#Defend your castle law nc trial

Shortly after midnight, motion detectors alerted the homeowners that someone was approaching, and the surveillance camera showed a stranger rummaging in the garage. On the evening of 26 April 2014, Pflager placed a purse far inside the garage and the couple left the garage door open. They mounted a surveillance camera in their garage, and installed motion detectors outside. Frustrated that police were unable to catch the burglars, and fearful for the safety of their ten-monthold baby, Kaarma and Pflager set a trap to catch the thieves.

Thieves took several items, including cell phones and credit cards.

Markus Kaarma and his wife, Janelle Pflager, had been burglarized twice in a three-week period in Spring 2014, shortly after moving from Washington state to Missoula, Montana. The perception of threat can be subjective, and it is nearly impossible to determine if threatening actions were provoked or situations manipulated to create an opportunity to use deadly force under the guise of self-defense. Opponents of Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground statutes assert that such laws allow killers to go unpunished. Stand Your Ground statutes extend the right to use deadly force to any place a person has a legal right to be, not just the home.īesides protecting innocent people who use deadly force in self-defense from physical harm, proponents point out that Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground statutes offer protection from litigation by assailants, or their survivors, who may sue for restitution. Stand Your Ground statutes protect the right to use deadly force in the face of a reasonable belief of threat to person or property, without an obligation to retreat from danger. Another nineteen states have a Stand Your Ground statute, which goes beyond the Castle Doctrine. Duty to retreat requires persons threatened with harm to avoid using lethal force by removing themselves, if possible, from the threat. A fundamental principle of the Castle Doctrine is exemption of the home dweller from the duty to retreat. states had a Castle Doctrine statute, which allows the use of deadly force in selfdefense or to protect one's property or prevent home invasion. Proponents of self-defense laws, such as the Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground statutes, believe that Joshua Moore was unjustly prosecuted. Moore's attorney had requested, that he was defending his wife.

#Defend your castle law nc trial

In 2012, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned his conviction, finding that the trial court should have instructed jurors to consider in their deliberations, as Mr. Moore spent several years and thousands of dollars defending himself in the courts. Moore was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Although North Carolina law recognized self-defense as a natural right, the trial judge instructed the jurors not to consider self defense or defense of a family member in their deliberations, and to return a verdict of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or voluntary manslaughter. Joshua Moore was charged with second-degree murder. Moore, who did not know whether Harris had a weapon, fatally shot him. Harris backed off momentarily, but returned again more aggressively. Joshua Moore shouted for Harris to back off. One Saturday morning in July 2006, 16-year-old Manny Harris, in a robbery attempt, struggled with Carol Moore. Joshua Moore, 64, and his wife, Carol, ran a fruit stand from the back of their truck every Saturday for 25 years in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.