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Originally Posted by fiddletown
# We've also seen cases, reported on this board and others, in which individuals made some poor decision, like going out to confront people outside their homes or in the street, and have gotten into significant legal trouble.
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A couple of days from now, assuming the trial doesn't get delayed, I'm going to be hanging out down at my local courthouse to watch one such trial. The shooting briefly made the national news as a "homeowner legally defends home yay us!" kind of thing. But it wasn't quite that positive for our side. The middle-aged homeowner -- who has never been in trouble with the law in his entire life -- is facing spending the rest of his life in jail for a bad decision he made when a couple of lifelong crooks broke into his garage.
If what the prosecutor alleges actually happened, the homeowner did in fact break the law. And those on the jury who believe in the rule of law will thus be faced with the awful choice of sending a good man to jail for the rest of his life, or failing to punish serious lawbreaking that led to the death of another citizen.
Would he have made that same bad decision if he'd had good training? I seriously doubt it... but we'll never know, since he never got that training. And now he's facing financial and personal ruin.
I live in a very conservative area, and sentiment around here strongly hopes the jury refuses to convict. Perhaps he'll be acquitted.
But it's a close thing, and by no means a certain one. And you'd never hear about the consequences to the homeowner if you'd only read the initial reports which made the national news.
pax