Absent a riot where deadly force is permitted to defend a home or suppress the riot, an imminent threat to a person is absolutely required, and in the case of an escaping violent felon the threat to the life of others must be quite realistic and likely and not merely possible.

Yes, that was my point in an earlier post, perhaps in a different subthread. :-)

The rules change outside your home.
“Over a hundred years ago, the California Supreme Court said, ‘no duty to retreat if you’re in your home,'” says UC Hastings Law Professor Rory Little. “‘We’re going to leave open whether there’s such a duty if you’re outside of the home.’ That little leaving-open has never been firmly answered by the California Supreme Court. They simply repeat the same broad language over and over again.”
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/...

Now you are getting into Clintonian word games. Of course a weapon still being pointed at you trumps attempting to flee. A weapon so pointed constitutes a reasonable imminent threat.

No not "could", not merely the possibility of a future threat to life. The danger to the lives of others has to be reasonable and realistic and likely in the case of a fleeing violent felon.

No, deadly force is not legal in such a circumstance as the threat is a possible future threat not an imminent threat.

You can pursue and use necessary and reasonable force to detain such a fleeing attacker but deadly force is not one of your options until we get into situations like in (1) and (2) where the threat once again becomes tangible not merely possible.

For odd reasons I had to take a law enforcement class that all California Peace Officers are required to take. It covers the the legal use of force among other things. Your pursuit was not illegal. Your stomping him after he pleaded you to stop was. When the person surrenders the imminent threat is legally gone and and the doctrine of reasonable force dictates that you only may use the force necessary to restrain. You can hold him down but that's about it. Your actions were as absolutely illegal. You were lucky the police on the scene ignored your final actions.

If after surrendering and continuing to be attacked the robber could have kicked your ass and his lawyer would have been able to successfully claim self defense for that particular action. Obviously he would still be guilty for everything that preceded it.

The robber could have also prevailed in a civil lawsuit against you. You could have lost far more in such a suit than was at stake in the robbery.

You absolutely can. There can be a contractual obligation to have your bags, pack, briefcase, etc searched on entry and exit. Happens all the time. There can be a contractual obligation to have the merchandise and receipt checked. Restricting rights and creating obligations is what contracts are about. If one party breaches, such as failure to have the shopping cart's merchandise inspected, then the other party is no longer obligated to provide fulfillment such as let the merchandise leave the store.

I didn't say you, I said the merchandise.

That is not the scenario being discussed.

Wrong. Various states permit citizens arrest, and further allow the use of reasonable and necessary force. In California a sworn peace officer is required to recognize a citizens arrest, it can not be ignored. The officer must accept the person in "custody". After accepting the person into such "custody" the officer may use their discretion and immediately "release" them. However the law is clear, citizens arrests are legal and must be recognized by sworn peace officers. In fact they are at times absolutely necessary. For misdemeanors the offense must be witnessed by the officer in order for them to make the arrest, letting the witnessing citizen make the arrest and turn the person over to the officer removes the problem of a "stale misdemeanor".

I do for California. For an odd reason I actually had to take the required law enforcement class that covers powers of arrest, use of force, etc.

In California its not quite that simple. If the attacker is attempting to flee then there is no imminent threat and deadly force is no longer permitted. Note the California Castle Doctrine presumes imminent threat unless evidence to the contrary exists. Scenarios where a resident pursues and harms a fleeing invader are often used as examples of such contrary evidence, for example injury to the back of an invader.

Also If the attacker has disengaged or otherwise sued for peace and the formerly endangered person attempts the use of force despite the lack of imminent threat the roles have become reversed, the former attacker now has some right to self defense. Again, California.

I have noticed that the presence of lawyers does not necessarily improve the quality of the media's coverage. Lawyers are often paid to represent one single side of an issue and intentionally misrepresent the other. The media will sometimes stack the deck to one side and if the two sides are comparable the media will sometimes participate and/or regulate the debate again favoring one particular side. I've seen the media let one side dominate the available time uninterrupted while letting the other side get very little time and interrupt and talk over that side when they are attempting to make a point or clear up a misrepresentation of the other side.

Perhaps, but searching your shopping cart is probably not what most readers had in mind when they read "searching your person".

The contract you signed may state that merely entering the store indicates such consent. Also for those unfamiliar with costco one has to show their membership card at the door to get it. Which may be another mechanism by which you are consenting. Failing to show the card is most likely trespassing.

Kind of meaningless given that anyone can be sued for anything.

Nope, you probably contractually agreed to have merchandize leaving the store inspected.

They are most likely perfectly entitled to prevent the merchandize from leaving without the contractually agreed upon inspection and direct you to customer support for a full refund. If you try to force an exit with the merchandize you are most likely the aggressor in any physical person to person altercation that results and the employee the person entitled to self defense.

Again, contractual agreement to have merchandise inspected. You may leave with inspected merchandise or with a refund.

Sounds like something highly dependent upon a particular state or jurisdiction. Basically it sounds as if the "Castle Doctrine" protection of the home itself has been enlarged to the entire homestead land that the home resides upon.

Even so I would expect certain caveats. Is the stranger trespassing on the property armed for example. Bad news for a lost hunter, perhaps not for a lost hiker.

My understanding of the concept of "Stand Your Ground" is that it does not define the conditions upon which deadly force may be used. Different concepts, for example the "Castle Doctrine", define such conditions. Under the "Castle Doctrine" a person is by law considered to be in danger of death or severe bodily injury if a stranger forces his way into their home. That forcible entry into the home enables the use of deadly force. What "Stand Your Ground" adds to such concepts is whether the person is obligated to flee. Does the person enabled to use deadly force under the "Castle Doctrine" have to attempt to flee if possible to do so. "Stand Your Ground" merely say that they have no such obligation to flee.

