Texas "stand my ground" case - guilty

[ECB]

To me, the fact that he was recording this and then the part I bolded below - it just strikes me as premeditated. He went over there w/ a gun and it seemed like he expected, even planned, the situation to escalate. Why would you go into a situation where you felt you needed to record it, much less take a gun - over LOUD MUSIC?


gma.yahoo.com/texas-man-found-guilty-killing-neighbor-dispute-053934284--abc-news-topstories.html

A jury has convicted a Texas man for murdering his neighbor during a confrontation over loud music two years ago, rejecting a claim that he was within his rights to fatally shoot the man under Texas' version of a "stand-your-ground" law.

Raul Rodriguez, 47, faces up to life in prison for the killing of Kelly Danaher, 36. Sentencing is scheduled to begin today.

"I'm just glad he can't hurt anybody else," Danaher's wife, Mindy, said. "I love my husband, and I miss him so much ... and he helped all of us get through this today."

It took the jury less than six hours Wednesday to decide between self-defense and murder. Jurors, apparently agreeing with prosecutors that Rodriguez, a retired Houston-area firefighter, was a trigger-happy neighborhood bully.

"He felt like he had ultimate control, control to determine who lives and who dies," Donna Logan, Harris County Assistant District Attorney, said.

Rodriguez recorded the argument in May of 2010 when he killed Danaher, an elementary school teacher, and wounded two other people. The 22-minute homemade video was the key to the trial as Rodriguez's lawyers argued it was self-defense under Texas' version of the so-called stand-your-ground law, which is also at the center of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida.

It was after midnight when Rodriguez, complaining to police via telephone that the music was too loud, walked up to Danaher's driveway with a flashlight and gun.

In the video, Rodriguez can be heard talking to a 911 operator, saying, "I'm running the video camera right now and I'm talking to you and I mean, I'm scared to death here."

In the unfolding confrontation between Rodriguez and several unidentified men, one yells, "Tell you what, pal, you just pulled a gun on the wrong [expletive], OK?"

When one of the party-goers saw Rodriguez's gun, he suggested he is getting his own. "When I go in that house and come back," he warned, "don't think I won't be equal to you, baby."

"It's about to get out of hand sir, please help me. Please help me, my life is in danger now ...," Rodriguez told police over the phone. "Now, I'm standing my ground here. Now, these people are going to try and kill me."

Seconds later, a fight about loud music ends with the crack of gunfire.

"Look, I'm not losing to these people anymore," Rodriguez said. "I'm just totally going to stay back, because they're drunk, they're ..."

Rodriguez is interrupted by wild laughter, and then the sound of gunfire, before the tape stops as Rodriguez is tackled to the ground. In addition to the shot that killed Danaher, Houston Fire Capt. Ricky Johnson and Marshall Stetson received multiple gunshot wounds after the camera stopped recording. Rodriguez, a father of six, walked away from the incident unharmed.

"This has eaten me up for two years," Johnson said. "Hopefully, now I can begin to heal from it."

The defense did not present much of a case as it called no witnesses and Rodriguez didn't testify. Legal experts say if defendants are going to successfully argue self-defense, the jury wants to hear from them.

[charminglife]

So Rodriguez walked up this man's driveway and then tried to claim self defense? WTF?

[druidp]

Jun 14, 2012 8:58:35 GMT -5 charminglife said:

So Rodriguez walked up this man's driveway and then tried to claim self defense? WTF?

After reading it, it sounds like he intended just that - but unfortunately the wrong person got shot so that kind of fell through.

And PLEASE - he is on the neighbor's driveway with a gun? Seems like that would become moot right there. I know there are lots of gun-carriers in Texas, but if you're packing heat on someone else's property, it's not likely to end well in your favor. Not legally, anyway.

[EloiseWeenie]

He pulls his gun out at his neighbor's house, his neighbor says he'll go inside and get his gun, and this was how his life was threatened? OMG I hope my neighbors aren't trigger happy.

[druidp]

Jun 14, 2012 9:04:42 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

I read about this the other day. Definitely guilty. What really irritates me about this case is that the verbiage he was using in the recording came directly from a class he took on carrying a concealed weapon. They are "training" people to do this.

Please clarify the bolded - or the last sentence above since it won't let me bold it. A conceal-carry class is training people to accost their neighbors in a manner so they can attack and not face legal penalties?

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2012 9:07:24 GMT -5 EloiseWeenie said:

He pulls his gun out at his neighbor's house, his neighbor says he'll go inside and get his gun, and this was how his life was threatened? OMG I hope my neighbors aren't trigger happy.

