

Kita led an armed group May 3 to the home of Dameon Shepard, a senior at Laney High School in Wilmington, according to James W. Lea, a lawyer for Shepard’s family who is preparing a civil lawsuit.
The all-white group tried unsuccessfully to force its way into the home of Shepard

A deputy, who is being charged, criminally, with trespass and breaking and entering, led an armed group to a home and tried to force his way into that private home... what "level" would lead you to opening a link?  I mean, aside from the sentence having the words "Obama" and "gate", preferably linked together?

Seriously, try to think about why you felt it didn't rise to that "level"... what about an armed, uniformed person leading a group of vigilantes to accost a sovereign citizen in his own home was not of interest (I mean, given that you felt the need to respond in the first place)

[msquared]

DonaldD,
Was the officer in uniform?  I do not remember reading that in the article.

This is wrong on the officers part on either level. If he was in uniform and working in an official capacity, why have a group of non officers with him? Why not other officers with a warrant?

If he was out of uniform it is still bad. Leading an armed group to the wrong house? Even if it was the right house, he should know better.

I think the city got lucky no one was killed. and by that I mean the people inside the wrong house.

[DonaldD]

He was alleged to have been in uniform, yes.  Does that really make a difference, though..?

Were the family in their rights to have opened fire on the (armed) people who came uninvited onto their property, who forced open their door, and who wouldn't leave after being asked?  I think everybody knows where this is going...

[Crunch]

If you think the statement is not clear, you should ask yourself why it was not clear to you, specifically...

It's paywalled, can't read it. Got another source?

[msquared]

What he did was wrong. And if the family had shot at him and the posse, they would have been blamed for standing their ground, even if it was their right.

The uniform question is what makes this wrong on so many levels.  In uniform, he probably had every right to go to the door (by himself and not with a weapon drawn) to ask questions. But to go in uniform  with a group of armed people who were not police? Why?  At least the city fired him and are pressing charges.

But you are right. If the family had shot him, what would the official response be?

[DonaldD]

He was actually outside his own jurisdiction, and not on duty.

But regardless - what about being in uniform inherently trump's the castle doctrine?  Uniformed officers can't just force themselves into someone's home, without a warrant, or absent a "hot pursuit" scenario.

I'm really wondering though, whether the people who think the 2nd amendment protects one's rights to defend oneself from government overreach would support the use of force in this pretty textbook case, even given (or maybe especially given) the ambiguity.

[DonaldD]

It's paywalled, can't read it. Got another source?

Just Google "kita dameon shepard"

[msquared]

If a uniformed cop comes to your door and says he has a warrant to search the property, I would say that trumps the castle doctrine. But that did not happen in this case.

I think the cop may be lucky to be alive.

[DonaldD]

If a uniformed cop comes to your door and says he has a warrant

Did you mean "and presents a warrant"? 

[msquared]

yes.

[cherrypoptart]

Since it turns out the vigilantes were incorrect about these people having any involvement in the missing girl then yes they would be within their rights to defend themselves in their home using lethal force.

But what if the vigilantes had been correct and the girl was there being held against her will and used as a sex slave? Would that make a difference? What if a similar group had done the same thing to Ariel Castro because they suspected he had a missing girl held captive at his house? Would Ariel Castro have been within his rights to shoot them to protect his three sex slaves from being rescued? If that had happened and a bunch of vigilantes went in and rescued those girls without probable cause and without a valid search warrant or law enforcement involvement would it have been illegal to prosecute Castro?

Jeffrey Dahmer also had the police called on him. One of his victims, a 14 year old boy, actually got out and Dahmer talked the police into thinking it was just a lovers' quarrel and got the victim back and murdered him immediately afterwards. If neighbors had formed a vigilante group to investigate him themselves would that have been illegal? Would Dahmer have been within his rights to shoot them dead? I guess the point is there are times when doing things strictly by the law gets innocent children killed and worse. However, this was not one of those times.

[DonaldD]

Interesting hypotheticals...

At what point does a person lose their rights to self-defence?

