I wonder if laws like this really reduce the number of carjackings/home invasions in the state of TX. I would think it’s a pretty big deterrant.

I don’t like the idea of him shooting them while they’re fleeing, but I can see why he’d be upset, and feel violated, and possibly feel threatened by the idea of them returning.

Home invasions have really seemed to be in the forefront recently. We just had a huge one in CT, where career criminals with huge records of “harmless” B&E’s actually broke into a house while a prominent family was sleeping, and assaulted and tied up the parents and 2 teenage daughters. They eventually burned the house down with the family tied up inside. Only the father survived.

Then we have Shaun Taylors tragedy from this past week.

Someones home is typically the place where one feels the safest. I feel no remorse for people that think they can violate these peoples sanctuarys and take things at will. A homeowner should certainly be able to protect their home with deadly force.

I am all for shooting robbers. I don’t see any race issues as being part of the incident, but I just saw a video of a bunch of people outside Horn’s house, yelling USA over and over again. The two burglars were hispanic. I assume they were fairly dark complected for Mr. Horn to identify them as being black. In any case, they were legal immigrants, but the border control loonies are turning it in to a cause celebre for their movement.

From the images I’ve seen, the two thieves were black with Hispanic surnames. Either way, if you shoot criminals, you don’t have to worry about them robbing anyone else.

The only mistake Joe Horn made was calling 911 and expecting a timely response by police. He should have taken care of business, then called for a clean up crew.

One has to understand that the Houston Chronicle is a VERY biased newspaper and routinely does “hack jobs” on interviews to support their agenda, which totally changes the context. They recently ran an editorial on the front page as the “Top Story”. People here were appalled.

These are links to the laws that apply (feel free to get them from other sites if you like):

http://law.onecle.com/texas/penal/9.41.00.html

http://law.onecle.com/texas/penal/9.42.00.html

http://law.onecle.com/texas/penal/9.43.00.html

I believe where some people are confused is that they are not paying attention to the commas. Let me call your attention to 9.42.2.A for example. It reads:

(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary: (A) to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime;

Now, let me shift your attention to “theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime”. Notice that “arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery” do NOT CONTAIN THE NIGHTTIME CLAUSE. They are separate from the other circumstances.

This is exactly why Joe Horn has not been charged even after ~3 weeks. Can you imagine the counter lawsuit that his attorney would drop on the city/count/state if they do???

“In any case, they were legal immigrants, but the border control loonies are turning it in to a cause celebre for their movement.”

Sam, I hate to have to correct you…. they were ILLEGAL immigrant (not that it matters in the least). If they weren’t robbing another person’s house they’d still be alive.

Some people just deserve to die.

Everyone who says Joe Horn shouldn’t be found guilty of murder is ether a racist, hypocrite or just a plain blind fool. You shot someone only when you have to.

Let’s examine this real quick, first & foremost ask your self ‘where those two men ARMED?” Second ask yourself ‘Where they in HIS house or on HIS property?” Mr. Horn stayed on the phone with the police for a good minute & a half before he even pulled the trigger. The police specifically give Mr. Horn directions to stay in the house & let them handle it.

Now I don’t fell sorry for those two burglars because they shouldn’t have been stealing in the first place. I don’t believe Mr. Horn Is a bad man ether, but I believe that the law should be upheld & justice should be brought into whom ever no matter the sex, age, or color. The law doesn’t even give you the death penalty for stealing so who are we to say those two men deserve death as a consequence. When its all said & done by Mr. Horn being an elderly white man & those to criminals being black will be the only reason this is even a debate. You ask your self if Mr. Horn was a black man & those to men where white would they convict him for murder. Hell yes they would, the fact that they where shot off his property, one of them in the back, unarmed & the police specifically said stay in the house would have all been used against him in the so called court of law.

We are so blind we think that racism doesn’t exist anymore. Racism takes many forms & the law is one of them. Just like Jena 6, & that young black high school boy brought up on charges for statutory rape earlier this year. When Quanell X arrived the police had to hold back a number of white men from that Pasadena area from striking him & in the same breath they got on TV & said they aren’t racist.

I understand why Joe Horn did what he did & it wasn’t out of fear it was out of anger but what he did was against the law & yes he should be punished.

I feel that Joe Horn done the right thing. If more people would do this the crime rate would go down. If you think about it if those guys had been caught, they might have got prison time and that is it, they would have been right back out doing the same thing all over again, possibly killing someone next time. How does any one know that those criminals would not have gone to Joe Horns house next, or the next neighbors house. I would be honored to have a neighbor that would look out for my property as Joe did for his neighbors.

Joe Horn is all wrong on this one, and the NRA and other gun wacko groups know it. The gun wackos use the Castle Doctrine and 2nd Amendment to back up their pro-gun argument because they know there is no rational explanation for what Horn did. In other words, Joe Horn needs a lawyer.

John Smith, on what do you base your opinion? Certainly not the law.

By the way the law is basically unchanged from prior to Sept 1st. On that date, we no longer had to make an attempt to retreat. The law is called the castle law or the no need to retreat law. You are aware that a total of 16 states currently have “castle laws” on their books, right?

The fact is the even in the early 80s a person could be shot for burglary during the daytime and the shooter would be no-billed by the grand jury.

If you currently possess a Texas CHL, you need to complete some remedial training….

Hound_Dog:

Although I appreciate your attempt to reference legitimate sources, your dubious interpretation of the Texas Penal Code is severely flawed.

Any reference to 9.41 cannot be considered valid justification for Mr. Horn’s actions as the validations for protecting property under this section refer to one’s own property, which in this case is irrelevant.

