Reflections on Property and Justice

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They might just be the shortcut to your summer goals Shop the shhake it Out shorts now at lululeemmon. com Well everyone knew everyone in this very small town called Eddieville, and everyone apparently knew the Brinies In nineteen fifty seven, a couple named Ed and Bertha Briney inherited an old farmhouse from Bertha's parents in a rural part of Iowa and They left it unoccupied for ten years. and It was not an inhabited old farmhouse and O in the middle of nowhere, basically They kept items of value apparently in there Bertha Banny's grandparents and parents had lived in the house After her parents died, Bertha Briney had wanted to keep things as they were down to the plates and silverware on the kitchen table We're hearing about the Brinies and their farmhouse from retired law prorofessor, Andrew McCLlerk People had repeatedly broken into this house. According to the Brinies, in the decades since they inherited the house, it had been broken into fififty times Ed Briney later said he'd nailed doors and windows shut posted seven no trespassing signs around the property and complained to sheriffs in two different counties over and over But nothing seemed to work So they basically boarded up the windows put ten over the windows to try to keep people from breaking in, but That was unsuccessful And that's when Ed Briny got out a shotgun Because they were fed up as I think with Mr. Brarney, I think those were his words. They were just fed up with people breaking in. Ed and Berth attached the shotgun to an iron bed frame and ran a wire from the gun's trigger to the bedroom doorkob. so that if someone opened the bedroom door, the trigger would be pulled and the gun would go off Originally the parrow was aim to hit the intruder in the stomach. Ed Briney, the husband, wired it and his wife, Mrs. Briney, that paragon of reasonables and they that she was, suggested he lower it to just T should the intruder in the leg Was there any sign posted outside of the house saying no trespassing or a gun on premises. You will be shot if you enter There were no trusts. passing signs that they had on the land for several years Just regular, no trespass signs. There were no warnings that there was a deadly trap inside A booby trout on booby trp The population of Eddieville was around a thousand people Its main street was two blocks long And just off of it was a gas station owned by the Catcoo family twenty eight year old Marvin Catcoo worked there with his father And he had an interest in Fing apparently jars and bottles that considered to be valuable antiques. And one day he broke into and abandoned Not abandoned actually, uninhabited farmhouse out in the country about seven miles away Edinberertha Briney's farmhouse Marvin had noticed the house over the years when he went hunting in the area It was surrounded by tall weeds And some of the smaller buildings around the property were falling apart acccording to courtcuments Marvin had broken in once before with a friend to collect bottles And they had decided to come back to see if there was anything they missed. The window they'd used to get in the first time had been completely boarded up So they walked around the house until they found another window that was easier to get into even though it was boarded up to. So he removed board or a piece of tin. and entered the house Marvin's friend started looking around the kitchen. And Marvin headed for the bedroom And when he pulled on the bedroom door, the shotgun trap went off and blew away a substantial portion of his leg What happened next led to a case that still taught to first year law students More than fifty years later I'm Phoebe Judge This is criminal after Marvin Catcoo was shot in the leg, The friend he'd broken into the farmhouse with, helped him to the hospital He spent forty days there He had to wear a cast for about a year. A brace for another year, and he lost two and a half inches of his leg His doctor said he had seriously considered amputation. When Marvin Katcoo recovered while he was in the hospital He was admitting that he had broken into another person's premises What did he do? Well, first, absolutely he knew, and he admitted he knew it was wrong and criminal and he was originally charged with a felony, but ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor Marvin pled guilty to larceny in the nighttime of property valued at less than twenty dollars. He was fined fifty dollars and given a sixty day suspended sentence And then He filed a lawsuit against the owners of the house he'd broken into Edinberertha Briny Marvin Cako's lawsuit alleged Edinburth O'Briny had shown, quote Malice and intent to harm by rigging the shotgun they meant for someone to get seriously hurt Marvin Katcoo's lawyer told newspapers that he based his case on the theory that there is a big difference between protecting your life and home where you live and protecting property and that you canannot use excessive force to protect property Andrew McClerg says the case might have been very different if Edinberth O' Briney lived in the farmhouse and were there that night But the house was vacant. It's very important, a principle, I think, because this is where people get it wrong. So the fact is is that if this had been an occupied house, if somebody breaks into my house I don't own a gun, but if I did and somebody broke into my house There's a very good likelihood that especially at night, I could legally shoot them because then I be we would be switching from the defense of property to self defense or if I had a family living there, other people living there defense of others. So you can use deadly force often to protect yourself or other people just not property. Edinbererth the Briney's lawyer argued that the law allows for property to be defended with quote all the force necessary And then he asked, Who decides what is necessary Ed Briney said he felt like he was being, quote Trmented by being robbed over and over again During the trial, his lawyer attempted to demonstrate how bad it feels to have your things taken by reaching