Sometimes, what would otherwise be a crime, is justified in the eyes of the law, and this fact can be used in an effective criminal justification defense. For example, if you shoot someone in cold blood, it’s murder, but if you shoot someone who breaks into your house at night and is standing over your bed with a knife, it is far more likely to be a form of criminal justification.
An effective criminal justification defense is tricky legal territory, and you should not proceed without the skilled legal representation of an experienced Round Rock criminal defense attorney in your corner.
Categories of Criminal Justification in Texas
Every criminal charge is specific to the unique circumstances involved, and the same is true of every criminal justification defense. Most, however, break down into basic categories that include all the following:
Self-defense, such as when you are protecting yourself
Defense of a third person, such as when you are protecting someone else
Use of deadly force in defense of person
Defense of own property or of a third-person’s property or use of deadly force or device to protect property
Necessity
Protection of life or health
Acting out of public duty
When your actions qualify as a justification that excludes the application of criminal responsibility, it can be a powerful affirmative defense.
Self-Defense
In Texas, you are justified in the use of force against another person when it’s necessary to protect yourself from unlawful force being used against you – or from the attempted use of unlawful force against you – in relation to either of the following:
The identified culprit used force to enter or attempt to enter your home, car, or place of work.
The identified culprit used force to remove you or attempt to remove you from your home, car, or place of work.
This self-defense justification can be interpreted as a reasonable use of force as long as you didn’t provoke the other person’s use of force in the first place and were not, yourself, engaged in criminal activity at the time.
Words Alone
A self-defense justification generally won’t apply, however, if you were defending yourself against words alone. For example, if someone looks your way, and says they’d like to do you harm but keeps walking, your violent reaction to them likely isn’t justified.
Arrest
Further, self-defense isn’t likely to serve as a valid justification if you were resisting arrest or a police search at the time – unless the officer was using significantly more force than was necessary to arrest you. If you reasonably believed that you needed to protect yourself from the officer’s overzealous use of force, you may have a valid claim of self-defense.
Consent to the Exact Amount of Force
Additionally, if you consent to the exact amount of force that the other person uses against you, you can’t retaliate in violence and call it self-defense.
For example, if you volunteer in a self-defense class to be put into a specific kind of hold by the person conducting the class, you can’t attack the instructor and call it self-defense when they were doing exactly what you signed up for.
Provocation
If you are found to have provoked the other person’s use of force, a self-defense justification is unlikely available to you. On the other hand, if you incite a fight but recognize the error of your ways, drop your confrontational efforts before you act, and walk away, you may be able to reasonably claim self-defense if the other person goes on the attack by coming after you.
It’s important to note that, in Texas, you are not required to walk away before you launch into the use of force that is justified as long as you, yourself, have the legal right to be in the location you’re in, were not engaged in a criminal activity, and didn’t provoke the other person’s use of force.
Defense of a Third Person
You may also be justified in the use of force if you were attempting to protect someone other than yourself from harm. If you reasonably believed that your intervention was required at that exact moment to protect the third person from harm, you could have a strong criminal justification defense.
The deciding factor here will hinge on whether or not the third person in question would have been legally justified in doing exactly what you did in the protection of themself under the given circumstances.
Use of Deadly Force in Defense of Person
When it comes to the use of deadly force in defense of another person, the applications are more limited. When the use of deadly force is imminently and reasonably necessary in order to accomplish one of the following, you may have a legitimate case for the justification of its use:
You used deadly force in order to protect the other person from the identified culprit’s use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force.
You used deadly force in order to protect the other person from the identified culprit’s imminent commission of sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, robbery or aggravated robbery, or murder.
Defense of Property
Use of force can be justified in the defense of property as well, but this is only true when the force used is reasonably and imminently necessary to prevent someone else from unlawfully interfering with your property or is a reasonable attempt to recover your own property from the identified culprit – who has no claim to it.
Use of Deadly Force to Protect Property
The right to use deadly force to protect your property is naturally more limited than when it applies to protecting yourself from harm, but it may be justified in order to prevent any of the following imminent crimes when the land or property involved can’t be protected or recovered in any other way:
Robbery or aggravated robbery
Burglary
Theft or criminal mischief that is committed at night
Defense of a Third-Person’s Property
You may also be within your legal rights to use force or deadly force to protect the property of a third person if – given the circumstances at hand – you reasonably believed that this third person would have the legal right to take the same action in defense of their own property.
