The blogosphere -- and blawgosphere -- is abuzz today over the partial conviction of Ryan Frederick yesterday.  That is, I guess, a bit like partial conception, or only being a little screwed, but let's get back to that.  Rather than recap -- I'm lazy, and not getting paid by the word here -- let me just refer you to the pre-conviction roundup over at Balko's place, and the insider-baseball criticism of the (apparently quite good, but "good" and "perfect" are different words; look 'em up) defense lawyer from Scott.

It could have happened here in Minnesota.  After all, it's not like we don't have idiot kick-in-the-door raids here where folks with badges and guns get shot at because they don't have the brains or decency to make even a token effort to figure out the difference between Rolling 60's Crips and small Hmong children until they're tripping over the little kids while shooting up the place.

Some aren't as funny; sometimes, people get killed, like that nice elderly couple that Mike Sauro's MPD squad fried to death after throwing a grenade in during a wrong house raid, some years ago. 

And sometimes people get shot, and not necessarily folks who deserve it.  You could ask Bob Skomra, I guess; he's still alive, and around. 

But before we get to that, let's take a quick look at this story.  I'll tie it all together, more or less, I promise:  Carrie "RockNRoll" Rindall (I'm just making up the nickname; I know her boss, Mary Frandrup, slightly, and have reason to think highly of her, but the only thing I know about Rindall comes from this video and report.  Short form: Rindall shouldn't be trusted with a can of cooking spray and a rubber gun) for whatever reason -- probably a perfectly reasonable one; I won't quibble with that -- decides to pull over a guy on New Year's Eve.  Instead of pulling right over by the side of the icy highway, he promptly makes his way over to the exit, and slows down, pulling over on the shoulder . . . .

. . . after which RockNRoll Rindall, determined to show all the guys back at the barracks that she's got a larger penis than any of them do, decides to smash up his car some, then hauls him off to jail for a couple of days on the grounds of "you'll beat the charge, but you won't beat the ride" subprofessionally and ineptly executes the "PIT maneuver", and is only partly to blame for the subpar execution, as it's a technique intended to make a rapidly fleeing car spin out, and relies on the great amount of kinetic energy of the rapidly fleeing car, and just plain can't work when a van is already only going five MPH and slowing down.

Much jailarity ensues.  All in all, I'm sure it was a good lesson for the professor's three young children on what is not, alas, quite the low end of police professionalism, but definitely toward the shallow end of the pool.  (Generally, by the way, I'm pretty fond of the State Patrol folks, but that may be because I've dealt mainly with the ones who do security over at the Capitol, who are awfully good, and know how to do things low-key.  Captain Frandrup used to head that bunch.) 

Now, I'm not going to get into a long digression, here and now, on chase-don't-chase policies and PIT maneuvers, other than to say that a good rationale -- maybe the only good rationale -- for a cop ramming a squad into a fleeing car is that there is a huge chance that the fleeing car is going to ram into something, or somebody, and if there is going to be a collison it's a lot better of an idea if that happens at the time and place of the professional law enforcer's choosing, in as controlled manner as possible, than of the fleeing perp's random choice.  I mean, it may be okay for the MPD SWAT team to shoot up a house filled with little Hmong kids, but it wouldn't be okay for a fleeing car thief to run over a playground filled with them, would it?

That's the rationale for it, after all.  The idea isn't to inflict damage and punishment on the guy -- or his kids -- for him making an unwise decision to pull off the highway rather than pull over immediately.  The idea is that, as dramatic and dangerous as one car ramming another from behind is, it's safer for everybody concerned -- even the fleeing driver -- than the alternative, when employed in the proper situation.

A badged cowboy or cowgirl who rams a slowing car by the side of the road, even if -- as seems likely -- she gets away with it, is remembering the rubric and forgetting the rationale.

The rationale isn't yippie, we get to smash up a guy's car and then jail him because we've got our tactical panties in a twist, honest.

Which brings us back to rationale and rubric on shooting somebody. Sorry, before we get to it, I've got to give you a bit of homework.  This.  That's Minnesota's killing-a-guy-lawfully statute. Stick a pin there, and let's think about the day that Housley shot Skomra and Mack.

Me, I don't know if Riley Housley III was an undocumented pharmacist.  My thinking is that a guy who actually made a living selling narcotics wouldn't hold down a job as a construction worker, too, but, hey, there are such things as part-time gigs . . .

On the other hand, while the cops thought he was a drug dealer, they didn't get a warrant for that; they got one that allowed them to recover some supposedly stolen property, and it's that warrant for the stolen property that they were supposedly after rather than the drug charges that they really wanted to bring that brought Dave Mack and Bob Skomra and a whole bunch of other narcotics cops to 2807 Pillsbury Ave that day in 1979, and got Mack and Skomra shot up. 

