P
Patriot Games
Guest
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...s/stories/012008dnmetfightingback.6a8cbd.html
'Castle law' arms Texas homeowners with right to shoot
Does new law make them quicker to pull the trigger?
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The shootings came fast, a bang-bang-bang cluster of cases starting in early
autumn that quickly had police, prosecutors and the media wondering about
the sudden impact of Texas' new castle law.
A business owner who lives at his West Dallas welding shop killed two men in
three weeks as they tried to break in.
A 79-year-old homeowner in east Oak Cliff, awakened by his dog, struggled
with an intruder before grabbing a shotgun and wounding the man.
Download: Texas' Castle Law in its entirety
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/01-08/castlelaw.pdf
A retired Army warrant officer managed to kill a gun-wielding robber at a
Far East Dallas dry cleaners after his wife surprised the intruder and
handed her husband their own 9 mm handgun.
Texas has long had a reputation as a shoot-first-ask-questions-later place,
dating back to its frontier days.
But the spate of shootings begs the question: Did the castle law - which
gives people the right to use whatever means necessary to protect themselves
and their property without fear of civil liability - unleash a flurry of
gunfire?
Perhaps just as important, has the law changed people's perceptions about
fighting back? Are they more likely to shoot first even when safe retreat
may be an option?
"I think the castle law has more citizens thinking about fighting back,
knowing they're protected from being sued later," said Dallas homeowner
Dennis Baker.
He shot and killed a burglar in October after seeing the man enter the
garage where he stored thousands of dollars worth of tools.
But Dr. Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University,
doesn't think the castle law governs someone's thinking when they hear a
window softly opening late at night, or the crash of a door coming down in a
home invasion.
"In situations in which people would be making a decision to use defensive
violence, it's very unlikely they'd be thinking about laws and penalties,"
he said. "That would be the furthest thing from their mind."
Certainly the castle law has become a high-profile addition to the Texas
statutes since it took effect Sept. 1, but police and the district attorneys
association argue that it brought little substantial change.
While it appeared to apply to each of these cases, so did a batch of other
laws, along with the tradition of Texas juries giving people every benefit
of the doubt when protecting themselves, their families and their property.
None of these property owners was charged. Police referred a few cases to
the Dallas County grand jury, which declined to indict. In others, police
determined that the shootings were justified.
Police's take
And they see the rash of shootings as part of a normal cycle, not a trend.
Dallas police homicide investigators said they've yet to encounter a
self-defense situation since the castle law took effect that would have been
barred under previous laws.
"There may come a time when that's not the case," said Lt. Craig Miller.
"But I would have to look at each of those under its own merits."
Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental relations for the Texas District
and County Attorneys Association, said he didn't know of a single Texas case
in which the castle law would have made a difference.
"The reality is Texas grand juries routinely no-billed deadly force cases
under the old law, which was very lenient," he said. "Many of the cases that
you read about center on defense of property laws, which were always very,
very lenient in the use of deadly force.
"That's just how Texas is."
Dr. Kleck said some states, including Texas, have legal systems with broad
definitions of self-defense.
"There was a study of homicides in Houston sometime back," he said, "and a
huge percentage of those cases were defined as justifiable.
"But in the Northeast, another study showed that almost none of the cases
there were justifiable under the law."
Neighbor fights back
One Texas case in particular has attracted national attention, in part
because of the circumstances: It was a neighbor, not the homeowner,
confronting and killing a pair of burglars Nov. 14.
Joe Horn of Pasadena, Texas, was heard on a 911 tape telling Diego Ortiz and
Hernando Torres, "Move, you're dead," before shots were fired. And the
neighbor mentioned in a 911 call that a new law gave him the right to
protect himself if he confronted the burglars.
The 61-year-old Pasadena man, Joe Horn, told the police operator: "The laws
have been changed in this country since September the first, and you know
it."
"You're going to get yourself shot," the operator warned.
"You want to make a bet?" Mr. Horn said. "I'll kill them. They're getting
away!"
"That's OK. Property's not worth killing someone over, OK?" the operator
said. "Don't go out of the house. Don't be shooting nobody."
The burglars emerged from the house, carrying "a bag of loot," Mr. Horn
said.
"Which way are they going?" the operator asked.
"I can't ... I'm going outside, then I'll find out," Mr. Horn said.
"No, I don't want you going outside," the operator said.
"Well, here it goes, buddy," Mr. Horn replied.
Seconds later, Mr. Horn can be heard saying, "Move, you're dead," followed
by two shots and then a third.
