TexasCHLforum.com

There have been lots of discussions on this board about this. Here is my own takeaway, both from having attended Charles's seminar a couple of times now, and from my own understanding of the laws of this state - which I admit is relatively limited, and IANAL, and all those caveats....

Texas law incorporates the words "reasonable" and "reasonably" very deliberately. Generally speaking, use of deadly force is justified when both A) use of force is justified; and B) when the actor reasonably believes that he/she needs to act to protect him/herself or others against the immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury. Texas PC 1.07 (46) says: '"Serious bodily injury" means bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.' (emphasis mine)

Disparity of force is also a factor. Obviously, if you are charged by a 95 year old granny waving an arthritic fist in your face, lethal force is not justified ( [joke] unless she is incredibly annoying [/joke] ). On the other hand, if you are charged by a relatively young man in relatively good health, you could conceivably be at risk of being beaten to death. I've worked in an ER. People get beaten to death every single day with nothing more than naked fists and a size 10 shoe. If you cannot defend yourself by other means for whatever reason, or if you believe you are outmatched, and you have a reasonable fear of "serious bodily injury" at the least, and death at the worst, then use of deadly force is justified. How you feel about it at the time and what level of response is called for is a subjective determination only you can make; but in Texas, you are not required to retreat before you can defend yourself, and you can justify deadly force if you reasonably believe that the attack would result in death or serious bodily injury as defined by Texas statues, and absent other factors like a personal history of violence or psychiatric adjudication, the law assumes you to be a reasonable person, capable of making reasonable determinations of the dangers inherent in an assaultive situation.

A punch in the face that leaves you with a permanently disfigured nose, or a punch to the temple that left you blind in one eye for a protracted period, getting your hand stomped which broke your fingers so you couldn't work, having your teeth knocked out, all of these things qualify as "serious bodily injury" under Texas law - IN MY OPINION - and if your empty handed attacker left you with a reasonable fear that these things could be an outcome of the attack, you would be justified in using deadly force to stop them. In other words, you are not required to accept any kind of serious bodily injury before you can act to to defend yourself with deadly force.

Overriding all of this is whether or not you instigated the situation to begin with. If you verbally threatened to do else death or bodily harm, and they retaliated with preemptory attack against you, you may not be able to justify the deadly force, because the attack is your fault. If you threatened to give someone a whuppin the next time you see him, and he shows up with six of his buddies, you created the situation. However, if you back down and try to verbally extricate yourself from the threat by apologizing, etc., before violence occurs, and they assault you anyway, then technically you can respond with lethal force because there is a disparity of force and a serious risk of death or serious bodily harm. The problem is, you now have six witnesses who are going to swear that you maliciously set them up, drew them into the kill box, and started firing on them without provocation. The point of all of this is that your personal behavior may rob you of a defense, and you may no longer be considered either reasonable, or justified in using deadly force.

Like I said, I am not a lawyer, but these are some of the things I took away from Charles's seminar.