Given an attack, in their own home, by a gang of armed vigilantes without cover of law, do the following people have the legal right to self-defence:
1. Mary, mother of Jesus, arguably without even sin.
2. Somebody who ran a stop sign, but was never caught
3. Somebody who cheated on their taxes
4. Somebody who refuses to pay taxes
5. Somebody who refuses to acknowledge the authority of either state or federal governments
6. Somebody who beat their spouse
7. Somebody who beats their spouse
8. Somebody who beats their children
9. Somebody who threatens their spouse's life
10. Somebody who killed their spouse but has not been charged
11. Somebody who is charged with killing their spouse (but who didn't actually kill their spouse)
12. Somebody who's spouse has disappeared
13. A suspected serial killer who is actually a real serial killer
14. A suspected serial killer who never actually killed anybody, but who did beat their spouse.
15. A completely upstanding citizen, never suspected of doing anything, except they cheated on their taxes this year (and who, coincidentally, has been a secret serial killer without anybody's knowledge)
16. A serial killer, suspected and charged with one murder, but out on bail under house arrest.
17. Hitler

[Kasandra]

This sort of brain teaser can only be resolved by examining the assumptions that were used for the intended home inspection/invasion.  In the case of Dahmer, it's a tragedy that will be examined, I imagine, for generations.  The question will be something like "How could we have not known?  How could we have let it happen?" But the assumptions were that nothing criminal or harmful was going on inside the house, and without evidence or information there was no call to action.

In the North Carolina case the assumption that justified vigilantes going to the house rests entirely on racial animosity, unfounded suspicion toward the people because they lived in a black neighborhood, that the supposed victim was a white girl, and the conviction that they had legitimate authority to do what they were doing.  As in the movie "A Time To Kill," you've heard all the evidence about how those white men stood ready to accuse and likely abuse the black teenager, but do your feelings change if you imagine that the teenager was white, the girl was black and the house was in a white neighborhood.

Those are the same kind of assumptions behind the Georgia Arbery case.  Two white men felt empowered to confront, threaten and ultimately kill a black jogger because "there had been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood recently."  There were no suspects for those supposed burglaries, so no reason to suspect the jogger other than racial animosity and it was a white neighborhood.  We now know that there hadn't been a string of burglaries in that neighborhood, and the only recent crime involving theft was that the vigilantes claim that someone stole a gun from their unlocked truck while it was sitting outside their house, though they never reported the theft.  Now imagine that the jogger was white.

[Fenring]

This sort of brain teaser can only be resolved by examining the assumptions that were used for the intended home inspection/invasion.  In the case of Dahmer, it's a tragedy that will be examined, I imagine, for generations.  The question will be something like "How could we have not known?  How could we have let it happen?" But the assumptions were that nothing criminal or harmful was going on inside the house, and without evidence or information there was no call to action.

I think it's much more likely that the assumptions here were something like 'the dirty gays had better keep their messed up crap to themselves.' It was almost certainly based on bigotry that they ignored the 14 year old's please for help.

[Kasandra]

This sort of brain teaser can only be resolved by examining the assumptions that were used for the intended home inspection/invasion.  In the case of Dahmer, it's a tragedy that will be examined, I imagine, for generations.  The question will be something like "How could we have not known?  How could we have let it happen?" But the assumptions were that nothing criminal or harmful was going on inside the house, and without evidence or information there was no call to action.

I think it's much more likely that the assumptions here were something like 'the dirty gays had better keep their messed up crap to themselves.' It was almost certainly based on bigotry that they ignored the 14 year old's please for help.

I don't insist that I have the correct assumptions, but I can't quite buy that people would let it slide because they suspected a 14 year old juvenile was gay.

[DonaldD]

There are two sides to this issue that I was trying to highlight:
1. When is a lynch mob acceptable in the eyes of the law?
2. Who is legally protected from lynch mobs?

[TheDrake]

I'm not sure why that Deputy had time to gather a vigilante mob, but not time to call 911 to have proper authorities respond.

