Make an Argument. Sure, sure, you've read the rules... but can you play by them?

Case Facts:

Jane is a 30-year-old single female who lives in an apartment building. She has no roommates, has never taken a self-defense course in her life, and has only a handgun that was given to her by her father when she moved out. Jane is quiet, well-liked and volunteers at the local library.

Jason is a 35-year-old friend of Jane’s who lives next door to her. He is well liked but is known to drink to excess on weekends and is something of a prankster.

Elaine lives across the hall from Jane. She is a bit of a recluse and is friends with no one in the building. She has a small camera that records her doorstep, and by nature, Jane’s doorstep.

No party has any criminal record of any kind.

At 2 am on a Saturday morning, Jason is coming home from a party and as he staggers by Jane’s door, falls on it and twists the doorknob. Jane has left her door unlocked by accident, and Jason decides to play a joke on his friend Jane. Jason goes to his apartment and digs up an old Halloween costume of.... Jason. Hockey mask, rubber machete, fake blood, jumpsuit with numbers, the works.

At 2:30 am, Elaine (the neighbor) is awoken by the sound of Jane screaming incoherently and a male voice shouting “I’m going to send you to HELL!!!” followed by a series of gunshots and a thud. Elaine calls the police, who arrive to find Jane passed out with fear at the bedroom end of her hallway, and Jason halfway down the hallway, facing her bedroom. He's on the floor, in costume, bleeding from three gunshot wounds to his abdomen.

Upon awakening, Jane says that she woke up to hear someone opening her door. She took her gun from her nightstand, opened the bedroom door in her nightgown, and saw a large man in some kind of mask holding a huge knife over his head. She says she screamed at him to get out of her house, and he threatened her and charged into the hallway. She says she thinks she shot him, but she doesn’t remember much.

Jason says he meant to scare Jane, and he opened the door and screamed. He says she screamed at him to leave, and he charged at her to “play up the gag” and that’s when she shot him. He’s insistent that he meant no harm, that it was just a joke.

Elaine’s statement stays the same, and her camera clearly shows Jason opening the door, pausing, then raising the rubber machete and running into the house before falling down a short distance inside.

 

Assignment:

 

Make an argument for this case, thinking as either the prosecutor of Jane or her defense - whichever you like. Remember to take into account the various factors involved in Use of Force (reasonable actions to defend from imminent harm), the rulings and factors of the Castle Doctrine, and the other various facets of age/size/gender/weapons/actions that come into play.