mewkins Feb 19, 2013

I thought the DPD officer questioned on camera by Fox4 last night did a very good job of explaining the Castle Doctrine. He slipped it into his explanation of the incident. Almost like he sensed there were citizens unaware of its existence.
A castle doctrine (also known as a castle law or a defense of habitation law) is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode (or, in some states, any legally occupied place [e.g., a vehicle or workplace]) as a place in which that person has certain protections and immunities permitting him or her, in certain circumstances, to use force (up to and including deadly force) to defend themselves against an intruder, free from legal responsibility/prosecution for the consequences of the force used.[1] Typically deadly force is considered justified, and a defense of justifiable homicide applicable, in cases "when the actor reasonably fears imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm to him or herself or another".[1] The doctrine is not a defined law that can be invoked, but a set of principles which is incorporated in some form in the law of many states.

The legal concept of the inviolability of the home has been known in Western Civilization since the age of the Roman Republic.[2] The term derives from the historic English common law dictum that "an Englishman's home is his castle". This concept was established as English law by the 17th century jurist Sir Edward Coke, in his The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628:[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine

From http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa...hot_and_ki.php