In related news:

Breonna Taylor: Lawsuit after US health worker shot dead by police

At a press conference on 13 March, the department said its officers knocked on the door several times and announced themselves as police.

But a lawyer for Ms Taylor's partner, Kenneth Walker, said he fired in self-defence because the officers did not identify themselves and he believed they were breaking in.

The lawsuit alleges that the police then fired more than 20 rounds of ammunition into the home.

The department has declined to answer questions on the case citing an ongoing investigation.

"Breonna had posed no threat to the officers and did nothing to deserve to die at their hands," the lawsuit reads.

"Shots were blindly fired by the officers all throughout Breonna's home," it added.

[Kasandra]

Given the disparity between police and civilian actions against white vs persons-of-color victims, I'd like to see skin pigmentation added to victim and committer descriptions in news articles.  Arbery wasn't a jogger, he was a black jogger; his shooter wasn't a vigilante, he was a white vigilante.  What were the pigmentation circumstances in this instance?

[yossarian22c]

Given the disparity between police and civilian actions against white vs persons-of-color victims, I'd like to see skin pigmentation added to victim and committer descriptions in news articles.  Arbery wasn't a jogger, he was a black jogger; his shooter wasn't a vigilante, he was a white vigilante.  What were the pigmentation circumstances in this instance?

I think these descriptors were largely removed from crime reports at the request of the left. The reason being to reduce reports of "black suspects." I'm not against them returning but know it was largely liberals who pushed for this type of information to be removed from initial reports in the first place.   

[wmLambert]

...At what point does a person lose their rights to self-defence?

The correct way to look at this is both rights. The vigilantes have the right to act on what they think they know, but also must allow that they will pay the penalty for being wrong. Compounding this by going to the wrong house just makes the penalty more likely.

[Kasandra]

Given the disparity between police and civilian actions against white vs persons-of-color victims, I'd like to see skin pigmentation added to victim and committer descriptions in news articles.  Arbery wasn't a jogger, he was a black jogger; his shooter wasn't a vigilante, he was a white vigilante.  What were the pigmentation circumstances in this instance?

I think these descriptors were largely removed from crime reports at the request of the left. The reason being to reduce reports of "black suspects." I'm not against them returning but know it was largely liberals who pushed for this type of information to be removed from initial reports in the first place.

Time to reflect and adjust, if that's the case.  It is hard for me to believe that the "left" didn't want it known when an unarmed black victim was shot by police, though.

[msquared]

Why do the vigilantes have any rights?  What right do they have to go to another persons home and break in? Even if they think they have a good reason?  That is what the police are for, right? Unless the leaders identified themselves as police, the owners would have every right to shoot and kill every one of the vigilante squad. And the local cops should not even arrest them, since it would be obvious self defense.

[yossarian22c]

I think these descriptors were largely removed from crime reports at the request of the left. The reason being to reduce reports of "black suspects." I'm not against them returning but know it was largely liberals who pushed for this type of information to be removed from initial reports in the first place.

Time to reflect and adjust, if that's the case.  It is hard for me to believe that the "left" didn't want it known when an unarmed black victim was shot by police, though.

They certainly do now. But my point is we can't have it both ways, where racial identifiers are used for white perpetrators and black victims but not vice versa. Because it was very much a left issue to have initial crime reports stop reporting black suspects. Either we should always include the racial identifiers in initial reports or always exclude them. Reporting sometimes and not others can lead to mis-perceived distortions about what is going on. This can go both ways, both escalate racial tension.

[msquared]

Kassandra

I remember it the way yossarian does. 

[Seriati]

So, would these homeowners have been legally in their rights, while defending their home and themselves, to shoot to kill?

I think it's always dangerous when you ask a question while ignoring or not including relevant facts. 

Yes, the homeowners were entitled to use force to prevent them from entering their home.  Shooting to kill typically requires a reasonable belief by the homeowners that the deputy and his posse were a threat to their safety.  Nothing about the article in the Washington Post even indicates that the reporter asked that question.  Castle doctrine is not a license to kill on your property, it's an exception to the duty to retreat.  You still have to have an actual reasonable belief that you are threatened with physical harm or death.  The difference is if this situation happened on a street you'd have to attempt to run away to get it to count as self defense.

