There are several stories in the news as of late that leave me wondering why they’re even controversial in the slightest, but one confuses me beyond belief.
This week, a story surfaced about a man in Texas who beat his four-year-old daughter’s molester to death when he found an acquaintance pinned on top of her in the family barn. Of course, the father is now facing charges for the defense of his daughter. I don’t understand this; maybe I am just a simple person without an extensive formal education in the law, but I don’t know why the defense of another from a heinous criminal act is now considered too harsh. If my dad were to find me in a similar situation, I can guarantee he’d kill the guy and not think twice about the “severe” consequences for a person who is assaulting his child in a very personal, scarring way. It is our instinct to defend a victim, especially if that victim is family. Do you think this father is going to stand there and watch this man rape his daughter because he might get in trouble with the law, or he might go “too far” and kill him?
I am not a parent. However, I do have parents, and I know that their lifestyles and priorities have always been formed with my wants and needs above their own. I know that if my mother or father could mitigate some of the pain and tragedy I’ll experience in my life by going through that pain themselves instead, they would do it without question or complaint. The instinct to protect offspring is inherent, yet still a choice, because of the human ability to rationalize, reason, and make decisions. This man applied the life choice he made to nurture, support, and protect his little girl, and he may be punished for it.
As of now, the state of Texas allows this kind of defense, though this case is still up in the air. We can add the right to defend your family to the list of the endless perks of living in Texas. Section 2 of S.B. No. 378 (Texas) reads:
“(a) Except as provided in Subsection (b), a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor [he] reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor [himself] against the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful force. The actor’s belief that the force was immediately necessary as described by this subsection is presumed to be reasonable if the actor… (c) was committing or attempting to commit aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery…” [emphasis mine]
So why is this an issue? Why is this going to court? A blog post from CafeMom.com claims this dad is “[sinking] to the criminal level” by killing the child molester. Since when is it a moral blunder to take action and stop one of the most criminal offenses possible? So far, this Texas dad has not been arrested, but investigation ensues. Hopefully this man does no time in jail for his “crime,” but he would probably welcome the punishment in exchange for intervening on behalf of his daughter and sparing her the physical, psychological, and emotional aftermath of sexual abuse.
I have in no way backpedaled, but qualified a position that was unclear to someone who seems to have the reading comprehension of a 12 year old. And jumping to the conclusion that I hate children or want them to be raped is asinine based on what I’ve said. I doubt anyone else here would believe that I was in any way malicious towards children.
You misinterpret everything I say and skew it in such a way to make me the enemy merely because I don’t fully agree with you, which is just isolating you more and more. Not that I was ever really in agreement with you about anything. Other people on the site, perhaps, but you border on the fringe of right wing politics.
I’d love you to bring some support from my own words to substantiate your claim about how I “really feel”
I don’t think anyone is going to absolutely fault the dad for doing something like saving his child, son or daughter, from being raped. I’d do that in a heartbeat for any child, blood related or a complete stranger, but I don’t like rape, bottom line. That doesn’t mean I’d kill someone for doing that, but I’m so non violent, I probably wouldn’t kill someone for killing a friend or family member, but I can’t be certain of that. What I am certain of is that if I did, I would be remorseful, since killing someone does not bring back those who are already dead.
The abortion issue seems to come up almost absolutely in any discussion where we discuss politics and death.
Does killing someone ultimately prevent crime in general anymore? Perhaps that one instance, but not crime at large. That’s my point. Punishment varies according to crimes and judges, but vigilante justice has the issue of people taking retribution to the excess of vengeance.
The statute seems a bit unclear as to specifying the actor in relation to when the force is justified. If a person is committing attempted murder, sexual assault or robbery, then use of force is justified perhaps, but appropriate to each situation. Not to mention the statute is vague in qualifying force, it seems, at least as it was immediately quoted. Force in the sense of non deadly or incapacitating is different than deadly force. Justification is one thing, but it’s trickier when you involve the Castle doctrine, and defenses of justifiable homicide and imperfect self defense.
As you can see, when it comes to reason people like Jared cannot be reasoned with. He clearly is like this low-grade moron from some “civil rights” organization based in Texas who said this pedophile had been denied “due process.” Say what? What exactly was this father supposed to do? Try to talk this piece of filth out of raping his daughter AS HE WAS DOING IT? Wait until he was finished and then hold him or police? Or just call the police and them handle it in toto?
This is Jared Cowan’s mindset.
In plain English, he doesn’t give a flaming horse’s patoot about this 4-year-old girl who will most likely need psychological counseling for what she went through. And he can deny it all he wants (as I am sure he will). But he is a liar. Period.
How can I say this? I can say it because common freaking sense says you don’t flipping wait around if you come upon someone sexually abusing a child, especially if it is YOUR child. We are supposed to be protecting our children, not offering them up as fodder for the sexually deviant.
