The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed “a justifiable homicide” under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday.

Police said the identity of the homeowner who fired the gunshot that killed Nicholas Donofrio shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday will not be released because the police department and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office determined his actions were justified under the state’s controversial “castle doctrine” law, which holds that people can act in self-defense towards “intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.”

  • legion02@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Hard to shoot someone who’s made an honest mistake when you don’t have a gun…

    • ALilOff@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Honest mistake ain’t busting in a window tho. I’ve locked myself out of my own house before and I’ve never went “I’ll just break a window to get in”

      I’d be terrified if someone was trying to break into my house at 2am.

      • legion02@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You hear stories about people with dementia doing this all the time. Guess they don’t deserve to live anymore either.

    • krayj@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It’s also hard to shoot someone who hasn’t made an honest mistake and is actually breaking in specifically to do you harm, when you don’t have a gun…so your comment is total nonsense.

        • krayj@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          If someone intends to harm me or immediately threaten my life, I’m shooting them. There is no moral or ethical argument you can make that will invalidate that. I consider the right of self-defense to be an inalienable right even if that requires lethal force.

    • BenderOver@artemis.camp
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t call breaking and entering into the completely wrong home at 2 am “an honest mistake…”

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        One of the presidents of the US did it regularly and he never got shot for it.

        The kids only real crime was being too drunk to understand what was going on.

        • RoboRay@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          When you choose to get drunk, you’ve also agreed to accept the responsibility for your future drunken actions.

        • BenderOver@artemis.camp
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          1 year ago

          Which US president would break into people’s homes? Sorry, I am unaware here…

          And no, he was breaking and entering too. Even if that was not his intention.

    • RoboRay@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Also hard to shoot somebody breaking in to your home with violent intentions when you don’t have a gun.

      And the only way to find out what the intruder’s intentions are is to wait until it’s potentially too late to defend yourself.