When is it legal to fire a gun in self-defense?

After the Columbus shootings, suspects sometimes claim they acted in self-defense.

Sometimes these claims are effective; sometimes they are not. The Dispatch spoke with a legal expert to find out when exactly someone can legally fire a gun to protect themselves or someone else.

There were two nonfatal shootings in Columbus this fall in which men argued they were defending property or family members. One of them faced criminal charges, although neither man was ultimately convicted. The third such incident occurred on Friday afternoon, when a man told police he shot an 18-year-old he believed was harassing him; the teenager later died at a local hospital.

He told police that on Oct. 14 at approximately 6:45 p.m., a 21-year-old man living in the 3100 block of Azelda Street saw a juvenile break the window of his vehicle parked in front of his home. He said he yelled at the teenager and shot him when he saw that the boy was armed.

911 callers told police they saw an armed man without a shirt or shoes chasing someone down the street. The teen, who witnesses said held onto his chest or torso as he fled, was found on a porch in the 3000 block of Hiawatha Street – more than a 20-minute walk away.

A 21-year-old man was charged with assault, although the case was dismissed on October 25.

Another self-defense shooting resulted in no charges. On September 5, the man’s surveillance cameras alerted him that a man had broken into his garage at 1600 Audrey Drive. He told police that the man’s parents were sleeping at home at the time.

House owner he drove home and came face to face with the would-be burglarwho he claimed was keeping tools from the garage, police said. After the shooting, he called 911 and told dispatchers that the burglary suspect was lying in an alley about 100 feet behind his garage and “trying to run away.”

No charges were filed against the homeowner in Franklin County Court.

Rick Simmons, Vice-Dean for Faculty and Intellectual Life from Ohio State University, as well as a law professor and former assistant district attorney, said there are many elements to consider when deciding whether to charge a suspect who claims self-defense.

For a self-defense claim to be valid, a person must be in imminent danger, use reasonable force under the circumstances and have no other option, Simmons said.

“People often misunderstand what constitutes a justifiable shooting in self-defense due to failure to challenge their basic laws,” he said. They waive the duty to retreat before using deadly force as long as it is in a place where it has a right to be, such as on a public sidewalk, in the workplace or at home.

In states that do not apply to your fundamental rights, if someone is attacked and could flee or otherwise escape, they must do so rather than use deadly force.

Thirty states have immutable laws; Ohio was signed into law in 2021. Since then, more defendants have argued for self-defense after shootings, and many have been acquitted, The shipment has already informed.

Simmons said it’s hard to say whether these laws will make people more likely to shoot in self-defense overall because it’s difficult to tie crime trends to changes in the law. Similarly, it is difficult to know whether unchanged laws might deter would-be robbers or burglars by making them fear that their target might be armed and ready to shoot.

But regardless of Ohio’s underlying position, people cannot use deadly force when there is an alternative to protect themselves.

“You don’t have to run, but if you have other options, you have to take them,” Simmons said. “The idea is that the use of force, especially lethal force, should be a last resort because the state has a monopoly on legal violence.”

That often means law enforcement and prosecutors will look to see if someone had the opportunity to call the police instead or if they could have shown a would-be attacker that they were armed to dissuade the person, Simmons said.

“If you’re walking down the street and you see a person armed with a knife, looking threatening and looking like they’re going to attack you, you can’t just shoot them,” Simmons said. “You should draw your gun and say, ‘Stay away.'”

Simmons also said protecting property is never a valid legal reason to use deadly force. The person using deadly force must believe that someone else is in immediate physical danger.

The person defending himself cannot start a conflict either.

If a person is defending their home, they are presumed to have a valid self-defense claim, Simmons said, because someone entering your home while you are there can be assumed to pose a threat.

But that only applies if there are people in the house — setting booby traps in the house to injure or kill intruders while you’re away won’t count as self-defense because those people had no intention of seriously harming or killing you, he said.

In addition to these legal considerations, prosecutors will also consider how the case will play before a jury, Simmons said. They might drop the case if the suspect who fired the shots would be too sympathetic to a jury, like someone in a wheelchair or a frail 70-year-old, Simmons said.

Simmons said there are many steps to getting a conviction, and at any point in the process, police or prosecutors can decide not to pursue a case. The police may decide that the case is not strong enough to make an arrest. The prosecutor may decide not to continue the case.

A grand jury typically indicts defendants if the prosecutor presents a one-sided case, Simmons said – usually “it does whatever the prosecutor wants,” Simmons said. However, in a self-defense case, prosecutors often choose to provide a more nuanced and impartial account of what happened, leaving the jury free to make whatever decision it wants.

“They don’t want to take that kind of political risk and they want the grand jury to, you know, do their actual function, which is to decide whether this is a case that should proceed,” Simmons said.

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