Castle Doctrine as it applies to unruly Guests If you have a guest at your house in Texas, United States that has started acting in an unpredictable and threatening way that will not leave, does the castle doctrine apply in getting them to leave? This particular situation pertains to my 15 year old son and a 24 year old guest that was yelling, cussing, and acting very unpredictable towards him. I'm sure he felt threatened, but I am not sure as to what extent.
Does the castle doctrine apply in getting them to leave? No Short Answer: Reasonable force may be used to remove the guest as they have become a trespasser - killing them in the circumstances described would be unreasonable and excessive force. Long Answer: The Texas Castle Doctrine, referred to as Deadly Force In Defence Of Person at section 9.32 of the State Penal Code, can only be used in response to another's use (or attempted use) of deadly force or to prevent certain violent crimes: (a) A person is justified in using deadly force against another: (1) if the actor would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.31 [Self Defence - see below]; and (2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary: (A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or (B) to prevent the other's imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery [...] Deadly Force is defined by section 9.01(3) to mean: ... force that is intended or known by the actor to cause, or in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing, death or serious bodily injury. Note that justification for the Self Defence provisions at section 9.31 expressly exclude such things as mere &quot;yelling and cussing&quot; but (if the circumstances are such) &quot;acting very unpredictable&quot; may be applicable if it meets the criterion for attempted unlawful force: (a) Except as provided in Subsection (b), a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force. [...] (b) The use of force against another is not justified: (1) in response to verbal provocation alone; [...] However As the guest &quot;will not leave&quot; it can be safely assumed that their conditions of entry in to the house have been withdrawn making them a trespasser which is covered by the Protection Of One's Own Property provisions at section 9.41: (a) A person in lawful possession of land or tangible, movable property is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent or terminate the other's trespass on the land or unlawful interference with the property. [...] My links to the Penal Code may not go directly to the section described, so a word search using the section numbers may be required.
It is illegal to sell alcohol to a minor in Washington (RCW 66.44.270). The seller can get into various kinds of trouble, including losing their license, under liquor board regulations. However, as long as the establishment follows the rules for acceptable ID, they escape liability if in fact they sell alcohol to a minor: the license holder is legally allowed to accept an identification of the specific type. That is the sense in which this is required by law: the customer must have actually presented the identification, in order for the establishment to escape liability (RCW 66.20.210). Looking old enough is not the issue. It is legal to sell alcohol to a person who is over 21, and the law does not require presentation of identification as a condition for a sale. However, under RCW 66.20.180 a person is require to produce ID "upon request of any licensee, peace officer, or enforcement officer of the board". The legal risk attached to sales in an age-marginal situation is very high, and actual presentation of ID is required to escape liability by the establishment, so in that sense, it is "required by law". All requests to produce ID for liquor sales (at least in Washington, and leaving out deliveries which are governed by other laws) are driven by company policy. Typical policies are quite rational, being designed to protect the company's interest in not getting into a heap of trouble for an under-age sale. There is no law saying when you must ask, or when you are protected if you don't ask. Usually, store policy is to use "common sense" so that 90 year olds are not required to produce ID (they may be asked, jokingly). Non-compliance with RCW 66.20.180 carries no legal penalty, that is, there is nothing in the statute that says "if the customer doesn't...". The most obvious would be that the seller would refuse to sell, which the seller can arbitrarily do anyhow. There is no statutory penalty imposed on a licensee if they request ID of a person over 21 and the person fails / refuses to produce the ID. Obviously, the licensee cannot be punished if a customer fails to provide ID (and leaves), especially if they lost it. But the law "requires" them to provide an ID, with ne except "unless you leave / put the bottle back". Somewhat less obviously, if the legislature wants to, it can enact a provision that once a licensee requests ID, they are forbidden to sell alcohol to that customer until ID is provided. But there currently is no such law. "The law" also included regulations, such as WAC 314-17-105. This regulation is a chart, and the relevant entry is PERMIT: Failure to produce permit or identification upon request. See RCW 66.20.310 and 66.20.180. for which the 1st offense consequence is "5-day permit suspension OR $100 monetary option". This is a problematic regulation (potential lawsuit fodder), since it can be interpreted in a number of ways. The question is, of whom is the permit or identification predicated? Only the licensee has a permit, but customers and employees can both have identification. If we interpret this regulation as meaning "Failure by licensee or customer", then we arrive at the absurd conclusion that if a customer fails to produce ID on request, the establishment is fined. It is important to note that this regulation is under a chapter about server training, thus the regulation can only reasonably be interpreted as being about licensee providing identification.
In Germany, the noise of playing children is defined as not noise according to §22 BImSchG. Normal industrial/commercial limits do not apply. This aims mostly at playgrounds, kindergartens, etc. The noise of cars, stereos, etc. is not unlimited even before 22:00, but it is considerably harder to get the police to intervene during daytime. You might consult with a lawyer to find out if they are unreasonably noisy, you are unreasonably thin-skinned, or both. Similarly, the driving you describe may be violating traffic regulations, but proving that will be difficult. As to actual damages to your premises, what happens depends on the age of the children and if they had proper supervision by their guardians. Proper supervision does not require the guardians to stand next to the children around the clock. If you have a specific case, and if the &quot;perpetrator&quot; was over 7 years old, you can ask for repayment and then sue if they refuse. This is most likely more hassle than the damage is worth, even if you do get a judgement against a minor, but it could change the tone of the relationship with your neighbours. They would have to explain in court what they did to supervise their children ...
