Sunday Morning Hot Tea - No. 3
In this edition:
Topic of the Week – Change of heart at the post office
Legal Question – Kevin McAllister: Attempted Murderer or Hero?
TOPIC THIS WEEK: Change of heart at the post office
One of my biweekly rituals is to walk to the local post office and deposit envelopes containing stickers for Sinisterhood Patreon subscribers into the blue metal mailbox that sits out in the parking lot. I also go inside and check our P.O. box. I don’t mind doing either of these things because it makes me feel grateful to tangibly interact with people through physical mail. Also most of the time, I don’t have to talk to anybody.
The only time I mind is about once every two months when I’ve run out of stamps, and I am forced to go inside. This week was one of those times. Yes, I went inside the post office a couple of days before Christmas. A normally rough time of year made even worse by 2020.
Because of social distancing, customers are made to line up six feet away from each other, separated by yellow lines on the ground. This means the line snakes all the way through the place, toward the back near the P.O. boxes. I took my place in the way back of the line and surveyed my fellow customers.
A young couple came in the first set of glass doors and lingered for a moment in the entryway. I saw them talking back and forth, conspiring. The woman had a shiny black bun on her head and foisted a brown box the size of a microwave into her companion’s hands. He was around six feet tall with soap opera star hair and wide blue eyes. He pulled up his mask, wrapped his leather jacket arms around the box, and headed inside, leaving her to wait behind the glass doors. Except when he came inside, he didn’t take his place in line like the rest of us. He marched right up to the counter.
Oh fuck this guy, I thought. He placed the plain brown parcel on the counter before a female postal worker and ripped off a label receipt. She smiled at him and slid the box toward herself on the counter while she continued helping someone else.
Ok so maybe he pre-labeled his box and that’s why he jumped the line, but still, why had he walked so quickly and with such purpose to the front of the line? What was in the box that was so important? So time sensitive? Probably an explosive, I thought. I got nervous and looked toward his female companion in the entryway, her eyes glued to him. Was she the lookout, helping him while he delivered this box of destruction? Was I far enough away from the counter not to be horribly disfigured when the device inevitably detonated?
When he burst back through the first set of exit doors, I heard her ask, “Did you get the receipt? We need the receipt for the tracking information.”
“Yes, I got the receipt,” he said, yanking off his mask. Ah, not terrorists. Just another couple, snapping at each other about holiday logistics.
I turned my attention toward the man in front of me. He had on dingy blue jeans with frayed hems that rested on top of his black leather sneakers, streaked white with paint. His black nylon jacket was wrinkled up against his waist. He clutched a small rectangular box to his chest, wrapped in a worn paper envelope. His nose was perched just outside the top of his mask like a small, pale, flaccid penis. His hair, gray straw, peeked from beneath the worn beanie crammed on his head.
The real thing that got me was that he insisted on standing less than a foot from the person in front of him. Back the hell up, dude, I thought. I was sure that when the line moved, he would leave a little space. But, no. We all marched forward, and he maintained his excessively close distance to the guy in front of him.
I know a lot of people bitch and moan about social distancing, but I, for one, love it. I don’t like anyone being near me or touching me. I hope even after we have widespread vaccine adoption and the eradication of the virus, we keep it up. I don’t need another table right up next to mine at a restaurant, and I sure don’t need a strange man with his nose up my ass at the post office.
As we waited, the man fondled various envelopes and boxes on a nearby display. Picking them up, rubbing his fingers over their surfaces, holding them close to his face to study them. Jesus Christ, I thought. You may as well just put them in your mouth. Between the exposed nose, the groping of the supplies, and how close he was to the next guy in front of him, I decided I hated this man. Merry Christmas!
As the line moved, the man in the beanie took his spot at the counter in front of the female postal worker who had accepted the brown box. I ended up just a few feet away, in front of a postal worker named Darryl, from whom I have ordered an ungodly number of stamps over the past few years. As Darryl counted out my many stamps, I listened to the other postal worker as she helped the man in the beanie.
“Will this make it all the way to Bowling Green, Kentucky?” he asked. “It’s a box of chocolates for my daughter.”
“Oh yes,” the postal worker said. I’ve seen her before. She’s relentlessly helpful and patient. “It’ll make it,” she reassured him.