I find it interesting that deputy and his white buddies tried but were unsuccessful in entering the house.  What does that mean?  Was the door locked?  Can't shoot them in that circumstance.  Were they outnumbered?  May reduce the threat you felt.

I find interesting too, that you skipped over the apparent reason for this action.  The missing girl was some kind of relative of the deputy's.  Seems to explain a bit on why he gathered a posse rather than going through proper channels.  He didn't have anything close to probable cause (I mean he literally had the wrong address, the guy he was looking for use to live in a different house not even this one).  So he panicked and went outside the law.  He's been fired and is facing charges - which should have happened.

I wouldn't have lost any sleep if the homeowners had shot him.  But I would worry for them, cause anytime violence occurs against a cop, even if they were clearly in the wrong, I don't feel like the system treats the situation with fairness.

[Kasandra]

It doesn't happen often, so I'll point out that I agree with everything in your post.

[DonaldD]

I find it interesting that deputy and his white buddies tried but were unsuccessful in entering the house.  What does that mean?  Was the door locked?  Can't shoot them in that circumstance.  Were they outnumbered?  May reduce the threat you felt.

They were successful in entering the house, in that once the occupant opened the door, the trespassers forcibly kept the door open and did not allow him to close it. What it means is you've made some interesting assumptions about the interactions.  From CNN:

"By the time I come out of my bedroom, and I see him trying to close the door, and he's just frantic and afraid," she recalled of the May 3 incident. "They're pushing the door open. I grab the door and immediately notice (the armed man) and the crowd screaming at my son."

<snip>

The armed man in the door -- a now-former corrections officer from the next county over, Jordan Kita -- was in uniform and demanded to come inside, she said, wedging his foot in the door when she tried to shut it in his face.

So what we have is a crowd of white men, some of them armed; they are "screaming" according to the boy's mother, so at the very least she perceived them as acting threatening, and they already had access to the inside of the house if they wanted.  And are you really going to ignore the elephant in the room?  A group of angry, armed, white men force open the door of a black family's home.  We've never seen that end badly. 

As for the rationale of the attackers - that is frankly irrelevant to the actions of the family and whether they would choose to "defend" themselves.  It may be reason for a reduced sentence in the case of a conviction, but that has, again, nothing to do with the choices of the family being attacked.

[TheDeamon]

Jeffrey Dahmer also had the police called on him. One of his victims, a 14 year old boy, actually got out and Dahmer talked the police into thinking it was just a lovers' quarrel and got the victim back and murdered him immediately afterwards. If neighbors had formed a vigilante group to investigate him themselves would that have been illegal? Would Dahmer have been within his rights to shoot them dead? I guess the point is there are times when doing things strictly by the law gets innocent children killed and worse. However, this was not one of those times.

Yes, their breaking into his house to investigate would have been illegal.

Dahmer "being justified" to shoot them in self defense would be questionable, much as it would have been for that family in NC, although the NC family would have a MUCH stronger case given their being a racial minority and they were confronted with a mob in NC. Pretty compelling case they might be dealing with a "lynch mob" and thus able to claim fear of life and limb--so self defense would apply.

Dahmer being a white guy, would have had a harder time with that, although I guess he could play the gay/bi card to say he "feared for his life" to justify self-defense.

Of course, there also is the "complicating factor" that Dahmer would have been found to have had a dead child in his home. Which would tend to make a jury conclude he wasn't justified.

And as for the theoretical vigilantes who broke into his home to find the body, the prosecutor would likely decline to press charges(assuming they lived/were unharmed), although they might still end up with a "slap on the wrist" for what they did. Dahmer could try to bring forward a civil suit, but I have doubts that a jury would side with him all the same.

[TheDeamon]

Interesting hypotheticals...

At what point does a person lose their rights to self-defence?

