Posted on 08/27/2011 5:55:22 AM PDT by marktwain
An El Paso County jury on Friday awarded nearly $300,000 to the daughter of a burglar who was fatally shot in 2009 while breaking into an auto lot.
Parents of the victim, Robert Johnson Fox, embraced their attorneys after a judge announced the jury’s verdict, capping a two-week-long civil trial in which business owner Jovan Milanovic and two relatives were painted as vigilantes who plotted a deadly ambush rather than let authorities deal with a string of recent burglaries.
Phillip and Sue Fox, who filed suit for wrongful death in 2010 on behalf of Fox’s 3-year-old daughter, called the jury’s award a victory in their fight to seek accountability for the death of their son, who they say never posed a threat to the heavily armed men.
“Rob was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing, but the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” Sue Fox said afterward. “I can’t excuse his actions, but he didn’t deserve to be executed.”
The exact amount of the award was $269,500, for factors such as loss of companionship and loss of future earnings. The family will also be awarded some of the costs associated with the more than yearlong legal battle.
The jury of three men and three women deliberated for 2½ days over closely contested testimony about the predawn shooting on April 19, 2009.
Fox, 20, was shot after he and a friend scaled a fence to get inside Southwest Auto Sales at 2444 Platte Place in the city’s Knob Hill neighborhood. According to the accomplice, Brian Corbin, they had smoked methamphetamine and were looking to steal anything to buy more drugs.
Corbin testified he saw two armed men charge out of a building and run in their direction, one of them shouting “we’re gonna get you” in an obscenity-laced threat. Corbin, who escaped by climbing over a car and jumping a fence, said he felt a bullet pass by him as someone fired four gunshots.
Fox was standing inside a small shed when a .45-caliber rifle bullet passed through the shed’s door and pierced his heart.
Police said in a 145-page investigative report that the intruder had knives in his pockets and one strapped to his ankle, but never posed a threat to Milanovic or the other men, his father Ljuban Milanovic and brother-in-law Srdjan Milanovic.
The men are refugees who came to the United States from the former Yugoslavia in 1998.
Jurors found that Fox’s death was the result of “willful and deliberate” conduct by Jovan Milanovic, who was accused of firing the rifle, and Novak, who supplied the semiautomatic Heckler & Koch that Milanovic used in the killing.
Only Ljuban Milanovic emerged without a judgment against him.
The jurors declined to comment after the trial.
"It's been a long two weeks," one said before getting on an elevator.
The three men were accused of keeping an armed vigil over the auto lot and firing on the first burglars they saw. The men were angry over a series of thefts that began when someone broke in a week earlier and stole keys to customers’ automobiles as well as keys to buildings on the property.
Car stereos were taken in the days that followed, according to testimony.
Under Colorado’s self-defense laws, the use of deadly force is justified only under the “reasonable belief” that it’s necessary to prevent serious bodily injury or death. The jury found that none of the men had a legitimate claim of self-defense.
Property rights are not a lawful defense for using deadly force in Colorado, and the state’s so-called Make My Day law, which sets lower standard for using force, applies to households, not businesses.
For the plaintiff's attorneys, Terry Rector and Jennifer Stock, Friday's verdict ended an emotionally draining fight for the girl, Sidney Richardson, who has been cared for by the elder Foxes for the past year.
Rector, of Colorado Springs, had represented Fox on traffic matters, and said his death came as a blow.
"I can see him sitting in my office today," an emotional Rector said as participants filed out of the courthouse.
"This is a victory for Sidney Richardson. It's the only measure of justice we have - we cannot bring her father back."
Said Stock: "This jury didn't let sympathy and bias influence them. That's why we got the correct verdict that follows the law."
Milanovic and his father told police a week before the shooting they would shoot any intruders who returned. Police say the men concealed the rifle in the trunk of a car so well that a police detective initially missed it during a search.
The 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office declined to file charges in the shooting, and instead sent the case to a grand jury, which decided against returning an indictment, effectively clearing the trio of criminal wrongdoing.
The civil award has no criminal implications for the Milanovics or Novak.
Defense attorneys John P. Craver and Chelsey Burns declined to comment.
Florida's laws expressly forbid the criminal or the criminal's family from suing in the event they are shot by someone defending themselves or their property. In fact, the law goes so far as to remove the 'duty to retreat'. So long as you have a legal right to be there (meaning you're not trespassing) you can defend yourself.
