It depends. However, even if it was premeditation, self-defense is a defense to murder.
The MT law, according to what mtdave posted:
45-3-103. Use of force in defense of occupied structure. (1) A person is justified in the use of force or threat to use force against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that the use of force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry into or attack upon an occupied structure.
(2) A person justified in the use of force pursuant to subsection (1) is justified in the use of force likely to cause death or serious bodily harm only if:
(a) the entry is made or attempted and the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent an assault upon the person or another then in the occupied structure; or
(b) the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent the commission of a forcible felony in the occupied structure.
First thing that needs to be proven is that the entry into his garage was unlawful. If he left the garage door open expressly for the purpose of luring someone into his garage to tempt them to steal a salted purse, it’s arguable that the entry was lawful, even though that fact would be unknown to the person entering the house. If it was lawful entry, the rest of the statute is moot and there was no self-defense.
If there was unlawful entry despite the intentional invitation and the lack of “breaking” and entering, it must be proven that a reasonable person would believe that lethal force was necessary to prevent an assault or a forcible felony. However, you don’t even need to go to a reasonable person, you know the homeowner believed that the kid was only there to steal a purse. As theft isn’t an assault nor is it a forcible felony, lethal force is not authorized.
Even if you do go to a reasonable person standpoint, said reasonable person would have knowledge of previous burglaries but no knowledge of assault nor forcible felonies occuring in the area. You’d also have video of the person in your garage. Without knowing anything else, you can’t assume that lethal force is necessary to stop the individual, regardless of what his intentions are. And in this case, the homeowner didn’t even try anything like a verbal warning before moving immediately to lethal force. And even assuming that the entry was unlawful AND that lethal force was necessary, you’d still need to show that it was necessary to prevent an assault or forcible felony… and there is no indication that assault nor committing a forcible felony was on the mind of the kid.
There are a couple factors here that are going against him.
Leaving the garage open changes the crime from burglary to trespassing unless there is evidence the kid was actually stealing something at the moment.
He is going to have a hard time stating he was I fear of his life since he made it known that he wanted the people to return and burglarize his garage.
I see your argument and this is something I was thinking about too. To me your stance and the actions of the man in question are similar but to me tread both sides of a very thin line. Stating you will use lethal force in the event your wife’s life is threatened I do not see a premeditated. You are stating a theoretical situation that god forbid happened I would back you 100%. To me it is different than going around to your neighbors telling them you are going to set up your own sting operation in order to not capture or find out who the thief is but to kill them.
Once again I am not condoning his use of lethal force to stop a robbery of personal belongings but at the same time I could see where they “could” pin him with premeditated.
One other thing I have to ask, is there any law in regards to the actions you must take before the use of lethal force on an individual that walked into your house because your door is wide open. If such laws or actions exist how does this apply to an open garage door?
What if your life is indeed at risk but you are so fed up and angry you aren’t afraid anymore? If a gang banger points a gun at an Iraq veteran and the vet isn’t scared and methodically eliminates the threat, does that lack of “fear” mean he doesn’t have the same right to defense? Is he expected to try some ninja crap because he is more fed up than scared?
It’s about the reasonable person standard. A reasonable/average individual would be afraid in such a situation, so it would be a justifiable shoot. Also many states explicitly assume you are in fear of your life in certain situations and that does not need to be proven to assert self-defense. MT looks like it does not legally assume that you are in fear of your life when someone enters your house. MT also doesn’t seem to require “fear”, just that you reasonably believe that lethal force is necessary to prevent an assault. And that standard for self-defense looks like it’s out of the reach of the man in question.
Going around and advising their neighbors of criminals working the area in the hopes they might watch out for your property as well as theirs while spouting off about how angry, fed up and “prepared to defend your home” you are isn’t a crime and I don’t see it as premeditation.
Now if the guy hid in the bushes, followed the criminal home and then killed him THAT might be premeditated murder.
Then there is the combative mindset issue. This is where you DECIDE prior to any event how you will respond so that you might have conditioned responses to threats that justify lethal force instead of freezing up. Does that mean everyone with any combative mindset training is now premeditated?
But he didn’t just say he wanted to kill them. He then set up a situation with the intent to lure the person back into his garage and then shot the person who, from the info given, posed no threat to him.
