shot in Texas<\/u><\/a> two weeks ago while participating in the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFor the love of whatever deity you pledge your faith to, do not do this,\u201d Bakken wrote. These pranks can lead to serious, even deadly repercussions, he wrote, adding, \u201cThe great state of Wyoming is likely one of the worst places to dress up in ski masks and forcefully kick at doors at night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It Certainly Is<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Former state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, a Laramie County Republican, agreed wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bouchard was a key co-sponsor of the \u201cStand Your Ground\u201d self-defense law Wyoming passed in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It specifies that people in self-defense scenarios don\u2019t have a duty to retreat from places they occupy lawfully during the conflict, as long as they\u2019re not the initial aggressor, or committing a crime at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A person using fatal self-defense doesn\u2019t need to show his life or someone else\u2019s was in danger, under the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He only needs to show that he had a reasonable belief that he or someone else was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This makes the door-knock prank even more risky, Bouchard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c(What about when) people play a prank and they don\u2019t know the mindset of the person inside (the house), they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re going through?\u201d asked Bouchard. \u201cWhat if it\u2019s a coincidence that someone\u2019s called this person and threatened them (before) someone does a prank at that door?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I Remember \u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bouchard recalled the 2018 Wyoming Supreme Court case of State v. Jason John.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a pivotal case in Wyoming self-defense history. It set the framework by which judges follow another provision of the law Bouchard helped to champion. That is, a person \u201cshall not\u201d be criminally prosecuted if he acted in self-defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the past, courts let the jury decide whether a defendant had acted in self-defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine Wilking found herself grappling with Stand Your Ground\u2019s new immunity provision weeks after the law became active \u2013 when a first-degree murder case with a self-defense component landed in her court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casper man Jason John had shot his romantic rival dead at the entrance to John\u2019s home. The intruder, Wesley Willow, was unarmed, but had exchanged threats with John before charging into the latter\u2019s home the night of Aug. 3, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman with Willow was armed with a liquor bottle with which she intended to hit John’s head; and the pair also had with them a man whom John did not know, according to court documents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilking let John have a pre-trial hearing, to argue that he acted in self-defense. She also let the prosecutor argue that John had, rather, acted criminally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why We Have These Hearings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
At the end, she decided that John was right and dismissed his case altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state of Wyoming challenged that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, Wilking had followed the basic premise of the law, the Wyoming Supreme Court concluded in an April 6, 2020, opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her on-the-fly legal framework of the hearing wasn\u2019t perfect, and the high court altered the finer workings of future self-defense hearings \u2013 which the legal community now calls \u201cJohn\u2019s hearings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the high court\u2019s mandates on framework didn\u2019t change the outcome of John\u2019s case, the opinion says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the evidentiary standards put in place \u2013 which remain in place \u2013 the defendant argues that the evidence shows at first glance that he acted in self-defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If he can prove his case under that \u201cat first glance,\u201d or \u201cprima facie\u201d standard, then it becomes the prosecutor\u2019s turn to argue back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prosecutor has a higher standard of proof: preponderance of the evidence. If he can prove under that standard that the defendant did not act in self-defense, then the case continues toward trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If he can\u2019t, then it\u2019s dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A simple thing you can do is V the top of a 2×4 a bit longer than the distance from your door knob to the floor, and prop it up under the doorknob. My grandfather taught me this one as he used it at a rental, and when they tried to break in again, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13547"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13550,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547\/revisions\/13550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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