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Oldgringo wrote:"...if it's found that it was a good shoot..."

How long and how many dollar$ does that take?

I think Bob Dylan said it best. "When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose."

Thanks be to Steve and Charles for elaborating above on the possible ramifications of a so-called "good shoot".

It is said that,"...a little learnin' is a dangerous thing..." and some of these posts by lay peope quoting the law give me pause to wonder. Don't think for a minute that you're just gonna' walk away scot free and without expense from a shooting. The aftermath of that action will, in all liklihood, stay with you for a long time.

Here endeth the lesson, now go and do the right thing.

...I appreciate Charles taking time to verify that the law does work as it is written, and does give us protection from someone winning a civil suit if our actions were justified...all we poor "lay people" can do is to read the law and make sure our actions fit within it, then trust it to be enforced as it is written...and noone has volunteered any caselaw experiences where, in Texas, it has worked otherwise to the detriment of one who's been justified by the system...so it must be if we do the right thing, it will protect us...I still question whether a case no-billed by a Grand Jury can be presented to another later...seems that would defeat the purpose of Grand Jurys no-billing in the first place...
...the laws are pretty clear on self-defense, and it doesn't take a license to practice law to make wise decisions on what is and is not "the right thing"....though there are always some people who pop up and try to intimidate us about having followed the law and still having problems, being sued, or "taking the ride"...I wouldn't want to be the dismal dark voice that caused someone to hesitate to protect himself or his loved ones in the situation that calls for use of deadly force...
...that having been said, I think the emotional scars in the aftermath of a perfectly legal defense shooting would weigh far heavier on a person than any fear of being sued...and considering that should make us carefully consider whether ANY shooting is or is not "immediately necessary"...

speedsix wrote: ...that having been said, I think the emotional scars in the aftermath of a perfectly legal defense shooting would weigh far heavier on a person than any fear of being sued...and considering that should make us carefully consider whether ANY shooting is or is not "immediately necessary"...

I agree with you whole heartedly, but that fear is a justified thing. If there's any fear that you might not be doing the right thing, then it's probably best not to pull the trigger.

For me, the fear of a member of my family or myself not living through a situation is all the motivation I would need to get past the fear of someting not being the right thing to do. When it comes down to someone's going to loose their life, and it's between a member of my family and someone else, and I have the power to decide which one looses their life... Well, I'll choose me and mine to live and worry about the aftermath later.

And for me, that's how I figure out if I'd pull the trigger or not. I had a conversation with my kids this week about that very subject. We have nothing in our home that is worth risking our lives for. And only protecting another's life is worth killing for. I understand that there are situations that make it legal to kill to protect property, I just don't want to live with the fact that I killed someone over something I could replace with a few dollars. And luckily, my beliefs put me well inside the legal standpoint of a justified shooting.

srothstein wrote:Many police shootings are ruled as good shoots by the department and DA but then end up in lawsuits. Some are successful, some are settled, and some lose...

Although the law on use of force is similar between police and citizen self-defense shootings, I don't think the overall situation is the same.

I think police shoots get greater scrutiny because the policing function is generally more proactive. Certainly there are cases where the police are ambushed out of the blue, but in general the police go in to make things happen -- respond to an event, capture people, make arrests, etc, and in general wield great power over citizens. Additionally, police are supposed to have more tools with them to deal with violent situations - empty hand techniques, batons, tasers, chemicals sprays, guns, dogs, multiple officers, etc, plus the training to go with them, and this at least implies the police are or should be more judicial, more controlled, in the application of force. Add in the fact that rightly or wrongly the police are often accused of using excessive force, and that there is not exactly a dearth of proven cases of this, makes it more likely that a suit will be initiated. (And this does not factor in the "grievance culture" that many PDs operate in.) Last but not least is the tactic of cities paying a settlement even over "good shoots" just to get the case behind them or to avoid litigation costs. This is like paying ransom for hostages and has the same effect -- it encourages more of the same.

On a citizen self-defense shoot, there is much less likely hood that the citizen-shooter was initiating something (otherwise the citizen gets charged with something, and doesn't have the "no-bill" to use help with the civi immunity law). As much as many like to mock "batman" mentality, etc, the vast majority of citizen shoots are purely reactive -- in fact my gut feel is the majority occur in the citizen's home. Even on the street, or especially in convenience stores and such, as long as it doesn't look like a mutual argument that escalated out of control, the citizen shooter is pretty much in a purely defensive mode. Again, going with the monetary factor last but not least, most citizens are probably not particularly lucative targets, not like a police department with a city or county budget behind it (and a history of making settlements).

Police departments also have deeper pockets than most of us and, let's face it, these kind of lawsuits are usually about money.

srothstein wrote:Many police shootings are ruled as good shoots by the department and DA but then end up in lawsuits. Some are successful, some are settled, and some lose. And the same rules of force apply to police in general, with a few minor additions for while making an arrest. There are also restrictions under civil rights laws that apply to police and not citizens.

I think most police shootings end up in federal lawsuits for civil rights and may not apply to this discussion, but when I was involved in a shooting, I was warned to be prepared for federal and state prosecution and federal and state lawsuits.

