“A person must be threatened by someone who seems to have the intention of inflicting death or great bodily harm, and who apparently has the present ability to carry out that threat.”
“Then what?”
“The person may shoot in self-defense.”
“Let us suppose,” she said, “that someone was in Austin Cullens’ house. Could that person very well claim that he — or she — had been forced to kill Cullens in self-defense?”
“Not very well.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Mason said, “when a person wrongfully and feloniously enters the house of another person, he has forfeited his legal rights. He is then committing a felony. The owner of the premises has the right to defend himself against the intruder. The intruder has no right to defend himself against the owner of the premises.”
“How do you know that the persons who entered the premises did so unlawfully?”
“There is,” Mason pointed out, “the matter of a device used to short circuit the fuses in the event the lights were turned on. That indicates a felonious breaking-in entry.”
“Then if a person had illegally entered the house, that person couldn’t have killed Austin Cullens in self-defense?”