Sannieshof farmer charged with murder after shooting intruder

[lloydb]

According to a friend, who is a long time serving SAPS officer and also a fire arm owner and dedicated sports shooter and hunter, it is not a bad thing to be charged with murder after any SD event you were involved in. (Whether arrest and detention was warranted is another matter.)

He says, if you are accused of murder, you go through the process, prove the necessity of SD, and eventually you should be acquitted. (Yes, lots of stress and $$ involved.) Then the matter is basically permanently resolved, since you can not be charged again for the same case.

If the investigating officer only does a judicial inquest and decides not to charge you, seeing that it was a clear cut case of SD, you can always at a later stage be charged. By then, time has lapsed and evidence has become vague, making it much more difficult to defend yourself in court.

Any legal opinion on this view?

Why would they later want to charge you seeing as it was a clear cut case of SD?

[HvR]

Not a thing here. Wish it was, but its not.

Not really needed is it, since we have no laws that burdens the homeowners to first attempt/consider retreat before justifiably using deadly force.

[SSP]

Not really needed is it, since we have no laws that burdens the homeowners to first attempt/consider retreat before justifiably using deadly force.

Strictly those are referred to as stand your ground laws. There are some distinctions to the castle doctrine.

The latter varies from state to state but usually entitles one to assume that there is a threat to your life if your home is invaded. Stand your ground does not have that implied assumption.

I'd argue that, in SA, there is no general legal duty to retreat, there is authority on this point, but we are not entitled to assume that there is a threat to life if one's home is invaded.

In consequence, I'd argue for a formal recognition of the castle doctrine.

[GAZZAMCK]

Unlicensed gun

"Your honor I managed to remove said weapon from the suspect who knowingly and illegally forced his way into my residence"

[A-R]

Why would they later want to charge you seeing as it was a clear cut case of SD?

Anybody can open a murder docket, citing "new evidence" or whatever at a later stage. Some murders are only solved decades later...

[Twix]

From what I know from some fellows in saps - in the situation like this, by automation - a charge of murder is always pressed against a person killing another person, be it a regular citizen killing an intruder in self defense, or person killing another with malicious intent, etc. Once the charge has been pressed, then comes the case for the police proving the charge. In this case, the intruder is deceased and there are no other eye witnesses that would testify that the person was defending one self or was being an intentional murderer - I am not too sure if the daughter was in the house or only commented for the press but if she was inside of the house then she will be considered as a person that was involved in the incident and she won't be able to be a witness (like when someone has a car accident, the spouse sitting on the passenger seat can not be a witness of the accident).
Therefor in this case the only statement that would be considered is the person that shot and killed an intruder.