IS HE GUILTY? In Florida, a man was robbed of $15.00; He kills the robber, is he guilty of manslaughter?
In Court right now, A restaurant owner is held up while in his car. The robber points a gun to his head (later, a pellet gun) and demands money. The owner has $2,015 (but is able to hide $2,000) -- the robber takes him inside restaurant but owner is able to lock robber out. Robber runs away. Owner calls 911, but then gets in car and tracks robber down 4 blocks away. He runs robber over and kills him.
TWO PART:
(A) Is he guilty of manslaughter?
(B) Would you do the same thing or something else?
2006-08-02T06:52:47Z
If you are interested, this case is on CourtTV and airs daily...
Lodiju2006-08-02T07:12:24Z
Favorite Answer
The Court will look at the facts...
The Restaurant owner did not need to shoot and kill the robber. He locked him out of the restaurant. As far as the law goes that should have been the end of it. Instead, this dumb a** goes after the guy and runs him down him for $15.
He should have stayed at the restaurant: 1. He was not acting in self-defense (in order for it to be self-defense the restaurant owner must prove that he felt like his life was in imminent danger).
2. The robber only took $15 from him (petty theft).
3. He intentionally pursued the robber, hunted him down and ran over him. (Intent to harm/kill - some would even say premediatated. Remember - premediatated means he pursued the man with the intent to harm him).
A. He is guilty of second degree murder. He hunted and killed this person in an act of vigilantism. He had already removed himself from the scene of the crime, and retreated from danger. The first act of robbery has nothing to do with the act of killing the robber, except to show a motive of malice.
I would not have done the same thing. Assuming that I had not killed the robber with my own gun, I would have, after successfully gotten away from the crook, I would have stayed put and let the cops do their job. The man should get the maximum penalty for murder 2.
I am definitely a law and order type, but there is a different between law and order of the state and vigilantism.
A) YES. If the owner had killed the robber while the gun was pointed at him he could claim self defense. ...but he waited until AFTER the robber ran away and at that point the owner was safe. The owner took the law into his own hands by killing the robber. B) NO I would not have gone after the robber, would have let the police handle it.
He did the world a favor by removing the idiot from the gene pool. He will most likely be convicted of at least manslaughter. I am surprised he is not being tried for murder. From the moment the robber fled he was no longer justified to use deadly force. Unfortnuately, if you injure an assailant you will most likely be sued in civil court so killing them is the only way to prevent them from either coming back or suing you.
A) yes, unless he intended to kill the robber in which case he is guilty of murder based on reasonablness of means used. If only intending to detain robber, and he ran him over inadvertantly in an attempt to detain him which he has the right to do (citizen's arrest DURING felony commited in presence) may be guilty of nothing, unless means used were excessive. however if the robber was fleeing, the use of deadly force is at least manslaughter.
B) for $15 bucks out of a possible 2015, I would let it go and consider myself lucky.