"I had no choice," Mr. Horn said in a second 911 call. "They came in the
front yard with me, man."
Was the castle law designed to cover those circumstances?
No, said the law's author, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.
"You're supposed to be able to defend your own home, your own family, in
your house, your place of business or your motor vehicle," he said - but not
your neighbor's.
But Mr. Edmonds said other property laws could provide a defense for Mr.
Horn, whose case is under investigation.
"The laws governing the use of force to defend property instead of a person
are very broad and very favorable to someone who wants to use that force,"
Mr. Edmonds said.
Chapter 9 of the Texas Penal Code describes deadly force as justified to
prevent arson, robbery, theft or criminal mischief at night, or to prevent a
suspect from fleeing if the property owner "reasonably believes the land or
property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or the use of
force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property
would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious
bodily injury."
"You hear someone stealing something off your front porch. You come out
there with a gun, and they're running off. It's nighttime. The law in Texas
allows you to shoot them," said former Dallas County prosecutor Toby Shook.
Juries' leniency
Texas grand juries have traditionally given people carte blanche to take
whatever steps they need to keep their property, Mr. Edmonds said. "In the
Pasadena case, as egregious as the facts may be," he said, "the law may
still excuse that person's conduct."
He pointed to a case near Waco in the 1990s when the owner of a car saw a
group of teenagers stealing his hubcaps late one night.
"He shot at them from his apartment and killed one of them" Mr. Edmonds
said. "The grand jury no-billed it."
Jim Cornehls, an attorney and professor of urban and public affairs at the
University of Texas at Arlington, said he defended a man a few years ago in
similar circumstances.
The man lived in an apartment complex where kids left their bikes in a
central courtyard.
"There had been a rash of bike thefts," Dr. Cornehls said, "and when this
man got home from work late one night, he saw a guy out there purloining a
bike.
"He whipped out his .22 and shot him. He didn't kill him, but he wounded
him, and the prosecutors let that one slide. In his case, it wasn't even his
property. It was a random bike."
Law necessary?
But if Texas law already allowed people to defend themselves, their families
and their properties against a whole array of crimes, did the state really
need the castle law?
Absolutely, Mr. Wentworth said.
"I read in the newspaper a couple of years ago that Jeb Bush, the governor
of Florida, was signing the castle doctrine there to allow residents to
defend themselves in their own homes," the senator said. "And I thought,
'Isn't that silly? We in Texas have always had that right.'
"But when I checked, I discovered that through legislative and judicial
action in the 1970s, we'd changed the law. Before that, there was no fear of
indictment or civil suits if you defended yourself in your home. But we lost
that in 1974."Rather than using whatever means necessary to protect yourself
and your family, he said, Texans "didn't have a right to stand and defend
themselves, but an obligation to retreat."
And if that was impossible, he said, the resident had the obligation to
ascertain whether the intruder was armed - and with what - and respond only
with the appropriate level of force to match the threat.
"I believe you have the right to defend yourself with any means necessary
without fear of being indicted or sued by the intruder or his or her
survivors," Mr. Wentworth said.
Tried every measure
Mr. Baker believes that, too.
He had lived in his modest neighborhood just north of Dallas Love Field for
15 years without a problem when burglars began stealing his equipment - five
times in two months.
JIM MAHONEY / DMN
Mr. Baker had been burglarized five times in two months at his home before
shooting and killing an intruder. He stored his tools in his garage,
protected behind a locked six-foot gate and next to a back yard bathed by a
light so bright that a friend said it looked like the Texas Rangers'
ballpark.
It wasn't enough to deter the thieves.
On an early October morning, Mr. Baker heard a noise - his Mexican
red-headed parrot, Salvador, had squawked an emphatic "Hello," something he
does whenever someone passes by. Mr. Baker flipped on a closed-circuit
monitor and saw a man walk into his garage.
Mr. Baker said he had seen the man before, on tapes of the earlier
burglaries.
"If he needed a fast fix, he'd go into my garage and grab something and take
it to his drug connection," Mr. Baker said earlier this month.
That night, he decided to confront the intruder, identified as John Woodson,
46, of Dallas, who had a criminal record for various offenses, including
burglary.
"I went out the front door and came through the gate, and when he started
walking from the back of the garage toward me, that's when I shot him," Mr.
Baker said.
When police arrived, a homicide detective watched the video and told Mr.
Baker, "This is by the book."
