The Burglar's Bill

...S.1 is concerned only with the use of deadly force for the protection of federal property, such as post offices, and has no effect on the rights of individual homeowners and shopkeepers...

...Party leaders Hugh Scott and Mike Mansfield hope to achieve a conseiisus by removing the corrtroversial provisioirs and voting on all the rest...

...Landau picked up his story at a meeting of the ABA House of Delegates in August at Montreal...

...There to debate and take positions on the various provisions of S.l, the lawyers disagreed so thoroughly about the “deadly force” provision that they decided to take no position on it...

...Do it today...

...If we accept that theory, the next step will be a requirement that all homeowners install safety glass so the robbers won’t cut their liancls when they smash the windows to get in...

...William L. Dickinson, an Alabama Republican described by an admirbig local columnist as “a former judge with a ‘get tough against crime’ reputation,” was quick to draw his prose pistol in a weekly column supplied to the local press...

...It wo~ild, for example, elim hate such iricoyisi steiicies as rmxiiiiirni sentewes of tea years for robbing a Yost Office and 20 years for robbing a bank...

...And, again, it applied only to federal property, not to homeowners...

...Before long, lie warned, homeowners would have to “invite the crooks in for milk and cookies and then beg for mercy ! ” Clarification In November Landau finally wrote a followup story, supposedly intended to serve as a correction of his original enor...

...Not until 23 paragraph\ later did he nientiori that the “legal tempest” was “sparked, in part by a iic:ws story by the Newhouse News Se~vice:,~’ In his secorid paragraph, Imdau sajtl spcmsors of the bill “intended” it tu apply only to federal property...

...Uickinson told his coinstituents that the bill “appears to be a left-wing attempt to make it more difficult for a iimi to protect his life and property...

...As one expert has noted, this raises the possibility of an unhappy wife shooting her husband for overstating charitable contributions on his income tax return...

...The Senate curreritly is trying to reach a coinjnoinise 011 S. I that will get the bill passed after all these years...

...Kenneth Dalecki is a Washington reporter for the lkomsan Newspapers...

...The bill is notorious to journalists anti civil libertarians, however, because of provisions added by the Nixon Administration which would create an “Official Secrets Act” (or “Ellsberg Law”), making it illegal to release or receive classified govemnent infor~nation...

...I never thought people would take it that way, but they did...

...And attach a copy of this editorial as explanation of your opinion...

...who are...

...Ihe story lalei iso tetl that these authorities “appear io be supported by columunist William IF...

...The reporter is Jack c...

...To the casual reader, however, it did little to change the original story’s thesis...

...The basis of [ andart’s slakinent that the bill’s “effect” rliight go beyoird its “intent” was that state lawmakers swne times are i a f l ~ ~ i c beyd f ederal laws...

...You can help have them [the allegedly pro-burglar provisions of S.11 deleted if you write a brief note to your congressman or senator expressing your disapproval,” the editorial advised...

...S.1 as drafted said merely that the possibility of safe retreat “is a circumstance to be considered with all other circumstances in determining whether such [deadly] force was reasonably required...

...Des Ruisseaux said the bill would “turn a man’s castle into a supply depot for burglars’’ and imagined a homeowner being charged with manslaughter if a startled thief died of a heart attack in his living room...

...Others lean toward permitting deadly force for the prevention of any felony...

...But in any event, like most basic criminal law, it is a matter left to each state to decide for itself...

...Some have settled on a highly restrictive approach which requires that human life be threatened before deadly force can be used...

...This wave of alarrn is curious for two reasons...

...His inflammatory column included a scene where a homeowner is forced to “lock himself in his bedroom, crawl under the bed and wait until the cute kids slash the curtains, spray-paint the walls, steal what they want and set fire to what’s left...

...Rep...

...It’s another thing if you don’t say it...

...But this prohibition applies, according to Assistant Attorney General Richard L. Thornburg, “only in a situation where it would be clear to any reasonable man, even in the heat of the moment, that no danger to the life and limb of persons rightfully on the premises was involved...

...This 735-page bill, in Ilre works since (lie Johrison Admiiiistratioii, is an attempt to codify the present liodge-podge of federal criminal law...

...Apparently many journalists, at least, think exactly that...

...Rep...

...Receiitly, S.l has tmonie nstorioiis within a very different group - conservatives...

...Columnists Paul Harvey and William F. Buckley fell for the story...

...Even concerning federal property, the provisions of S.l represent no “liberalizing” trend...

...Last July, Landau wrote a four-part series for Newhouse, highly critical of the anti-leak parts of S.l...

