I haven't condoned any crime in this case.
I didn't state that you had condoned crime.
What I said was that you seem to be saying that the fact that a person had recently committed (or was in the process of committing) a mid-level misdemeanor affects his right to recover stolen property.
The shooter had "dirty hands", that doesn't effect his rights...
So, if he has the right to recover stolen property (under certain well-defined circumstances) then he has the right to do it even if he has committed (or is in the process of committing) a mid-level misdemeanor. That's exactly what I said.
While we're on the subject of rights what rights were lost by the woman who was shot?
In TX, under certain well-defined and specific circumstances, you run the risk of having deadly force legally used against you if you try to flee with someone else's illegally obtained property. That's what the law says and what the jury determined happened in this case. I don't necessarily agree with the jury in this case, but there you have it.
If we believe that theft should warrant the death penalty then let that be reflected in the law.
First of all, there is no justification provided for using deadly force in the case of simple theft as this quote implies. There must be other compounding circumstances before deadly force is justified and there are restrictions on when and how the deadly force can be employed even when justified.
Second, the law DOES reflect that deadly force can be used to stop certain property crimes under very specific circumstances. The reason for the difference in the way the law treats a thief on trial and the way it treats a thief fleeing with stolen property is very clear if one takes the time to actually read the law.
The gist of it (very, VERY simplified) is that if the circumstances of the situation fit the law and the property owner has no reasonable hope of redress any other way, he is entitled to use deadly force to recover his property. The issue isn't that TX law states that thieves should be executed, it's that it acknowledges that if the law can't offer the property owner a reasonable chance of redress, he may take action to recover his property via deadly force, subject to the very specific restrictions in the law.
In other words, the TX law under discussion is not about killing/executing thieves, it's about protecting the right of a property owner to recover property lost under certain circumstances, even if the only reasonable method to recover the property costs the thief/burglar/robber his life.