into the jury box and grabbing the purse of one of the women on the jury In the end Marvin Katcoo won And not only does he win, he wins not just compensatory damages to compensate him for his injuries and medical expenses, but punitive damages, which are an add on type of damage that is quite rare actually designed to punish particularly egregious conduct They But they did not They were not charged with any criminal Crime. No No Today it would be a crime in most states back then probably was not technically a crime. So what what were the damages? Will you tell me that he was rewarded They were twenty thousand dollars in actual compensatory damages and ten thousand dollars in punitive damages, but it would actually be substantially more in today's dollars. And as a result, the Brin's And this just partly what really stirs up students, the Branie's had to sell eighty acres of their farm to pay the judgment criminal who broke into their house How do your students, you've been teaching this case for a long time, how do your students react to to this case. So what usually happens is people usually speak up in favor of the court's decision. That is in favor of Marvin Catcoo winning, that you shouldn't be able to use deadly booby traps. I have to kind of, um play along with it and get you know, dw out people who donon't w want to come across as cold hearted or cold blooded to start defending the Brownies, but once they get going, they really get going on it. And then somebody I find somebody's vociferously sticking up for the Brownies. and then I say, how many people in here? ' law school classes, first year classes are pretty large. There might be seventy, eighty people in there. I said, how many people in here ever entered Iillegally, any kind of structure on somebody else's property when they were a kid,, whether it's a shed or a barn or an abandoned house Yeah Almost every single person raises their hands Briny's appealed the decision And the case went to the Iowa Supreme Court The courourt agreed with the original ruling findinding the Binies responsible A lot of people in the town Sided with the Brinies. One paper reported that about three thousand people had written to offer support to the Brinies Mrs. Briney was quoted as saying It's sort of a puzzling world. in that I didn't feel as if I was in the wrong I was the one being harassed What else was I gonna do besides get a twenty four hour guard Marvin Katcoo was quoted saying that some Eddieville residents no longer associated with him. He said that the average person can see both sides of it We'll be right back To listen without ads, join Criminal Plus We all do it You have a night for yourself but don't like the sound of the silence, so you turn on the TV just for the ambiance It's a little trick that helps you feel like you've got company and aren't alone And other insurers well, they may make you feel alone. But when you switch to GyCo, you've got claims reps available around the clock. So whenever you need, you'll have people around to help. And let's turn on the washing machine. just for good measure. Isn't that soothing? 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If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to netssuetai dot com slash criminal Built for every industry ready for every boardroom. netsSuite. Ai slash criminal Ss have been hearing cases about people setting off what's called the spring gton trap a booby trap or sometimes a man trap for a long time So one of the Most notable and earliest cases was a case from England in eighteen twenty five, so almost two hundred years ago called Byrd versus Holbrook And the defendant Holbrook maintained What were apparently very valuable tulips that he grew about a mile from his house He set up a booby trap with trip wires running across a few of the paths in the garden One day, a neighbor's peacock flew over the garden wall and a nineteen year old climbed over it to help find the bird he set off the trip wires, and was shot in the knee Then he sued the tulip gardener And one So one of the problems with booby traps is they're indiscriminate. They can't discerned between a dangerous criminal and a ten year old kid who's just out, you know doing mischief A nineteen eighty six case involved an electrified booby trap A store owner, whose store had been robbed multiple times installed and electrified metal grate above his front door When a man brokeen through the ceiling The rubber soles of his sneakers protected him But he touched the metal grate as he tried to climb out and was killed The store owner was arrested and charged with manslaughter he said I didn't mean for anyone to be killed I just wanted to shock him and warn him. his store had been robbed six times in the past month alone, And he said that the police hadn't done much about it He said police come by and fill out a report and put down that fingerprint dust And you'll be cleaning it up for two days after that They'll never even call you grand jury voted to release him You know, and these are all cases involving people who are fed up and people breaking into their propertty. So it's not like that was their first idea to set a deadly buoy trap In nineteen seventy four, A man named AC Wade owned a liquor store in Cordel, Georgia He also owned a cigarette vending machine just outside of the store Apparently he had had trouble People come in and rattling his machine and it would sling out. either cigarette packages or money or change out of the cup that held the money. And so it was an early pe machines, so it was not very sophisticated. So he began to make it sophisticated by You put a third of stick of dynamite connected to a micro switch. so that if it was disturbed in any significant manner It would ignite the dynamite stick. so Quite a crude thought. I mean But if you were if you were to shake the machine so much, it would Whatever the charge would be set off. That's correct Attorney David Rainwater And this machine was sitting out front of the liquer store. so it was exposed to twenty four hour Youth AC Wade, the liquor store owner, said his machine had been broken into five times and that he'd