The case received international attention, largely because of Salvador, the
parrot. But Dallas grand jurors treated it as Texas juries usually do: They
declined to indict.
That's one of the reasons county prosecutors argued against the castle law
in committee hearings before it was approved. It really wasn't necessary,
they said, because more than a half-dozen self-defense provisions already
existed in Texas law. And Texas juries almost always sided with the person
protecting his own.
"In 25 years, I've never known a Harris County court to prosecute a
homeowner or businessman for killing a burglar or robber," Harris County
Assistant District Attorney Bill Delmore told legislators. "We don't do
that."
Jana McCown, an assistant district attorney for Williamson County, echoed
that in her remarks.
"I can assure you that we don't try to arrest homeowners or crime victims
for protecting themselves against crime," she said.
But the Legislature overwhelmingly supported Mr. Wentworth's bill, and it
was quickly signed into law.
In the courtroom
Now judges and prosecutors need to figure out how to deal with it in the
courtroom.
"Prosecutors who were concerned about the law were concerned about how it
will operate in court, not in the street," said Mr. Edmonds of the district
and county attorneys association.
The castle law says the use of force or deadly force is presumed to be
reasonable if someone unlawfully and with force enters an occupied home,
business or car. Further, if the force used against the intruder was
reasonable according to the statute, the occupant is immune from civil
liability for injuries or death.
For Mr. Baker and many in Texas, the right to defend family, home and
property only makes sense.
But others, including Marsha McCartney of Dallas, a member of the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, say the law becomes a death sentence for
criminals who would never face that in court.
In practical terms, Ms. McCartney said, there doesn't even need to be an
explicit threat of attack to justify a shooting over property. In several
local cases, she said, property owners didn't appear to be in any danger,
yet shot and killed unarmed intruders.
"I find that shocking - killing people over things," she said. "The question
you have to ask is: Does the punishment fit the crime?
"People don't get the death penalty for breaking and entering. Defending
your family, defending yourself against someone who is armed is one thing.
But now it's like we don't need to call the police anymore."
Steven Jansen of the American Prosecutors Research Institute in Alexandria,
Va., said the so-called "no-retreat" castle laws largely take away
discretion from local district attorneys, even in cases with questionable
circumstances.
"The law always was that you had a right to defend your home and your
person, and the prosecutor had discretion at that point to look at the facts
and decide what a prudent person would do," said Mr. Jansen, a former
prosecutor in Detroit.
"But the castle doctrine laws extend that right to self-defense to places
outside the home - almost anywhere a person has a legal right to be - and
providing for criminal and civil immunity for the person using the lethal
force.
"That isn't even extended to police officers who use their guns in the line
of duty."
Emotional backlash
Still, there can be a price to pay for taking the life of another.
Dr. Heidi Vermette, medical director for mental health at the Veterans
Administration in Dallas and an assistant professor of psychiatry at UT
Southwestern Medical Center, said a person who shoots another human could
suffer from acute stress disorder, or even post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Acute stress disorder lasts for a few days to four weeks or so," she said,
"and people with it tell you they feel numb as they recall the event. They
say things like, 'I was in a daze,' or 'It was as if time was standing
still.'
"And afterward they might not be able to remember the event. Or they
re-experience the event. Nightmares are common and feeling distressed."
Mr. Baker said a friend, a child psychologist, called him after the shooting
at his house.
"She talked with me for hours, and she said, 'When this is over, when the
attention is gone, this will work on you mentally,' " he said.
"But then another friend of mine told me that every occupation has an
occupational hazard. A fireman can die in a fire. A coal miner can die in a
mining accident. And a burglar can die in someone's garage in the dark of
night.
"I guess I was his occupational hazard."
But a few minutes later, he sat quietly in an office chair, looking down.
"It's hard to look at some things because he was a human being," Mr. Baker
said. "But he had a drug problem.
"The people closest to him should have gotten him some help."
Staff writer Steve Thompson contributed to this report.
RIGHTS UNDER NEW LAW
Major provisions of Texas' Castle Law:
.. Presumes you are reasonable in using force if someone - illegally and with
force - enters or is attempting to enter your occupied home, car or
workplace. You are not given this presumption if you provoked the person or
are engaged in a crime.
.. Removes your obligation to retreat if possible before using deadly force
if you are anywhere you have a right to be. The previous law obliged you to
retreat if a "reasonable person" would have, except in a situation where
someone unlawfully entered your home.
.. Gives you added protection from lawsuits by injured attackers or their
families. Previous law granted this protection if someone illegally entered
your home, but not in other situations.