There needs to be some minimum level of competence displayed by jurors to be chosen.
Do just like the cops...keep and use the “throwdown”.....ALWAYS!
On the other hand, horse thieves were routinely hanged in the old West. [shrug]
Best post so far. Excellent.
I know what you mean. An absolute cesspool of fruits and nuts. It's the only county that voted against Prop 2, the constitutional amendment to protect marriage in Texas.
Then why do cops shoot you down if you are holding a knife against them?
Then why do cops shoot you down if you are holding a knife against them?
Several reasons. 1. Holding a knife is different from having one in your pocket or strapped to your leg.
2. Being behind a door, standing still, after running away, is quite different from moving toward someone after being ordered to stop or to drop the knife.
3. Distance is very important. A person with a contact weapon who decides to attack a person from 21 feet away only gives the person being attacked about 1.5 seconds to draw and fire. This is taught to a lot of police as the Tueller Drill. I have taught it to all my concealed carry students.
Great police work there. Two armed men, with concealed weapons, on drugs and seeking to perform criminal acts, after having illegally entered your property ... "never posed a threat".
Does anyone know if there are government installations anywhere in this country with "shoot on sight" ROE, not including prisons?
Does anyone know if there are government installations anywhere in this country with "shoot on sight" ROE, not including prisons?
The grand jury refused to indict, so the shooters were not charged with any crime.
This was a civil trial for damages in a wrongful death case. The police would not be involved.
I do not know of any government installation that has a "shoot on sight" ROE.
They may exist, but I do not know of any.
My experience has been exactly the opposite. I have personal knowledge of at least two examples where the guards at military Ammunition Supply Points (ASP) were not allowed to have loaded firearms, but had to keep their cartridges in their pockets, Barney Fife style.
I do not know of any government installation that has a “shoot on sight” ROE.
My experience has been exactly the opposite.
I have personal knowledge of at least two examples where the guards at military Ammunition Supply Points (ASP) were not allowed to have loaded firearms, but had to keep their cartridges in their pockets, Barney Fife style.
Travis, have you had any experience that can help inform us on the ROE at U.S. government installations?
May every one of those jurors face a knife wielding burglar.
This is a valuable lesson to Concealed carry holders to make certain you know the law and the circumstances when you may use deadly force. If you are not being threatened in a manner that is governed by the laws related to the use of deadly force, you will be committing a crime and/or opening yourself up to civil liability.
While a burglar or trespasser may be guilty of all sorts of things, deadly force cannot be used unless there is a personal threat. This would be different if a law allows the use of deadly force for the defense of property.
This was not a home, but a commercial establishment. The thieves were running away when assaulted and “chased.” As unpalatable as it is, a fleeing felon is not normally considered a threat unless he is shooting at you as he retreats.
Having said all of that, it is sad that law enforcement could not provide the level or protection against repeated violations that would have stopped this before it got to this point.
Was there discrimination against the shooters here?
This is a valuable lesson to Concealed carry holders to make certain you know the law and the circumstances when you may use deadly force. If you are not being threatened in a manner that is governed by the laws related to the use of deadly force, you will be committing a crime and/or opening yourself up to civil liability.
While a burglar or trespasser may be guilty of all sorts of things, deadly force cannot be used unless there is a personal threat. This would be different if a law allows the use of deadly force for the defense of property.
This was not a home, but a commercial establishment. The thieves were running away when assaulted and “chased.” As unpalatable as it is, a fleeing felon is not normally considered a threat unless he is shooting at you as he retreats.
Having said all of that, it is sad that law enforcement could not provide the level or protection against repeated violations that would have stopped this before it got to this point.
Was there discrimination against the shooters here?
My point about the police is that by writing in their report the victim and his accomplice “never posed a threat” might have swayed the civil jury in deciding to award damages.
As for ROEs, what about places like Groom lake, NV or other such secret facilities? If there is a place where the ROE is “shoot on sight” then the argument that property is never worth protecting with deadly force is out the window ... so long as it’s the government’s property.
Yes, those words could have been important.
“Rob was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing, but the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” Sue Fox said afterward. “I can’t excuse his actions, but he didn’t deserve to be executed.”
BS. The human shaped turd got exactly what he should have gotten. The turds who brought this suit, the lawyers who facilitated it, and the jury in this case should all get the same....
This is one case that needs to be appeal.
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