...It appears that the “controversial” category will include both the “Ellsberg Law” portion, which would radically change the current law, and the “deadly force” section, which would have no effect at all on the law except to clarify it...

...Charles E. Wiggins, the conservative California Republican, says, “If anyone thinks he can shoot a burglar with impunity under existing laws, he is in for an unpleasant surprise...

...The question of when it is appropriate for a citizen to use “deadly force” to protect himself, his family, and his property is one state lawmakers have long struggled with...

...Odder still, this false alarrn was set off by a liberdl reporter active in the fight against the Official Secrets Act portion of the bill...

...As to the widespread public reaction, “Frankly, I was taken aback...

...Simplify, Simplify Landau concedes that his failure to explain that S.l applies only to federal property and not to the typical homeowner was a major fault...

...Landau’s fellow newsmen wasted no time running off with his story...

...This is widely perceived as an effort to punish and rriuxzle the press and its sources...

...Landau said in his story that a homeowner could be convicted of murder “if he had the opportunity of ‘retreating [to another part of his house] with complete safety to himself and others before shooting a prowler...

...First of all, no such absolute right exists...

...A Hearst editorial, distributed throughout the newspaper chain, declared that any homeowner who shot a burglar would violate federal law under S. 1, “and thus become a criminal himself...

...He wrote that it would “negate the widely held belief that a person can shoot a nighttime prowler with no questions asked...

...Landau’s lead said that S.l “would make it a federal crime in some instances for a citizen to shoot a nighttime prowler on the spot...

...The particular words in S.l which have caused the most fuss are those dealing with “safe retreat...

...Latidarx, Supreme Court correspondent for the Newhouse News Service...

...convinced th& it would deny them the right to shoot burglars who break into their homes...

...It quite reasonably forbids the use of deadly force merely to “terminate a trespass” on federal property...

...James H. Quillen, a Tennessee Republican, inserted a statement in the Congressional Record calling S. 1 “sheer, total, and absolute lunacy...

...It is one thing if you make a flat misstatement...

...They jumped at the chance to strike a law-and-order pose, although they could not possibly have read the provision they were attacking...

...I-,” A. “Sltiy” Bafalis, a blor ida Republican, went even fwther in his weekly colurnn...

...Hearst papers helped stimulate the avalanche of mail received by Congress since Landau’s article appeared...

...He said S.1 would “make it a crime lo harm an intruder who breaks into your honie...

...Rep...

...But legal authorities say the bill’s effect iiiay go beyond that intent,” his thiid paragraph countered...

...Furthermore, it gives carte blanche to neither the protector nor the invader...

...But he insists that it was merely a confusing omission, and not a mistake...

...I never said it applied to the states, but I never said it didn’t,” he says...

...I__ _II___ -_I_ __ Do-Go oders Whether or not this was his intent, Landau succeeded in turning several conservative congressmen against S.1...

...13uckley...

...According to Thornburg, they “merely codify existing case law...

...Landau, who holds a law degree, testified against S.1 in May 1973 and April 1975 as a member of the Executive Corninittee of the Reporters Cornrnittee for Freedom of the Press...

...Buckley engaged in a similar flight of fancy in which he had a silverware thief advising an armed homeowner that S.l requires him to “repose” in the bedroom until he completed his burglary...

...But it is mistaken...

...The Louisville Courier Journal, which printed Landau’s story on September 3, also published that same day a column by its humorist, Richard Des Ruisseaux...

...This is the group recently involved in the Daniel Schorrl Village Voice CIA report controversy...

...Deadly Force The subsequent controversy shows that this belief is indeed widely held...

...Secondly, S. I has nothing whatever to say on the subject...

...Nighttime burglam arid uther assorted thieves should have a real field day though if this ‘Ci-iininal Jutice Re form Act of 1975’ becomes law...

...Skip said the burglar provision of S.1 “is part and parcel of the theory being expounded by some do-gooders, that critiinals are to be protected, ale to be granted inore rights than honest citizens...

...That’s one of the problems of legal writingyou have to simplify it...

...Harvey declared without qualification that S.1 “would supersede any state laws to the contrary...

...I.,ernimt, liberal judges all across the cormtry have already made it far too easy for crirnirnals to prey on their innocent victim without fear of reprisal...

...In September, Landau wrote the story which set a fire under the vocal bama) News ran it under the headline: “Administration Backs Bill to Make Shooting Intruders U. S. Crime...

...A legal tempest has developed in Congress over a proposed federal law which would make it a crime to shoot a nighttime prowler on the spot unless the home resident is ‘ieasoiiably’ certain that he or his family is in dam gel,” 1,arrtlau began...