It's ok to shoot prostitutes in Texas!

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This is not another boring guns are bad/guns rock thread because, frankly, they're boring. You're all so damn opinionated that you refuse to pull your heads out of your own arses long enough to even LOOK at someone else's point of view.

Got it?

Good.

Anyway I saw this article tonight. It basically boils down to this:

A man gets an escort and pays her $150. The article states that paying some one for sex is illegal and that escorts are not obliged to deliver sex under the law.

However, the guy involved decides that this is theft and shoots the woman in the neck. He gets away with is because the law states that an individual can use deadly force to retrieve stolen property at night.

Now the article also says that the guy never mentioned theft when he was first talking to the police which suggests to me that he shot the lass because he was PO'd

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...xas-man-for-murder-of-escort-who-refused-sex/

Thoughts anyone?

 

It's hard to make a definitive conclusions beyond stating that it seems like a very broad interpretation of the law. The fact that the law covers any tangible object (money would qualify, as would virtually anything else), means you could legally shoot someone over exceedingly petty theft. I suppose that the way the law was written it can be interpreted the way it was, but that sounds like a crazy stupid law.

The guy feels she stole $150 from him, but it was also stated that when you hire an escort she isn't required to deliver sex. We will set aside for a moment that prostitution is illegal in Texas, as that apparently has no relevance to the case at hand. So if she wasn't required to have sex with him, then she didn't steal from him. And in any case I can hardly think that $150 is worth killing over. The guy clearly viewed this $150 as disposable income, and now he's pissed off because he feels he didn't get the full value of what he paid for? I've been disappointed with purchases I've made, some well in excess of $150, and I didn't feel the need to kill over it.

Plus there is no limit on the law. If it can be applied to something worth $150, I imagine it also would be considered valid over $1.50. Hell, it doesn't need to have any value at all. Anything that is a "tangible object" qualifies.

 

Section 9.42(3) of the penal code says that the use of deadly force under these circumstances is OK if:

Taken on the surface, I can't really see how either of those two circumstances apply here, which, like BTA and AFI, tells me that there's more to the story.

I do share Aldeth's concern, though, that the value of the property seems to be irrelevant.

Edit: this sounds like all those post-apocalyptic stories where everyone is shooting everyone else to protect their "stuff"

 

Knowing as little as everybody else, my two lines of thought are: first, all the "okay to kill prostitutes in Texas" type headlines and accompanying stories that I see cut and pasted in the results of a Google search are obviously just an attempt to sensationalize the story. Shame on those 'media' who are doing it. Even a cursory glance at the available information shows that the guy shot the girl in an attempt to recover moneys, not as punishment for withholding sex or because of the general principal that it's "okay to shoot prostitutes in Texas." That's just lazy and dishonest 'reporting.'

Second, it would seem very likely that this guy's defense amounts to yet another attempt to subvert sketchy laws that are on the books in various places. Shame on his lawyers too, although I know that's their job. But I seriously doubt that the law as crafted was ever intended to protect johns from being defrauded by prostitutes. That doesn't mean that the law isn't sketchy in itself (which we can see by the fact that it's vulnerable to wacky interpretations like this), but the trumpeted media angle and conclusion of this sort of thing "being just fine in Texas!" and they are proud of it is no doubt false. If anybody from Texas cares to jump in and correct me on that and say that yes indeed, they do like that sort of thing in Texas, I'll yield, but until then I'm inclined to grant Texans the basic assumption of decency that everyone else gets.

 

Our state motto is "They shoot ho's, don't they?"

People here like imromptu singings of "The stars at NIGHT, are big and BRIGHT *clap clap clap clap* when shooting Craigslist hookers..."

I think that's how it goes...

 

This thread and that article are useless without pictures.

While I agree that at this point gun threads are pointless as the people who are afraid of guns won't even take the time to learn about them, However, I think it has been awhile since we had a good "Should prostitution be legal? thread.

Myself, I'm all in favor of it. If one of the reasons we allowed abortion is because it is a woman's body and she should have the right to choose, then she should also have the right to sell/rent it if she wants to.

 

Damn right. Plus if it's legal then there can be more measures put in place to protect the rights and safety of the women and men who are sex workers. As it is, there is a kind of 'I'm paying so whatever I do isn't rape' mentality for some people.

 

Most dates are forms of prostitution anyway. Guy pays for the meal, she bangs'em. Hell, it's worse than prostitution, as he had to shop for the meal as well. She got extra!

 

I support the laws, but not necessarily the jury's decision in this case. I'd have to know more about the case to come to a conclusion.

 

That's why she should always order the lobster!

Actually, when me and Rob first met he'd just been made redundant so I paid. I suppose that makes him my hooker

 

This is why I prefer either paying separately or paying alternately (i.e. You pay for this one and I'll get the next one). It keeps the playing field even . . . unless of course, you're married and have a joint account. Or if one partner is MUCH better off than the other, as in Silvery's case.

I completely agree that prostitution should be legalized and regulated to protect the women.

As for this particular case . . . I really have nothing to add.

 

In Sweden it is now illegal to buy sex but not sell. The buyer is the one committing the crime. Hasn't made much difference but it is a law that tries to protect the workers while still keeping prostitution illegal.

 

Oh, shoot them....I thought you meant something else....This is Texas

Lol!