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research
'Castle law' arms Texas homeowners with right to shoot
Does new law make them quicker to pull the trigger?
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The shootings came fast, a bang-bang-bang cluster of cases starting in early
autumn that quickly had police, prosecutors and the media wondering about
the sudden impact of Texas' new castle law.
A business owner who lives at his West Dallas welding shop killed two men in
three weeks as they tried to break in.
A 79-year-old homeowner in east Oak Cliff, awakened by his dog, struggled
with an intruder before grabbing a shotgun and wounding the man.
Download: Texas' Castle Law in its entirety
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/01-08/castlelaw.pdf
A retired Army warrant officer managed to kill a gun-wielding robber at a
Far East Dallas dry cleaners after his wife surprised the intruder and
handed her husband their own 9 mm handgun.
Texas has long had a reputation as a shoot-first-ask-questions-later place,
dating back to its frontier days.
But the spate of shootings begs the question: Did the castle law - which
gives people the right to use whatever means necessary to protect themselves
and their property without fear of civil liability - unleash a flurry of
gunfire?
Perhaps just as important, has the law changed people's perceptions about
fighting back? Are they more likely to shoot first even when safe retreat
may be an option?
"I think the castle law has more citizens thinking about fighting back,
knowing they're protected from being sued later," said Dallas homeowner
Dennis Baker.
He shot and killed a burglar in October after seeing the man enter the
garage where he stored thousands of dollars worth of tools.
But Dr. Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University,
doesn't think the castle law governs someone's thinking when they hear a
window softly opening late at night, or the crash of a door coming down in a
home invasion.
"In situations in which people would be making a decision to use defensive
violence, it's very unlikely they'd be thinking about laws and penalties,"
he said. "That would be the furthest thing from their mind."
Certainly the castle law has become a high-profile addition to the Texas
statutes since it took effect Sept. 1, but police and the district attorneys
association argue that it brought little substantial change.
While it appeared to apply to each of these cases, so did a batch of other
laws, along with the tradition of Texas juries giving people every benefit
of the doubt when protecting themselves, their families and their property.
None of these property owners was charged. Police referred a few cases to
the Dallas County grand jury, which declined to indict. In others, police
determined that the shootings were justified.
Police's take
And they see the rash of shootings as part of a normal cycle, not a trend.
Dallas police homicide investigators said they've yet to encounter a
self-defense situation since the castle law took effect that would have been
barred under previous laws.
"There may come a time when that's not the case," said Lt. Craig Miller.
"But I would have to look at each of those under its own merits."
Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental relations for the Texas District
and County Attorneys Association, said he didn't know of a single Texas case
in which the castle law would have made a difference.
"The reality is Texas grand juries routinely no-billed deadly force cases
under the old law, which was very lenient," he said. "Many of the cases that
you read about center on defense of property laws, which were always very,
very lenient in the use of deadly force.
"That's just how Texas is."
Dr. Kleck said some states, including Texas, have legal systems with broad
definitions of self-defense.
"There was a study of homicides in Houston sometime back," he said, "and a
huge percentage of those cases were defined as justifiable.
"But in the Northeast, another study showed that almost none of the cases
there were justifiable under the law."
Neighbor fights back
One Texas case in particular has attracted national attention, in part
because of the circumstances: It was a neighbor, not the homeowner,
confronting and killing a pair of burglars Nov. 14.
Joe Horn of Pasadena, Texas, was heard on a 911 tape telling Diego Ortiz and
Hernando Torres, "Move, you're dead," before shots were fired. And the
neighbor mentioned in a 911 call that a new law gave him the right to
protect himself if he confronted the burglars.
The 61-year-old Pasadena man, Joe Horn, told the police operator: "The laws
have been changed in this country since September the first, and you know
it."
"You're going to get yourself shot," the operator warned.
"You want to make a bet?" Mr. Horn said. "I'll kill them. They're getting
away!"
"That's OK. Property's not worth killing someone over, OK?" the operator
said. "Don't go out of the house. Don't be shooting nobody."
The burglars emerged from the house, carrying "a bag of loot," Mr. Horn
said.
"Which way are they going?" the operator asked.
"I can't ... I'm going outside, then I'll find out," Mr. Horn said.
"No, I don't want you going outside," the operator said.
"Well, here it goes, buddy," Mr. Horn replied.
Seconds later, Mr. Horn can be heard saying, "Move, you're dead," followed
by two shots and then a third.
