Castle doctrine

A castle doctrine, also known as a castle law or a defence of habitation law, is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place (for example, a vehicle or home) as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one, in certain circumstances, to use force (up to and including deadly force) to defend oneself against an intruder, free from legal prosecution for the consequences of the force used. The term is most commonly used in the United States, though many other countries invoke comparable principles in their laws.

Quotes

• Domus tutissimum cuique refugium atque receptaculum.
• Every man's house is his castle.
  • Digest, lib. 2, tit. 4, 18
  • Cited in Classical and Foreign Quotations (1904), no. 582

• Quid enim sanctius, quid omni religione munitius, quam domus unusquisque civium?
• What more sacred, what more strongly guarded by every holy feeling, than a man's own home?
  • Cicero

• [T]he house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose.
  • Sir Edward Coke, Semayne's Case (1 January 1604), 5 Coke Rep. 91; 77 Eng. Rep. 195

• And the law of England has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man's house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with immunity: agreeing herein with the sentiments of ancient Rome, as expressed in the works of Tully; quid enim sanctius, quid omni religione munitius, quam domus uniuscuiusque civium? For this reason no doors can in general be broken open to execute any civil process; though, in criminal causes, the public safety supersedes the private. Hence also in part arises the animadversion of the law upon eaves-droppers, nuisancers, and incendiaries: and to this principle it must be assigned, that a man may assemble people together lawfully without danger of raising a riot, rout, or unlawful assembly, in order to protect and defend his house; which he is not permitted to do in any other case.
  • Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, IV (1769), Ch. 16

• The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter — all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!
  • William Pitt the Elder, Speech on the Excise Bill (1763), quoted in Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 307 (1958)
  • Jonathan L. Hafetz, "'A Man's Home is His Castle?': Reflections on the Home, the Family, and Privacy During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries", William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice, vol. 8, no. 2 (February 2002), p. 175

• By the laws of England, every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my licence, but he is liable to an action, though the damage be nothing; which is proved by every declaration in trespass, where the defendant is called upon to answer for bruising the grass and even treading upon the soil. If he admits the fact, he is bound to show by way of justification, that some positive law has empowered or excused him. The justification is submitted by the judges, who are to look into the books; and if such a justification can be maintained by the text of the statute law, or by the principles of common law. If no excuse can be found or produced, the silence of the books is an authority against the defendant, and the plaintiff must have judgment.
  • Charles Pratt (Baron Camden), Entick v Carrington (1765), EWHC KB J98
  • Cf. "Everything which is not forbidden is allowed"