Homeowners Warned About Taking Action Against Squatters Into Own Hands

Stopping squatters has become the latest Republican crusade, but experts told Newsweek that homeowners who use lethal force against anyone illegally occupying their home could end up being prosecuted for charges as serious as murder.

Stories involving squatting have made headlines in recent weeks, suggesting that the practice is on the rise—but experts say cases of squatting are rare.

Nevertheless, conservatives have seized on the issue, and several states have taken action to crack down on those who illegally take over homes.

Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, appeared to endorse homeowners in his state using lethal force against squatters. He said on social media, "The Texas Castle Doctrine empowers Texans to use force to defend themselves & their property."

Most states have a version of a "castle doctrine," either by law or court precedent, that says residents do not have to retreat when threatened in their homes but can respond with physical force. Thirty states also have "stand your ground" laws that allow anyone who believes their life to be in danger to use deadly force in an act of self-defense in public places without any duty to retreat.

Those laws drew national attention when Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old Black boy, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Florida. Though Zimmerman did not invoke the defense, jurors discussed the law before acquitting him of murder.

Legal experts have warned that homeowners should not attempt to take matters into their own hands. In order to justify using lethal force on someone illegally occupying their home, a homeowner would have to be in fear of death or serious bodily injury, they said, and can't invoke self-defense if they were the aggressor.

If an alleged squatter is injured or killed, the homeowner could be prosecuted.

However, it would depend on the jurisdiction where an incident takes place, said Caroline Light, a lecturer at Harvard University and author of Stand Your Ground: A History of America's Love Affair With Lethal Self-Defense.

"In some states with stand-your-ground laws, a homeowner could claim they shot a squatter because they were "in fear for their life," Light told Newsweek via email.

"The law won't always exonerate them BUT there's increasingly an expectation that property owners have a right to use force in self-defense and in defense of their property."

Jeremy Rosenthal, a founding partner of Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian, based in McKinney, Texas, said homeowners who injure or kill a squatter could be charged with aggravated assault or murder.

"The Castle doctrine is a defense to those crimes. If you don't qualify for the defense, then it's just murder," he said.

But he added that in Texas, such charges would require a grand jury indictment "so it would always depend on the particular facts and the biases or tolerance levels of the community."

Geoffrey Corn, a professor of criminal law at Texas Tech University's School of Law, told Newsweek that "there is always a chance the grand jurors would be sympathetic to the assailant and issue a no bill (no charge).

"Then if indicted the defendant is likely to at least get the court to instruct the jury on self-defense, and the sympathy may again lead to a jury rejecting conviction.

But Corn said that if a homeowner knows that there is a squatter in their home, decides to confront them with deadly force and it results in their killing, then "a conviction for murder would be viable because the threat of deadly force was not legally justified to terminate the illegal presence."

Kenneth Nunn, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, said that in a situation where a squatter is occupying a home and its lawful resident is not, then it "would be easy enough for the resident to contact the police or use legal process to evict the squatter. There would be no imminent threat under such a circumstance and those no need to use force in defense of self or property."

Nunn said the situation would be different if a resident was in the house at the same time as a squatter, for instance, if the squatter either entered while the resident was home or if the resident entered not knowing the squatter was there.

"Under such circumstances, the resident could use deadly force if he or she reasonably believed that such force was necessary to protect themselves," he told Newsweek.

"Under Florida's stand your ground law such a belief that deadly force was necessary would be presumed if the squatter 'was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if [the squatter] had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person's will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle.'"

Unless the facts demonstrate that, it's "not likely to be a defense that the resident was taking self-remedies against the squatter."

He added that both the Zimmerman case, as well as the more recent case involving Kyle Rittenhouse, show how a case involving squatters could become politicized. Rittenhouse became a star of the right after being acquitted of all charges after arguing that he acted in self-defense when he shot three men, killing two, during unrest in Wisconsin

Those cases "illustrate that it is not so much the legal principles that matter, but the way these cases are played out in the media and in the ongoing culture war," he said.