“It’s only a box of candy,” the man said, sounding ashamed. Then he quietly added, “The insurance company is trying to take my house. Paid a thousand dollars to stop it from happening. Still wanted to get my daughter a little something for Christmas.”
My heart melted. Dammit.
“I’m so sorry,” the postal worker told him. “Your package will get there.” She took his worn paper envelope and transferred the candy to a hard flat-rate box. “This’ll save you on shipping, and it’ll keep the candy safe, too.”
“Thank you so much,” the man said, his nose still lying limp outside of his mask.
When I turned my head to look, I saw him differently. Not as a thoughtless person who runs around with his nose hanging loose. Not as a selfish monster standing too close in a line or manhandling shipping supplies. I saw him as a dad, going through a rough patch, so focused on getting his daughter something, anything, that his mind had been somewhere else. I imagined him at the adjacent Walgreens, carefully choosing those chocolates, paying with whatever money he scraped together, and heading to the post office to get them all the way to Kentucky by Christmas. He hadn't been pawing at those packages to spread his germs, he was worried whether the small gift would make it to her in one piece.
I also realized if he was sending the candy all the way to Kentucky, that must mean he wouldn’t be going himself. I had to stop myself from imagining what his Christmas would look like and instead silently wished for him to be able to keep his house.
“Will that be all?” Darryl asked me. I told him it was and paid as I folded the pages of stamps into my fanny pack. Then I left, choosing to walk all the way to the outdoor mailbox where I slipped the stickers in the slot.
It’s pretty magnificent to think about how far all these things we mail will go – Kansas, Washington, Canada, Australia, Austria. And to think about how much the post office does – those people behind the desk every day, helping every single person with their precious cargo, even if it’s something as simple as making sure a box of chocolates makes it to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Speaking of older adults making amends with their faraway grownup kids...
QUESTIONS FROM YOU
This question comes from LeeAnn via direct message.
“Would Kevin on ‘Home Alone’ get in legal trouble for setting all those booby traps? Or would he be let go with self-defense? Aren’t you allowed to protect your house? Can you also find out how his dad paid for a whole fucking family to go on that vacation?”
This is an excellent question. There are tons of great legal analyses of the Wet Bandits’ actions in Home Alone, so I won’t rehash all those thought experiments. Instead, I will answer the question by focusing on the oft-cited Castle Doctrine and how it could apply in this case.
First we should cover a couple of things. Home Alone, like other John Hughes movies, is set in the Chicago area, so I’ll look at Illinois law for this. Kevin is an 8-year-old kid. In Illinois, children that young aren't usually tried as adults, absent some pretty heinous facts. Judges apply a factors test to determine which juveniles are tried as adults, but that's outside the scope of this, and anyway, I have a lot of issues with children being tried as adults. (For further reading, check out the book Just Mercy.)
So instead of asking whether he is able to be tried for the actions he committed, we’ll just focus on the culpability.
Illinois has its own version of the “castle doctrine,” a type of home defense law you may have heard about in the news. The Illinois version is more limited than other states, but it generally says that a homeowner is justified in using force against an aggressor when the homeowner reasonably believes that force is necessary to stop the aggressor’s entry to the house.
The caveat to this law is that the use of deadly or particularly violent force is allowed ONLY if the aggressor’s entry is made in a “violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner” and if the homeowner believes the deadly force is necessary to prevent violence to him or someone else in the house. It can also be justified if the homeowner reasonably believes that deadly force is necessary to stop the commission of a felony in his house.
Short version: you can attack someone who is trying to break in, and you can attack someone SUPER HARD if they roll up on you violently and you think the force is the only way to stop them from hurting you and yours OR if you think they're trying to bust in to commit a felony.
What is NOT allowed under Illinois law is the general use of unattended booby traps. A man in southern Illinois in 2018 used a spring gun booby trap to prevent burglars from entering his shed. When a potential burglar opened the shed door, the spring gun went off, killing the potential burglar. The homeowner, William Wasmund, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years in jail.
But what about the Castle Doctrine? Wasmund’s defense attorney actually argued that his client was justified under the Castle Doctrine. However, the jury found it was inapplicable because Wasmund was not home at the time of the shooting. The gun was a trap set in advance, not meant to defend against any specific party. That meant the trap could have shot anyone, not just someone who was trying to enter in a “violent, riotous, or tumultuous” manner.
