Burglar's family awarded $300,000 in Wrongful Death Suit

[Feuer Frei!]

An El Paso County jury on Friday awarded nearly $300,000 to the daughter of a burglar who was fatally shot in 2009 while breaking into an auto lot.
Parents of the victim, Robert Johnson Fox, embraced their attorneys after a judge announced the jury’s verdict, capping a two-week-long civil trial in which business owner Jovan Milanovic and two relatives were painted as vigilantes who plotted a deadly ambush rather than let authorities deal with a string of recent burglaries.


Phillip and Sue Fox, who filed suit for wrongful death in 2010 on behalf of Fox’s 3-year-old daughter, called the jury’s award a victory in their fight to seek accountability for the death of their son, who they say never posed a threat to the heavily armed men.
“Rob was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing, but the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” Sue Fox said afterward. “I can’t excuse his actions, but he didn’t deserve to be executed.”


SOURCE (http://www.gazette.com/articles/jury-123946-burglar-lot.html#ixzz1WBSvUQlF)

[CaptainHaplo]

The devil is always in the details...

From the source:

"Fox was standing inside a small shed when a .45-caliber rifle bullet passed through the shed’s door and pierced his heart."

and

"Under Colorado’s self-defense laws, the use of deadly force is justified only under the “reasonable belief” that it’s necessary to prevent serious bodily injury or death. The jury found that none of the men had a legitimate claim of self-defense."

Shooting a guy who is hiding in a closed shed from you is not, in this case, legitimate self defense. Had the thief been armed and shooting, thats one thing - he was hiding. Reasonable force would have been to keep him hidden at gunpoint until the police arrived. If he attempted to escape, being armed with knives, he would have had to advance on the defendants, and they would have had more of a defense claim. From the description in the paper at least, these guys are lucky they didn't get criminally convicted of murder.

[Sailor Steve]

Excellent point. I talk about people coming into my home in the middle of the night, and I stand by that. But if the guy is trying to hide then he's probably not much of a threat.