You are
very, very fortunate.
Read:
State of Ohio v. John Clellan
In my home county (Franklin County, Ohio), we just had a case confirmed on appeal where a CHL also got involved in a dispute over being blocked from getting in his driveway. During the dispute, he said he feared for his life, pulled his gun, was charged with aggravated assault, convicted, and it was upheld on appeal.
This is in spite of the fact that Ohio's Castle Doctrine has the presumption of innocence with the prosecutor bearing the burden of proof if you are inside your home or car. The CHL stood on the running board of his pickup truck, and they ruled he was outside his car.
The jury ruled he was not in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm anyway, making the Castle Doctrine issue moot.
The appeals court decision was interesting to read for anyone who has a CHL and ponders these issues.
A couple of lessons learned from this case. First, I am a BIG proponent of carrying a voice recorder with me. There have been too many CHL-LEO interactions that get testy, and without a recording of the interaction it will always be the LEO who is believed in court.
In the above case, a voice recorder who have made it obvious who was lying and who was telling the truth. As is stands, there is no way to know which story to believe. A voice recording of the exchange could very well have saved this CHL from a felony conviction.
The second lesson to be learned is to be careful about what you say to an LEO. Many lawyers tell you to shut up entirely, but I don't want to get diverted into that argument. What is relevant to this case is the Deputy Sheriff testified that the CHL changed his story, which gave the jury reason to discredit defendant's testimony, allowing the jury to reasonably conclude defendant did not believe himself to be in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm.
Thus his self defense claim was lost.
There are a lot of chilling lessons for all of us in that linked court decision.
