A new furor is starting over "Castle Doctrine" in the US due to the recent death of a foreign exchange student at the hands of a homeowner. I have seen what I consider scant coverage of the event, with coverage from NY based media, the BBC and Fox. Interestingly, Fox is the only one to show a picture of the young man inside the homeowner's garage at midnight. I would like to point out first that if the young man was not taking the opportunity to go through someone else's garage at midnight, he would still be alive. While the father of the victim can complain all he wants, he should have taught his son that going through other people's houses at midnight without their permission is not acceptable behavior.
That being said, the homeowner appears to have set a trap for burglars, having been victimized twice already. Now if the plan was to get the crime on tape, make a citizens arrest and have a shotgun handy just in case things went sideways, there would be no problem. However it appears that the homeowner was overheard by others well beforehand planning to set the trap and shoot him a burglar. That would be illegal, in the premeditated murder section of the book I believe, and is generally frowned upon. If this proves to be true, then the homeowner and his wife actually should both do jail time.
But, unfortunately for the Democrat loudly denouncing Castle Doctrine, this has nothing to do with that particular item, which I am sure the defendant's lawyer will point out before court. Much like the much maligned Stand Your Ground had nothing to do with Zimmerman, this was premeditated murder and had nothing to do with Castle Doctrine. It was just a poorly thought out plan by frustrated homeowners and a young man that had terrible consequences.
