Prepare to turn pale with horror, then scarlet with rage. Prepare also to send a message to the Texas Attorney General.
A court in Texas just exonerated a man who shot and killed a woman who had refused to have sex with him. She’s dead, and he will serve no time at all.
Here’s what happened: Ezekiel Gilbert shot and killed a Craigslist escort after she left without having sex with him. His lawyer argued that since he had paid her $150 for the evening, he was justified under Texas law in shooting her because state law allows people “to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft.”
It’s legal in Texas to kill a woman for refusing to have sex?
Are you serious?
For that matter, it’s legal in Texas to kill someone for stealing $150? Provided it happens at night?
What is wrong with them?
fixed
being any kind of marginalized group in “white dudez got the right to shoot ppl” states (i.e. states with assorted castle dictrine and/or stand your ground laws) is a rather dangerous sort of thing. And of course the ppl most affected are those least likely to be able to GTFO of Texas and similar places :-/
oh, and btw the “theft” BS isn’t the only story the defense presented to the jury; the other one is that dude didn’t “mean to” kill her, just stop the car (meaning, it would be manslaughter rather than murder, and he wasn’t on trial for manslaughter).
who fires an AK 47 at a car to blow out its tires? I don’t buy the “didn’t mean to” BS for a second. That the jury did pretty much means they care more about a fellow gun-totin’ dude than they do about the woman killed.
The law here in question only allowed people to shoot burglars and armed robbers, not any thief, otherwise you could shoot a car salesman for selling you a lemon. The sounds like jury nullification. It could also be a case of a prosecutor overcharging and not giving manslaughter as an option in a state where juries can’t knock charges down, but that would require buying the idea that he thought shooting at a fleeing car was a good way to stop it.
I’m currently in Texas. Just went to a gun range this morning and fired weapons that are certainly illegal for civilians in my homeland. I have nothing to say to disagree with Ophelia, but I still can’t get my head around the ease of which a USian can get a deadly weapon and shoot someone. I mean, it’s sort of fun, to shoot a pistol at a target, but I wouldn’t want one in my house and I hope I don’t cross a Texan whilst here. So far, all the Texans I’ve encountered have been great, but I’m in Austin, and apparently, Austin is a liberal enclave, but that’s what I was told, so I can’t comment further than that.
You don’t get it. He didn’t shoot a person, he shot a prostitute – vermin. Different thing altogether.
/snark
Ace of Sevens is incorrect. The law in question allows force to be used to stop any thief, provided that the person stopping the thief reasonably believes that the thief had no right of claim to the item stolen, and that the theft was by use of force, threat or fraud.
In addition, it allows the use of deadly force if, in addition to the above, he reasonably believes that the deadly force is immediately necessary to prevent the other who is fleeing a theft during the nighttime from escaping with the item stolen and he also reasonably believes that the item cannot be recovered by any other means (or that the use of force other than deadly force would expose the person pursuing to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury).
In short, if you’re taking a dollar out of your wallet at nighttime in Texas, and someone running by grabs it out of your hand, the law allows you to pull a gun and shoot them.
I forgot to post the link to the law. §9.4.2
http://www.houstontx.gov/police/hsn/pc-9.htm
http://law.onecle.com/texas/penal/9.42.00.html
Here’s a direct link to the law. On re-reading, you may be correct. It includes theft as a separate category from burglary and robbery. I’m not sure what the purpose of writing to their attorney general is, though. They tried to prosecute. The attorney general’s office didn’t write their murder laws with huge holes in it. Better to write the legislature.
1. The article linked is called “Shot for refusing sex”. She wasn’t shot for “refusing to have sex”, she was shot because she was a fraud, a thief and tried to flee with someone’s hard earned money. Some feminists twist the facts to suit their narrative of an overly sexist culture, just like Anita and her ridiculous “video games are sexist” nonsense. While it does seem to be extreme, all she had to do was give back the money she had clearly and deliberately stolen and think twice about pulling that stunt again.
2. Prostitution shouldn’t be illegal. Legalize it and most people should be comfortable with merely reporting such prostitutes for fraud and letting the law deal with it rather than taking matters into their own hands.
You are the land of the free, not land of the nanny state. Both the left and the right seem to have a problem understanding that, in different ways.
3. If a prostitute really has second thoughts she (or he for that matter) needs to provide a full refund. If she doesn’t, it’s fraud and fraud has consequences.
Dan – so you’re saying people should be shot to death for theft and fraud. That’s interesting.
Dan wrote:
Dan … you might have a point here but the problem isn’t the taking of money without providing services procured, it’s the lack of proportionality in the Texas law.
Should any citizen be able to shoot a thief who steals $150.00 or more? Do we want a death penalty for a misdemeanor-level crime where a private citizen is the prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner?
Dan doesn’t have a point. It’s not ok to murder people to regain stolen property. The Texas “law” is a horror.
