Imminent Means Imminent

    First up, as always, I am not your attorney and this is not legal advice.

    One of the requirements for using deadly force in a self-defense situation is that you are faced with an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm. But I've seen two stories in the same number of days where a homeowner did not appear to understand that very basic concept. 

    The first occurred last Thursday evening when a 16-year old black male, Ralph Paul Yarl, was shot by an elderly white homeowner after ringing the wrong doorbell, the media is reporting. According to reports, Yarl was picking up two younger brothers from a friend's home at around 10 pm when went to 115th Street instead of 115th Terrace and was shot twice after ringing the doorbell. 

    NBC News relates:

    “Whoever was inside took a little longer than he anticipated to respond, and so he just waited at the door,” Merritt, told NBC News on Monday, citing a formal statement Yarl gave to law enforcement investigators from his hospital bed Friday.

    “He heard rustling around going on in the house and then finally the door was open,” the attorney said. “And he was confronted by a man who told him, ‘Don’t come back around here,’ and then he immediately fired his weapon.” 

    The teen was shot in the head, which cracked his skull and left him with a critical, traumatic brain injury, Merritt said. While the teenager was still on the ground, the homeowner opened fire a second time, striking Yarl in the upper right arm, he added.

Supposedly Yarl ran to three different homes before being helped. Some of the reports indicated that even then he was forced to lie on the ground with his hands over his head, but the Daily Mail is reporting today that actually a good Samaritan resident of the neighborhood rushed over to Yarl and held his hand while other neighbors helped with trying to stop the bleeding. Yarl's relatives have already tried to make this into an incident all about race, which seems to be successful as they have already raised over $1 million and have had plenty of celebrities signal support. 

    NBC News also reported that "Police Chief Stacey Graves Sunday said that while shooting did not appear to be racially motivated, she did 'recognize the racial components of this case.'" But the Daily Mail article cited above stated: "Clay County prosecutor Zachary Thompson confirmed there was a racial factor in the attack - after the teenage music scholar was shot twice, in the head and arm, after ringing the wrong doorbell when he went to pick up his younger brothers." In any event, on Monday the "prosecutors filed two two felony counts against the white homeowner, Andrew Lester, 85: assault in the first degree and armed criminal action." NBC adds: "Lester faces a maximum punishment of life in prison in the assault charge and three to 15 years for the alleged gun crime, Thompson said."

    I'm sure that there is more to this story than we know. For instance, it might very well turn out that Yarl started pounding on the door or shouted or made threats if the door wasn't opened. Perhaps he made some furtive movement or did something else that made Lester fear for his life. But the fact remains that Yarl, who was unarmed, was on one side of a door (probably locked) from the homeowner prior to the homeowner opening the door and shooting him, so it will be difficult for the homeowner to convince a jury that he reasonably believed he was facing an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm. 

    The second new story is even more egregious. As CNN reports, "[a] 20-year-old woman [Kaylin Gillis] was shot and killed Saturday after she and three others accidentally turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York, authorities said."  The homeowner, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, has been charged with second-degree murder. Quoting the local sheriff, CNN relates:

“It’s a very rural area with dirt roads. It’s easy to get lost. They drove up this driveway for a very short time, realized their mistake and were leaving, when Mr. Monahan came out and fired two shots,” Murphy said, adding that the area has poor cell phone service.

Gillis' friend drove to a nearby town and called 911 but it was too late for Gillis. The article continues:

    Police officers later responded to the home from which shots were fired and found Monahan to be uncooperative, Murphy said, adding he “refused to exit his residence to speak with police.”

    He was taken into custody hours later with help from the New York State Police Special Operations Response Team, according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff’s office.

    No one is believed to have exited the car and there was no interaction between Monahan and anyone in the vehicle before shots were fired, Murphy said.

    “There was clearly no threat from anyone in the vehicle. There was no reason for Mr. Monahan to feel threatened,” Murphy said.

Not having the same celebrity appeal as Yarl's family, Gillis' family has only been able to raise $50,000 for funeral and other expenses. 

    In this latter case, the homeowner's actions are even less defensible: he killed someone in a car in a driveway (what actually sounds more like a short road or path) apparently in the process of turning around. There was nothing to indicate the two women in the car posed any sort of imminent harm to the homeowner.