[dglockster]

If you live in State Representative Garnet Coleman's district, please let him know you disapprove of his attack on Texas' "Castle Doctirne" law.

Dallas Morning News
April 2, 2012

Texas’ ‘Castle Doctrine’ up for debate in wake of Trayvon Martin shooting
By Kelley Shannon
Special Contributor

AUSTIN — The shooting death of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is drawing attention to Texas’ self-defense and deadly force laws and prompting a state lawmaker to call for changes.

The author of Texas’ “Castle Doctrine” law, which eases the rules on when deadly force can be used in the home, said it wouldn’t apply under the circumstances of the Martin case because the 17-year-old was killed on the street.

The Texas law is being misconstrued as being the same as Florida’s “stand your ground” law, said Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.

“That’s not what it is,” he said last week.

The Texas law, enacted in 2007 by overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate, was patterned after the English common law notion that a man’s house is his castle. The law states that a person has no duty to retreat from an attack in his home, vehicle or place of business. It provides a presumption that the force was “reasonable” if certain criteria are met, making deadly force more easily justified.

Rep. Garnet Coleman, joining the national outcry over Martin’s death, said he planned to try to amend that Texas law.

“A young life has been lost in Florida, and we don’t need to see the same happen in Texas,” the Houston Democrat said in a letter to constituents and in a press statement Wednesday. “The Texas Castle Doctrine too freely gives license to use deadly force based on subjective assumptions, and needs to be corrected.”

Coleman said he understood Martin’s plight of “being born a suspect because of the color of one’s skin.” Martin was black. The man who shot him, George Zimmerman, is Hispanic.

Coleman said he fought the “Castle Doctrine” bill in Texas on grounds that it would have disproportionate consequences on people of color. He said Texas law already allowed the use of deadly force to defend against deadly force if one could not escape the situation. He said he plans to press for legislation to return Texas law “to a balance that values human life.”

To that, Wentworth facetiously said, “Good luck.”

“It’s not going to be repealed,” Wentworth said of his bill. “I have not had a single constituent call me concerned about the Castle Doctrine law.”

In 1973, the Legislature imposed a duty to retreat in the face of a potentially violent attack in Texas. But in 1995 and again in 2007, lawmakers removed that obligation to retreat in certain situations.

In the Texas penal code, force is justified if the person using the force “reasonably” believes it’s “immediately” necessary to protect against the use or attempted use of unlawful force, said defense attorney Richard Segura, an instructor and supervising attorney in the criminal defense clinic at the University of Texas Law School.

The person using the force cannot have provoked the confrontation. “You cannot start something and then go grab a gun,” Segura said. And the use of force isn’t justified in a simple verbal dispute caused by “talking trash,” he said.

Force can also be used to prevent a serious crime such as murder, sexual assault or robbery. One section of the law allows use of deadly force in preventing burglary or theft at night.

The “Castle Doctrine” law says that one does not have to retreat and can use “deadly force” if the other person entered unlawfully and with force, Segura explained.

“In other words, you don’t have to put your back against the wall anymore” in those places, he said.

Segura said he sees similarities between self-defense laws in Florida and Texas. In Florida, the person using force has a right to stand his ground and meet force with “deadly force” if it is “reasonably” believed to be necessary to prevent death or “great bodily harm,” he said.

[Keyhole]

Not mine. Downtown Houston and south to Pearland. Good heavens...

[Bren]

They may as well debate the Texas Castle Doctrine as the Florida "stand your ground" - neither was involved in the Zimmerman/Martin case, according to the reported facts.

[TexanRon]

Originally Posted by Bren

They may as well debate the Texas Castle Doctrine as the Florida "stand your ground" - neither was involved in the Zimmerman/Martin case, according to the reported facts.

Bren, now of course they are not going to let things like facts and relevency get in the way of their agenda, do you? Naaaah.

[TexanRon]

Originally Posted by dglockster

If you live in State Representative Garnet Coleman's district, please let him know you disapprove of his attack on Texas' "Castle Doctirne" law.

And Royce West, Democrat, up in Dallas is on it as well.

[2-8 Marine]

Coleman said he understood Martin’s plight of “being born a suspect because of the color of one’s skin.” Martin was black. The man who shot him, George Zimmerman, is Hispanic.

Am I wrong or isn't this statement in and of itself, racist?

[eracer]

Originally Posted by Bren

They may as well debate the Texas Castle Doctrine as the Florida "stand your ground" - neither was involved in the Zimmerman/Martin case, according to the reported facts.

Au Contraire.

As to the Zimmerman case, the MSM and the black activists want to make it a racial issue, but the real issue is whether Zimmerman pursued Martin and Martin subsequently attacked him, or Zimmerman 'Stood His Ground' and Martin attacked him without a pursuit taking place.

If Zimmerman called 911, then stood his ground as Martin approached him, the Stand Your Ground law should protect him.

If instead he chose to pursue Martin after being advised that the police were on the way, then he became the aggressor. He did not 'Stand His Ground'.

The Stand Your Ground statute is the only thing that is really relevant to the case. Which is why Florida gun owners should support Zimmerman only if he truly did stand his ground according to the letter and intent of the statute.

Otherwise, it was a bad shoot, and they should call for his arrest and prosecution.

Supporting Zimmerman if he was in the wrong is counter to the needs of gun owners, and threatens the statute far more than any cry from the left.

[PawDog]

Coleman said he fought the “Castle Doctrine” bill in Texas on grounds that it would have disproportionate consequences on people of color.

So, in other words, the "people of color" must be involved in criminal activity or violence at a higher rate that the "people of non-color" to use Coleman's way of thinking.

yeah, we need a whole new protected class of citizens now, and special laws that protect only "Criminals of color."

[Ty_Hoe]

Gonna have to get in touch with the Dem from Dallas. Coming from a smaller town to the big city, the increase in liberal thinking in ideals is blinding though. It doesnt suprise me that they are trying this.

[TigerStripe]

I highly doubt that anyone is going to change Rep. Coleman's mind about the Castle Doctrine. He fought it when it was being debated in 2005, so he is using the Martin case to exert the political pressure to call for repeal.

As for Zimmerman, I'm withholding judgement until as many of the true facts surrounding the incident as possible come out.


TS