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ELB wrote:

jb2012 wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:
Yes, innocent people can be charged unjustly, but I don't know of any, haven't heard of any, and if they exist, they are a rarity, not the general rule as people are being told.

Chas.

That is definitely reassuring. I have to say things were presented in the opposite direction in my class. I'll definitely take your word for it though.

There are two possible threats here: criminal liability (being charged with a crime), and civil liability (being sued by another citizen).

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of self-defense shootings of people where blood is spilled each year, and I read of very few where the defender actually had to defend himself against the DA. Everybody (here in Texas anyway) thinks of Joe Horn, but he danced really close to, if not in, the fire. It's hard to think of too many more, I can only come up with one at the moment, and I look for these things. Most are like that apartment dweller in Dallas that shot the NFL guy who busted down the wrong door. The troublesome cases seem to be where the initial defender went far beyond what was prudent, like chasing a burglar down the street or shooting at someone's tires.

As for civil liability, I also can only think of a couple times in the past few years when it actually appeared the defender might be sued by relatives of the deceased attacker, (and IIRC, Joe Horn was not one of them), and I doubt they came to anything. I can't even remember what those incidents were to search on them.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:
Yes, innocent people can be charged unjustly, but I don't know of any, haven't heard of any, and if they exist, they are a rarity, not the general rule as people are being told.

Chas.