This is something I am very adamant about and wherein there is nothing to discuss or debate: Children should not be subjected to sexual exploitation or abuse. EVER. And if you have a problem with people physically intervening in such a thing, maybe you shouldn’t be around kids either.
The father would be justified in using some physical force to incapacitate the rapist, of course. If you think otherwise, you’re of a ridiculous mindset that anyone who has any liberal ideas along with conservative ones is not liable to tell the truth, which is patently false. Talking with him was not immediately pertinent, but due process in terms of the law, even if it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty, is part of the constitution that you seem to conveniently forget when it comes to certain types of criminals, even though it’s supposed to apply to all, however heinous they are.
I in no way advocated inaction when a 4 year old was being raped, but I do not agree with this excessive and alarmist form of action that caused another human their life, even if they were terrible for child abuse and such. Call me a bleeding heart, but I prefer to have compassion for all humanity in the hopes that they are changed through my virtue and behavior rather than picking and choosing, which I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t advocate, who I don’t really believe in beyond some ethics.
Of course children should not ever be subject to such things, but killing those that abuse them is not solving the problem. In fact it would send a bad message to the kids. If you don’t like something kill it. That’s simplistic, but a child’s mind isn’t necessarily thinking in shades of grey, but black and white, especially when it comes to their parents’ authority and influence. That’s my issue, excessive focus on vengeance and absolute justice as opposed to justice in the basic sense of treating everyone fairly and yet with a strong sense of morality.
“I in no way advocated inaction when a 4 year old was being raped, but I do not agree with this excessive and alarmist form of action that caused another human their life, even if they were terrible for child abuse and such.”
I specifically referred to PHYSICAL interaction, which you are against. And that’s not all.
“You can’t negotiate with a rabid dog, you can negotiate in some sense with a human, though not always. To say you lose all protections when you commit a crime negates the very principles in the constitution. Or did you forget the fifth amendment?”
Oh, yeah, Jared. We should be trying to negotiate with someone as they have their pants down attempting to sexually violate a little girl. And we should be thinking more about their rights, too.
Pardon my French, but this validates exactly what I said and makes you a lying b*stard. Does your family know about this? I’d bet if they did they’d be thinking twice about letting you around kids.
I am not against physical action. If you have to use physical force to incapacitate someone, so be it, especially if they are hurting someone. That’s just common sense.
I’m not saying you should try to negotiate at the moment of committing the crime, but treat them like a human being, however contemptible they may be. Don’t shoot them like a rabid dog. I’m not saying we should treat them exactly the same as normal people, but still we shouldn’t treat them like subhumans, even if they’re psychologically imbalanced.
My parents know a great deal about me that I’m probably not aware of them knowing: being an atheist for one thing, not to mention being for gay rights, etc. That doesn’t mean they don’t love me. And I can’t speak as to whether they think I’m a danger to children. Be it my younger cousins or the like, they don’t think I’m a danger to them. Heck, I don’t know if they even expect me to have children of my own, but they might want me to anyway, lol. Isn’t that what most parents do when their child gets into their late 20s?
How many times have you been told to stop lying? Dude, it’s too late. Your lies and frantic attempts at backpedaling are meaningless, because everyone can see how you REALLY feel.
I naturally expect you to respond, mostly because you are too obtuse to get what is obvious to everyone else but you: You are done here. Finished. You have hung yourself with your own words.
I know at a place like FreeRepublic.com comments like the one you made here and elsewhere would’ve given you a shelf life of maybe 30 seconds before your account got zotted. Fortunately (for you) they don’t seem to ban people here, even those who have such a hatred for children they care more about the predators than the helpless victims.
Ole’ Jared is obviously a passionate concern troll, coming from the far leftist, “humanitarian” point of view. I wouldn’t waste anymore time trying to reason with him, as it is obviously not possible. But I think he has accomplished his goal of flooding and trashing the comments on this blog entry with over-reasoned, logic-free and moral-free drivel. Congrats Jared, mission accomplished!
I don’t deny that violence can solve problems, but it should be used as a last resort. I think even Aquinas, one of the strongest proponents and developers of the just war theory as we know it today, said that we should not just wage war for the sake of war even if there is justifiable cause to exact retribution and advance the cause of justice.
Negotiation, diplomacy, treaties, etc. If we just kill anyone because there seem to be irreconcilable differences, then the news would be having to make a separate report for daily deaths in the general area they cover, to say nothing of world news getting statistics on how many people die in a single day with that sort of mindset.
The prison system and parole are preventative and rehabilitative measures against such individuals from repeating their crimes. Execution is fast becoming something regarded as barbaric, if not excessive in many cases, not to mention the obvious potential for innocent lives to be taken by the state in the pursuit of justice, which would be state sponsored murder or manslaughter at the very least.
