The clearest possible cases of self defense are in cases like those of Marvin Louis Guy, Cory Maye, Ryan Frederick, Christina Korbe. All killed law enforcement who were doing no-knock raids on their homes (based on mistaken information) - i.e. smashing down the door without identifying themselves as police - in the middle of the night, believing them to be robbers.
Four years after the event, Guy is facing capital murder charges, Maye spent five years on death row before increased attention overturned the verdict and he got life in prison (later, there was a retrial, and he plead guilty to manslaughter in order to get out after more than a decade); the others plea-bargained their way to 10-16 year manslaughter charges. All this despite the fact that in every case it was shown that they had no expectation of the police knocking down their doors (because they weren’t doing anything illegal) and not being aware the people they were shooting at were cops. In situations where someone is defending themselves against someone they know is a cop, the issue that they feared for their life may come up, but it rarely gets mentioned as a defense strategy because it simply doesn’t fly in US courts.
10 Likes