put in the dynamite to try to scare off potential thieves He said The solution was to sacrifice the machine It was the only thing I could come up with. He had not attempted to see what the amount of force would be. Would it be a killing force or would it just be a scaring tactic? But I think the third ofic of dynamite is significant Force and of course it turned out to be a deadly force. Just after midnight, on august twenty third, nineteen seventy four A sixteen year old boy named Robert Joel McKinzie and his fifteen year old friend reportedly tried to pry open the machine with the tire tool. The dynamite went off and the machine exploded Both of the boys were hurt. Papers reported that the fifteen year old left the scene to seek medical help leaving his friend behind. he was eventually questioned by police, and brought the deputies back to the liquor store Robert Joel McKenzie was still at the scene, very badly injured His leg had been hit by a piece of metal from the machine during the explosion, and an artery in his thigh was severed He died shortly after he was taken to the hospital AC Wade said that he felt terrible and cooperated with police from the start. He admitted everything He admitted that it was rigged as a man trap He didn't boast about it, but he actually felt They had done nothing wrong He told papers I gave it lots of consideration I never activated it until after hours There is no way an innocent person could get hurt He had to be breaking in I figured it would knock them down on the pavement. He said You just never think of everything. and that some people had been sympathetic to his position but he said In lots of people's minds, I'm a villain The county sheriff said he wasn't planning to file charges, because he said he quote Knows of nothing illegal, AC W to done the sheriffs said the death was accidental. He said the dynamite itself wasn't powerful enough to kill someone And that Robert Joel MackKinzie had died because a piece of the machine had come off and cut his leg, and he bled to death. Nobody was willing to prosecute this man for doing this. And so we then filed the civil suit David Rainwater represented Robert Joel McKinzie's mother One of her relelatives insisted that she talk to a lawyer it wasn't right for her son to be killed over stealing quarters which is basically what it was You might remember back then the machines were not sophisticated enough to take dollar bills So it's just quarters AC Wade estimated there had been quote four or five dollars in the machine David Rainwater thought Robert Joel McKinzie's mother had a good case The wrongful death statute number one did not limit it to non criminals It applied to everybody It didn't matter what your conduct was, even if you were a trespasser, even if you were a criminal, you still could use the wrongful death statute. to collect damages from somebody that had a willful and wanton intent He knew he expected the trespasser to come back. He laid a trap for him you know, and at least in Georgia, you don't owe a trespasser in duty Except not to leave a man traped for the way our law is written The defense. kept saying, well, you know we had no intent to kill him. We were just trying to protect our property, trying to scare him and whatever. but that wasn't good enough because the law hell that Anyt timee that your conduct is willful or wanton, Intent is inferred ECWed was found liable The judge wrote He had an abandoned and malignant heart. He set a death trap with dynamite, never testing it to determine how many innocent persons might be killed, if within one hundred to two hundred yards of it and thus sought to protect his several dollars in the vending machine He had a conscious indifference to consequences AC. Wade was ordered to pay a small settlement to Robert Joel McKinzy's mother people react in town to the events and the decision Very negatively, they couldn't believe you could somebody could collect that was in the process of stealing from you So they they weren't showing outward sympathy for what had happened to this sixteen year old No, not at all David says that people in town thought of Robert Joel McackKenzie as a thief. He was a criminal What happened to him was you know, irrelevant. He was in the process of committing a crime And there are people out there that still believe that property And the right to enjoy it is the highest right you have But that's not exactly true. And this case really illustrated that even a criminal in the state of Georgia can recover for damages if he was injured or killed as a result of them Mandra We'll be right back S for criminal comes from Shopify. Before starting a business, lots of people experience self doubt. 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That's ritual d. com slash criminal ver twenty five percent off your first month Wellll my back was against the wall This is Phil Conahghan In the late eighties, he was living in Denver, Colorado He had a construction firm and did building repairs for a living And he stored all of his equipment and tools in a warehouse in a non residential part of town Well had had I got my snow plow in there and my service truck had all my carpenter tools in it and it had all my concrete tools in it and my roofing equipment in it And u All my hand tools, my mechanic tools that I repaired all my equipment I've done mechanical work. most of my life So everything you needed to do your job was in that warehouse Absolutely One day Phil decided to take a road trip into the mountains I had a little MG car weather was perfect and Top down, it's incredible driving through the mountains in a convertible, little convertible And I stopped by the warehouse just to Have a look. It was a Sunday. And I saw that my back door had been broken into And that's when it started. When you walked in, what did you see I saw that I was doing a welding job And I had it all laid out, had all my equipment there, and every piece of my welding equipment was gone That job just came to a halt And, uh, You can imagine the feeling of it's like, you know, you're stomach just falls. It was awful What did you do when you saw that all of