Ammo issued by Houston PD or Harris County Sheriff?

[longtooth]

PD in Lufkin carry Speer God Dots.
Them & Remington Golden Sabre are the ones I carry.

[srothstein]

Frankie,

As we have discussed here before, you are never immune to being sued. Anyone can file a lawsuit over almost anything. This is being sued and you must answer and defend yourself.

What this law allows is that if your actions are in accordance with the law (allowable under Chapter 9 of the Penal Code), you can move for summary judgment and should win. Of course, if the plaintiff disputes your being justified, you get to go to trial to prove that you were justified. The fact that no one ever filed criminal charges against you, or that a jury no billed you means nothing at all to the civil trial. Even the finding of not guilty means nothing because all it really means is that there was not enough evidence (or a good enough DA) to prove the case against you.

These same points can be argued over again in the civil trial. If you prove you were justified, you win. That is all the immunity means.

Now, in real life, it is hard to find a lawyer to take the case if it looks like the defendant will win. But, you can always look at a lawyer representing himself, or even representing a family member for free. And there are even some scum out there who would do it because they don't like guns.

You can always be sued. This law lowers the chances of the suit, and raises your chances to win, but it cannot stop the suit.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Frankie,

As we have discussed here before, you are never immune to being sued. Anyone can file a lawsuit over almost anything. This is being sued and you must answer and defend yourself.

What this law allows is that if your actions are in accordance with the law (allowable under Chapter 9 of the Penal Code), you can move for summary judgment and should win. Of course, if the plaintiff disputes your being justified, you get to go to trial to prove that you were justified.

To what standard, civil or criminal? If civil, the concept of having civil immunity for acting within the scope of the criminal law would appear to have no meaning whatsoever.

It sounds like you're arguing that the law can give you civil immunity for a lawful act (no billed by a grand jury), except that you can still be sued and lose if the plaintiffs can prove that you DID break the law.

There seems to be a contradiction in there someplace.

The fact that no one ever filed criminal charges against you, or that a jury no billed you means nothing at all to the civil trial. Even the finding of not guilty means nothing because all it really means is that there was not enough evidence (or a good enough DA) to prove the case against you.

Again, if correct this would render the whole concept of civil immunity meaningless.

These same points can be argued over again in the civil trial. If you prove you were justified, you win. That is all the immunity means.

I think the plaintiffs would at least have to prove (i.e. the burden of proof is on them) that your actions were unlawful. And how do they do that if you weren't charged, were no billed, or were aquitted?

OJ was aquitted in criminal court. Nobody ever proved or even attempted to prove that OJ violated the CA murder statutes in his civil trial. They didn't NEED to. And they couldn't have even if they did need to. Because proper finders of fact aquitted him of those murders.

All they did was establish by a preponderence of the evidence that he "wrongfully" caused the deaths of Brown and Goldman. His criminal culpability was a settled issue.

Now, in real life, it is hard to find a lawyer to take the case if it looks like the defendant will win. But, you can always look at a lawyer representing himself, or even representing a family member for free. And there are even some scum out there who would do it because they don't like guns.

It doesn't mean that they will get anywhere. At most, after a few summary judgements have been handed down they won't bother to try.

TX juries have never been particularly sympathetic to criminals attacking LAC's. I think that when this law takes effect, the number of these types of lawsuits that we see, already low, will dwindle to zero.

Most civil judgements that are won in deadly force cases are contested between criminals and deep-pocketed government agencies.

You can always be sued. This law lowers the chances of the suit, and raises your chances to win, but it cannot stop the suit.

Technically, you may be right. But if they can't win, I really don't care what they do.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Some further thoughts on this.

srothstein, let me lay out two scenarios.

1) No civil immunity. You shoot someone who you believe has put you in fear for your life. A grand jury (a finder of fact, right?) finds "no true bill". So the criminal system determines as a matter of fact that: a) your judgement of being in fear for your life was reasonable, and b) that you used an appropriate level of force. Hence, you acted within the law since if your judgement had been found to be unreasonable or if the force you used was judged to be excessive, there would be probable cause to believe that you violated the law, and they would indict.

But the perp's estate sues. They assert that the perp's death was "wrongful". Now if the grand jury had found that there was probable cause to believe that you DID use excessive force or act unreasonably, they would have indicted you for violating the statute. They did not do this, and instead found as a matter of fact that your actions were consistent with the law.

But the perp's estate still claims that you "wrongfully" caused the perp's death. And all they have to do to win is show by a preponderence of the evidence that your actions were "wrongful".

