No Stand Your Ground

Is homicide truly justifiable?
Wang and Schiller’s article, “Texas justifiable homicides rise with ‘Castle Doctrine” is notable for many reasons. The most glaring of these is that the number of justifiable homicides in Texas rose sharply in the approximate five year period in which the ‘Castle Doctrine’ was expanded to sanction killing. There are greater losses of life in this state as a result of this legislation. People are getting murdered for reasons which are more and more petty. Similarly, people are not getting punished for murder in these instances as well. When one considers these factors and some of the more pressing matters presented in this article, it becomes clear that Texas should discontinue the expanded Castle Doctrine.
The main concern in this article is that the value of life is decreasing because of this expanded legislation. The article notes that one young man was murdered for little more than $20 (Wang and Schiller, 2012). For this amount of money and the ensuing circumstances, the killer should have to face some punitive consequences. Ideally these should involve time spent in correctional facilities, although remunerative punishment may also apply. Furthermore, the circumstances of this killing indicate that no one’s life was at stake. The killer is the one who pursued the thief. There is nothing so threatening about a business losing $20 in tips that it is commensurate to the loss of the life of the thief. The killer should have faced some criminal consequences for undervaluing the thief’s life. In order to do so, Texas should discontinue this expanded Castle Doctrine.
The main reason that the state should discontinue this legislation is that it is far too subjective—which is one of the concerns evinced in the article. The law has expanded to justify virtually any killing in the vicinity of the killer’s home. The failure of George Zimmerman to receive criminal punishment for his slaying of Trayvon Martin—despite the fact that the former was the aggressor, pursued the latter, and was armed with a lethal weapon—buttresses this notion. This fact is also supported by some of the highly subjective murders illustrated in Wang and Schiller’s piece. The article discusses a man who found someone “molesting” (Wang and Schiller, 2012) his five-year-old daughter. He subsequently beat the perpetrator to death. There are several facets of this case that are subjective. The term molesting can be widely interpreted from any number of acts involving both sexual conduct and otherwise. Similarly, the beating to death of the perpetrator is also questionable. Obviously anger fueled this beating. However, at some point the perpetrator must have been no longer threatening the girl or her father (if he ever did threaten the father). Why kill him? If the father could not curb his anger and killed the man, he should receive criminal punishment. He punished the sexual perpetrator in a cruel and unusual way, which is not sanctioned by the criminal justice system.
Ultimately, this latter fact is the reason the Texas Castle Doctrine either requires revocation or a lack of its current expansion. It enables civilians to issue the sort of punishment that not even criminal justice systems are allowed to use. Specifically, it enables the former to deploy cruel and unusual punishment in instances which do not necessarily warrant them. In fact, the prohibition of this type of punishment exists in the criminal justice system because of the presumption that there are no circumstances which warrant them. That murdering someone for offenses which did not explicitly involve violence is a form of cruel and unusual punishment is beyond the realm of question. The aforementioned article even alludes to this fact several times. Many of the murderers who killed people in what were termed justifiable homicides by the Texas legislation regret that they did so. One man who killed someone attempting to burglarize his home in Texas (Wang and Schiller, 2012) severely lamented doing so. He termed the situation one in which everyone loses largely because the outcome of the situation did not fit the actual crime. Granted, his home was violated and the thieves attempted to make off with his personal property. Moreover, he incurred property damage due to this crime. Nonetheless, the aftermath of the fact that he is now a murdered—whether the state of Texas has justified his right to be one or not—is a fact which seriously bothers him. He even lamented that there could have been an alternative, less lethal way of resolving the situation. The burglar’s punishment was cruel and unusual, which is why the state of Texas should change its legislation allowing such punishment.
Retrospectively, Texas should certainly discontinue its expansion of the Castle Doctrine. There are a number of compelling reasons for doing so. This legislation undervalues human life. The murders are too subjective to warrant substantiation. Finally, it sanctions cruel and unusual punishment.
References
Wang, Y. Schiller, D. (2012). Texas justifiable homicides rise with ‘Castle Doctrine’. http://www.chron.com/ Retrieved from
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Texas-justifiable-homicides-rise-with-Castle-3676412.php