Skunked beer burglars and the Castle Doctrine

CARROLL — For the first time in the nearly three years I’ve lived on Hillcrest Drive in the rolling southside of Carroll, Iowa, my doors are locked.

In fact, it took some time to even find the keys realtor Matt Greteman placed in my hands when the house changed hands from the late football coach Bob Urwin to me.

But I have the keys in pocket and the doors are secure.

“I’m a person who locks his door,” says Carroll County Attorney John Werden. “But I like the fact that I live in a town where I don’t think I have to.”

Unfortunately, maybe we do.

You see, my careless small-town-living shroud is punctured. The days of leaving the house unlocked and untended are over as of last Friday.

Readers of the Daily Record this week learned that thieves got into my garage, and possibly my basement, as I fell asleep above watching political coverage late in the night. Their plunder isn’t anything I can’t live without: some nice coolers, a case of Budweiser (which was left from a class reunion party I held as it is not my brand) and various skunked beer I neglected to remove from coolers after the 2006 Kentucky Derby.

Since that time, the winning horse, Barbaro, has died and those beers have gone through enough temperature changes as to render them face-cringingly unpalatable. There is some justice in this story, I suppose.

Of course, a reasonable assumption is that the beer bandits were kids looking for a little bit of the fun they see their parents having as cans are cracked.

In terms of the take and damage this is small-time. After I discovered the crime, I went about my day and lost more on the horses at Prairie Meadows Saturday than the burglar(s) took the night before.

And as at the horse track I can follow odds on burglaries in Carroll.

Just days ago, Carroll Police Chief Jeff Cayler handed me his department’s report for fiscal year 2007-08. The total number of reported breaking-and-entering crimes stood at just 22, a remarkably low number for a community our size, about 10,000 people.

But it happened at my house.

What troubles me as much as anything is that I no longer have the boasting rights with my friends in Seattle and New York City. I’ve loved dropping the line that I never lock my door.

Werden said peace of mind is generally the most valuable thing taken in burglaries.

You also wonder about how events could have unfolded differently. That’s frightening.

As I talked to the police after filing the report, I began to wonder about what could have been had the thieves made enough noise to pull me from slumber.

I don’t think kids should be shot for stealing beer and coolers —  even though I can’t stress enough that these were awfully nice coolers. And had I heard anything I would have assumed it was a friend or family and gone looking to help without a firearm drawn or a 1-iron swinging.

But what are our rights as homeowners when we spot an intruder? Can we shoot them?

More than a dozen states have what is known as the “Castle Doctrine” that allows homeowners to presume an intruder would harm them. They can shoot first and ask questions later. The law is now being hotly debated in Nevada.

The “every-man’s-home- is-his-castle” philosophy does not prevail in Iowa when it comes to laws associated with the use of violence to protect a residence.

Werden says that under Iowa law “reasonable force” may be used to protect person and property, and this would include deadly force when one senses physical jeopardy.

But there are limits.

“You may not use deadly force in Iowa to protect property,” Werden said.

All of this, of course, is often cloudy in the moments that matter.

If a homeowner has the reasonable belief he could be harmed, it is legal to use a gun, even if after the fact we learn that all the intruder was after is some beer. But Werden cautions that one’s fate in such a situation is far from certain in the American legal system.

“Once that happens there is no taking the bullet back, and you’ll be judged by a jury of 12 people,” Werden said.

While he believes gun ownership is a major deterrent to home invasion, and says he factors Second Amendment issues highly in his politics, Werden advises people to call authorities and secure themselves in a safe place instead of going after burglars themselves.

“I think there is a lot of macho talk about shooting burglars,” he said. “I don’t advise people to seriously consider violent confrontation.”

While the likely culprits in my home invasion were teenagers who would have scurried like rats if confronted with a simple shout, we really don’t know.

We’d like to think this sort of thing would be akin to the old man yelling at the kids in the apple orchard, Norman Rockwell stuff that creates more in the way of homespun stories than fearful nights. I was laughing with neighbors about how the kids must be feeling after drinking that gut-rot stale beer.

Not so fast, says Werden.

“Many of the burglars we prosecute are drug addicts who don’t have good judgment,” Werden said. “Don’t think you’re encountering a rational person.”