Yes, there was a direct threat. He was armed. Therefore, there was a threat. An indirect threat could mean that he was unarmed.
That depends. A meth addict is low life scum. I wouldn't lose ten cents because of someone like that. They are nothing but a drag on society, and a burden to everyone around them.
The victim??? :roll:
I read nothing about a victim. I read about a low life, thieving drug addict who got put out of his misery by someone defending themselves and their property. But there was no murder, and no victim.
To be honest, that's about how I feel about it too.
I will admit that the business owners certainly pushed the envelope; legally, and perhaps morally as well. It is hard to argue that their response didn't exceed the strict letter of the law; it probably did.
But I believe in jury nullification; that is, that the jury has the right and duty to judge not only the facts, but whether the law
as written should apply in this particular case. A grand jury decided not to prosecute; a civil jury found the owners liable for a "wrongful death".
Personally... I wouldn't have charged them with murder, nor have found them liable, if I were on either jury. Not because of the letter of the law, but because they acted in response to repeated thefts that the police were not stopping, and the guy they shot was an armed meth-head thief. I don't see punishing biz owners for that.
OTOH, I'm not saying I would have done likewise. The law in most states does not allow for lethal force in defense of property, absent an imminent and serious threat to a human being... and on the whole I think that's reasonable. If someone steals my lawnmower and drives away on it, and I shoot him in the back as he is running away, I don't think that is justifiable either legally or morally. Now if he has broken into my house, that's a different story... his mere presence inside my home as a burgler, there along with my self and my family, raises the stakes by an order of magnitude. In my home state, a burglar is shootable in your house, yard or outbuildings, if there is the slightest reason to believe he may be a threat.
This particular case is a bit different. The phrase being used is that the owners "set an ambush". Well, perhaps... another way of putting is "they were guarding their property because of recent thefts." The difference is a matter of intention. Yes, they had previously told police they were going to shoot the next thieves... but people often say things in the heat of passion that they don't literally mean.
They were armed, some might say, by way of showing intent. Well, of
course they were armed! Many thieves go armed, and the thief that was shot was armed! If you're going to guard your business against expected theft, you'd better be ready to defend yourself against armed criminals!
What were their actual intentions? Would they have shot him dead if he'd put his hands in the air and said "I give up!"
I don't know, you don't know, the jury doesn't know. The only people who know are the biz owners.
What the thief actually DID was to run and hide in a shed, still on the property of the owners. What was he doing in there? Well, apparently just hiding... but the owners didn't know that. For all they knew he could have been trying to get his gun out of his waistband, if he'd had one, or starting a fire as a distraction to aid his escape, or most anything. Does this justify shooting into the shed? Well, that's debateable... the guy had already committed a felony in attempting to steal/burglarize/etc, and another felony for doing so while armed. To assume he would NOT stoop to killing to make his escape is dubious.
What would I have done? Probably called the cops and watched the shed from cover, observing... if he did anything threatening I would have fired, if not then not.
There's a bit of a caveat here though...
I wasn't there. These decisions were made on the fly, in an adrenaline-charged moment of fear and excitement, by men who knew the perps were trying to rob them AGAIN, but didn't know whether the perps had guns or were willing to shoot back.
Given that, regardless of the facts of the law, I couldn't vote as a juror to punish them for killing off a meth-head thief. My sympathies lay with the much-put-upon business owners, not the felon drug addict.
I'm truly astonished that the family had the gall to sue for "lost wages" for a drug-addict THIEF. I'd have been too ashamed, were I this thug's parent. I might have even had mixed feelings about Little Miss growing up without her meth-addicted felony-thieving daddy.... if the grandparents or whoever gets guardianship are halfway decent folks, she now has a better chance of growing up right than if her scumbag Daddy had lived to be a bad influence on her.
Morally, I put a high value on human life... but I hold the lives of those who are innocent and honest in higher regard than the lives of armed-burglar scumbags. People like the deceased make the world a much more dangerous and difficult place, and if they live long enough they tend to put their stamp of selfish idiocy on the next generation too.
If he had lived and got clean and gone straight and remade himself into a decent human being, that would have been the morally-highest and most desireable outcome.... but the odds are against it. Most meth-heads don't go straight; they just self-destruct and often carry others with them. I just can't muster any great regret that this guy got what was coming to him... and when you set out armed to steal, something like this is all too predictable as an outcome.
My $2.50.... :lol:
The personal attacks and ad-homs have gotten excessive in this thread. Be civil, or Goshin's Silver Hammer will be coming down on someone's head. 
