Trespassing Thief Essay

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TO KILL A THIEF OR NOT Imagine this scenario. A family in the heart of Rome are peacefully asleep at night after a long day of working on the fields and tending to their house. Along comes a shadow, it walks along the side of their house. This shadow is a person, and this individual could be anyone passing through the field to get to their destination, or yet, it could be something much worse. It could be a thief in the night attempting to break into the house to steal. This possible “trespassing thief” falls over something outside, creating a loud noise. Dogs start barking loudly inside the home. The owner wakes up, shooting out of bed from the loud commotion. They sense something isn’t right, so the property owner scrambles out of bed to …show more content…

What can he do to protect himself? Well, according to Roman law, the owner has every right to kill the trespasser (as long as he was stealing). This is just one example of the many laws that were created to protect the people of …show more content…

The one and only reason is because Rome wanted to provide fairness and the right to trial or conviction. A victim of thievery could not simply take matters into their own hands and kill a thief during the day because there would be witnesses to the crime. The only exception was that if the thief was attempting to harm a person with a weapon, then a person can defend themselves by fighting back to protect their lives, or essentially claim self-defense. One could argue and say that law regarding the ability to kill a thief is unfair. A person could say that it’s not right to be able to kill a person, regardless of the crime. However, upon further investigation of these Laws, it is actually quite fair to be able to take matters into the hands of the people, especially if a thief is invading personal property, even more importantly if it occurs during the nighttime. It is clear, that Rome put these two laws into place to ensure that there was fairness for both the accused thieves and the

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