your things were missing Well I call the police And I've repaired the door I reinforced it as best I could. And u I just built a new padalog system for it And that was the best I could do And Popscoctor. lookooked everything over and took the report That was it. It wasn't Maybe two or three Sundays after that, I got there and found the door was smashed in again M more of my equipment was gone. Were you surprised that it happened again? Oh, sure. Oh yeah. I thought, you know, a one time deal, but you know, it was just a start of many And A about the second or the third, I got used to it, you know? I didn't know what to do I can't remember how many times they came through that back door until I finally rebuilt the door And not I put sheet metal there And then I backed it up with more wood And the next time I got there to work He had taken a hatchet or an axe or a clawhammer or something and tried to break in and he He absolutely just shattered the wooden door until he came to that piece of metal. And he u He didn't have any way to get through that metal Phil says he'd set up an alarm that would call nine hundred and eleven when it was tripped But he says whoever was breaking in somehow knew to turn off the electricity He says that each time he saw that there had been a break in, he called the police and made a report Eventually, he was calling them so much that they asked him to just mail them a list of the items that were stolen place was so off the beaten path that They just They just couldn't seemed to get a patrol car to go down in there and Check the place. They were too busy where there was business and people and Cars and so forth, you know A columnist at the Denver Post wrote an article about all the robberies And some readers felt so bad for Phil Conahghan that they sent him money and replacement tools. It didn't take long though, for those donated tools to be stolen too Conghan says that he had no idea who was doing this But he was He was incredible. He was an incredible mechanic at getting into things. He And fininal, the thing that broke my back was the fact that I had rebuilt the back door to where he couldn't get in that way anymore And so he tied his vehicle to my front door and pull the front of the building down to get in And then he took Everything he wanted that trip, I guess I thought, I can't get any help Figure out, Conanne I remember getting that shotgun in going back to the backroom and sitting on that stool and putting it all together and Testing it Make sure that it was going to work And I ran a Tpwire about Fot off the floor And then loading it and getting it ready to do his job. I didn't really plan on it. I just did it I guess it was the only thing that that I thought would catch him Were you worried about it shooting the wrong person and someone who wasasn't doing anything wrong might get hurt Never did. There was He and I were the only ones that ever went back in that room There wasn't any reason for anybody else to go in there I couldn't get in there How did you hear that something had happened It was u Easter Easter Morning. and I had I had worked to put the front of the building back together. And um I gotten my little MG and headed for Kansas City and was going to spend Easter with some friends over there And we were my friends farm and teelephone rang and they said it was for me It was my daughter. She, uh, she told me that, uh, He was with the police And they wanted to talk to me And, uh, I don't know if you've ever had dry mouth, but I almost died of dry mouth that day It was awful And u Police got on the phone W to know if I was Phil Conahghan? I said, yeah I said, well, We're at a warehouse and there' been a problem Did the police tell you anything? What did you learn it happened Well, I kept asking this cop. You know, what division are you with? and who'd say Denver Police Department? I said, no, you know what What division are you with And he finally said He said, I'm a homicide and that's That's when I about came undone Becauseuse I knew then Four people had broken into the warehouse the night before. One of them, a nineteen year old, set off the shotgun and was killed. his three companions ran away Police waited until the morning to go inside the building and retrieve the body because they were afraid of another booby trap going off. And they were searching for me. They charged me with first degree murder And, um, I hit out several places in Kansas. And finally I realized I was gonna to have to face up to what was going on over there As Soon as I got back, I called the placeice and I told him I was in town what I needed to do. they told me just to comeome down to place headquarters and Turn myself in, that'd be the best thing. So that's what I did The owner of a restaurant near Phil's warehouse told reporters that the victim had terrorized the area and that he was a skinhead with a visible tattoo that said white pride. The restaurant owner said If I were to face a situation where I asked and asked and couldn't get help I would have done the same thing to protect my property. Business owners in the area started putting up signs, saying their buildings were booby trapped too One of them burned down because firefighters refused to enter it until they could determine that it was safe Phil pled guilty to manslaughter He was fined twenty thousand five hundred dollars. placed on probation for six years In order to pay seven thousand dollars to the family of the victim You know, the punishment I got was really nothing compared with taking a life You know, I realize that. I just did it to put a stop to it. I never I never thought about killing anybody. Um I don't I don't know why. guess maybe I blocked that part out as a way of justifying what I did Did you ever see the family of the person who was killed Never did You never heard from them Nope, not a word What would you say to them if you could talk to them Oh that I' sorry that I hurt their son. I killed him The Timinal is created by Lauren Spor and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robberintson, Jackie Sico, Lillily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Mean Kanane