Be aware that "Stand Your Ground" is being grossly misrepresented in the media. Partly through the normal day to day ignorance of the media (*) and partly through politics.

(*) Consider the media's abysmal coverage and discussion of anything computer related. What makes you think they do any better on any other subject matter?

For those unfamiliar with costco they are not searching your person. They ask you to show your receipt and they take a quick look through and under your shopping cart.

No right to search you? You mean other than the membership agreement you signed that allows you to enter their private property?

Don't confuse you having a right with Costco being polite despite you being an a-hole.

I am not a lawyer and I am only speaking of jurisdiction I am familiar with.

In the US it is usually (always ?) illegal to use deadly force to protect property. There must a threat of death or severe bodily injury to make deadly force legal. Note that certain situations imply by law that such a threat exists unless there is evidence to the contrary, ex stranger forcing their way into your home. Ie the occupant of a home is presumed by law to be acting in self defense.

A weird exception may be deadly force being legal in some jurisdictions during the suppression of a riot. Perhaps there is an implicit assumption that people are in serious danger by the very existence of a riot.

That said, a security guard may be able to use appropriate force to detain/restrain you if there is a reasonable belief that property was stolen. A citizens arrest sort of thing while awaiting the real police to show up.

I think Poles and Slavs, intellectuals, liberals, gays and various other groups would dispute the notion that if you were not a Jew you need not fear for your life under the Nazis. When I toured Dachau there was a display with the various patches indicating the offense of the prisoner, Jew was one of many.

"Collaborating with the Nazis" is purely a western point of view? Only in the sense that some Fins seem to be in denial about history. When your government is secretly recruiting members of your active duty army to join the German Waffen SS you are a collaborator. The fact that you are motivated by the idea of reclaiming lost territory *and* seeking revenge on the Russians does not change this fact. Yes "seeking revenge on Russia". Such a motivation is absolutely exposed by the Waffen SS participation. If Finnish participation had been limited to the Finnish army only fighting to reclaim lost territory then "revenge" would be an unfair claim, but that is not the case. Waffen SS were recruited with the absolute intent of participating in the broader fight outside of formerly Finnish territory and absolutely with the intent to contribute to a German victory over Russia. That is collaboration.

If you read the classic "When Women Stopped Coding" articles it blames personal computers in the home. That boys gravitated towards them but not girls, and the girls were thus less competitive when they started studying CS in college unlike in pre-personal computer decades when they were on an equal footing.

The suggestion is made that computers were marketed towards boys. That is speculation. It has not been shown that high school aged girls had equal interest but were discouraged or if there was some other age/gender trait that made them less interested.

The article I recall reading mentioned a girl who was a math wiz and decided she wanted to study CS. Well maybe math wizes were more equally distributed between the sexes and CS was formerly dominated by such people, and maybe the personal computer opened up CS to non-math wizes so were are comparing two completely different demographics pre and post personal computer, so comparisons are more complicated. While math wizes may naturally be more equally distributed maybe the non-math wizes with computer interests are naturally not so equally distributed. Its a bit of a leap not to consider such factors and just assume it was due to marketing.

I had a girlfriend who was an actual developer, MS CS, 68K embedded systems. A close female friend with a BS CS was a developer and DB person in the corporate world, now a project leader in such areas. I had a female project leader who although not a developer was quite tech savvy and a good leader/manager, and a gamer. Regrettably these are few and far between. However I think your argument demonstrates a basic failure in statistics. Recall how in your statistics class caveats such as "all other things being equal" were constantly being thrown about. You fail because the workflow of the industry decades ago was radically different.

Decades ago there was a lot more "clerical" work is software development, especially in corporate and government environments. A great-aunt was a punch card operator who took code written on paper by developers and created the punch cards to be fed into the mainframes. It was considered an inefficient use of resources to have an "engineer" create their own punch cards when one could hire a "girl" to do so at a fraction of the cost. This sort of thing contributes to the higher participation of women in the tech industry in the past.

Whether or not there is some inherent bias against coding tasks, a bias that occurs naturally more often in females than in males, is an unanswered question.

Also read up on causality in that statistics textbook. Frat boy behavior may be the result of a lack of women. Males in isolation deviate from their normal behavior. I'm not 100% sure but I think it has been documented that men typically voluntarily act "better" (self control and self censorship in the less childish sense) when women are around. As a long term participant of the industry I've certainly seen such behavior as the rare female developer joins/leaves the team. Most, like me, thought it good to have women around, that the sausage fest and the stupidity that results is dumb.

Substitute "many men" for "some men" and your comment becomes more realistic and less political dogma. Then note that you are merely saying that there are a few a-holes in every large group. Well, yeah.

And I'm old enough to remember being in elementary school during the 70s and that there was no racism between the four white boys (me one of them) who had the desks adjacent to a black boy in a blue collar neighborhood. Racism is largely a generational thing. Most often you were raised that way or you weren't, and for the exceptions its probably far more common for someone who was raised racist to reject it than for someone who was raised without it to embrace it. Racism has been in sharp decline for many decades. As has sexism. My grandmother who had done electronics assembly for Navy aircraft during WW2 was "let go" when the war ended to create a job for a man returning from the war. She may have been able to get a clerical job, like her sister, in a tech company but not anything close to technical work as she had done. Today's issue being crude frat boy jokes demonstrates remarkable progress.

Apologies if I was confusing in the other response but when I referred to what I had previous written I was mostly referring to this post: http://slashdot.org/comments.p..., not necessarily my post to you.