New York man convicted of murdering woman in car thatr turned into his driveway
www.theguardian.com
Kevin Monahan, 65, shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after a car she was riding in with friends made a wrong turn on his property

Kevin Monahan, 65, shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after a car she was riding in with friends made a wrong turn on his property

A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove up his rural driveway in upstate New York.

A jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty of second-degree murder for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house.

The group’s caravan of two cars and a motorcycle began leaving once they realized their mistake. Authorities said Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend.

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I wrote a post on Nextdoor.com about this sort of situation. “Use of force” laws in my state, with a few easy-to-digest links and quotes.

    Post basically said, “Your rights may not be what you think they are, and if you fuck up, you may find yourself in a concrete and steel box for life.”

    Nothing combative, controversial, derogatory, political or non-factual. Shot down within 30-minutes for being “insulting”. Yeah. LOL, I even quoted Masad Ayoob, a world-class expert on the subject, and quite conservative if you read between the lines. Not good enough around here.

    I’m a LiberalGunNut™ who studies these things. I have guns at the ready, in my home, and sometimes on my person. It behooves me to know the law.

    Part of the reason I wrote that post:

    A man had been seen on another man’s lot fucking about, trying to get in an empty trailer. A lot next door, not the shooter’s domicile.

    Next night, the shooter setup a chair just inside the tree line and hunted. When the other man came back, he popped 5-rounds of 5.56 at him (AR-15). Hit him a time or two, guy lived.

    Next day the cops question the shooter. He lies, gets his story mixed up, gets arrested for 2nd-degree attempted murder. Well, fucking obviously!

    About 40% of the Nextdoor.com comments defended the shooter. To sum: The homeowner saw a man trying to break into an empty trailer, on the homeowner’s land, hid himself the next evening and decided to execute this man for trespass when he came back. Think on that. Death for breaking into an empty trailer.

    I’ll tell you what my conceal-carry instructor told us, a very conservative gun nut. “If you pull your weapon, you’re shooting to kill. Whatever situation you’re trying to stop, be aware, think, is it worth 20-years, maybe life, behind bars? Because that may well be the outcome, not matter how justified you think you are in the moment.”

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
      0·
      10 months ago

      I made a post, as a lawyer, about some of the common law rules for self defense, five months ago, and I still get replies from people who don’t like the truth:

      Deadly force is never authorized to protect property.

      An intruder standing in your living room with no weapon or other outward sign of aggression is not a deadly threat and you will be charged with murder if you kill him.

      People cannot handle this.

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I had quoted this in my post:

        “In the anti-gun Spokane newspaper, internet comments indicated that many people had the clueless idea that Gerlach had shot the man – in the back – to stop the thief from stealing his car. One idiot wrote in defense of doing such, “That ‘inert property’ as you call it represents a significant part of a man’s life. Stealing it is the same as stealing a part of his life. Part of my life is far more important than all of a thief’s life.”

        Analyze that statement. The world revolves around this speaker so much that a bit of his life spent earning an expensive object is worth “all of (another man’s) life.” Never forget that, in this country, human life is seen by the courts as having a higher value than what those courts call “mere property,” even if you’re shooting the most incorrigible lifelong thief to keep him from stealing the Hope Diamond. A principle of our law is also that the evil man has the same rights as a good man. Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.”

        As a rule of thumb, American law does not justify the use of deadly force to protect what the courts have called “mere property.” In the rare jurisdiction that does appear to allow this, ask yourself how the following words would resonate with a jury when uttered by plaintiff’s counsel in closing argument: “Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant has admitted that he killed the deceased over property. How much difference is there in your hearts between the man who kills another to steal that man’s property, and one who kills another to maintain possession of his own? Either way, he ended a human life for mere property!”

        ― Massad Ayoob, Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right To Self Defense"