Is home-defense law misused?

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

A 2-year-old law that was intended to protect Ohio homeowners who shoot intruders in self-defense is instead increasingly being manipulated to help murder suspects avoid taking responsibility for their crimes, some prosecutors say.

The so called “castle doctrine” of 2008 says people are presumed to be acting in self-defense when they injure or kill someone who has illegally entered their occupied home or vehicle.

But Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk told The Columbus Dispatch for a Sunday story that the law was “not made to protect drug dealers from drug dealers, but that’s how it’s being used.”

Junk cited a case in his county where a man who ripped off a drug dealer’s wares shot and killed the dealer after he broke a window in an attempt to enter the defendant’s car. Defense attorneys argued that the man acted lawfully. A jury convicted him of reckless homicide rather than murder.

Critics say the law is silent about the appropriate level of force in response to threats, as well as the fault or criminal conduct of people who create situations that imperil themselves.

In Franklin County, a man fatally stabbed an acquaintance who pushed his way into the defendant’s home during an argument. His attorneys said the law granted him an absolute right to defend himself with deadly force. The prosecution countered that the law “is not a license to commit murder.”

The use of the castle- doctrine defense has not succeeded in heading off homicide convictions, but appeals of trial-court verdicts are promised that could produce rulings interpreting the law.

“I am surprised it took this long to become an issue,” said Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien, who fears that the law is being used to “confuse jurors to think there was self-defense under the law when there wasn’t.”

David Watson, a Columbus lawyer who argued the castle doctrine in defending his client, Rodney Hogg, said Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard S. Sheward was off-base in finding the man guilty of aggravated murder in the death of Roshawn Gantrell.

“If you are unlawfully in someone’s home, ‘castle’ carves out an exception. You have the right to use any force, including lethal force, to repel them,” Watson said. “You have no duty to retreat. And I think that is what the Legislature said.”

Supporters contended the law was needed to keep out-of-line prosecutors and wayward grand juries from going after people who rightfully defended their families and homes.