You can legally murder people to prevent "mischief", as long as it's at night? Wow.

bryanlarsen a day ago | parent | next [-]

IANAL.

Mischief is typically a serious crime; the legal and common uses of the word are different and confusing.

But I don't think Texas is restricting this to the more serious felony mischief here.

	▲	thaumasiotes a day ago \| parent [-]
		In this case Texas defines "criminal mischief" in three clauses, and separately defines circumstances under which it constitutes a felony. Felony mischief is largely but not exclusively defined by the amount of pecuniary loss. The first two clauses are destroying property and damaging property in a way that causes pecuniary loss to anyone. The third clause is making marks on property. This seems like it would always be included under "damaging property in a way that causes pecuniary loss", so I would guess it's there to make it completely explicit that graffiti counts as criminal mischief. The quoted section of the penal code does not appear to apply any restrictions to the specific variety of criminal mischief that justifies deadly force (other than that it occurs at night). For something like graffiti where the general sentiment is that deadly force shouldn't be considered justified, I could see an argument that the use of deadly force violates §9.42(3)(A), which requires the person using deadly force to reasonably believe that the land or property in question "cannot be protected or recovered by any other means". If we view both verbs as applying to criminal mischief, you could make the argument that when you catch someone spraying graffiti on a wall on your property, your property can be recovered, though not protected, by e.g. repainting the wall. The counterargument might be that "recovered" is in there as the appropriate verb for cases of theft, and "protected" is in there for cases of mischief. I don't think restricting §9.42 to felony mischief would be an improvement to the law; it's difficult to know whether criminal mischief is or isn't a felony until you've tried to recover from it and learned how much that will cost. If you catch someone keying your car, for example, that probably is a felony, but as far as social impact I would rate it similarly to graffiti.

▲

budman1 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It ain't murder. (other words apply)

▲

thaumasiotes a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The alternative would be completely incoherent. If it's OK to prevent theft, the appropriation of property, it must also be OK to prevent criminal mischief, which is the destruction of property.

Note that the harm to the victim is identical in both cases, except that in the case of theft, recovery may be possible.

▲

nonethewiser a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

“Legal” murder makes absolutely no sense. If its legal its not murder. You mean “legally kill”

▲

aidenn0 a day ago | parent [-]

It can also mean unjustified/immoral killing, which can be a useful definition (otherwise e.g. a true dictator can never murder anyone).

▲

rayiner a day ago | parent | next [-]

That’s not a useful definition in a democracy. Who gets to define what’s justified if not the duly elected legislature? I bet if you put the current Texas law on the ballot today you’d get the same answer.

▲

ipaddr a day ago | parent | next [-]

If you put that on the ballot in other states this would be more popular than initially thought by most.

▲

aidenn0 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Participating in a representative democracy doesn't mean agreeing that the legislature is always right, it just means agreeing to accept the legitimacy of their rule. This is an important distinction. When someone says "the death penalty is murder" or "abortion is murder" they are making a moral rather than legal argument, and so long as they try to align the law with their morals on a soap-box and at the ballot box, they are true participants in the democratic process.

▲

Planktonne 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It is a useful definition, because it allows you to talk about places where the law might be unjust.

You can't have a functioning democracy if it's impossible to criticise the current setup. This is the whole idea behind newspeak [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

▲

rayiner 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> It is a useful definition, because it allows you to talk about places where the law might be unjust.

Unjust according to whom? Wouldn't it be better to just make our premises explicit?

	▲	aidenn0 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		While some philosophers may disagree with me, all statements made by an entity with agency contain the implicit prefix "I believe that..." In terms of rhetoric, explicitly adding "I believe that..." to the beginning of a statement softens the statement to a degree that the speaker may not desire. When a vegetarian holds up a sign saying "Meat is murder" I don't think very many people are confused about "according to whom" or that they think the person waving the sign believes that killing animals is actually against the law. "I believe that killing animals for food is immoral and unjustified so we should stop" certainly lacks the punch of the original statement, and the number people who are confused about the original statement is small enough to justify the punchier language.

▲

spolitry 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

“Legal” always means with respect to a designated authority.

▲

nekusar a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah.

You expect pigs to defend you?