A satisfying end to a horrific story. Per the Daily Mail:
A Texas father who discovered a man raping his five-year-old daughter and beat him to death with his bare hands will not be charged with homicide under state law.
A Lavaca County grand jury decided not to press charges against the 23-year-old father in the June 9th death of Jesus Mora Flores, 47, who was killed inside a remote shack after he was caught molesting the young girl.
Under Texas state law, deadly force is authorized and indeed, justified in order to stop an aggravated sexual assault and coupled with the fact that the harrowing 911 calls made by the father back claims he even tried to save the pedophile’s life led to the grand jury’s decision
These are always difficult cases. On the one hand, one doesn’t want to encourage vigilantism. Had the father removed the threat to his daughter, tied the attacker up, and then calmly executed him it would clearly have been murder. On the other hand, human beings are human beings and the legal system should try as far as possible to treat them as they are rather than how they should be. I defy anyone to confirm that they would be able to limit their response precisely to removing the threat if they walked in on their 5-year-old daughter being raped. It’s very easy in a courtroom to make it sound as if a man overreacted. But in the heat of a fight, legalistic quibbling goes out of the window. If one has to choose between a system that tends toward allowing the deaths of child rapists to go unpunished and a system that tends toward punishing the parents of victims who walk in on the crime, I would favor the former.
So, it seems, would Texans in the Lavaca County area:
Sheriff Micah Harmon had said in June that he was not willing to press charges against the father, rather the case would be presented to a grand jury.
At the time, Harmon said that the man was ‘very remorseful’ and didn’t know at the time he had killed Flores.
’You have a right to defend your daughter,’ Harmon told CNN at the time. ‘The girl’s father acted in defense of his third person. Once the investigation is completed we will submit it to the district attorney who then submits it to the grand jury, who will decide if they will indict him.’
…
Residents of the small Lavaca County town were largely in support of the father, saying the victim deserved it.
Sonny Jaehne, a Shiner native, told the Victoria Advocate: ‘He got what he deserved, big time.
Friend Mark Harabis reiterated this: ‘I agree with him totally. I would probably do worse.
I’d be interested to read a dissenting voice on this.