Personal Defense Laws in the Home
Defense in the home is often associated with castle doctrine. Castle doctrine refers to an exception to the duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense if a party is in their own home.
The phrase “a man’s home is his castle” is commonly known, but it is not the complete original wording. In 1628, a jurist named Sir Edward Coke wrote in The Institutes of the Laws of England:
For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man’s home is his safest refuge].
The words “Castle Doctrine” almost never appear in a state’s statute, but this idea is generally codified in the state’s “justification” section of their code.
Under the reasonable person standard, if you believe you are threatened with the immediate use of deadly force, or a level of force that could result in serious bodily injury, or facing the threat of rape or kidnapping, you can legally respond with a proportional amount of force to deter that threat.
A party in their own home does not have a duty to retreat and, therefore, is entitled to defending themselves without retreating.
First and foremost, your home is your castle; this is the broadly accepted definition of a castle in the United States. Modern interpretations of what may constitute a castle have evolved to sometimes include a vehicle, workplace, or even a hotel room. Whether the Castle Doctrine extends beyond your home depends on your state’s law. There are also other factors that must be taken into consideration.
Remember in Nebraska, your castle is the walled-in portion of your home. It's not your front yard, backyard, your unattached shed or carport.
Stand-your-ground is an expansion of a common law
principle of self-defense, known as the castle doctrine. In
a nod to the phrase “a man’s home is his castle,” the castle
doctrine provides that a person has no duty to retreat in his
or her home and may use reasonable force, including deadly
force, to defend his or her property, person, or another.
However, when outside of the home, the doctrine imposes a
duty to retreat, if possible, before using deadly force.
A huge self-defense myth among gun owners is that the Castle Doctrine is the same thing as a “stand-your-ground” law. Though the concepts are sometimes intertwined, they're two different things in law.
Many Castle Doctrine laws also contain a legal presumption. This is used to direct the jury to presume, under certain circumstances, that the person was reasonable in their use of force. A legal presumption can help prevent the second-guessing of actions after the fact that many people and jurors are prone to participating in during a self-defense case. self-defense case.
Requirements for use of force to protect personal property
Non-deadly force can be used to protect property that is in your lawful possession if the force that is used reasonably appears to be necessary to prevent or terminate an unlawful intrusion onto, or interference with, that property. The use of force to protect property is much more limited than the right to use force to protect oneself or other people. It is important to remember that deadly force can never be used simply to defend property against someone else’s interference with that property, even if that interference is unlawful and even if there is no other way to prevent that interference.
Since you must either own the property or be in lawful possession of it in order to be able to use force to protect it, you are not allowed to use force to protect the property that is in lawful possession of someone else under the common law rule, even if you own the property. .
Force to protect property must be used at the moment of the wrongful intrusion or near the time of the wrongful intrusion. So if you have been wrongfully deprived of your property you cannot use force to regain it or, if it is real property, to re-enter it, if any significant period of time has gone by between your loss property and when you begin to use force to try to get it back. But if you use non-deadly force to regain property immediately after it’s taken or while actively pursuing the person who took the property non-deadly force is justified.
It's also important to know that causing injury or death by using a mechanical device is justifiable only if the person who put the device together and installed it would have been justified in inflicting the injury or death had he actually been present when the person was injured or killed. In other words, the use of a mechanical device is tied directly to your right to use force and the level of force you would be allowed to use.