Texas Killing Puts Stand-Your-Ground-Laws Into the Spotlight

Attorneys for Terry Turner, a Texas man who shot dead Adil Dghoughi after he pulled over in Turner’s driveway, possibly because he was lost, say they will defend their client under the rubric of Texas’s stand-your-ground law and castle doctrine that allows homeowners to use deadly force against someone on their property if the actions are seen as immediately necessary, reports The Guardian. At 3:30 a.m., Turner noticed a car parked in his driveway and, retrieving his gun, came outside and shot Dghoughi through the car window as he was backing out of the driveway, the bullet hitting his hand and his head. Turner claimed Dghoughi pointed a gun at him. No gun was found.

Faizan Syed, a spokesperson for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said: “We believe the death of Adil is murder, plain and simple. Terry Turner should have been arrested the same day he shot and killed Adil.” Dghoughi’s family and attorney say he posed no threat to Turner. According to Syed, it took 14 days, along with calls to the Department of Justice, the Texas Rangers and other agencies, before the police department found, arrested and charged Terry Turner. Sandra Guerra Thompson, a law professor at the University of Houston, said: “The law will presume the use of force was immediately necessary if the other person forcibly entered a person’s occupied habitation or vehicle. It requires you to have evidence that the individual who was killed was in the process of committing some kind of crime. If there isn’t any evidence of any kind of criminality, [self] defense just doesn’t apply.”