And what does "wrongful" mean? I believe it means that your actions were unreasonable or that the force used was excessive. What else could it mean?

So in case 1, if they can show to a civil standard that you used excessive force or acted unreasonably, they can win even though the criminal finders of fact found the opposite.

2) You have civil immunity provided that your actions were consistent with the law. You shoot someone who has put you in fear for your life. Again, a grand jury finds "no true bill". So again, the criminal system determines that you acted within the law.

The perp's estate sues, claiming that you wrongfully caused the perp's death. But now, in order to win, they have to prove by a preponderence of the evidence not simply that your actions were "wrongful", (excessive, unreasonable) but that you did in fact violate the law.

It seems to me that this raises the bar MUCH higher, since any attempt to prove such a thing on their part runs into the cold hard fact that a "finder of fact" (the grand jury) found as a matter of fact, that your actions were in line with the law.

Given that fact finding standing in their way, it would seem that there is virtually no way for the plaintiffs to produce the preponderence of evidence needed to prove that you did violate the law.

In this case, it's not just you claiming that you did not violate the law. It is the grand jury finding as a matter of fact that you did not.

And if the grand jury's finding of fact is meaningless in a civil trial, as I think you said it was, then there is no difference at all between case 1 and case 2. All the plaintiffs would have to do in either case was to show by a preponderence of the evidence that you used excessive force or acted unreasonably, since either of those things constitutes a violation of the law.

Now you could say that in the second case, they would have to show that you violated the statute, whereas in the first case all they would have to do is show that you used excessive force or acted unreasonably. But using excessive force and/or acting unreasonably are the essential elements of violating the statute. So at that point, all distinctions between case 1 and 2 disappear, and the very concept of civil immunity itself is rendered meaningless.

What am I missing here?

[srothstein]

I think you are beginning to understand. There is a difference between civil and criminal standards. The law gives you immunity but you have to prove you met the law.

This may help make it clear for you. There is almost never a ruling in a criminal trial that says you were legal. You are not found innocent of a crime. The ruling is that the prosecutor could not prove you did commit the crime, so you are found not guilty. In a grand jury, you are either true billed or no billed. A true bill means there is probable cause to believe you committed the crime. A no bill means there is not yet enough evidence to believe this. The grand jury never syas you did not commit the crime or it was a justified act under Chapter 9 (the part we are interested in). This is why a specific case can be brought back to grand juries over and over again. The theory was that the DA could get more evidence and bring it back for a second check.

Civil juries have a lower standard of evidence, so a grand jury could no bill you, or even a trial could find you not guilty, and a person could still sue you and claim that you were not justified. They only have to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence.

We place a lot of store in an immunity but many people do not realize it still means you can be sued. It helps your case, and can make it harder to get a lawyer to sue you, but you can still be sued and lose.

As a reminder, I will point to the OJ case. He was found not guilty in a criminal court, and then lost the civil lawsuit for causing the death of Nicole and owes $25 million or so (I forget the amount).

The new immunity makes this much harder for the bad guy to do, but nothing is ever impossible when it comes to courts and juries.

[frankie_the_yankee]

The new immunity makes this much harder for the bad guy to do, but nothing is ever impossible when it comes to courts and juries.

You replied while I was re-editing my post. You may want to re-read it.

But when you say that the new immunity makes it much harder to do, what exactly do you mean by that? Because it sounds to me (from the examples you give) that there is no significant difference.

I think there is a big difference, and that these suits become almost impossible to win. (And of course this means that almost none of them would ever be brought, that most of the ones that are brought would be tossed on summary judgement, etc.)

Note also that there is no such civil immunity for cases like this in CA. So even if OJ had claimed self defense (Holy cow! Did I say that?), he still could have been sued there after being aquitted.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Ah-HA! I have it! I just thought of a way for someone to lose a civil suit, even though the law provides for immunity and they were aquitted at trial.

Suppose you had someone who was clearly guilty, like OJ. Almost no sane person doubts that he broke the law. He wasn't aquitted on the facts, and he wasn't aquitted on "technicalities".

He was aquitted because of a combination of willfull jury manipulation and nullification.

So here you have a guy who is as guilty as can be, and yet was aquitted.

In that case, it's a slam dunk to show by a preponderence of the evidence to any fair jury that he broke the law and is, hence liable for damages, even if he had claimed self defense and there was a statute giving civil immunity.

But for anything other than an extreme case like this, winning a civil judgement under the new TX law would be such a hill to climb that it would give Sir Edmund Hillary himself pause.

