I may be beating the old dead horse here, but whack away I will.Beiruty wrote:There is a civil case coming. We are lucky in Texas cases of shooters in self-defense are protected from civil liability.
While what Beiruty says here may well be correct, in my opinion it is incomplete and possibly misleading to particularly new CHLers. The law provides that the shooter is immune from civil liability that results only if the shooting is justified under Chapter 9, Penal Code. The fact that a jury in the criminal case decides that in the case at hand the shooting satisfies the demands of Chapter 9 does not mean that the very same jury in the civil action would decide the same, given things like the differing burdens of proof in the two cases.
I am not suggesting that the same jury would hear both cases, but I use this as an example that a case can be so close in the minds of a jury that the difference between beyond a reasonable doubt and a preponderance of evidence can actually be meaningful. After all, it took the jury 3.5 hours to reach a verdict in the case being discussed. There must have been differences of opinion in the jury room.
This thread rightly points out that a civil case won by the defendant comes at a high price to him, if only in legal fees. My ultimate point here is that the cost may be even higher than his legal fees even though he has been acquitted or no-billed, and this must be kept in mind by all of us.
Elmo