So this means in the eyes of the court, the woman was seen as both thief and (stolen) property above being seen as a human being.
I’m never going to Texas.
Unless your life or the life of someone else is in clear and imminent danger, drawing your gun for the purpose of threatening or shooting a person should be punishable by a year in jail.
…and of course, the permanent loss of the right to own a firearm. And being forced to stand on a busy street corner holding a sign saying ‘I’m the reason gun restrictions are necessary’.
Dan- Others have addressed more pertinent points here but I wanted to point out that what she did was not fraud.
Gilbert hired her as an escort. While he, along with many others such as yourself, may interpret that as prostitution they are not the same thing. True, people hire escorts like Frago purely for the purposes of sex but the only reason escorts and escort services are able to operate within the realm of legality is because they are paid for their company, not sex. The sex is provided to the client strictly as gratis on the part of the escort.
I know the objection you’ll likely make is that we all know that that’s complete bullshit; people hire escorts to have sex with them. To that I say you’d be correct; it is complete bullshit but it’s necessary bullshit since we have sexually immature people in power. Still, when someone hires an escort they are agreeing, even if only in a “wink, wink” sort of way, that the money is for the escort’s company and any sex that may or may not happen is only according to the escort’s prerogative. Should the escort decide that she does not want to have sex with a client, even if they have already paid her, she is not engaging in fraud. She has provided the service the client agreed to. Just because the client believed he was paying for a different service than he thought he was is not fraud. It happens to people all the time.
In the end, Frago provided her company to Gilbert, thus she rightfully earned the money he gave her. Just because Gilbert, and the jury, believed he was hiring her for a different service than he received does not mean she defrauded him and it certainly does not mean he had any right to shoot her.
The law here only allows you to shoot someone if there’s no non-violent means to recover you property. Let’s asume for a minute that she really had agreed to perform a service for money, then took the money without providing said service. According to him, she hadn’t provided companionship, just walked around the apartment for 20 min. Why couldn’t he have called the copps? He saw the car and could have gotten the plate. It’s because he was engaged in an illegal transaction, or at least thought he was. In Texas, can you claim defense in illegal acts? Most states you can’t.
As much as I love living here in Texas, the fetishization of property rights at the expense of, y’know, peoples’ lives is a recurring theme that I find it very hard to get used to.
There used to be (maybe still is) a defense in Texas of ‘needed killing’ If you could convince a jury that the dead person need to be dead then OK.
I guess a hore qualifies. Maybe she was a feminist too!
How to rape a woman and get away with it in Texas:
1. Shove $150 in her pocket.
2. Wave a gun at her.
That’s it. If she won’t comply then shoot her and tell the jury you paid her for sex and she was trying to defraud you.
I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this until today. I’m so angry, I don’t even know what to do.
“Gilbert hired her as an escort. While he, along with many others such as yourself, may interpret that as prostitution they are not the same thing. True, people hire escorts like Frago purely for the purposes of sex but the only reason escorts and escort services are able to operate within the realm of legality is because they are paid for their company, not sex. The sex is provided to the client strictly as gratis on the part of the escort.”
The articles I’ve read about this didn’t really go into detail. Still, I’ll grant that it’s an important point.
What was the exact content of the ad and their e-mail/phone conversation? Some prostitutes do use ambiguous ads like “offer companionship”, but on the phone or in person make it clear that it’s about sex for money. Also did she really offer time? She left after just 20 minutes according to one article. That sounds awfully short.
“Dan – so you’re saying people should be shot to death for theft and fraud. That’s interesting.”
Not really, they should remain punishable as they always have by jail.
It’s not even about whether vigilantism is okay or not. (It’s not.) The question is what is acceptable in repelling an IMMEDIATE (key word here) attack on your life or property (or the life or property of others)? You know, when someone is in the process of doing this with absolutely no intention of surrendering.
I’ll admit, it does seem extreme for this particular case, although given her motives I just don’t have much sympathy for her.
I’d rather they just legalize prostitution so people can just safely report these scams.
I also note that the title is misleading, since honest prostitutes don’t need to fear this. The other news articles were also misleading and implying people can actually be killed for refusing to have sex. That is simply not true, regardless of how much you disagree with Texas’ self-defense laws.
“In Texas, can you claim defense in illegal acts? Most states you can’t.”
Somehow I don’t think that matters. Prostitution might be illegal, but those 150$ were legally his.
Like I said, legalize it and this probably won’t be an issue again.
“Dan doesn’t have a point. It’s not ok to murder people to regain stolen property. The Texas “law” is a horror.”
“Murder” is unlawful killing, not just any killing.
Still? Never? How about a safe cracker making off with a 6-figure sum? I’ll even suppose he’s being totally non-violent, doesn’t have a weapon and isn’t even confrontational, he just fills his bag with cash and runs away and refuses to surrender what he stole.
Are you really suggesting I should just let him walk away and not defend my property? Self-defense includes that, it’s not just about protecting yourself from immediate bodily harm.