You kids stay off my lawn!Follow

If the kid could walk across his lawn he obviously didnt do enough. I think a fence might have done the trick

******* kid got blood all over it.

You're not required to build a fence on your property to have a legal expectation that your property is *yours*. The fact that the kid was walking on the lawn doesn't mean anything. If he knew that the lawn was on the property owned by the man in question, and knew that this man didn't want him there, then that's all the "fence" needed.

You do not have a legal right to go anywhere that isn't physically barred from you. My understanding is that the burden is on the property owner to make it clear to a potential tresspasser that they are tresspassing, and nothing more. Once that's made clear, and someone continues on someone else's property, the property owner is now within his rights to protect his property. May seem harsh (and certainly is in this case), but your argument basically says that anyone can use my property anytime they want unless I physically bar them from access.


Also. We don't know what occured on this particular event that prompted the shooting. You're proceeding from an assumption that the kid was just walking along, and the man leapt out of the bushes and blasted him with a shotgun. What if the man asked the kid not to walk on his lawn? What if the kid refused? What if the man threatened him with the shotgun? What if the kid still refused? What if the kid then made a point of dancing around on the grass in front of the shotgun holding property owner digging his feet into the grass and ruining his lawn just to taunt the guy?

You don't know what conspired. Certainly, it's unlikely that the man was laying in wait with a shotgun for the kid to walk across his lawn. This implies some time occured between when the kid appeared on the lawn, and when the man shot him. It implies an altercation of some sort. Unless this guys got a *huge* lawn, why was the kid still there in the time it took for the man to notice him on the lawn, go get his shotgun, go outside, and get near enough to him to shoot him? While I can't say for sure either (since it's not in the story), it's a good bet that the kid was doing more then just taking a shortcut across the guys lawn.

If you're not being threatened, and I mean with more than a path of dead grass across your yard, you do not have the right to kill someone for invading your space, period. Shooting him with salt would have been problematic.

I'm wondering how the shooter worked himself up to this action. Did he really think killing someone would make his life peaceful and serene? Or did he just fantasize about it so much that it came to feel like a natural next step?

Shotgun shells cost a lot less then a fence...

I'm sorry, this is a sad story, and that guy's a bit of a nut to shoot the kid, but seeing shrubbery in print still makes me chuckle.

Bah. Don't have time to go digging through legal code. I did exagerate a bit. Questions will be asked. And technically, I have to prove that I felt threatened by the intruder. However, it's not hard to do that at all, and the assumption in cases of breakin is the intent is to harm those inside the home. And more importantly, if you're alive and the other guy isn't, you get to tell the story.

The only real distinction in this case is where it occured. The shooting still happened on the man's property. Again. Unless he ran up and shot the kid without a word spoken, it's not incredibly difficult for him to claim threat. Doubly so if he had the shotgun, told the kid to leave, and the kid refused. Again. He's alive. The kid isn't. Now maybe he'll admit to losing his temper and shooting for no reason. And he'll get serious jail time as a result. Maybe he'll say that they got into an altercation over the kid being on the property, he asked the kid to leave, the kid didn't, there was a standoff. Maybe he thought the kid was about to lunge for the shotgun? Who knows?


The point is that there are some odd inconsistencies in our laws. You're legally allowed to protect your own property. You're legally allowed to use a firearm to do so. But you're only allowed to use lethal force if you feel threatened. This often brings up *exactly* this sort of situation though. As sad as this may be, the man is vastly better off killing the 15 year old, then scarring him off, or wounding him. Legally, he can claim he was threatened and (if he does that) will very likely get away with it. Realize, that by law he has a right to confront someone on his property. He has a right to carry a legal firearm on his property. He has a right (in most states) even to brandish that firearm towards the tresspasser as part of that confrontation. The legal line between that and shooting someone dead is *incredibly* thin.

If the shooting occured on his property (which it seems to have been), and if the person he shot was shot in the front (which it seems to have been), and if he was shot at close range (which we don't know), he can literally get off scott free merely by picking how he testifies carefully.

I'm not making a moral judgement here. Just pointing out how the law typically deals with cases like this. I personally think it's ridiculous to shoot someone for being on your lawn. However, if this man says the right things, he will likely not see any jail time. Because you don't have to prove that the other person *was* attacking you. Only that at the moment you fired, you felt your life was in danger. And that's incredibly subjective and incredibly easy to argue in court. Doubly so if you're the only witness...

and yet much less than the cost of lawyers, and a very good possibility of never being free again. Tell me Gbaji, what's the price tag on your freedom?

Edited, Tue Mar 21 22:56:54 2006 by DSD

But what if they weren't only walking on his yard, but destroying it up when they did? Woulnd't that be destruction of private property and call for getting the police involved? And if the police wouldn't do anything about it, isn't protecting yourself and your property part of the law in most states?

Alot of older people are very **** about their yards. Just drive through a country club subdivision and look at the yards, probably 90% of them are owned by retired people with nothing better to do. When I read water meters at one, some of them would use around 20,000 gallons of water a month! About 17,000 of that being used to water their lawn.

lol @ gbaji.

Like I said in guild chat last night. I really wanna visit the world you live in.

I did find out that in Michigan, it IS legal to use lethal force in a situtation of self defense. It does not apply to protection of physcical property, only to protection of your and your families lives.

That being said, were this guy in Michigan, he would be charged with murder about this time, which is exactly what he deserves.

fix ur link newb.