As a once-kid who used to take shortcuts across open ranch land, this bill would give land owners a license to kill:
The bill comes as an Arizona rancher awaits trial after he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault for killing 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Butimea after he shot at a group of unarmed migrants walking through his 170-acre ranch outside of Nogales. Under its provisions, 73-year-old George Alan Kelly would have been justified for allegedly killing any of the migrants.
This seems like a rather dramatic view of things. The actual text of the bill is here. The old wording is:
Whereas the new proposed wording is:
The new proposed wording is clearer but I think the reasonable interpretation of the old wording is that it means the same thing as the new wording. They’re not changing the part more relevant to whether or not shooting people on one’s land is legal:
" B. A person may use deadly physical force under subsection A only in the defense of himself or third persons as described in sections 13-405 and 13-406. "
Yeah, it still doesn’t give a license to kill trespassers. Only ones that could be perceived as a threat to you or someone else, which basically means that them trespassing is moot since that rule is in place already under justified self defence.
The only change here really is clarification that any form of structure that could lodge humans you have a right to defend via threats of violence. You’re still not allowed to actually carry through those threats unless the trespassers get violent or threaten violence. Before a barn would likely not stand as being a building you’re allowed to defend via threats of bodily harm but now you can.
Which is exceedingly easy to argue when your opponent is dead. “They charged right at me”
“So I had to shoot them in the back, from 200 yards away”
No, you walk right up to them, rifle in hand, then claim to be afraid. We’ve seen it before (the case is in the article in fact).
The problem really would be if the police want to investigate properly or not. It’s often very easy to see if the body has been moved into a place where you’re allowed to threaten them, i.e. a “premise” as defined by the law in question. And further easy to see if any weapons present are planted or not. And wether any traces exist to prove or disprove the charge claim. Like footsteps, distance between where the shot was fired and the body etc. but it’s of course entirely possible that the Police go “his story checks out, the illegal charged him with a weapon”. Without doing any police work. But in that case very few laws help anyway.
Points for reading!
The author of the bill seems to disagree with you.
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I admit, that would agree with your interpretation, except that the author of the bill feels differently. I have to think that we are missing something. The author is appearing to suggest that under this bill, you could treat someone trespassing “a half a mile away” from your house just like you would treat someone that you find trespassing within your house.
You make a good point. Maybe there’s some court decision that he wants to address (or preemptively avoid) by making the wording of the law clearer?
I’m not going to research Arizona legal precedent myself but maybe someone knowledgeable will come along and clear things up.
It seems the difference is in how people are allowed to interpret the law. Before you had to be both on someone’s land (“real property”) as well as in (or at least approaching with intent) some kind of domicile fit for habitation. Now, with the wording being changed to “or”, a person who owns several acres could shoot someone for just cutting through the property without the landowner having any reasonable expectation that the trespassers even knew they were on land that is privately owned and certainly without the impression that the trespassers were approaching their actual domicile that’s been inspected and zoned for habitation.
“any real property OR any structure” is a HUGE change to this law. Before a justified shooting had to be within a building. That’s why it’s called castle doctrine after all. You can’t necessarily retreat if you are in your home and the proof is somewhat self-evident the intruder shouldn’t have been there, etc., etc. This change means a shooting can be anywhere on land a house is situated on. Land is defined as real property in Arizona, so… anywhere. AND, Arizona is an open-range state. I.e., no fences required for those cattle.
The self defense language is useless. George Zimmerman acted in self defense too, right?