C-dub wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2019 2:19 pm
It's been a couple days since I heard this on the news and can't remember who said the following. I think it was a defense lawyer, a woman, that was talking about the circumstances the she, Guyger, knew them to be at the time she fired her shots. The lawyer was talking about her options and I thought she mentioned something about whether or not running away was an option if she feared for her life. That part bothered me because we do not have that obligation here in Texas before using deadly force.
I watch Fox4 news in the mornings. Did anyone else see that segment?
You are correct that in Texas we don't have a duty to retreat, as long as these elements of TPC 9.32 are met:
(c) A person who has a right to be present at the location where the deadly force is used, who has not provoked the person against whom the deadly force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force is used is not required to retreat before using deadly force as described by this section.
And, if this applies, then the next section prohibits it from being posed to the jury:
(d) For purposes of Subsection (a)(2), in determining whether an actor described by Subsection (c) reasonably believed that the use of deadly force was necessary, a finder of fact may not consider whether the actor failed to retreat.
I haven't been listening to the trial, but if failure to retreat was mentioned in front of the jury, I'd guess it was decided that either she "wasn't lawfully present", or being in the wrong apartment constituted another crime such as trespassing.