There is a big difference from saying you will shoot an intruder then you happen to be a victim of a burglary and saying you are going to shoot an intruder and setting up a situation to lure the person into your garage.
In this case, there is a huge difference because his entire defense could fall apart.
He arguably intended for someone to enter his garage. He or his wife planted a purse to be stolen and set up a camera to watch.
He arguably completed actions to allow someone to enter his garage. He intentionally left it open.
While proving that he intended entrance into his garage is not a criminal test, he does have the state of mind and has done substantial acts towards allowing someone to enter his garage. It would take a ridiculously smart and probably extremely expensive defense attorney to somehow put together a convincing argument that although he wanted someone to enter his garage and he intentionally left it open for said person to enter without problems, when someone actually entered his garage it was unwanted and unlawful.
If he did everything the same but closed his garage, proving that the entry was unlawful would be trivially easy. But he’d still be extremely hard-pressed to prove that lethal force was necessary to prevent assault or forcible felony.
I agree with this but this conditioned response better be in accordance with the current standing law. I don’t think you are but please don’t get my comments confused with my position. In Texas I could very well find myself using lethal force to recover stolen items on my property and be justified. What you wont find me doing is telling my neighbors I am going to set out a salted bag and “shoot the f’ing kid” when they show up. I will on the other hand advise my neighbors to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and report accordingly. Even if I ever have the intent of baiting and shooting the thief I sure as heck will not be discussing those plans with neighbors.
If this man ends up being justified I can see why, If he gets nailed to the cross I am pretty sure I know why.
Texas and Montana have different stand your ground laws. Montana does not allow the use of lethal force to prevent burglary or theft, Texas does. Premeditation doesn’t matter very much, if at all, in either state.
Stand Your Ground / Castle Doctrine / No Retreat are very broad terms. They simply mean you don’t have to make an attempt to remove yourself from the situation. They do not necessarilly give you blanket immunity to shoot anyone who enters your home… the law varies from state to state. MT is more strict in what their SYG law protects… exclusively the safety of people. TX allows you to kill almost anyone for entering your property for almost any unlawful reason.
If the case at hand happened in TX, it would probably be justified shooting, although again the question if the person was on the property lawfully or not would have to be explored. But in MT, that’s just one of many hurdles to overcome.
If all the alleged elements are proven to be true, it would go to malice aforethought. This idiot is his own worst enemy. The first rule of Bait Burglars To Kill Them Club? You don’t talk about Bait Burglars To Kill Them Club!
In Civil Law, you can be held accountable for something called an “Attractive Nuisance”. Something on your property attracts kids like junk cars or a trampoline, etc. If the attractive nuisance is not fenced and wide open, you can be sued for any injuries that result. In this case, a wide open garage door with easy to take goodies in the middle of the night could be an attractive nuisance. This guy will probably be convicted of something criminally, but he could be sued for inviting easy access to a potentially dangerous encounter. I suppose you could live in a bad neighborhood and put up a sign outside your house that says: “Come inside and see what happens next”. The sign would be a written example of attractive nuisance.
The whole bait thing should be irrelevant. I should be allowed to have expensive power tools in my garage and not be “at fault” for inviting criminals should I forget to put the door down one night. Motivations might be different, same result. But the motivations really shouldn’t be at issue, the focus should be the acts of the criminal who is stealing. Otherwise we really are back to the “look what she’s wearing” rape defense.
After our last big hurricane, I actively guarded my property to protect my generator from looters. My intent was to confront anyone trying to steal valuables with the assumption that they are armed and posed a significant threat to myself and my family. I was carrying a MP5 submachine gun. Was my generator “bait”? Was my advising my neighbors that I’d be on the “lookout at night” so we might coordinate our efforts “shooting off my mouth”? Was my expectation of a potentially deadly force encounter “premeditation”?
Sadly in some states I’d probably be guilty of a few things for the way I protected my property, thankfully I don’t live in those states. And the laws of those states offend my sensibilities as much as UK kitchen knife laws.
I think there should be a law that people who codify the above ideas into laws knowingly create a situation that is excessively offensive to “any reasonable person” and sued accordingly by every victim of crime who suffers as a result of their laws. We could call it the “blatant idiot” law.
That doesn’t sound anything like stand your ground. If anything it’s castle doctrine, but planning this ahead and talking about it, good luck with that.