Maybe I missed someone asking for this, and if so I apologize, but are there examples that can be examined in some form by us laymen, of non-police shootings that were ruled "good shoots" by a Grand Jury, etc., but still went to civil trial? I would THINK that the media being what it is these days THAT would be plastered from Beaumont to El Paso and Brownsville to Amarillo and everywhere else in this state...yet I just cannot seem to recall any (not that I have been back Texas all that long, nor that my memory is iron-clad)...and it would seem that it MIGHT make the national news, if there was something that could be tied to it politically, in however a tenuous fashion. I am ever the fan of learning from history of any sort, and if I could read about some of this stuff that has happened here in Texas, it might go a ways to educating myself on the subject. Thanks.

Heartland Patriot wrote:

srothstein wrote:Many police shootings are ruled as good shoots by the department and DA but then end up in lawsuits. Some are successful, some are settled, and some lose. And the same rules of force apply to police in general, with a few minor additions for while making an arrest. There are also restrictions under civil rights laws that apply to police and not citizens.

I think most police shootings end up in federal lawsuits for civil rights and may not apply to this discussion, but when I was involved in a shooting, I was warned to be prepared for federal and state prosecution and federal and state lawsuits.

Maybe I missed someone asking for this, and if so I apologize, but are there examples that can be examined in some form by us laymen, of non-police shootings that were ruled "good shoots" by a Grand Jury, etc., but still went to civil trial? I would THINK that the media being what it is these days THAT would be plastered from Beaumont to El Paso and Brownsville to Amarillo and everywhere else in this state...yet I just cannot seem to recall any (not that I have been back Texas all that long, nor that my memory is iron-clad)...and it would seem that it MIGHT make the national news, if there was something that could be tied to it politically, in however a tenuous fashion. I am ever the fan of learning from history of any sort, and if I could read about some of this stuff that has happened here in Texas, it might go a ways to educating myself on the subject. Thanks.

, we need a legal precedent. Who wants to go first?

Oldgringo wrote:

Heartland Patriot wrote:

srothstein wrote:Many police shootings are ruled as good shoots by the department and DA but then end up in lawsuits. Some are successful, some are settled, and some lose. And the same rules of force apply to police in general, with a few minor additions for while making an arrest. There are also restrictions under civil rights laws that apply to police and not citizens.

I think most police shootings end up in federal lawsuits for civil rights and may not apply to this discussion, but when I was involved in a shooting, I was warned to be prepared for federal and state prosecution and federal and state lawsuits.

Maybe I missed someone asking for this, and if so I apologize, but are there examples that can be examined in some form by us laymen, of non-police shootings that were ruled "good shoots" by a Grand Jury, etc., but still went to civil trial? I would THINK that the media being what it is these days THAT would be plastered from Beaumont to El Paso and Brownsville to Amarillo and everywhere else in this state...yet I just cannot seem to recall any (not that I have been back Texas all that long, nor that my memory is iron-clad)...and it would seem that it MIGHT make the national news, if there was something that could be tied to it politically, in however a tenuous fashion. I am ever the fan of learning from history of any sort, and if I could read about some of this stuff that has happened here in Texas, it might go a ways to educating myself on the subject. Thanks.

, we need a legal precedent. Who wants to go first?

I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that someone on this forum WANTS to be a test case. I most certainly do not. In fact, I have been at odds with some from time to time when I have emphatically stated that my CHL is there to protect me and my loved ones, and that IF I came to the aid of another by using deadly force, it would have to be something pretty drastic. I simply would like to see how the law here in this state has played out in cases involving this sort of thing. Education is a valuable asset.

Heartland Patriot wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:
, we need a legal precedent. Who wants to go first?

I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that someone on this forum WANTS to be a test case. I most certainly do not. In fact, I have been at odds with some from time to time when I have emphatically stated that my CHL is there to protect me and my loved ones, and that IF I came to the aid of another by using deadly force, it would have to be something pretty drastic. I simply would like to see how the law here in this state has played out in cases involving this sort of thing. Education is a valuable asset.

Nope, I'm not impling nothin'. It just seems that a word of caution may be in order to some who appear to think it's okay to shoot people because they are armed with a Texas CHL and a paragraph or two gleaned from the statutes during a 10 hour, or less, CHL class. If laws were so cut and dried, there wouldn't be a Grand Jury and defense lawyers AND elected prosecutors. Everyone, please read Charles' and Steve's posts again slowly and carefully while noting the absence of absolutes in each.

Me? I will be the first to shout out loud that there are bad people about who are long overdue for killin' and I don't expect to have any compunction when, and if, it comes my time to kill them. Hopefully, that time will never come.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Oldgringo wrote:
, we need a legal precedent. Who wants to go first?

As I noted in previous post, Joe Horn seemed to be the most eligible "volunteer" that I can think of, especially for someone who wants to use a civil suit to push a political agenda, and it appears no civil action was attemped. I would think that is a strong indicator that the civil immunity clause is a strong -- not absolute, but strong -- protection for something the GJ no-bills.