[srothstein]

You pretty much have it except for the last little part. What happens if the jury manipulation occurs in the civil side. It makes the case very easy for the plaintiff. You will probably win on the appeal, but they are willing to settle now for an amount much less than the jury award. Bingo.

But you see what I was saying about the trial can still go on.

The only other part you missed is that a grand jury is NOT a finder of fact. That is the trial jury. A grand jury is just to see if there is probable cause to go to trial, and you do not even get to put in a defense as a matter of right at a grand jury.

[frankie_the_yankee]

You pretty much have it except for the last little part. What happens if the jury manipulation occurs in the civil side. It makes the case very easy for the plaintiff. You will probably win on the appeal, but they are willing to settle now for an amount much less than the jury award. Bingo.

Ahhhhh. But can't you opt for a trial by judge? Then, there's no jury to manipulate.

[ShootingStar]

Ya'll,

Here's my .02....
I have never read or even heard of anyone in Texas being convicted based upon the type of ammunition they carried. So, based upon this, I don't think it matters as long as you carry Factory ammo. In Texas...

However, if you carry while traveling, then look at the state. I once read an article by Mosad Ayoob on a case of a self-defense shooting in CT. The prosecutor couldn't get anywhere with the facts so he called in a CT state police Lt and had him describe how particularly deadly the Federal Hydrashock was. In the end, the guy was convicted because the prosecutor proved malice based upon the type of ammo used. Of course having a jury with a combined IQ of ZERO sure must have helped.

Unfortunatley, the defense attorney never asked what kind of ammo the CT state police used. The answer would have been Federal Hydroshock. Sure hope the guy won on appeal.

If you want to use the police ammo defense, they why not use the Winchester Ranger Law Enforcement ammunition. You could say that it says "Law Enforcement Ammuniton" on the box so I thought it was what the police used.

-ss

[frankie_the_yankee]

[quote="ShootingStar"] However, if you carry while traveling, then look at the state. I once read an article by Mosad Ayoob on a case of a self-defense shooting in CT. The prosecutor couldn't get anywhere with the facts so he called in a CT state police Lt and had him describe how particularly deadly the Federal Hydrashock was. In the end, the guy was convicted because the prosecutor proved malice based upon the type of ammo used. Of course having a jury with a combined IQ of ZERO sure must have helped.

Unfortunatley, the defense attorney never asked what kind of ammo the CT state police used. The answer would have been Federal Hydroshock. Sure hope the guy won on appeal.



Using ammo popular with cops is a good policy.

That poor guy had a terrible lawyer.

And that prosecutor cannot properly be described in this forum.

I guess the commercial is right where it says, "Life comes at you fast."

[Liberty]

Using ammo popular with cops is a good policy.

That poor guy had a terrible lawyer.

And that prosecutor cannot properly be described in this forum.

I guess the commercial is right where it says, "Life comes at you fast."

Comparing a CT court with a Court even in the most liberal of courts in Texas concerning guns is practically irrelevant. The culture, the laws, and understanding concerning firearms is soo different. Just about any jury in Texas would laugh out of court "copkiller bullet" theory. It tends to find acceptance in eastern Urban states and California.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Comparing a CT court with a Court even in the most liberal of courts in Texas concerning guns is practically irrelevant. The culture, the laws, and understanding concerning firearms is soo different. Just about any jury in Texas would laugh out of court "copkiller bullet" theory. It tends to find acceptance in eastern Urban states and California.

Don't I know it!

Up in the Northeast, I was regarded as a wild-eyed ultra right wing neo-nutcase. "Guns! Omygod! Why would anyone want to own guns! They're just for the police. EEEEEEEUUUUUUUW!"

Then on this board, I'm thinking that I'm one of the Liberals!

Actually, I am a liberal. A real one. One who believes in free speech, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law. One who believes in family, personal responsibility, and self-reliance, not setting up the government as a surrogate family or blaming "society" for my failures or shortcomings.

Not like the people who call themselves liberals today. As far as I can tell, they aren't very liberal at all. Mostly, they want to take all of my money and regulate everything I say and do.

When they hear speech they disagree with, they want to ban it or shout it down.

What's "liberal" about that?

[nuparadigm]

Frankie, may I say that you aint got no Yankee's body no more. As far as I'm concerned, you're one of us.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Frankie, may I say that you aint got no Yankee's body no more. As far as I'm concerned, you're one of us.

Ah thank ya kindly, sir.