"I had no choice," Mr. Horn said in a second 911 call. "They came in the
front yard with me, man."
Was the castle law designed to cover those circumstances?
No, said the law's author, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.
"You're supposed to be able to defend your own home, your own family, in
your house, your place of business or your motor vehicle," he said - but not
your neighbor's.
But Mr. Edmonds said other property laws could provide a defense for Mr.
Horn, whose case is under investigation.
"The laws governing the use of force to defend property instead of a person
are very broad and very favorable to someone who wants to use that force,"
Mr. Edmonds said.
Chapter 9 of the Texas Penal Code describes deadly force as justified to
prevent arson, robbery, theft or criminal mischief at night, or to prevent a
suspect from fleeing if the property owner "reasonably believes the land or
property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or the use of
force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property
would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious
bodily injury."
"You hear someone stealing something off your front porch. You come out
there with a gun, and they're running off. It's nighttime. The law in Texas
allows you to shoot them," said former Dallas County prosecutor Toby Shook.
Juries' leniency
Texas grand juries have traditionally given people carte blanche to take
whatever steps they need to keep their property, Mr. Edmonds said. "In the
Pasadena case, as egregious as the facts may be," he said, "the law may
still excuse that person's conduct."
He pointed to a case near Waco in the 1990s when the owner of a car saw a
group of teenagers stealing his hubcaps late one night.
"He shot at them from his apartment and killed one of them" Mr. Edmonds
said. "The grand jury no-billed it."
Jim Cornehls, an attorney and professor of urban and public affairs at the
University of Texas at Arlington, said he defended a man a few years ago in
similar circumstances.
The man lived in an apartment complex where kids left their bikes in a
central courtyard.
"There had been a rash of bike thefts," Dr. Cornehls said, "and when this
man got home from work late one night, he saw a guy out there purloining a
bike.
"He whipped out his .22 and shot him. He didn't kill him, but he wounded
him, and the prosecutors let that one slide. In his case, it wasn't even his
property. It was a random bike."
Law necessary?
But if Texas law already allowed people to defend themselves, their families
and their properties against a whole array of crimes, did the state really
need the castle law?
Absolutely, Mr. Wentworth said.
"I read in the newspaper a couple of years ago that Jeb Bush, the governor
of Florida, was signing the castle doctrine there to allow residents to
defend themselves in their own homes," the senator said. "And I thought,
'Isn't that silly? We in Texas have always had that right.'
"But when I checked, I discovered that through legislative and judicial
action in the 1970s, we'd changed the law. Before that, there was no fear of
indictment or civil suits if you defended yourself in your home. But we lost
that in 1974."Rather than using whatever means necessary to protect yourself
and your family, he said, Texans "didn't have a right to stand and defend
themselves, but an obligation to retreat."
And if that was impossible, he said, the resident had the obligation to
ascertain whether the intruder was armed - and with what - and respond only
with the appropriate level of force to match the threat.
"I believe you have the right to defend yourself with any means necessary
without fear of being indicted or sued by the intruder or his or her
survivors," Mr. Wentworth said.
Tried every measure
Mr. Baker believes that, too.
He had lived in his modest neighborhood just north of Dallas Love Field for
15 years without a problem when burglars began stealing his equipment - five
times in two months.
JIM MAHONEY / DMN
Mr. Baker had been burglarized five times in two months at his home before
shooting and killing an intruder. He stored his tools in his garage,
protected behind a locked six-foot gate and next to a back yard bathed by a
light so bright that a friend said it looked like the Texas Rangers'
ballpark.
It wasn't enough to deter the thieves.
On an early October morning, Mr. Baker heard a noise - his Mexican
red-headed parrot, Salvador, had squawked an emphatic "Hello," something he
does whenever someone passes by. Mr. Baker flipped on a closed-circuit
monitor and saw a man walk into his garage.
Mr. Baker said he had seen the man before, on tapes of the earlier
burglaries.
"If he needed a fast fix, he'd go into my garage and grab something and take
it to his drug connection," Mr. Baker said earlier this month.
That night, he decided to confront the intruder, identified as John Woodson,
46, of Dallas, who had a criminal record for various offenses, including
burglary.
"I went out the front door and came through the gate, and when he started
walking from the back of the garage toward me, that's when I shot him," Mr.
Baker said.
When police arrived, a homicide detective watched the video and told Mr.
Baker, "This is by the book."
The case received international attention, largely because of Salvador, the
parrot. But Dallas grand jurors treated it as Texas juries usually do: They
declined to indict.
