I'm delighted to pass along this item from T. Markus Funk, author of Rethinking Self-Defence: The 'Ancient Right's' Rationale Disentangled (2021), Understanding the Role Values Play (and Should Play) in Self-Defense Law, 58 American Criminal Law Review 331 (2021), Cracking Self-Defense's Intractable 'Difficult Cases,' 100 Nebraska Law Review (2021), and What US Law Reformers Can Learn from Germany's Value-Explicit Approach to Self-Defense, 73 South Carolina Law Review 195 (2021).
On January 5, 2023, at around 11:30 p.m., a 46-year-old diner-patron was sitting in a booth at the southwest Houston's El Ranchito Taqueria #4 when a masked robber began pacing around the restaurant demanding money from the patrons at gunpoint. As the robber walked past the patron the patron pulled out a handgun. The patron then shot and killed the robber, who has been identified as 30-year-old Eric Eugene Washington.
The handgun later turned out to be a fake (the shooter can be seen throwing it against a wall in apparent disgust after the shooting). Yet there can be little question that the employees and customers, some of whom crawled under a table desperately seeking cover, had every reason to fear they would be killed or seriously injured that day. According to the as-of-yet unnamed shooter's attorney, "[i]n fear of his life and his friend's life [the shooter] acted to protect everyone in the restaurant." The attorney further accurately commented that in Texas, "a shooting is justified in self-defense, defense of others and in defense of property."
A Texas Grand Jury is now reportedly considering whether that shooter's conduct qualifies as justified self-defense under Texas law. And although the so-called "smart money" understandably is on the prosecutor's office not charging the shooter, his situation is perhaps not as entirely clear-cut as it may at first blush appear.
