Texas Says Its Fine To Shoot Women That Won't Have Sex With You

[Gravekeeper]

What the Hell, Texas?

So he hires an escort off Craigslist. She turns out to be an escort, not a prostitute, so she refuses to have have sex with him. But won't give him his money back because she already spent time with him. So he shoots her in the neck leaving her paralyzed and reliant on life support to survive. Where she later dies.

And he gets acquitted?

What the fuck? By that logic I can shoot a Best Buy employee in the throat for refusing a refund because I mistakenly believed my new printer came with paper.

Yet this sack of shit has the nerve to to whine about his mental anguish while his victim was fucking paralyzed on life support.

[Kelmon]

Unbelieveable...

Not just the reasoning for the acquittal (which is ridiculous), I can't believe it is legal to kill someone just for stealing in Texas. I'm really, really glad this wouldn't fly in my country.

Taken to the extreme, this ruling basically says that whenever you give money to someone for any service, you can kill them if you happen to decide that the service provided is not the one you wanted. "Well, officer, I thought this pizza boy was a children's party magician. When he didn't want to perform magic for my kids after I paid for my pizza, I of course just shot him in the head. He was totally stealing from me!"

[draco664]

So he hires an escort off Craigslist. She turns out to be an escort, not a prostitute, so she refuses to have have sex with him. But won't give him his money back because she already spent time with him. So he shoots her in the neck leaving her paralyzed and reliant on life support to survive. Where she later dies.

And he gets acquitted?

Sounds like the defense went with the law that essentially says that at night time you can use deadly force to recover stolen property. All the defense would have to do at that point to derail a murder charge would be to show that the victim had indeed received money for sex from someone who, at some time, contacted her via the Craigslist ad. Bingo, instant proof of misrepresentation of services, which the jury equated to theft, at night, thus not illegal to use deadly force to recover.

Fucking retarded law, but it sounds like the defense went with a sound strategy. The prosecution did point out that the law wasn't intended to cover people trying to force others into sex at gunpoint, but it sounds like the jury were convinced that the woman was a prostitute after all and simply took the money without returning the service.

What the fuck? By that logic I can shoot a Best Buy employee in the throat for refusing a refund because I mistakenly believed my new printer came with paper.

Doubt it. Besides the fact that Best Buy would probably bend over backwards to refund your money if you uttered the words "complain to corporate", they're a corporation and shooting an employee for following company policy would not be the same thing.

If the defense did indeed convince the jury that the woman was a prostitute who took the guy's money, then the law was on the defendant's side. Sucks big donkey's balls that killing someone for theft of $150 is ok, but she should have returned the money then gone to the cops and said he robbed her at gunpoint.

[Greenday]

I am perfectly okay with shooting someone trying to rob you. One less scumbag walking the streets.

What I am not okay with is shooting someone because you bought the wrong thing and it was non-refundable. Buyer's remorse isn't an acceptable reason for murdering someone.

[Kheldarson]

I'm not trying to victim blame here, and this is going to sound like it, but I think a huge part of the problem in this case was the use of the word escort in her description.

Not knowing precisely what was in her description, if she only listed herself as an escort and didn't list out what that entailed according to her, I could see why he might assume more being included in the services. Escort is a popular euphemism.

All of that being said, I don't think he had the right to shoot her in either case. Called the police on theft, sure. Detain her until police got there, maybe. Shooting, no.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

I'm originally from Texas and I'm guessing the prosecution lost this in jury selection. The legal argument even within the State of Texas is invalid and it goes something like this:

Not guilty because retrieving stolen property
Stolen property because the funds were acquired via fraud
Defendant believed he would receive sex in addition to companionship.

The flaw is that prostitution is illegal hence that would be both an illegal contract (so he actually should get his money back) but he is not law-abiding. The law that allows him to do this is the homestead law and it is there if someone breaks into my apartment with the intent to steal, Texas courts do not want to me to jail for shooting people who commit crimes on my property. It's political which side you fall on which is why this is all over Slate, NYT, and Huffington, but that's the logic.

But in this case here, it should not have applied so I wouldn't fault the law, rather the jury that applied it incorrectly. But that's what a fair trial gets you.

[Rageaholic]

This is textbook case of disproportionate retribution.

Kind of like most sucky customer stories only more extreme.

[Gravekeeper]

It should be noted that he did not make an attempt to retrieve his property. This is under the "prevent escape" part of the law. It should also be noted that the escort was Hispanic.

She showed up, told him it was x amount for y time. That time elapsed. He became enraged that she wasn't going to fuck him. So she got out of his apartment ( Probably rightly fearing rape ) and back to her driver. He came out, argued with the driver. The driver explained to him that she was an escort, not a prostitute and that he had paid x and gotten y as was indicated. He got angry, the driver ( Who also runs the escort company, and it IS an escort company, not a prostitution ring ) likely sensing the situation was going south decided it was time to leave.

Fucksack then whips out a gun and opens fire into the car. Shooting her in the base of the skull but missing the driver. He did not pull out a gun and say give me my money back or else. He failed to get his money back, pulled a gun and starting firing into the car by surprise.

