The point being that some will say that "protecting property is not worth a life". However, people with that view will not publicly advertise that fact. This tells me that they're comfortable with thieves thinking otherwise. And that Sir, is hypocritical...
support for eddie Maurice's self defense case Please read...
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The point being that some will say that "protecting property is not worth a life". However, people with that view will not publicly advertise that fact. This tells me that they're comfortable with thieves thinking otherwise. And that Sir, is hypocritical...
I agree brother.
I don't see myself every leaving my house to engage someone who is stealing my vehicle BUT I never had my vehicle stolen or robbed. I am sure if it happened few times, i would change my tune very quickly.
Cheers,
Pretty biased CBC articles as usual with selectively quoting anything that makes Khill look guilty.
Except judge and jury remembered how it is supposed to work in the system:
quoted the judge in a comment yesterday, It's up to the crown to proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not self defence.
"In dubio pro reo" is what it should be in our legal system.
Except judge and jury remembered how it is supposed to work in the system:
quoted the judge in a comment yesterday, It's up to the crown to proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not self defence.
"In dubio pro reo" is what it should be in our legal system.
i don't think a link to this editorial by Lorne Gunter has been posted here yet:
http://calgarysun.com/opinion/colum...nada/wcm/d2924b86-72b7-41a2-8cb8-0ec2cd60eed5
He has some good points.
http://calgarysun.com/opinion/colum...nada/wcm/d2924b86-72b7-41a2-8cb8-0ec2cd60eed5
He has some good points.
What we're now seeing in Western Canada is the same rural home/property owners getting hit multiple times. I've had my car stolen out of my own driveway once and on another occasion I had my steel gate torn out during an attempted armed break-in all within the space of a year. And some my neighbours have had it much worse.
The police do not offer an effective deterrent and this is why people like Stanley, Maurice and Khill chose to deal with the situation themselves. This is also why Eddie Maurice received such high profile public support.
And then the government re-victimizes the crime victims under the pretense of a 'civilized system'. It's a shame, but unfortunately it seems that we actually need more people being robbed before we collectively realize that people should be afforded their natural right to be proactive about their own security...
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Everyone is allowed to do so. You are allowed to protect yourself and others with up to and including lethal force if required. You are allowed to protect your property. The key is always proportionality and degree of force. That is why in all three recent cases the men are freely walking the streets instead of sitting in prison.
If you’re going to advocate so strongly I suggest you correctly learn the law. Advocate out of knowledge vice emotion.
Not quite. In the first two the application of force was found to be accidental and in the third case the Accused convinced the jury he acted in the belief that he was defending himself.
None of these cases established any precedent for using force to protect your property.
C-26. Read it, understand it, and you’ll find it is relevant in all three cases and provides for the protection of life and property. You’ll also then understand why all of these end up in court as it is up to the judicial system to determine whether or not the force used was proportional. You are absolutely correct about precedent which is why these always end up before the courts.
Don't ask autolite to understand the law. The guy openly threatened to kill me with a machete on this very public forum.
There never will be. It is explicit that lethal force is not justified in defence of property alone. When defence of property turns into defence of persons then it may be justified if proportional.
The following summarizes C-26 nicely and explores situations where the two are intertwined:
https://lop.parl.ca/About/Parliamen.../bills_ls.asp?ls=c26&Parl=41&Ses=1&Language=E
Cameron SS
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Fortunately the Criminal Code already agrees. The problem isn't the law.
The problem is how these cases are handled after the fact. Maurice should never have been charged in the first place. Police should have named and shamed the intruder, and rather than advocating home owners be defenseless cows awaiting slaughter, they should have sent a clear message to criminals that crime doesn't pay, and that if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes.
This would be true, except that Maurice's case didn't go to court. Neither did Gilbert Budgell's. Seems like the police and crown are perfectly capable of determining that a crime wasn't committed without the help of the judge.
Actually Section 35 of the criminal code, defense of property, is silent on what use of force may be authorized. Just as Section 34 defense of the person, all it says is that you must act reasonable. Neither 34 or 35 limit or prescribe the use of lethal force.
