Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A Warren man who was beaten after allegedly breaking into a home in his town on Monday is in critical condition in a Worcester hospital, while the man accused of assaulting him is free on $10,000 bail.
Police said in their report that Gerard Beck Gaumond, 28, told them he was at his family's home at 84 High St. when he caught Eric Sinclair breaking in Monday night and he chased him. The report indicates Mr. Sinclair was beaten with a rock, a stick and Mr. Gaumond's shod foot, resulting in Mr. Gaumond being charged with three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing bodily injury.
Mr. Gaumond, whose most recent address is in Telluride, Colorado, was arraigned Tuesday in Western Worcester District Court in East Brookfield and is due back there Nov. 10 for a pretrial hearing. Warren police enlisted the help of state police detectives because they were concerned that Mr. Sinclair's injuries might cause his death, their report states.
Now, the case has raised questions about the extent to which Massachusetts residents have a right to defend themselves.
In Massachusetts, residents can defend themselves inside their home, but only if they feel they are about to have "great bodily injury or death" inflicted upon them, Massachusetts General Law Chapter 278 Section 8A states.
"In your own home, you do not have to retreat if there is a deadly threat," Mount Wachusett Community College's Criminal Justice Department Chairman Reed V. Hillman explained.
Mr. Hillman, a retired lawyer, former head of the Massachusetts State Police and one-time state representative, said the Gaumond case and pertinent state law were a topic of discussion in his criminal investigation class this week, and students talked about the prosecution and what might happen as the case moves forward.
Similar to a so-called "stand your ground law," or a "castle doctrine," the Massachusetts statute provides some level of protection for residents who fight back, but it doesn't allow those battles to extend outside of a home and won't protect people who go overboard when a situation doesn't warrant it.
"It doesn't apply to the garage or the porch," Mr. Hillman said, adding that efforts to strengthen the law to include defending one's self outside a dwelling didn't fare well in the Bay State.
In 2012, then-Gov. Deval Patrick promised to veto an oft-sponsored bill from then-state Sen. Stephen M. Brewer that would allow people to defend themselves from criminals in public. Opponents of that bill said they didn't want to see vigilante justice meted out and pointed to existing self-defense laws. Some referenced the Trayvon Martin case as a reason to oppose the legislation, which has never passed.
Still, the recent Warren case leaves Boston lawyer Peter Elikann, head of the Massachusetts Bar Association's Criminal Justice Division, wondering about what could happen should the matter wind up in front of a sympathetic jury.
"I do see how a lot of people could cheer it (assaulting a burglary suspect outside the home)," Mr. Elikann said. "But, outside? In every way it's in violation."
Even inside the house, people planning to defend themselves should be sure they believe they are in imminent danger.
"You have to have a reasonable belief that you are going to be hurt or killed," he said.
Mr. Hillman agreed.
"You have to demonstrate that you felt a threat," he said, "although there are so many variables."
Citizens in Massachusetts can make arrests, Mr. Hillman said, adding that he's never seen that happen. But when a police officer makes an arrest, he or she has a higher level of protection under the law than a citizen would - especially if the citizen got the wrong guy.
Even when a person clearly violated a law, sometimes jurors are sympathetic and might find a person not guilty even though testimony shows the person broke the law.
And, "there is jury nullification," Mr. Elikann said, describing a hypothetical example of such a case: A father kills a man who raped his daughter, and the father is acquitted by sympathetic jurors.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20151008/NEWS/151009167/101478