Hypothetical shooting scenarios
 

To begin with - this is NOT a political issue.

Let's go back to the time of the very unfortunate mugging of the lady in the shopping area just off of 441 a couple of months ago. Lots was written regarding carrying pistols. Let's look at a few possible scenarios and how they might have impacted people.

1. The mugger runs up to the lady from the back, knocks her to the pavement and runs off. The lady has a pistol in her waistband holster. She gets to one knee, shakes the cobwebs loose from her bruised head, and fires 3 rounds at the fleeing attacker. She misses him but one bullet kills a person close to the the fleeing attacker and one more bullet strikes another person in the neck and he is made a quadriplegic from the wound. Does the mugging victim go to prison for killing one innocent person and gravely wounding another? Will she lose everything she worked for due to the civil suit the quadriplegic sues her for?

2. The mugger runs up to the lady from the back, knocks her to the pavement and runs off. She has a pistol in the waistban holster. She raises to one knee, shakes out the cobwebs, and fires a round at the attacker who is 20 yards down the parking lot. She kills him. Does she get charged with a crime and go to prison? Can his surviving family successfully file a wrongful death civil suit and win?

3. Same scenario but the attacker gets hit in the back of the neck, has his spinal cord severed and is now a quadriplegic. Once again, does the woman get charged with a crime and can the attacker successfully win a civil suit thus taking everything she worked for all her life?

This is NOT a gun control issue but rather is meant as a discussion of legal questions I honestly do not know the answers.

All of the above dependent on your or their lawyer.

I think the outcome of those scenarios would depend on the police you'd be dealing with (a la Trevon Martin, where they did nothing and then reversed temselves due to public pressure, leading to the chief resigning, and so on and so forth) and/or the bent of the jury at a trial.

The law is not very clear to me, and I too wish someone would explain it. No matter what, I'd rather suffer the broken hip (or whatever she suffered) and hope they catch the guy (they did, didn't they?) to stand trial, than have even one of your scenarios hanging over my head.

I'm not a lawyer and did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express, but off the top of my head I would say the lady is in trouble in all three scenarios. In all three, the perp is running away and there is no longer a threat that would warrant deadly force.

YMMV.

Once the bullet leaves your gun you are legally responsible for it. In all three cases the woman was not in immanent danger so she has some legal problems. Killing or injuring an innocent person would most likely get you jail time. Killing the mugger as he is fleeing would probably be up the the jury but you certainly would be charged. I am not an attorney but I am licensed to carry concealed.

Nobody Knows
 

The answer is simple. Any further discussion will turn this into a gun control issue.

NOBODY KNOWS.

With regard to any kind of criminal prosecution, that is up to the local prosecutor. It isn't up to the police, although they may or may not make an arrest on the spot. Only the prosecutor can take it to trial, and there is no one reading this board who is inside of the mind of our local prosecutor.

With regard to any kind of civil action, anyone can sue anyone for just about anything. Any of your scenarios would end up in the hands of a jury, and there is no way anyone can really predict what a jury will do. (Remember that a criminal trial jury acquitted O.J. Simpson and in a later action a civil jury convicted him on the same facts.)

I was once in Federal Court for the trial of a man accused of forging a government check. The defense attorney addressed the jury and admitted that his client forged the check. Then he offered the defense that his client was an alcoholic. The jury found him Not Guilty. Not Guilty??? His attorney admitted he did it. The jury should have found him guilty and left it to the judge to take the defendants alcoholism into consideration in the sentencing phase.

By the way, if the little old lady hit the bad guy with her shot she would still be at risk for both criminal and civil actions.

No one can give an informed answer to your hypothetical scenarios.

I do have a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School (JD-- Class of 1989) but do not practice in Florida nor anywhere else. My training and inclination is towards law librarianship (MA-- University of Denver, School of Librarianship and Information Management, Class of 1984) . That said, all three of these look very troubling for the woman as far as criminal and personal liability are concerned. She would need a very talented lawyer to get off on these charges and probable damages. I still believe that trial lawyers are for the most part storytellers and whoever presents the most cogent story wins. Think of the George Zimmerman trial as well as the Casey Anthony trial? Of course, there are cases where the facts speak for themselves and no matter how clever and personable the lawyer is, the jury will have to find in only one way. My guess is though that any smart lawyer would never take such a case to trial and would look for a plea bargain.

Couldn't agree with you more. Once the threat on your life is "over" you have no right to shoot. (Not that you wouldn't want to).

Did you guys miss the built in defense that buggyone included? Once the lady's head hit the pavement so hard that it was bruised, her defense became that she didn't know what she was doing.

I'll say it again. As cut and dried as a case may look, it's always up to the prosecutor's discretion and the opinion of one person on the jury.

Other posters are correct in saying that as a matter of law it is not permissible to shoot a fleeing suspect who poses no danger to you, unless you can articulate a reasonable belief that he may be an imminent physical danger to others.

I caught that, but would not know how it would play out in the florida courts. My education is in Contract Law where every case opinion follows a logical conclusion as apposed to criminal law where nothing seems to follow right, wrong, logic, fairness etc.

the post that stated the threat was no longer involved makes the strongest case.\ against her....the threat was over and the perp gone.

Other factors that may or may not affect the a legal outcome:
Did she have a concealed weapons permit?
Did she have any amount of training?
And the answers could work for or against her!

And as has been stated already...the outcome does not have to make sense or be logical it is all a function of her attorneys to tell a more convincing story than those she is up against.

Probably have enough real shootings without worrying about hypotheticals.

Times are changing, everywhere.
 

Times are changing and they are changing fast. Our TV Producer granddaughter tells us that in the city where she lives, recently large groups of young teens are roaming and attacking older people who are leaving plays and musical events downtown at night. She says that these kids are in groups up to 75 and are in their early teens and they are attacking their own race and other races too.


Our granddaughter's young views are changing as she becomes more aware of current events. I may be changing too.


This is so sad. I wanted for her to keep her world views positive, longer.


She lives in a mid sized Midwest city known for warmth and hospitality.

Then it must amaze and upset you when people complain how bad we have it with the crime in The Villages

The technology seems to change but the motivations and the like do not seem to all that much. This sounds like sociopathic kids who have followers who will do anything to belong to some group that accepts them. You would find similar groups in Imperial Rome, Hitler's Germany, Chicago with Leopold and Loeb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb , and elsewhere. I mean bored kids who turn to violent crime.