Of course the father was justified in protecting his daughter, but not in killing someone who may very well have been unarmed. Of course the rapist should be imprisoned, but if we take this eye for an eye business too far, it becomes a system of vengeance, which even Jesus himself noted was not the purpose of the lex talionis principle in Jewish law.
Boy love by its very name does not imply rape, it implies pederasty in some form or fashion, which is questionable, I’ll admit, but it would only constitute rape if there was sexual penetration involved, far as I understand it. Children cannot consent, of course, but unless there is sex involved, it only goes so far as sexual harassment, which necessitates different punishment.
Abolishing the age of consent is probably not going to fly very easily, if at all, even with today’s more open and litigious system of jurisprudence. Your concern is justified, but I don’t think NAMBLA has that much political influence to actually progress with that sort of agenda or realize it.
If he was trying to incapacitate him and killed him, this becomes manslaughter at most. Murder wouldn’t be in the ruling in the slightest, I agree. It isn’t a crime to save a child from getting raped, but killing another human being, however vile they are, is a crime to some degree itself. You’re confusing the virtuous intent of the action with the real consequences of that action.
If you’re going to make this an abortion issue, try looking up the definition of murder in legal terms and then try to tell me how abortion has malice or malice aforethought involved automatically.
Too bad he couldn’t kill the bastard TWICE!! How’s that for deep intellectual thought? “Stooping to criminal level”, I’d stoop in a heartbeat if it were my little girl. If that’s not okay with folks, then don’t come to my house and assault my little girl! I’d look the deviant bastard right in the eyes and consider myself doing him a favor as I watched the lights go out!
If you return violence with more violence, you are not only not solving the problem in a reasonable and humane fashion with less violent methods beforehand, but you are reflecting a dangerous habit put into you by constant indoctrination that you must use violence first before any other form of conflict resolution, which is not only immoral, but lacks real civility as well.
I applaud the father! At least THIS creep won’t be able to harm another little girl.
My opinion is that once you cross the line of being uncivilized, you lose all the protections that civilization provides. You don’t negotiate with the rabid dog; you shoot it.
AGREED!
You can’t negotiate with a rabid dog, you can negotiate in some sense with a human, though not always. To say you lose all protections when you commit a crime negates the very principles in the constitution. Or did you forget the fifth amendment? If you don’t give basic rights to criminals, proven or otherwise, then you’re being criminal yourself in putting all the power into the state, which is contrary to any sort of conservative beliefs. Or am I wrong on that? By all means, explain how.
I didn’t deny it’s part of the justice system, but it shouldn’t be focused on to the exclusion of other parts, which includes rehabilitation. Can’t rehabilitate a person who’s dead, now can you?
Jared:
What is the recidivism rate of child molesters? 90%? 95%?
These monsters CANNOT be rehabilitated.
Do you have statistics for this on file somewhere or are you just throwing these numbers out to exaggerate your bias against child molesters as all being horrible people who accept and encourage their perversion instead of struggling with it as a compulsion which they may not want to act on, but do regardless?
I don’t deny it’s difficult to rehabilitate them, but it’s by no means impossible. Is it so horrible to grant someone a second chance if they are genuinely regretful of their actions? Unrepentant child molesters are fairly different from those that are resisting a compulsion that they themselves know is aberrant and damaging to children, which they genuinely care about their well being.
It’s an issue because he killed another person. He is justified if he “reasonably believed the force is immediately necessary.” Courts of law make that decision, whether it be at the grand jury stage, at an arraignment hearing to establish probable cause, or at trial. I think we can all agree, however, that if the evidence seems to prove in this man’s favor, the prosecutor will use common sense and drop the charges. We do have a criminal process for a reason, though.
I don’t think anyone here would say that the man was right for raping the girl, but to say that killing someone who is committing a crime serves as restitution is thinking in what I’m convinced is an antiquated way of thinking in many cases, though not all.
War is one instance where it could be justified, even if it is a difficult decision to make in killing another human being when all rational discussion, negotiations and diplomacy have failed.
But even if someone was raping my own mother, I don’t think I would try to lessen my sentence or the severity of my crime if I killed a person in a fit of rage or the like, even if they were committing a heinous act like that on my own flesh and blood. Guilt by reason of insanity would be a plea, but I would not say I was not guilty of committing a horrible act myself when I could have restrained myself from using violence in an unnecessary and excessive fashion.
It seems to always return to the death penalty, though, in such discussions. Does killing someone who has killed another vindicate the survivors? Even if they feel it does, is it really making them feel better by doing the same thing in quality that the person did to their loved ones or another human being in general?
Restitution??? Who said ANYTHING about restitution? It’s about prevention and protection.
I was expanding the issue to how killing people doesn’t really solve the problem, since criminals can emerge from any person, they aren’t strictly one category. Killing some criminals won’t prevent crime or other criminals from existing or being formed in one sense or another.
