Dana Point homeowner fatally shoots burglar in house

[ileus]

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=8517518

DANA POINT, Calif. (KABC) -- A Dana Point resident woke to the sounds of an intruder Monday night, then fatally shot the suspect.

"He shot the intruder and I do feel that if you're in your home you have a right to protect yourself because you don't know what they're going to do to you," said Dana Point resident Marlene Lopez.

Investigators are trying to determine exactly what led up to the shooting.

"The law reads that at some point you have to show that you're in fear of your life and that you were in danger," said Amormino. "That part is still under investigation."

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CA needs a Castle Law.

[Atypical Liberal]

1. Yes they do.

No homeowner should be expected to try and demonstrate that upon finding a stranger in their home at 11pm that they thought they might be in danger or that they feared for their life.

If you find a stranger in your home at 11pm it should automatically be assumed that you are in danger.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. I disagree.

Any homeowner amply demonstrates THAT they feared for their life BY shooting an intruder.

[slackmaster]

3. Mr. Amormino's citation of California's Castle Doctrine Law is misleading. From the Penal Code...

197. Homicide is also justifiable when committed by any person in
any of the following cases:
1. When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a
felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person; or,
2. When committed in defense of habitation, property, or person,
against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or
surprise, to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends
and endeavors, in a violent, riotous or tumultuous manner, to enter
the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any
person therein; or,
3. When committed in the lawful defense of such person, or of a
wife or husband, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant of such
person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to
commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent
danger of such design being accomplished; but such person, or the
person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he was the assailant
or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have
endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was
committed; or,
4. When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and
means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, or in
lawfully suppressing any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving
the peace.

198. A bare fear of the commission of any of the offenses mentioned
in subdivisions 2 and 3 of Section 197, to prevent which homicide
may be lawfully committed, is not sufficient to justify it. But the
circumstances must be sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable
person, and the party killing must have acted under the influence of
such fears alone.

198.5. Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or
great bodily injury within his or her residence shall be presumed to
have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great
bodily injury to self, family, or a member of the household when that
force is used against another person, not a member of the family or
household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and
forcibly entered the residence and the person using the force knew or
had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred.
As used in this section, great bodily injury means a significant
or substantial physical injury.

199. The homicide appearing to be justifiable or excusable, the
person indicted must, upon his trial, be fully acquitted and
discharged.

[burf]

4. C'mon, how do you expect Mr Amormino

to know the law on Castle Doctrine? Afterall, he's only the spokesman for the Sheriffs Department.

//sarcasm//

[SteveW]

6. "Bare fears?" Interesting term. nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. What CA needs is a better, more explict Castle Doctrine law

Current ambiguities still allow Monday morning quarter backing by those not there and safe in their offices.