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...

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…