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Marvin Louis Guy: When Castle Doctrine Becomes Capital Crime

By    |   Friday, 19 June 2015 08:41 PM EDT

Marvin Louis Guy of Killeen, Texas, faces the death penalty in 2015 after being charged with capital murder in what his lawyers are calling a clear, castle doctrine act of self-defense: opening fire on intruders who turned out to be police officers launching a no-knock SWAT drug raid on Guy's house.

Killeen Detective Charles "Chuck" Dinwiddie, 47, was one of four officers shot as the team breached the house in the pre-dawn hours of May 9, 2014; he died of his injuries two days later, KWTX 10 reported.

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The castle doctrine cited by Guy's attorney, sometimes called a "stand your ground" law, varies from state to state, but essentially says a person has no duty to retreat and may use force if their home, yard, or other defined space is invaded, according to BusinessDictionary.com.

The raid turned up no drugs, KWTX said, citing a police search inventory that listed a glass pipe "identified as drug paraphernalia," along with a safe, a grinder, a laptop computer, two walkie-talkies, a 9-mm pistol, and three cellphones.

Guy, 49 at the time of the incident, was charged with capital murder in connection with Dinwiddie's death and three additional counts of attempted capital murder for wounding the other officers. He is being held in Bell County Jail and might not go to trial until early 2016, the Killeen Daily Herald reports.

His case is playing out against the backdrop of a raging national debate over no-knock raids – unannounced forced entries that have sometimes come into violent conflict with the castle doctrine theory of self defense at home.

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An online petition asks that the capital murder and attempted murder charges against Guy be dropped. The change.org petition had attracted 6,876 signatures as of mid-June 2015.

In Februray 2014, a Texas grand jury refused to indict another man, Hank Magee, arrested under remarkably similar circumstances – a pre-dawn, no-knock drug raid by a group of officers that ended with one officer shot dead.

"This was a terrible tragedy that a deputy sheriff was killed, but Hank Magee believed that he and his pregnant girlfriend were being robbed," Magee attorney Dick DeGuerin told the Daily Mail. "He did what a lot of people would have done. He defended himself and his girlfriend and his home."

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FastFeatures
Marvin Louis Guy of Killeen, Texas, faces the death penalty in 2015 after being charged with capital murder in what his lawyers are calling a clear, castle doctrine act of self-defense
castle doctrine, marvin louis guy, capital crime
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2015-41-19
Friday, 19 June 2015 08:41 PM
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