That's one of the reasons county prosecutors argued against the castle law
in committee hearings before it was approved. It really wasn't necessary,
they said, because more than a half-dozen self-defense provisions already
existed in Texas law. And Texas juries almost always sided with the person
protecting his own.
"In 25 years, I've never known a Harris County court to prosecute a
homeowner or businessman for killing a burglar or robber," Harris County
Assistant District Attorney Bill Delmore told legislators. "We don't do
that."
Jana McCown, an assistant district attorney for Williamson County, echoed
that in her remarks.
"I can assure you that we don't try to arrest homeowners or crime victims
for protecting themselves against crime," she said.
But the Legislature overwhelmingly supported Mr. Wentworth's bill, and it
was quickly signed into law.
In the courtroom
Now judges and prosecutors need to figure out how to deal with it in the
courtroom.
"Prosecutors who were concerned about the law were concerned about how it
will operate in court, not in the street," said Mr. Edmonds of the district
and county attorneys association.
The castle law says the use of force or deadly force is presumed to be
reasonable if someone unlawfully and with force enters an occupied home,
business or car. Further, if the force used against the intruder was
reasonable according to the statute, the occupant is immune from civil
liability for injuries or death.
For Mr. Baker and many in Texas, the right to defend family, home and
property only makes sense.
But others, including Marsha McCartney of Dallas, a member of the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, say the law becomes a death sentence for
criminals who would never face that in court.
In practical terms, Ms. McCartney said, there doesn't even need to be an
explicit threat of attack to justify a shooting over property. In several
local cases, she said, property owners didn't appear to be in any danger,
yet shot and killed unarmed intruders.
"I find that shocking - killing people over things," she said. "The question
you have to ask is: Does the punishment fit the crime?
"People don't get the death penalty for breaking and entering. Defending
your family, defending yourself against someone who is armed is one thing.
But now it's like we don't need to call the police anymore."
Steven Jansen of the American Prosecutors Research Institute in Alexandria,
Va., said the so-called "no-retreat" castle laws largely take away
discretion from local district attorneys, even in cases with questionable
circumstances.
"The law always was that you had a right to defend your home and your
person, and the prosecutor had discretion at that point to look at the facts
and decide what a prudent person would do," said Mr. Jansen, a former
prosecutor in Detroit.
"But the castle doctrine laws extend that right to self-defense to places
outside the home - almost anywhere a person has a legal right to be - and
providing for criminal and civil immunity for the person using the lethal
force.
"That isn't even extended to police officers who use their guns in the line
of duty."
Emotional backlash
Still, there can be a price to pay for taking the life of another.
Dr. Heidi Vermette, medical director for mental health at the Veterans
Administration in Dallas and an assistant professor of psychiatry at UT
Southwestern Medical Center, said a person who shoots another human could
suffer from acute stress disorder, or even post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Acute stress disorder lasts for a few days to four weeks or so," she said,
"and people with it tell you they feel numb as they recall the event. They
say things like, 'I was in a daze,' or 'It was as if time was standing
still.'
"And afterward they might not be able to remember the event. Or they
re-experience the event. Nightmares are common and feeling distressed."
Mr. Baker said a friend, a child psychologist, called him after the shooting
at his house.
"She talked with me for hours, and she said, 'When this is over, when the
attention is gone, this will work on you mentally,' " he said.
"But then another friend of mine told me that every occupation has an
occupational hazard. A fireman can die in a fire. A coal miner can die in a
mining accident. And a burglar can die in someone's garage in the dark of
night.
"I guess I was his occupational hazard."
But a few minutes later, he sat quietly in an office chair, looking down.
"It's hard to look at some things because he was a human being," Mr. Baker
said. "But he had a drug problem.
"The people closest to him should have gotten him some help."
Staff writer Steve Thompson contributed to this report.
RIGHTS UNDER NEW LAW
Major provisions of Texas' Castle Law:
.. Presumes you are reasonable in using force if someone - illegally and with
force - enters or is attempting to enter your occupied home, car or
workplace. You are not given this presumption if you provoked the person or
are engaged in a crime.
.. Removes your obligation to retreat if possible before using deadly force
if you are anywhere you have a right to be. The previous law obliged you to
retreat if a "reasonable person" would have, except in a situation where
someone unlawfully entered your home.
.. Gives you added protection from lawsuits by injured attackers or their
families. Previous law granted this protection if someone illegally entered
your home, but not in other situations.
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research