That is not a valid assumption. Many states have laws that let you presume someone is a threat to your life if they forcibly enter your house. Simple trespass on your land does not let you reasonably presume someone is a murderer. An autonomous killer drone is not a comparison you want to make: those may be illegal entirely, and are likely to seriously hurt any claim of justifiable force. “You forfeit your right to live when you set foot on my property” is not justifiable. If the dogs are trained to be a hazard to the community, that’s an argument in favor of having them confiscated and destroyed. Dogs are not people. Under normal circumstances, they cannot be protected under self-defense or the defense of others. Those doctrines only apply when a person is in danger. Deadly force is sometimes allowed to protect property, but this tends to be strictly limited. To start with, you can only ever use force to prevent illegal damage to property. If your concern is “this animal control officer will destroy my dogs within the scope of their duty,” that’s not protecting against an illegal use of force. Deadly force in defense of property is also normally limited to particular crimes that are inherently dangerous, like arson, robbery, or burglary. Even in Texas, simple theft only justifies deadly force during the nighttime. Deadly force is also not justifiable if there were reasonable other options. Shooting an animal control officer is unlikely to be the only way to temporarily stop them from destroying a dog. Threatening violence in order to influence a judge’s decision is terrorism. This hypothetical man is a terrorist. He may well find himself on death row for murder, but he’s also going to face separate charges for terrorism.
No one can tell you how the facts are going to line up if you get sued. The attractive nuisance doctrine is alive and you can be found liable if you have, on your property, a dangerous condition which is attractive to children, especially if the danger is not appreciable to the child. Now, I'm a bit skeptical that a child would climb a fence to kick snow, especially if there is other snow outside the fence for them to kick, but stranger things have happened. What can you do? These are ideas, I don't think they are legal advice. Start with the premise that dangerous stuff happens everyday, and kids aren't getting hurt by most of it. Use a fence with barbed wire. In other words, injured the the child with a lesser injury to reduce your liability. Use an opaque fence. Granted, curiosity might be too great and a child will trespass to discover what you are hiding. Use a shed, just one of those thin aluminum structures. Include proximity sensors to set off alarms and lights and whatever. Get your project away from kids; find space in a commercial area.
An obvious example would be a contract that gives possession of something to someone else. It's normally legal to use some reasonable amount of force to protect or prevent trespasses against property you own, but if you give possession of that property to someone else you can lose that right. For example, you can use force remove a guest who refuses to leave real property you own, but can't use force to remove a tenant even if they broke the terms of your contract. In most jurisdictions you'd need to get a court order and have the police use force if necessary remove the tenant.
An example of where this is not allowed is Seattle, WA. Municipal code SMC 12A.06.025 states It is unlawful for any person to intentionally fight with another person in a public place and thereby create a substantial risk of: Injury to a person who is not actively participating in the fight; or Damage to the property of a person who is not actively participating in the fight. B. In any prosecution under subsection A of this Section 12A.06.025, it is an affirmative defense that: The fight was duly licensed or authorized by law; or The person was acting in self-defense. You can see from adjacent sections that "mutual combat" is not legal. I recognize that there is this meme about Seattle, but this is a distortion of an incident when the police turned a blind eye to a fight. We have police issues, no doubt: there is nothing legal about such fights. Of course, for a licensed event, you can "fight". Of course the potential legality depends on how mutual combat is defined. Illinois v. Austin 133 Ill.2d 118 and citations therein, subsequently Illinois v. Thompson, 821 NE 2d 664 define it thus: Mutual combat is a fight or struggle which both parties enter willingly or where two persons, upon a sudden quarrel and in hot blood, mutually fight upon equal terms and where death results from the combat. Similar death-definitions are found in Donaldson v. State, 289 SE 2d 242, Iowa v. Spates, 779 NW 2d 770. The law looks askance of such behavior. For the sake of clarity, a term other than "mutual combat" would be preferable.
An act in self defense is legal (StGB §32): &quot;(1) Whoever commits an act in self-defence does not act unlawfully&quot;. However, &quot;(2)'Self-defence' means any defensive action which is necessary to avert a present unlawful attack on oneself or another&quot; – removing a trespasser is not necessary to avert an unlawful attack. This does not apply to removing an annoying person. Under §223, physically assaulting a person is a punishable offense. Pushing a person is one form of assault (so is punching them or pummeling them, perhaps a more severe form depending on the physical damage done). However, the response is also criminal because it goes past that which is necessary to avert the assault (a push is not a license to commit mayhem). Under §§33-35 there are defenses for excessive self-defense (&quot;Whoever exceeds the limits of self-defence due to confusion, fear or fright incurs no penalty&quot;), which don't seem applicable in this situation (rage is not the same as fright).