Right? I'm OK with stand my ground in regards to being on your own property. The idea is that you should not have to run out of your own house if your life is in danger. But you can't take a gun to someone else's house, and when they threaten to get a gun, claim self-defense. That's total nonsense and would lead to complete chaos. I don't even understand how stand my ground would apply in this case - would the homeowner not have a right to stand his ground?

[druidp]

Jun 14, 2012 9:25:47 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

Jun 14, 2012 9:09:46 GMT -5 druidp said:

Please clarify the bolded - or the last sentence above since it won't let me bold it. A conceal-carry class is training people to accost their neighbors in a manner so they can attack and not face legal penalties?

I can't remember if it was an article or on the news (I will try to find it). It said that the class teaches them verbiage to use when they confront someone. They can say these exact words to claim they are "standing their ground."

If you find it, post it - but yeah, if a class instructor or curriculum is specifically instructing, or worse - advising, what you should say if you want a confrontation to go your way that wouldn't otherwise have been a confrontation, that's reprehensible.

There is always the caveat that Citizen Joe will go to class, take in the instruction and abuse it for his own ends like this guy did, so there's that. I'd be keen to know more about how much responsibility this guy's specific class was teaching the students.

[druidp]

From the Raw Story article:
While standing in Danaher’s driveway with a flashlight and a gun, Rodriguez is also on the phone with a 911 dispatcher using the buzzwords he learned in concealed weapons class, according to the prosecutor.

I still need more clarification here. And I would argue that if I'm going to a concealed carry class, as a mom and wife, and I'm learning what I should be saying to an intruder if he's crossing the threshold of my front door with a gun so a law will guard me from prosecution while I protect what is mine - damn straight I'll use those words.

I'd like to learn more about the context of how the buzzwords were presented in his class, and I'll still maintain this heralded bully of the neighborhood could easily try to use those for his own violent desires - and did in this case.

[druidp]

Hmmm. This also makes me wonder if, especially in the wake of the Martin case in Florida, instructors might be specifically advising this to their students in case the altercation is recorded and it's not a situation of entry into a residence? If so, ICK.

Otherwise I'm really finding it hard to find a reason someone would teach a gun carrier "buzzwords" to use if they are in an altercation. The whole point behind gun safety classes should be to avoid an altercation and only to defend yourself.

[fernane]

Ummm I'm pretty sure the law only covers you if someone is on YOUR property and endangering you. This dudes an idiot.

[fernane]

Jun 14, 2012 11:03:33 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

Jun 14, 2012 10:59:32 GMT -5 fernane said:

Ummm I'm pretty sure the law only covers you if someone is on YOUR property and endangering you. This dudes an idiot.

this isn't true. there was a case, also in texas, where a guy shot two guys in the back that were robbing HIS NEIGHBOR.

As in, he walked up to the robbers in someone else's house and shot them in the fucking back.

And he walked from a conviction. It probably didn't help the robbers were mexican.

As with a lot of things, I'm sure there will always be exceptions to the norm, but with the law you should most always be innocent if it's in your own house. I haven't heard about that other case, that's interesting. I wonder what the defense was.

[fernane]

Jun 14, 2012 11:23:04 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Jun 14, 2012 11:08:05 GMT -5 fernane said:

As with a lot of things, I'm sure there will always be exceptions to the norm, but with the law you should most always be innocent if it's in your own house. I haven't heard about that other case, that's interesting. I wonder what the defense was.

You're not a lawyer, are you? Not because you don't know the intricacies of the law - hell, most lawyers don't - but because you are so sure what "the law" says and exceptions to the "norm" and when people will "most always be innocent."

1) You can use self-defense in the defense of another if they would have had the right to use self-defense themselves. Someone robbing you in your house when home = right to self defense. So a third person could assert that right on behalf of another. This is all very fact-specific though, and a jury has a big say in it, so the same facts could get you acquitted in TX and convicted in MA.

2) You're right that most states don't have a duty to retreat in your own home (if they have a duty to retreat at all), but that really is not the only issue when it comes to self-defense. That is the difference between a stand your ground law and the castle doctrine. Not the same thing.

No I'm not. I am only familiar with the one about being able to use lethal force on your own property, that's why I was saying I'm pretty sure the norm for those cases would be innocence. I wasn't aware we were talking about two different laws..relax.

[ttt]

His words do sound very scripted. It's clear he's saying them for the benefit of the recording, because those are not things you would say naturally in a situation like that.

[druidp]

Jun 14, 2012 11:52:45 GMT -5 ttt said:

His words do sound very scripted. It's clear he's saying them for the benefit of the recording, because those are not things you would say naturally in a situation like that.

Definitely. I read them that way too. It plays out like a campy home movie.