In order to bring a successful criminal justification defense in relation to protecting a third person’s property, at least one of the following must apply:
You reasonably believed that the culprit was committing the crime – or attempting to commit the crime – of theft or of criminal mischief against the third person’s property.
You reasonably believed that the third person requested your protection of their land or property.
You reasonably believed that you had a legal duty to protect the third person’s land or property.
A final justification for using force to defend a third person’s property is if your relationship to that person – whose land or property was at risk – falls into one of the following categories:
They are your spouse, child, or parent.
They live with you.
They are under your care.
Use of Device to Protect Property
The use of device, which refers to using a deterrent to help protect one’s property, is only available to you as a criminal justification if the device you use doesn’t put anyone else at risk of being seriously injured or harmed.
For example, the installation of a device that sets off sprinklers in response to an intruder may be well within your legal rights. The installation of a dangerous trap that could physically harm an intruder – or anyone else who wandered onto your property – on the other hand, is not within your legal rights.
Necessity
Ultimately, your conduct in the protection of yourself or of someone else may be justified if you can show that you reasonably believed it was necessary to avoid being harmed in the moment and that the urgency involved overshadowed the potential risk.
For example, if you run into a hardware store, rip a hatchet off the wall, and run back out in an attempt to free a person from a burning vehicle on the roadway, you likely have a very solid criminal justification for theft of the hatchet. Necessity can play a strong role in many criminal justification defense strategies.
Protection of Life or Health
You may also be justified in using force to prevent someone else from either seriously harming themself or from dying by suicide. Protection of life or health, however, is not a valid defense when deadly force is employed.
Acting out of Public Duty
If you reasonably believe that your conduct was required by law, was authorized by law or by the judgment or order of a competent court, or was necessary in relation to the execution of the legal process, it may be legally justified.
Stand Your Ground Laws
We wouldn’t be doing the topic of criminal justifications in Texas justice if we didn’t specifically address the state’s stand your ground laws. There are self-defense laws throughout the nation that have been in place for a very long time that justify the use of deadly force in public situations when such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm of oneself or of someone else.
If the situation could have been diffused without deadly force, such as by simply retreating, it generally isn’t justified – unless the state has a stand your ground law, the way Texas does.
It’s important to point out here, that if the conflict in question takes place in your home, you have no duty to retreat prior to using force to protect yourself and your family. This is known as the castle doctrine, which applies in most states.
Texas Is a Stand Your Ground State
In Texas, you have the right to defend yourself if you perceive a threat to your own life or safety, and the state’s stand your ground law relieves you of any duty of retreat prior to resorting to the use of force if you are defending yourself.
It’s important to note, however, that this right is not without limits and that there is a fine line between self-defense and the use of excessive force. The law requires you to use the minimal amount of force necessary to adequately defend yourself, and if deadly force is used but isn’t called for, the stand your ground law will apply as a criminal justification in your case.
Qualifiers for a Stand Your Ground Defense
Like other self-defense justifications, specific factors must apply before a stand your ground defense will hold, including:
You reasonably believed that you needed to use force of your own in order to prevent or mitigate the identified culprit’s use of force.
You did not provoke the identified culprit’s use of force to begin with.
You were not engaged in a crime at the time that you stood your ground.
You employed the minimum force that was reasonably necessary to defend yourself in the situation at hand.
The State of Texas has strong stand your ground laws, but this does not mean that no limitations apply – proceed with caution.
Reach Out to an Experienced Round Rock Criminal Defense Attorney for the Help You Need Today
If you have a criminal justification defense for the charge against you, it’s important to know that the applicable laws are nuanced and that there is no guarantee that your actions qualify under criminal justification.
Brett Pritchard at The Law Office of Brett H. Pritchard – proudly serving Round Rock for more than two decades – is a savvy criminal defense attorney who is well acquainted with criminal justification strategies and has an impressive track record of success backing this claim up.
We are on your side and here to help, so please don’t delay contacting or calling us at 254-781-4222 to schedule a FREE consultation and learn more about what we can do for you today.