Sign West Virginia NDA Safe

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good afternoon it's free legal advice Friday and I'm about to go into court in about 15 minutes on a Second Amendment case and so I thought I'd do a Second Amendment issue for this Friday's edition of free legal advice Friday and just quickly explain the West Virginia Stand Your Ground law also known as the Castle Doctrine and what does that mean what does it not mean well first of all basically all it means in West Virginia is is that there's no duty to retreat before using self-defense under certain circumstances primarily this has to do with your home so it used to be and and still is in some states that say a home invader breaks into your home they're trying to kill you and you are required to escape if you have the opportunity or lock yourself in a safe room whatever and if you chose not to do that then you couldn't use the self defense defense in West Virginia clearly that is not the law anymore there is no duty to retreat if there's a home invader that's basically what that means it does not authorize you to shoot just anyone who walks through your door it does not allow you to shoot somebody dead outside the home under you know any other circumstances it basically just does away with the duty to retreat you know it comes up actually very rarely in real life there was a 2015 2016 case out of the Huntington area called the Lemaster case where the stand your ground defense went to a jury and I actually looked up the jury instructions themselves I got them from the clerk's office and I can actually read it to you so this is the extent of the law as it was explained to the jurors in the Lemaster case the judge said to the jurors an intruder is a person who enters remains on uses or touches the lane and in another's possession without the possessors consent our society recognizes that the home shelters and is a physical refuge for the basic unit of society the family a man attacked in his own home by an intruder may invoke the law of self-defense without retreating the occupant of a dwelling is not limited and using deadly force a force against an unlawful intruder to the situation where the occupant is threatened with serious bodily injury or death but he may use deadly force if the unlawful Tru der threatens imminent physical violence or the commission of a felony an occupant reasonably believes deadly force is necessary the violent and unlawful entry into a dwelling with intent to injure the occupants or commit a felony carries a common-sense conclusion that he may be met with deadly force so that was the Stand Your Ground law as actually read to a jury in a murder case in West Virginia and one of the only instances of it being used that I'm aware of may be one other that that I know of so you know if you have a situation where you have a home intruder I mean that's exactly probably what the jury would be told so it it still comes down to not just is somebody crossing the threshold of your home but are they an intruder or are they coming in to commit a felony or to possibly hurt somebody if that's the case yeah I mean you can you can smash their skull with this tomahawk you can shoot them however many times probably you want to so long as it's still close in time to the danger so you're allowed to use deadly violence where you have an intruder in your home you do not have to retreat you don't have to try to escape you don't have to lock yourself and in a safe room you're allowed to use self-defense that does not mean that you could follow them out onto the sidewalk and issue a kill shot like happened in the lemaster case because that might land you in front of it hurry though he eventually was found not guilty so you want to stay in your home and you want to use common sense if somebody's breaking in your home to to commit a felony inside or attack you you generally are going to be okay under the Stand Your Ground law so there are actual exceptions that are included in the statute one exception the the biggest one is that you cannot be the aggressor so stand your ground actually does apply outside the home but you still have the basic rules of self-defense so one of the biggest rules of self-defense is you can't go start a fight you can't go start a fistfight and then end it with a gunshot you can't be the aggressor and then claim self-defense so you can't start a fight the guys beating you up so you pull your gun because you're afraid of imminent serious injury and you shoot them you can't do that because you were the aggressor now there's an exception to that exception sometimes if you attempt to withdraw and the other person didn't let you withdrawal you really had no choice but you don't want to find yourself in that situation so that's the reason you're carrying a gun you never want to get in any sort of altercation never want to get into a fight the other big exception is is you need to be lawfully where you're allowed to be you don't want to be trespassing somewhere and you you you need to be lawfully doing something that you're allowed to do so you don't want to be robbing a gas station you cannot use the stand your ground defense if you rob a gas station and the clerk shoot you or you shoot the clerk so you can't use it if you're committing a felony or escaping the commission of a felony you have to be basically minding your own business where you're allowed to be especially in your home and that's primarily where the castle doctrine or the West Virginia stand-your-ground law applies is in your home and the other thing about the statute is it gives absolute immunity to the homeowner if they shoot an intruder so you can't be civilly sued if you know you are effectively able to use the stand your ground defense and I'm not sure how often that that ever happened in real life anyways so the statute itself is West Virginia Code 55 7 - 22 and you can read it for yourself it's pretty simple and the the exceptions are also listed in there and again that applies basically to you know you can't provoke it and you can't be doing something wrong so that's the West Virginia stand your ground defense and you know it's actually pretty rare and and it's all basic self defense anyways you know you never want to use deadly force unless you believe that there's an imminent threat to the safety or serious injury or death to yourself or someone nearby so I mean that self defense basically applies to civilians it applies as a police officers there always must be some imminent threat there so you know don't misunderstand that that it has to do with property remember in West Virginia you cannot use deadly force to protect property you can't set up a spring gun you can't Electrify wires to keep crackheads from stealing the wires you're not allowed to use deadly force to protect property you're just not you should in my opinion and Texas I believe the law is it they can shoot people for trying to steal their car at night so you know that's not the law yet here in West Virginia maybe we want to talk to the politicians about that you know maybe we should be able to use deadly force to protect personal property private property but as of right now you can't do it deadly force is to protect people protect each other so that's you know the that's the short of it if you look at the link that I'll attach on my blog I I put the actual jury instructions that were used in the mastercase I have a link to the statute I have a link to some other things if you want to read more in depth about it