Further, Section 25 and Section 27 of the criminal code also apply, in that every citizen has the right to arrest anyone they find committing or about to commit an indictable offence. IN attempt to effect the arrest, you are authorized to use as much force as is necessary to effect that arrest.
The import thing about the amount of force that is reasonable and necessary for the purposes of protecting persons or property, is that it is up to the criminal to determine how much force is required. The criminal gets to choose whether or not to abandon the crime, the attack, or the theft. If the criminal attacker is determined and persists, they are entitling their victim to a greater use of force.
If anyone is upset about how much force a victim had to use to protect themself or their property, it is the criminal that is to blame, not the victim.
The presumption of innocence applies to self defense cases, or at least it should, just as with any other case. The crown has to prove that a victim acted demonstrably unreasonably, or used demonstrably excessive force, in order to get a conviction. As it should be.
IN both the Maurice and Budgell case, the crown stated "it was unlikely they would get a conviction". This goes to show you the mind set of the crown. What they should have said is that there was no evidence to substantiate the charges in the first place.
You are correct, the criminal code is silent on what use of force is authorized however the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that lethal force is not permissible to protect property. Look into the R v Gunning [2005]. If it turns into a self-defence situation, which I believe likely to happen when confronting criminals, then you may do what needs doing.
I completely agree the criminals are at fault and the presumption of innocence is paramount. However, when a life is taken expect things to get messy particularly when special interest groups are involved.
Glad it's worked out for these gentlemen and none are locked up.
You are a LOT more likely to be raped or murdered by someone you know than during a housebreak. Worry about your weird uncle or your depressed ex-husband, they're the most likely perp.
That being said, you seem to be supporting the killing of thief, and not even because they steal, but because they might one day rape or kill. Don't start crying when you hear anti-guns people go out there saying that we should take away all guns because "how long before someone gets shot?".
I remember reading about an RCMP Sgt who says that we "should feel sorry" for the criminals who carry out property crimes to support a drug habit. He said such criminals do not deserve to do time. It does not inspire confidence in the police nor their determination to get this under control...
Cameron SS
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Interesting about the Gunning case.
With regards to the current discussion, the most important part of R V Gunning is found at paragraph 26. https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2228/index.do
All parties actually agreed that you can use lethal force in defense of property ONLY if you can prove self defense. Now that may seem counter intuitive, and anyone who has read the current version of the criminal code is tempted to think that defense of self and defense of property are two clearly distinct situations. They are..now.
In 2000 when the original event happened, they weren't. Here is the archived version of the criminal code from 2003. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/20030101/P1TT3xt3.html The Justice Laws website does not have online archives back to 2000, but it the relevant sections were not amended in the meantime.
At the time, it was clear that lethal force was only to be used as a last resort, regardless of whether talking the person or the property. In order to prove self defense you had to actually prove that you tried and failed at lesser means, or that the situation was so dire that you couldn't try.
Specifically with regards to property, if you tried to prevent theft, recovery property, or evict tresspassers, you weren't allowed to use lethal force at all, unless the criminal actively resisted or used force to continue the theft after you tried to evict them without lethal force, after which time it would be deemed to now be a self defense issue, whether or not there was an actual threat to the person. If a criminal passively without force evaded your attempts to evict them peacefully, this would be deemed an assault, at which point, having been 'assaulted', you could use greater force and eventually lethal force to remove them from the property, in the name of self defense. It really was poorly worded, and self defense cases were always a mess, and it wasn't uncommon to see lots of issues with judicial instructions etc as you see in Gunning.
Regrettably, Gunning did not argue self defense (because of a brutally incompetent judge who told him in advance it wouldn't work, despite the fact that it was a jury trial). Had he of argued self defense, which he clearly could have, it would have been a very different case. In either case the Supreme Court actually side with the accused, and tossed his convictions.
You should also know that because our self defense laws were completely re-written in 2013, the case is essentially of very little value in informing today's self defense and defense of property cases.
