A LOOK AT THE CASTLE DOCTRINE FOR VIRGINIA
The "Castle Doctrine" debate continues to heat up around the country and also here in Virginia. The Castle Doctrine basically says that a person has the right to defend themselves while in their own home (castle) and provides them special protections should they have to exercise that right.
Virginia's self-defense laws are based on common law developed in case law over the last several hundred years. We have pretty good coverage for self-defense here in Virginia currently (many states who celebrated getting a Castle Doctrine law were not so lucky and desperately needed to improve their laws).
Here is a summary of the current self-defense law in Virginia:
Virginia is a stand-your-ground state. But not just in your "castle," but EVERYWHERE you might be. As long as you are not "part of the problem," you can stand your ground and defend yourself. If you end up killing your assailant, it is considered a "justifiable homicide." If you are part of the problem, say you yelled an expletive at someone who cut you off in traffic, and you are attacked, then you must retreat as far as you can, indicate you have given up the fight, and only if the assailant keeps up the attack, may you defend yourself. In that case if the assailant dies, it is considered an "excusable homicide." Also, you can only use deadly force to protect yourself or others when you reasonably fear death OR grievous bodily injury. You CANNOT use deadly force to protect property or against a trespasser.
You might wonder why you have to retreat if you are part of the problem. That's to prevent someone intentionally murdering someone else and claiming self-defense. Let's say that John wanted to murder Jim. John could get a gun, keep it hidden and antagonize the hell out of Jim to the point that Jim might pickup something to attack John out of frustration or anger. John could then shoot Jim claiming "self-defense" since Jim had come at him with a baseball bat.
Problem is that John had intentionally set up Jim to be murdered. By requiring the co-aggressor to retreat, the Commonwealth is trying to eliminate such a scenario.
The push is to change the above into an actual hard-coded law. And that can be very tricky.
Previous attempts to pass a Castle Doctrine bill have mostly centered around protecting someone in a dwelling from being sued if they have to defend themselves. The problem is that no one is being sued for such a thing. Why? Because lawyers would generally do that on contingency, most likely will lose the case under Virginia law, and they will then lose their investment. So there is no monetary incentive for lawyers to "ambulance chase" legitimate self-defense cases.
An all-encompassing Castle Doctrine bill has been hashed around by the battery of lawyers who volunteer their time to VCDL. The bottom line is that it is hard to draft such a bill in a way that doesn't goof up our current legal protections. In that case we are better to do nothing than to make current law worse.
Senator-elect Dick Black has been working with VCDL to draft a solid Castle Doctrine bill for the last couple of weeks. After much time spent going back and forth, Dick and I concluded that the best way to do a Castle Doctrine bill correctly is as follows:
1. Draft a solid bill and put it on the VCDL website 2. Encourage prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, Delegates, Senators, and any other legal professional to look at the bill and try to shoot holes in it 3. Correct the daft for any found deficiencies and repost to the VCDL website 4. In the fall of 2012, prepare the final, fully vetted bill to be drafted by Legislative Services and pre-filed for the 2013 General Assembly session
