sws4420
04-04-2005, 11:44 AM
(Albany, NY - AP) — The state's highest court has ruled against a New York City man claiming self-defense when he killed another man during a confrontation in a doorway.
The Court of Appeals unanimously ruled the doorway to an apartment can't be considered part of that person's home.
That argument was being used by Richard Aiken, who's appealing his conviction for killing Theodore Badgett in December 1999 in their Bronx apartment building.
The two men had a history of run-ins, and Badgett had stabbed Aiken in an earlier dispute.
In the 1999 confrontation, Badgett confronted Aiken as Aiken stood in his doorway. Aiken hit Badgett in the head with a lead pipe, killing him. Aiken said he feared for his life.
During his trial, Aiken argued that New York law says a person doesn't have to retreat from a threat if he's in his own home.
But the Court of Appeals says an apartment doorway is a hybrid private-public space in which a person doesn't have the same reasonable expectation of seclusion as in a home.
On the Net:
New York state Court of Appeals: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/ctapps/
The Court of Appeals unanimously ruled the doorway to an apartment can't be considered part of that person's home.
That argument was being used by Richard Aiken, who's appealing his conviction for killing Theodore Badgett in December 1999 in their Bronx apartment building.
The two men had a history of run-ins, and Badgett had stabbed Aiken in an earlier dispute.
In the 1999 confrontation, Badgett confronted Aiken as Aiken stood in his doorway. Aiken hit Badgett in the head with a lead pipe, killing him. Aiken said he feared for his life.
During his trial, Aiken argued that New York law says a person doesn't have to retreat from a threat if he's in his own home.
But the Court of Appeals says an apartment doorway is a hybrid private-public space in which a person doesn't have the same reasonable expectation of seclusion as in a home.
On the Net:
New York state Court of Appeals: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/ctapps/