Pennsylvania – Page 57 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Situation Makes the Case for Castle Doctrine

There’s a lot of lessons to learn in this case here.

IT WAS just after midnight. Brian Westberry and a woman friend sat frozen in his bedroom, hoping the persistent pounding on the front door of his Northeast Philly home would stop. It didn’t.

Westberry, 24, slipped his licensed .38-caliber revolver into his pants pocket and crept downstairs to open the door.

There stood Gregory Cujdik, 32, who demanded to see “Jen,” his girlfriend. Westberry told him “Jen” didn’t want to see him, and repeatedly ordered Cujdik to leave. When Cujdik refused, Westberry threatened to call police.

” ‘Do it. My family are cops,’ ” Cujdik said, according to Westberry.

What Westberry didn’t know at that early-morning hour of Palm Sunday, April 5, was that Cujdik’s father, Louis, is a retired police veteran and that his two brothers, Jeffrey and Richard, are narcotics officers.

Before Westberry could finish dialing 9-1-1 on his cell phone, Cujdik stepped through the doorway and punched him in the throat, Westberry said.

That’s when Westberry pulled out his gun and Cujdik fled, Westberry told the Daily News.

Before we get into the crux of my argument, I think that Westberry made a critical mistake of confronting Cujdik. he would have been wise to just call the police, and let the police deal with him. Even if the police didn’t charge him, they would at least get him away from the house.Â There’s no good reason to create a situation where deadly force might come into play if that situation doesn’t need to be created. If he breaks down the door, that’s another ball game.

But Westberry was brought up on a host of charges, which were, as the Daily News reports, “felony aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, terroristic threats, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.” Several of these are bogus, but technically, there is a legal argument that could be made that Westberry wasn’t justified in drawing his firearm. In order to defend against drawing a gun on fists, you’re going to have a claim a force disparity. If you’re an 80 year old woman, and the guy attacking you is a 21 year old man, that’s not going to be difficult. It’s much harder when the situation is two healthy young males.

But yet if a person stepped through my door and punched me in the throat, I have to admit if a gun was all I had in reach, I probably would have shot the guy, which would have left prosecutors open to charging me under PA law. In this case, theyÂ ended up doing the right thing and dropping the charges, but I have to wonder how much of that was knowledge they’d not find a jury that would have convicted Westberry. Castle Doctrine would give homeowners more leeway in defending their homes. I think Westberry exercised poor judgement in answering the door, but he was still the victim. He shouldn’t be victimized twice, one by a criminal, and twice by an overzealous legal system.

More on the Georgia Case

Dave Hardy has some more details on the case in Georgia:

Here’s the rub: if the offense of CCW were worded as “it is unlawful to carry a weapon concealed without a permit,” then lack of a permit is part of the offense, and until there is reason to suspect that, there is no probable cause. But if it is worded as “It is unlawful to carry a weapon concealed. Exception for people having permits,” then concealed carrying is the offense, and sufficient suspicion of that justifies an arrest or detention. Having the permit is a defense, and the officer doesn’t have to rule that out, any more than he has to rule out insanity, justification, etc..

Looking at Pennsylvania’s Uniform Firearms Act:

(a)Â Offense defined.–

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), any person who carries a firearm in any vehicle or any person who carries a firearm concealed on or about his person, except in his place of abode or fixed place of business, without a valid and lawfully issued license under this chapter commits a felony of the third degree.

(2) A person who is otherwise eligible to possess a valid license under this chapter but carries a firearm in any vehicle or any person who carries a firearm concealed on or about his person, except in his place of abode or fixed place of business, without a valid and lawfully issued license and has not committed any other criminal violation commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.

So we’re actually different from Georgia in that regard, meaning there’d have to be some reasonable suspicion that you had a firearm and did not have a license, according to Dave’s criteria.

West Mifflin Latest Law Breaking Municipality

West Mifflin has passed a “Lost and Stolen” ordinance, in defiance of state wide preemption. They are the fourteenth municipality to pass such an ordinance. None of these fourteen municipalities have yet to charge anyone under them, despite the fact that some of them have been in place for a year or more.

If “Lost and Stolen” is such an effective crime fighting tool, why aren’t these municipalities, including the City of Philadelphia, effectively using it for the purposes they claim? Could it be because it’s not effective, and they are merely looking for an issue, any issue, on which the gun control movement can make legislative progress, no matter how absurd?

Good News for Corbett

Tom Corbett seems to do pretty well against his likely Democratic challengers, but the Democratic Mayor of Scranton’s campaign ads practically write themselves.

Pennsylvania Society Talk

The Pennsylvania Society dinner in New York City is happening as we speak. Capitol Ideas has the scuttlebutt.

UPDATE: Capitol Ideas wraps up with observations of Politicus Pennsylvanius, not as rare a species as we wish it was, probably.