The "reality" of it is that you loose your right to self-defense when a prosecutor thinks they can present a case before a jury and get a conviction... And they manage to get a jury that agrees with him. Of course, from there you have the option of appeal which can overturn it, but at its core, it really comes down to what people believe a jury will, or will not, agree to convict you on.

[TheDeamon]

Those are the same kind of assumptions behind the Georgia Arbery case.  Two white men felt empowered to confront, threaten and ultimately kill a black jogger because "there had been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood recently."  There were no suspects for those supposed burglaries, so no reason to suspect the jogger other than racial animosity and it was a white neighborhood.  We now know that there hadn't been a string of burglaries in that neighborhood, and the only recent crime involving theft was that the vigilantes claim that someone stole a gun from their unlocked truck while it was sitting outside their house, though they never reported the theft.  Now imagine that the jogger was white.

Not quite true, they have security camera footage of Arbery entering a home that was under construction and looking around for about 2 minutes before walking back out. And the same camera shows two men getting into a pickup truck nearby and pulling away as Arbery left that construction site.

You get 1 guess as to who the two men in the truck were.

Nothing was reported stolen from the construction site, and video inside the home shows him not touching anything. But he did trespass almost immediately prior to the fatal confrontation.

The vigilantes are still not justified in anything they did, and I very strongly suspect it was racially motivated, although killing him may not have been intended. However, the story is more complicated than some of the media portrayal of things has been, up until that additional video was shared with the press.

[TheDeamon]

Why do the vigilantes have any rights?  What right do they have to go to another persons home and break in? Even if they think they have a good reason?  That is what the police are for, right? Unless the leaders identified themselves as police, the owners would have every right to shoot and kill every one of the vigilante squad. And the local cops should not even arrest them, since it would be obvious self defense.

Pretty sure the criteria for self-defense or even stand-your ground, is "under threat of life or limb" or "defense of others" so killing everyone in the squad isn't going to fly in court unless they were shooting back. The moment they start fleeing, you can't kill them.

[cherrypoptart]

Would anything be different if the girl had been in there getting raped and murdered at the time and they saved her?

Sure you can call the police but they may be too late. Without probable cause they may not get in at all.

[TheDeamon]

Would anything be different if the girl had been in there getting raped and murdered at the time and they saved her?

Sure you can call the police but they may be too late. Without probable cause they may not get in at all.

As already covered, someone "going vigilante" runs the risk of being wrong. If they're right, they'll probably only be given a slap on the wrist on the legal side, and be hailed as a hero by many. If they're wrong, they'll be vilified.

So IF the girl had truly been there, their story would likely be different. But she wasn't, they were wrong, and they're being vilified. It just also happens to come with the added onus of it becoming a "white on black" racial incident in a region with a history of such things, so it's even worse for the vigilantes in this case.

Now if the girl had been in the house, was being raped, and someone in house opted to "stand their ground' in defense of the house, I think their legal defense would fail as most juries would instead conclude they were acting in defense of a crime, not defense of their home. So any vigilante they kill during that confrontation would result in their being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law--for killing the vigilante.

"Vigilante justice" where it interfaces with the law is a very grey area with all kinds of bizarre and twisted permutations that can come into play.

You need to also remember that the legal code itself can make some strange turns in regards to otherwise legal behavior when it happens in connection with a crime.

See: Getaway car driver.
There's nothing illegal about picking someone up and driving them from point A to point B while properly observing "the rules of the road."

Unless you knowingly picked that person up after they robbed a bank and you're helping him transport the goods to somewhere safer.

[wmLambert]

...the legal code itself can make some strange turns in regards to otherwise legal behavior when it happens in connection with a crime.

...And some things we know to be a law are ...are just sorta the law.

Privacy, for instance. Are crimes committed in the bedroom sacrosanct? Some pederasts have argued that what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms are legal.

Doctrine seems to cover many gray areas. Laches is a huge part of law, which is rarely used other than for pets in a real estate deal. In general, if a person is trying to do the right thing, but screws up, penalties are appropriate. However; if a vigilante saves somebody's life, don't expect any charges to be filed against the savior.