Even in a place as fundamentally nuts as Portland, Oregon, one occasionally sees a small emanation of sanity. In the latest such, a Portland jury has declined to award a single red cent to a burglar who was shot by a business owner while carrying out his crime. Now, many of the people in deep-blue Portland may well think that a business owner had no right to defend himself and his property, but that's not what happened this time.
We don't see much of this kind of good sense in Portland often enough, but we'll take it.
A Portland jury took only a few hours Tuesday to reject a man’s $10 million ask after he burglarized a stone countertop business while homeless and nearly lost his life when the owner shot him three times.
The jury sided 10-2 with business owner James Grant, refusing to rule that Grant opening fire on burglar Kenneth Voyles was unjustified. The jury also found that Voyles’ decision to pry a board off the building, cut metal bars and wiggle through an old doggie door to get inside was a “substantial factor” that contributed to his wounds.
Now there's probably some legalese in the way that's worded. Note that the jury refused to rule that the shooting was unjustified. That's a rather different rhetorical kettle of fish than saying it was justified, very likely because the plaintiff, the burglar, was seeking to have the shooting ruled as unjustified. But the second half of this is spot-on; nobody is responsible for any bad outcome other than the guy who decided to break into a business shuttered for the night.
Oregon, note, is a Castle Doctrine state, but their law reportedly pertains only to homes, not businesses, but the fact that James Grant was sleeping in his store at the time of the break-in may have made a difference.
And, of course, the perp here made a predictable claim:
During the seven-day trial, Voyles testified he was in search of food and warmth as temperatures dipped into the 30s overnight on March 6, 2023, when he broke into Touchstone Granite & Marble on Northeast Columbia Boulevard. It was about 5:30 a.m., Voyles said, when he picked up a Dewalt bag with a drill inside with the intention of taking it with him and then encountered Grant walking naked through the closed showroom floor.
Baloney. If it was food and warmth he was seeking, he could have gone to the Salvation Army. No, this goblin was stealing, and that's all that he was doing — at least, all that matters.
In the original event, no charges were filed against James Grant for the shooting. Kenneth Voyles was brought up on charges. That would seem to have made this decision something of a slam-dunk for the jurors, although, remember, this is Portland; a decision which should rightly have been unanimous wasn't. Two jurors did apparently vote to hold James Grant fiscally liable for injuries suffered by a burglar who was in the course of committing said burglary, and who Grant testified appeared to be threatening him with a bolt cutter.
This was pretty much the definition of a frivolous lawsuit. At least, for once, even in daffy Portland, Oregon, common sense actually won through.
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