Taken together - the Wasmund case, the Illinois Castle Doctrine, and the facts of the movie - all mean that Kevin McAllister was justified in his actions.
The key difference between Kevin and William Wasmund is that Kevin was home and actually heard Harry and Marv specifically say that they would be coming by to burgle the house at 9PM on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t until right around 9PM that he pushed aside his mac and cheese and got ready. He poured the water on the outside steps, held his BB gun at the ready, and set out the other various traps in the house, meant specifically for the Wet Bandits.
First, hearing them attempt to break into the house outside the back door, Kevin shot Harry in the penis with the BB gun. This was justified as it was after Harry stated his intention to come into the house to commit burglary. Then Marv breached the dog door in an attempt to enter and Kevin shot this bandit in the face with the same BB gun.
This level of force - a shot with a toy gun - is not likely to cause death or great bodily harm, so Kevin was definitely justified at this point. This is true even though Kevin shot Marv in the face. He shot Marv between the eyes with a toy gun. The earlier scene showed how Kevin was an accurate shot, proving that he shot where he intended, not meaning to cause great bodily harm.
Same goes for the icy stairs. Side note: icy stairs would normally be a liability nightmare for homeowners who could be forced to pay for any resulting slip and fall injuries. However, the Illinois Castle Doctrine specifically releases a homeowner of liability for any force used against an “aggressor.” So Harry and Marv wouldn't be able to sue the McAllisters (or their homeowners’ insurance) from any injuries resulting from those wacky but painful-looking slips
Then Marv breached the basement door where he was hit in the face with an iron. Again, Kevin did not set this trap randomly. It was specific to the Wet Bandits to protect against the felonies they would commit inside the house. Same goes for the heated door handle, the tar on the stairs, and even the stomach-turning nail that slides into Marv’s bare foot. (I remember laughing at that as a kid, but as an adult, I had to look away. Disgusting!) These traps were all set at the time Kevin was home, intended specifically to protect him from the Wet Bandits who had expressed their intent to enter the home and commit a felony inside.
Yes, even the blowtorch that burned Harry’s head would be justified under the Illinois law. By this point, Harry had burst through the door in a violent manner and expressed his desire not only to commit a felony inside the house, but also his desire to harm or possibly even kill Kevin. In short, he was asking for the torch to the head.
Once the Wet Bandits entered the house, Kevin still had the right to use force against them to “terminate” their unlawful entry of his dwelling. Further solidifying Kevin’s case, as he is running up the stairs, Harry threatens to “snap off” Kevin’s “cojones” and “boil them in motor oil.” Sounds like a threat to me!
The important point to focus on is when Kevin’s force increased from regular force to a more serious level of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm. Kevin increased the level of force only after the Wet Bandits not only breached the house in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner, but had also made it clear that they were ready to harm him physically and commit a felony inside.
So, as a reminder, under Illinois law, you can’t just open your front door and shoot at someone who is attempting to breach your house. The factors for use of deadly force must be present: (1) the aggressor must attempt to enter in a “violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner” and the homeowner has to reasonably believe that the deadly force is necessary to “prevent an assault upon” himself or someone else in the house, OR (2) the homeowner must reasonably believe the deadly force is necessary to prevent the commission of a felony.
Those Wet Bandits were coming in hot, and Kevin did what he had to do to ward off their attacks.
As for how the dad afforded the trip? He didn’t! In an early scene, Kate, played by the living icon/angel/legend Catherine O’Hara says that her brother-in-law was transferred to Paris for work, missed the family, and paid for them all to travel to Paris for the holidays. As for how Mr. McAllister afforded that bad ass house? According to a novelization of the book, he was “a successful businessman” and Kate was a fashion designer, hence the mannequins.
I also need to point out that John Candy’s lines were the funniest part of the movie, and they were all improvised. He was also totally screwed by the filmmakers, only being paid $414 for those lines of solid gold, despite the movie grossing $477 million at its initial box office run.
I hope that answers the question. Thanks, LeeAnn!
Got a question? Submit it here. They can be legal what-if questions like the one above, or questions about the legality of actions in TV shows or movies you’ve seen. I never ever want to answer your personal legal questions, so don't send those. Love you, but I don’t do that.
Also, Happy Festivus, Merry Christmas, Happy Belated Hanukkah, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Until next week, keep on teabaggin’! Ok that's a bad one. Scrapping it immediately. I'm so sorry.
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