Luzerne County Gun Buyback

It looks like they will be holding one this Tuesday. Â Once again they don’t offer cash. No buyback programs in this state seem to offer cash anymore, probably because they know how we use those programs. Either way, if you’re in the area and not doing much, you might want to hang about in a public area near the station and see what folks are bringing in. We lose history through these programs, which is a travesty. Though keep in mind you have to transfer pistols through a sheriff or FFL in Pennsylvania. Still, any C&R folks out there might want to go save the good stuff.

DUI in Lancaster County

Operating a horse drawn vehicle under the influence is still against the law.

Pennsylvania Welcomes Obama

So Obama is nearby today, hitting up the Lehigh Valley to tell people what they already know: the economy sucks and we wish companies were hiring again. But being the kind folks they are, Pennsylvanians had a few welcome notes for the President. From @Capitol_Ideas:

Sign outside Burger King on Rte. 309: “Welcome Pres. Obama. Stimulate us. Try a Whopper.”

I would give Obama big props if the Presidential limo actually pulled through and ordered some Whoppers.

Then you have a soco mixing messages, but in a good way. I probably would not agree on policy with this person, but it’s very good to relate your pet issue to the big issues of the time:

Another Sign: “Abortion Kills Future American Taxpayers.”

Medical Marijuana Debated in Keystone State

I don’t see what the big deal is, but then again, I’d be willing to decriminalize it generally. We’ve paid an awfully high price in terms of civil liberties trying to control what people put into their own bodies.

Duty to Retreat in Common Law

With the Castle Doctrine having been heard by the Judiciary Committee yesterday, the media is starting to report on it. In the video linked here, you can see statements from John Hohenwarter, the NRA State Liaison for Pennsylvania, and Dan Pehrson, President of Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association, as well as some of our opponents, who are against this change in the law.

But it’s really not so much of a change from the traditions of common law. In fact, to a large degree, it restores the common law concept of self-defense. If you go back to the authoritative source on the Common Law, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, you can find the common law source for many of the concepts enshrined in the proposed Castle Doctrine law:

Burglary, or nocturnal housebreaking, […] has always been looked upon as a very heinous offense: not only because of the abundant terror that it naturally carries with it, but also as it is a forcible invasion and disturbance of that right of habitation, which every individual might acquire even in a state of nature; and invasion, which in such a state, would surely be punished with death, unless the assailant were the stronger […] And the law of England has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man’s house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with impunity[.]

Emphasis mine. You will certainly find no duty to retreat there. A homeowner could “kill the assailant with impunity” for the offense of burglary under common law. So where did the duty to retreat come into play? You can find that in Book 4, Chapter 14 of Blackstone’s Commentaries. The Common Law Blackstone describes divides homicide into three types, “justifiable, excusable, and felonious.” In the realm of justifiable homicide, Blackstone speaks of “advancement of public justice” in the following context:

In the next place, such homicide, as is committed for the prevention of any forcible and atrocious crime, is justifiable by the law of nature; and also by the law of England, as it stood so early as the time of Bracton, and as it since declared by statue 24 Hen VIII. c. 5. If any person attempt to burn it, and shall be killed in such an attempt, the slayer shall be acquitted and discharged. This reaches not to any crime unaccompanied with force, as picking of pockets, or to the breaking open of any house in the time of day, unless it carries with it an attempt of robbery also.

Under common law, a citizen had a justification for committing homicide in order to stop a forcible felony. There was no duty to retreat here. It was, in fact, considered a civic duty for a citizen to stop felonies from being committed. We don’t get to a duty to retreat until we get to Blackstone’s commentary on self-defense, which under common law is not a justifiable homicide, but an excusable homicide. Blackstone notes that common law makes a distinction between these two.

Homicide in self-defense, or se defended, upon a sudden affray, is also excusable rather than justifiable, by the English law. This species of self-defense must be distinguished from that just now mentioned, as calculated to hinder the perpetration of a capital crime; which is not only a matter of excuse, but of justification. But the self-defense, which we are now speaking of, is that whereby a man may protect himself from an assault, or the like, in the course of a sudden brawl or quarrel, by killing him who assault him […] They cannot therefore legally exercise this right of preventive defense, but in sudden and violent cases; when certain and immediate suffering would be the consequence of waiting for the assistance of the law. Wherefore, to excuse homicide by the plea of self-defense, it must appear that the slayer had no other possible means of escaping from his assailant.

Emphasis mine. It is here you can see the common law origins of the Duty to Retreat. But notice this only applies to “sudden affray” or “sudden brawl” with someone who was otherwise not feloniously attacking a person. Blackstone implies there’s an element of the defender having been a willing participant in the “quarrel” or “affray.” When states started to codify common law into statutes, many erroneously adopted this aspect of common law for all justifiable homicides, even ones which were meant to prevent felony. Most state statutes on self-defense no longer make any distinction between justifiable and excusable homicide, though there are many states that allow for the use of deadly force to prevent commission of a forcible felony. Pennsylvania was one of the states that codified common law improperly, and created a duty to retreat in the face of felonious assault. Castle Doctrine is not really a radical change from the Common Law, but a restoration of it.