Under 9.42, one may lawfully utilize deadly force:
1) if already protected under 9.41 (not the case), AND
2) if such force is believed to be immediately necessary in preventing:
b. (the most relevant of a. and b.) preventing the other from fleeing after committing robbery, theft, etc. *This instance seems valid, except for the fact that it has already been deemed irrelevant by criteria 1 and the fact that the word “and” following the aforementioned clause necessitates the inclusion of its compoment criteria in validating one’s actions. To humor you, I will continue as though 1 were met, and find that Mr. Horn’s actions are yet again invalidated by stipulations of the Texas Penal Code…
After 2b.), the word “AND” sigifies that the previous criteria must be met. The final criteria:
3) he reasonably believes that:
a. the property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means, or
b. the use of force other than deadly force would put the actor at risk of deadly or other injury.

Because the most plausible path regarding this case is 1, 2b, 3a/b, the entire circumstance is invalidated by the criteria in clause 1 which is not met (protecting one’s own property). However, if it can be proven that Mr. Horn was acting as protector of the neighbor’s property within a verbal agreement, this criteria is met. So in further circumstantial consideration, 2b is valid if Mr. Horn did not believe that the stolen property could be retrieved by any other means than deadly force. In this case, he would need to have believed that the police and other law enforcement were incapable of executing their duty to locate and apprehend fleeing criminals, which if it was the case, is an issue that needs to be addressed by state and local law enforcement to prevent additional and increasingly liberal implementation of such vigilante force. Continuing, 3) must also be met. Similarly, it requires that the actor a) has significant doubt that without deadly force, stolen property will not otherwise be retrieved (the 911 dispatcher had relayed to Mr. Horn that police were en route, therefore providing him reason to believe that means other than deadly force could bring about the retrieval of said property) or b) he would be harmed if he didn’t use deadly force (which is clearly irrelevant as Mr. Horn chose to leave the safety of his home, and even once outside, was quick to fire at the criminals, who were not likely to be threatening his safety since they were shot in the back and torso, presumably fleeing from the scene rather than initiating attack).

Even with thorough examination and interpretation of the Penal Code, some points remain circumstantial, depending on the evidence presented in court pertaining to Mr. Horn’s hopefully honest presumptions at the time the crime was committed. Beyond this, I feel he is just as much a criminal as the two deceased burglars, and should be prosecuted accordingly.

Well any way you look at it Joe Horn may get away with murder. But in the long run someone will most likely to take care of his racist ass.As they say eye for an eye.Im pretty sure theres some pissed off black people looking for him right now.Hes should of just let the law handle it.This just proves dont take the law into your own hands because someone will be looking for you.

joe horn did the right thing. in the real world we need persons of valor to stand up and say hell no you wont rob my neighbors home hell no you wont come on my property with a tire iron and threaten me. we all complain about crime but all puss out when we can do something about it.. if it was your home getting robed i bet you would want someone like mr horn to help.. and if mr horn sees this letter let me say thank you for your actions and forgive my fellow americans for not supporting you…..

Joe Horn is guilty of murder. I listened to and read the words as they appeared on the screen being documented by the 911 dispatcher. He placed, not one, but two calls to 911. He was INSIDE HIS OWN HOME when the dispatcher told him to stay where he was, that an officer was on the way, and that property was not worth shooting someone over. Being the HOT-HEAD-IDIOT—WITH-AN-ITCHY-TRIGGER-FINGER that he apparently is…he chose to ignore the professional advice from the dispatcher and stupidly seek his own revenge. The two people that he shot in the back are probably low-life criminals with track records, but until the law says that you can grab your gun and run outside seeking the opportunity (or excuse?) to shoot someone, they should be low-life criminals who have been arrested and are sitting in jail, where they belong. Without a doubt, the trained, professional law officer who was responding to the call would have handled the situation much differently.
IMPORTANT—– what occurred has NOTHING to do with someone breaking in to YOUR home while you are there….entirely different matter!

While looking for something else I came across SB0378 (I think I have the right number) which became law in Texas on 9/1/07. Among other things (I think I have this right):
No retreat is necessary
Victim’s kin can not go after you in civil court
Day or night do not appear to be a factor anymore
In the case of theft, does not have to be your property
The quoted legislator was only one of many co-authors, and that only on the senate version.
His neighbors were Vietnamese — real easy to differentiate from Hispanics.
These were illegal aliens (not immigrants)
Both had priors on drugs
One had been deported once
Both had multiple IDs
Too bad for their families! Maybe they should have convinced them not to commit crimes.
It’s easy to say it’s only property until you have been the victim. I have been and didn’t sleep well for the next two year, even after I sold the house that was robbed.
If you have never held someone a gunpoint waiting for the police, you don’t recommend it to others. I’ve done it while waiting for over an hour after the 911 call. You can really start to hate the scum (bad people, criminals) who put you in that position. And that’s not a good feeling to have when holding someone at gunpoint.

I support Joe Horn. He did just follow one of the 10 commandments, Love your neighbor! I would do the same thing!

Joe Horn, I wish we had more people like you in this country…and in this government!

After 8 minutes, the police had not arrived.

First of all, the police are “law enforcement” NOT “crime prevention”. They cannot prevent a crime, they only enforce the law, clean up the mess, etc.

The robber have no rights, they are felons, commiting a crime, and illegal in this country. They are not protected by the constitution, nor are the terrorists being held from Afghanistan and Iraq.

As long as the police do not call themselves “crime prevention”, it is obvious that we have the God given right to protect our own lives.

Case close, live with it, and may the two dead criminals enjoy their burn in hell like they are getting.