A suburban Houston homeowner was cleared by a grand jury Monday for fatally shooting two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's home.Joe Horn will go free. Now watch the civil suits begin.
There's been a brouhaha in recent weeks about the AP, which filed this story, going after bloggers about citing their stuff--even brief passages like above--and wanting to establish a fee structure for even a simple quote like I've used here. $2.50 for every word over four. They want $44.50 for the above cite.
They can basically plant one. They're among the most notorious "Authorized Journalist" outlets out there as far as injecting an agenda and just plain getting it wrong, and as long as they're out there either incompetently or intentionally misdirecting people, I'm going to call them on it.
Their drek typically doesn't add value--it creates work to clean up after them.
UPDATE: I am told in "Comments" :
LawDog noted that 'Under the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Chapter 83, Mr. Horn is now "immune from civil liability for personal injury or death that results from the defendant's use of force or deadly force".'
We should be charging the AP for the free advertising we give them.
ReplyDeleteLawDog noted that 'Under the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Chapter 83, Mr. Horn is now "immune from civil liability for personal injury or death that results from the defendant's use of force or deadly force".'
ReplyDeleteCopyright law allows directly quoting passages of up to 500 words, with attribution.
ReplyDeleteDoes AP accept responsibility for miseducating the reading public that "assault rifles," including AK-47s, can be bought by anyone as easily as buying a toaster?" That an AR-15 IS an AK-47? That the Second Amendment GRANTS the right to arms?
We could compare "abuses." AP probably wouldn't like that idea.
Neither Mr Horn nor us are out of the woods on this. The pinheaded poltroon, Congressperson Sheila Jackson Lee is making noise about CONgressional hearings; the local Jesse Jackson iteration, Quanell X is making noise as well. As a TX resident I expect a well organized attack on our castle doctrine / use of force laws in the '09 legislature. And with a very possible dem power shift we may come up on the short end.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Mr Horn has made public comment, never advisable after being no-billed in such a contentious situation.