This is kind of old story, happened in 2008. But it does address an issue that has become fairly common in America. This is one of those stories that is simultaneously so unbelievable and yet nauseatingly familiar that you just know our deeply flawed drug laws are behind it. Ryan Frederick was an amateur gardener who grows tomatoes and Japanese maple trees, which look like marijuana. An informant told police there was pot growing at the residence and a warrant was issued. Frederick, who had been burglarized earlier that same week, mistook the police for burglars and sought to defend his home by firing on the unexpected intruders. Police officer Jarrod Shivers was killed. Now, as we learned in the strikingly similar case of Cory Maye, law-enforcement does not take kindly to people defending their homes during mistaken drug raids. Ryan Frederick was charged with first-degree murder on the theory that he knew the intruders were police and fired on them anyway. Now it turned out that Frederick did, in fact, occasionally smoke marijuana, but he did not grow it and had no marijuana plants. The informant who called in the tip had been mistaken. Although a few joints were found in the home, it just does not make much sense for anyone to contend that Frederick would provoke a shoot-out with police over a misdemeanor. Frederick had no prior criminal record. Nonetheless, he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and could only hope that the jury would understand the horrible situation. In 2009 Ryan Frederick was sentenced to 10 years for killing the detective. (In addition, he was ordered to pay a $500 fine for possessing marijuana) The jury found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and the judge followed the jury's recommendation to impose the maximum sentence. (He will be eligible for early release after serving the first 8½ years of the sentence, but will then face an additional three years of probationary supervision) The point is it seems pretty clear that the only reason this raid ever happened is that some neighbor mistook Japanese Maple trees for marijuana. That's all it took. The prosecution and sentencing of Ryan Frederick for murder will do nothing to curb the inevitable result of continuing to raid homes based on informant testimony. Ryan Frederick is lucky to even be alive, which begs the question of how many dead innocent people would have been unfairly charged with attempted police-murder had they been fortunate enough to survive the raid.
I'm at work at the moment. So I don't have the time to research. But unless I'm mistaken that conviction was overturned. And cases like this was what caused several states to include defending your home against cops if you reasonably believe they are unlawfully entering your home. But I could be mistaken and it could have been another case.
But you are from the U.K. where people do not necessarily have the right to defend their homes from what they believe is a criminal home invasion.
Interestingly, Indiana has passed a law with these provisions: (i) A person is justified in using reasonable force against a public servant if the person reasonably believes the force is necessary to: (1) protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force; (2) prevent or terminate the public servant’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle; or (3) prevent or terminate the public servant’s unlawful trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person’s possession, lawfully in possession of a member of the person’s immediate family, or belonging to a person whose property the person has authority to protect If you actually shoot a cop, however, it is very likely you will be killed on the spot without the chance to test these provisions. And if you do manage to survive, you are gonna be prosecuted. Will an actual jury agree with your reasoning? That's a roll of the dice.
The real question is whether criminals could just break into any house wearing fake police uniforms with the knowledge that anyone inside would probably be too afraid of the risk of being prosecuted for murder to try to stop them.
If a guys growing pot, why not knock on the door and ask him? If he won't open the door fair play, but it's pretty hard to hide the evidence, when the po po are outside, hopefully covering all exits. Uk citizens can legally defend their homes, but if i junkie is that desperate he can have my stuff. We don't necessarily agree with stand your ground, life comes first. I pity desperate criminals, not hate. Plus of course no burglar in uk is gonna have a gun, nor the home owner generally
I've read where criminals in the UK have been manufacturing their own firearms. Its not hard seeing as they've already been invented.
Cops get away with murder all the time, but when a Citizen defends his property against a cop invading his home under false pretenses the innocent home owner goes to prison - if he isn't outright murdered by the cops.
There's an obvious double-standard. I'm just suggesting we take a closer look at how the law should accord rights when these types of confrontations occur. And on another thought, perhaps there needs to be a way for people to be able to quickly verify that an armed group of intruders are indeed legitimate law enforcement.
I've read where criminals in the UK have been manufacturing their own firearms. Its not hard seeing as they've already been invented.[/QUOTE] But surely not to protect a few pot plants? Police in us seem like uk bouncers. Meatheads. Their own protection seems to always come first.
But surely not to protect a few pot plants? Police in us seem like uk bouncers. Meatheads. Their own protection seems to always come first.[/QUOTE] I don't disagree with you at all. Well maybe a little bit. Kind of. Bouncers in the club's I went to in the UK had meathead bouncers that still obeyed the law. Cops in the U.S. seem to write their own laws. It seems more like an organized gang than a police force. But that was not the point of my post. The point was to show that once something is invented you can not uninvent it. The knowledge remains and someone dedicated to having it will not be stopped by laws.
Well, due to the difference in crime level between an occupied and unoccupied house burglary, anybody in the U.S. breaking into an occupied house is probably intending the occupants harm. In FL, breaking into an unoccupied dwelling is a third degree felony--punishment up to 5 years. Breaking into an occupied dwelling is a second degree felony--punishment of 15 years. That's a big difference. I'm not worried about a criminal with a gun. I'm worried about the 80% of violent criminals who don't use a gun (they use their bodies or other weapons).