Knocking on the door didn't work, and neither did trying to kick the door in, and it's not hard to understand why by the time that they actually got out the sledgehammer and bashed the door in, they were pretty sure that nobody was home.  The noise would have woken any normal person.

Actually, as it turned out, Housley was home that afternoon, and a heavy sleeper.  It was the smashing and crunching glass that brought him out of a sound sleep on the couch, and had him retrieving the handgun that he'd bought after being robbed at gunpoint a few months before, by a guy who insisted that he was a cop but almost certainly wasn't. 

And then there was the crashing in part; which is how Mack and Skomra got themselves shot up.  (Mack was, basically, killed by his injuries, although it took a few years; Skomra's retiring as an Inspector, after a successful career.  I don't know the guy; we've got at least one mutual acquaintance who thinks well of him; further, deponent knoweth not.) 

But enough of that digression.  We were back at the kicking in and shooting stuff, remember?  Skomra and Mack were bleeding on the floor, and at the same time that the other cops were on the radio shouting that a cop (they weren't sure of the number, until a bit later) had been shot, Housley was on the phone telling MPD to "Get the police to 2807 Pillsbury, I just shot someone breaking into my house."  Yup; the drug dealer was calling for police to rescue him, just in case the guys he shot were still up and moving.

Skomra and Mack got hauled off to the hospital; Housley to jail.   

Housley was convicted of first degree assault, but the Minnesota Supreme Court said, basically, in legalese:  nah; what were you idiots on the jury thinking, you morons?; see State v. Housley, 322 N.W.2d 746, 751 (Minn. 1982).

Which is where we get back from the rubric -- the statute, above -- to the rationale and the rational.

Housley isn't, popular (local) myth aside, a defense of dwelling case.  It's a self-defense case, that just happened to take place in the home.

Don't believe me: the MN Supreme Court was explicit:

The defendant was awakened by the sound of a thud or a crash and then heard someone walking on broken glass in his kitchen. There had been a violent entry into his home through a door that was securely locked and never used. The house was dark except for the light entering the kitchen area through the broken door. The defendant had been beaten and robbed at gunpoint, in the same house, only six months before. Housley, who is extremely nearsighted, could not find his glasses, but located his gun. Seconds later he was confronted by the silhouette of an unknown man standing 6' 3" and weighing between 220 and 225 pounds. Housley testified that the intruder appeared to have a gun in his left hand and made a jerking motion. Housley testified that he thought he was about to be fired upon, so he fired several shots in rapid succession and then grabbed the telephone and ran into his bathroom to call the police. The state posits several actions which, in retrospect, Housley should have taken when confronted by the unknown intruder in his home. Our primary concern, however, is not with what Housley might have done, but with the reasonableness of what he did do. Our statutes authorize the use of deadly force when the defendant reasonably believes he is in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death. In light of the testimony in this case, we find the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant Housley's concern for his safety was unreasonable.

Yup.  This case was so clear, that our Supreme Court overturned a jury.  They don't like to do that, hereabouts, and they didn't do it because Housley was (or is; he's still around, and was just in court, again, last year) a sympathetic guy.  They didn't do it because he could claim a "technicality" of defense of dwelling.  They did it because they remembered the rubric -- the statute -- and the rationale.

So, let's get beyond the rubrics -- whether it's when a carefully-trained law enforcement professional can get away with doing a PIT maneuver, to whether or not there's this thing called "defense of dwelling" to the rationale and the rational . . .

What we, as a society, can and can't expect of a person is what's supposed to be encompassed by the law.  Detached reflection in the wake of an upraised knife?  The sounds of shattering wood and glass bringing you out of a sound sleep?  Nah. 

But you're asleep in your home -- and whether it's been recently burglarized (at police direction in Frederick's case) or you've not so recently been robbed there at shotgun point (Housley) -- and somebody kicks the door in and shouting something that you're not going to be able to decode as you come awake, what do we, as a society, have a right to demand that a guy do? 

In the cases we're looking at, it's pretty clear:  two juries got it wrong.  And one Supreme Court got it right.  A guy, sleeping in his home, hears the crashing sounds, what is he to think?  Must be some cops with a warrant, because, after all, home invaders without badges don't break stuff and shout? 

Huh?

So, yeah, the conventional wisdom on the libertarian side of the blogosphere got it right:  the rationale is that it's your frakking home, folks, and when the state sends somebody crashing in through the door without a damn good reason -- and a compliant judge signing a warrant because a cop has had a compliant burgler burgle the place isn't one -- is begging for somebody who doesn't deserve to get shot to get shot. 

Ryan Frederick?  He's just the poor schlump who showed the bad taste to survive a home invasion that never should have happened in the first place.