Some might find the killing of an individual who committed a crime like rape, even if there wasn’t murder involved, as a sort of retribution and restitution for the suffering they experienced, but that shouldn’t be the focus of justice, even if it is part of it.
Actually the purposes of the justice system are defined in Williams v. New York (1949)and retribution is one of the four purposes, along with protection of the public, deterrence of other criminals, and rehabilitation.
Well, I’m not going to argue with your ideas about the goals of restitution and retribution. However, this issue is about the facts and the applicable statute.
Also, the intent of this statute actually IS preventing crime. In Texas, if one kills another with the intent of preventing his crime, V.T.C.A., Penal Code § 9.33 says that person is justified in doing so. Don’t confuse theories of punishment with defenses to crimes. You may be right that killing another person is not deterrence and doesn’t justify what they’ve done in a larger sense. But that’s not the point is it?
Have you not read the statute? It doesn’t help you if you’ve killed another person AFTER they’ve committed the crime in question. I think you think I’m arguing that because someone has suffered, the person responsible deserves to die. Don’t be mistaken; I’m sure most people would agree that in using force to defend others, that force is optimally non-deadly force.
I respect your expanded view of “an-eye-for-an-eye,” and I guess it could be brought to the Legislature’s attention that non-deadly force is never appropriate to defending another in an attack. I would actually advocate for a stance similar to yours, were that the case. But let’s get real… this IS Texas we’re talking about.
“A blog post from CafeMom.com claims this dad is ‘sinking to the criminal level’ by killing the child molester. Since when is it a moral blunder to take action and stop one of the most criminal offenses possible.”
CafeMom.com is a liberal site, pretending to be non-partisan. So I’m not the least bit surprised that they’re defending a child molester.
It’s an issue because there are people who think it okay to sexually assault a 4-year-old child.
Despicable.
I don’t think you could find a single person, even those that advocate very open relationships and promiscuity, that would support a child being raped without doing anything. But we humans have something called discipline and self restraint which are a necessary thing in order for us to function.
I wouldn’t stand by and let anyone be raped if I can stop the assailant, but I am not going to kill the person. Incapacitate them, yes, flat out revenge kill them, no.
“I don’t think you could find a single person, even those that advocate very open relationships and promiscuity, that would support a child being raped without doing anything.”
Except maybe NAMBLA. Oh, yeah, that’s right, in your world they do not exist.
So. What if you caught someone raping your daughter? What would you do, aside from saying, “Pass the popcorn?”
NAMBLA, from what I understand, would not advocate child rape. Pederasty does not automatically equal that, though I admit it is a questionable line of consent from the child regardless.
I don’t deny they exist, I deny that your characterization and generalization of them automatically reflects reality.
I would stop them, but I would not go so far as to kill them, since that wouldn’t heal my daughter’s wounds any faster. Hatred and violence only breed more violence, however good one’s intent might be. Impulsive thinking does not always reflect truth.
Jared, from what I understand he was trying to incapacitate the guy and told police he didn’t intend to kill him. What worries me is that people like you are more sympathetic to the now dead child molester than the father who was trying to protect his 4 yr old daughter. How liberals consider saving a child from being raped a crime is beyond me,. You know what, this kind of b.s. makes me so mad, I’ll go there, when stories like this crop up it’s clear that for liberals the only crime worthy of the death penalty is being an unwanted baby in the womb.
“Hatred and violence breeds more violence”. That’s a ridiculous cop out to avoid this horrible situation. Sometimes it is necessary to stop a sick individual from repeating crime and abuse on many other would-be victims. Unfortunately holding hands and singing kumbaya won’t stop child rape. We’ve all seen stories in the news of justice systems failing the people when they let these animals out who of course victimize others. This father absolutely did the right thing by protecting his daughter…something he is not guaranteed the system would do for him. P.S., the North American Man/Boy Love Assoc. advocates child rape even in it’s name! Their goal is to abolish the age of consent so they can HAVE SEX WITH MINORS!!!
“How liberals consider saving a child from being raped a crime is beyond me,. You know what, this kind of b.s. makes me so mad, I’ll go there, when stories like this crop up it’s clear that for liberals the only crime worthy of the death penalty is being an unwanted baby in the womb.”
First of all, most responses in the media, liberal and non, have been on the dad’s side – in this case. Just because people point out that vigilante justice isn’t right – or legal – doesn’t mean liberals think this dad did something wrong.
Second, I have no clue what abortion has to do with this but since you brought it up, here are some actual facts. 1 in 2,100 US women risk death from pregnancy and about 90% of abortions occur before the fetus is viable aka before week 13. So it seems to me pro-lifers are interested in risking the lives of women just because they committed the non-crime of having sex rather than saving lives. Espically since most pro-lifers oppose birth control, the only thing that has made abortion rates go down.