Even the police officers that testified did not say that this was a theft.

Also, the law in question goes like this: Someone can use deadly force “to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime.

Criminal mischief in Texas is a misdemeanor that can be as little as under $50 worth of damages. Aka you can shoot someone to death for spray painting your garage.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

As I said, he wasn't within the law. This was a jury problem (or a prosecution problem in proving their case.) I absolutely agree he's guilty, even under the state law that the press is assigning the blame to.

Although I'll also say, "the money is for my time not sex" is what every escort says because it keeps them within the law at least within Texas. There is an etiquette to how it works. Why the guy couldn't make his way to an escort review site, I'll never know.

Honestly, I'd be curious to read record of the trial. If I had to guess, I would guess that a trial jury at least felt the defense proved that these two had done this before, the driver was acting like a pimp, and somehow there was misrepresentation going on. At least enough to prove that something illegal was going on.

Also, I realize I didn't say it earlier but the homestead law means I can take that shot from anywhere on my property including the lawn so long as the crime was committed on my property. I still think he's guilty, but that's what the trial jury was dealing with.

[Gravekeeper]

The driver testified that while he runs an escort service, its not for prostitution and they get fired if they have sex with clients. As it puts his ass on the line legally speaking. So I suppose you could look at it in that she thought her job would be on the line too.

However, he also testified that she yelled "He's got a gun!" as they were leaving. Prompting them to haul ass at which point the guy started firing into the car. ( He fired four shots into the car ). So even if the cops had classified this as a theft, they were trying to escape with their lives, not the guy's cash. Angry neckless white guy with a gun yelling about how she wouldn't fuck him? Yeah, trying to run is a pretty logical option at that point I would think.

The jury needs to be dragged out into the street and shot themselves. Obviously they decided he was a white good ol' boy against those shifty Mexicans and used the faintest whiff of the letter of the law as an excuse to acquit.

This had nothing to do with preventing a theft and everything to do with retribution.

[Andara Bledin]

Without the transcript to refer to, I strongly suspect that the prosecution screwed this one up.

I've seen it happen where the prosecution believes their case is so open and shut that they fail to actually prove that to the jury.

Unfortunately, double jeopardy laws mean that this ignorant ragesack will never be held accountable by the justice system for what he's done. However, that is not to say he won't be found at fault in a civil trial, which has much less rigorous need for proof of guilt.

Also, the argument about property and lawns is invalid on its face: He lives in an apartment. His property line ends at his door, at which point it becomes public access property of the owners of the apartment complex.

[eta] Also, it's worth noting that only one article of the 10 I found made any mention that the man in question testified that he was attempting to shoot out the tires of the car. That seems like it might be a salient point in the discussion which is omitted by reporters trying to paint picture that supports their personal narrative and doing a disservice to everybody involved.

[Gravekeeper]

I've seen it happen where the prosecution believes their case is so open and shut that they fail to actually prove that to the jury.

Yes, they may have vastly overestimated the common sense of a Texas jury. ;p

Also, it's worth noting that only one article of the 10 I found made any mention that the man in question testified that he was attempting to shoot out the tires of the car. That seems like it might be a salient point in the discussion which is omitted by reporters trying to paint picture that supports their personal narrative and doing a disservice to everybody involved.

If that's the case he's either a terrible shot or a good shot but a terrible liar. Seeing as he hit her dead on in the base of the skull. Hard to tell. Shooting out the tires does sound like the sort of yahoo I saw it on TV cowboy thing an idiot like this would think he could pull off. But on the other hand firing 4 shots into an occupied car without intending to hurt anyone shows a terrible lack of either judgement or humanity.

If you seriously can't grasp the consequences of discharging a firearm in the direction of people, you should not be permitted to have said firearm.

[Andara Bledin]

Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that he should lose any right to possess any sort of firearm after showing such an astonishing lack of anything even close to sense.

However, did the prosecution only try to get him on the killing charge? Were there other potential charges that they didn't raise that are still on the table for potential criminal prosecution in the future?

Also, as much as I hate to have anything in common with this guy, I'd have thought that 20 minutes for $150 would have involved more than just hanging around, too.

[s_stabeler]

on 20 mins for $150- IIRC, these kind of escorts are generally hired due to being able to do more than just 'hang around'- thye are generally pretty good conversationalists, etc. (to give you an example- a rich person has to go to some form of event, and wants to make sure he is taking someone that can do more than juts gush at him- he might hire an escort for that. $150 dollars per 20 mins to make sure you aren't bored out of your mind or need to worry about golddiggers? is probably worth it)

[Andara Bledin]

Only 20 minutes? You can barely make an entrance in 20 minutes.

I could see 20 minute increments for billing, but not for the entire engagement. It honestly sounds like the guy running the thing was looking for people to make just this sort of assumption.

Rent a Date has a 2-hour minimum and starts at $95/hour. $150/20 minutes sounds more and more like prostitute pricing the longer I look at it.