Super illegal. Whoever gets injured can sue the bejesus outta you, and they're pretty much guaranteed to win regardless of what they were doing, and if they die, you'll likely get charged with at least manslaughter.
ETA: the chief aim is to protect first responders, public service workers, snoopy children, etc. Any of them are far more likely to get caught by some random trap than a dedicated thief.
Wouldn't they be self-admitting to a crime, though? It won't be much consolation to them to win money in a civil lawsuit if they have to do several years in prison as a trade-off.
Sure, but it's the same principle with bigger things like home invasions as well. You can sue the homeowner for booby trapping, but it would be kind of legally suicidal to do so since it's an admission of guilt.
Its legal suicide at that point for the homeowner to say anything as well. The police will not be happy to see a home invader all bloodied up on your floor because ypu decided to go home alone on his ass. Police and other first responders are the entire reason these laws exist.
A would be thief in the hospital: “I thought I heard someone yell for help and my leg got blown off when I opened the door to investigate and assist.” It can be very difficult to prove intent.
Is there attempted theft charge? Let's assume the thief stopped when he got cut and didin't actually take the cooler with him. It might be worth to report the booby trap even if you are charged.
You don’t have to say you stole it you can just say you thought it was yours. A million things you can say other than you were in the middle of a crime
The thing is, if there is a sign, it's not really a booby trap anymore, because your alerting people to its presence. That's how you can have things like an electrified fence.
That's not how that works at all. Even if you have a sign saying "THERE IS A PITFALL BEHIND MY DOOR, NOT LIABLE FOR INJURIES"
and someone opens the door and falls in, they can and will 100% sue you, and you will absolutely lose.
Booby traps are completely illegal because they will catch unsuspecting person in them and they are not supervised. You can't have a trap that's going to kill a firefighter or ambulance driver etc when they rush through your front door in the middle of the night on a 911 call and don't have time to read random signs
Electric fences and barbed wire are allowed because they are non lethal and are targeted at animals rather than humans, and because they are plainly visible and culturally known etc.
Having a big bonfire going in your backyard is not a booby trap because everyone knows not to jump in the fire and can see it from hundreds of feet away. Having a sign next to a rug saying it has a landmine under it is not visible enough and is highly illegal
No. Signs do nothing in the dark and there's a million reasons why intentionally harmful booby traps are a problem otherwise.
Drunk person wanders in. Child who can't read. Mentally not entirely there person. First responder rushing in to help, be it a fire or medical call. Police called in for a domestic abuse call. Family members visiting, or their friends visiting, who haven't seen the notice. Someone coming in after you die, doing a wellness check or clearing out the property.
We don't let burglars sue because they deserve it. We let them sue because there has to be concrete punishment for booby trapping things or people will do it frequently.
If it was a valid defense that the person was a burglar, people would assume that there were legit uses for it, but the danger is too big and you don't live forever. You can shoot someone who is threatening you or you have reasonable case for standing your ground. A booby trap can't discriminate who it hurts.
I mean ,if you put up a sign telling people not to touch your electrified fence, you generally won't get in trouble if someone ignores the sign and gets shocked.
An electric fence isn't a booby trap, it's a tool to dissuade large animals from leaning on relatively weak fences, and it's not an injurious voltage or amperage.
So it's an entirely different subject, and their use and the sheer amount and variance of local laws surrounding electric fence use are all focused on protecting the public at large, so that's not an out for your weird desire to see strangers get injured, ostensibly deserving or not, either.
Sure, but you can claim that it was another person on your property who set that up, since apparently your property is public place, if they were on it without your knowledge - you know, you had no clue this thief was on your property, why couldnt anyone else be there as well?
That would have been quite the twist at the end of Home Alone...Kevin McCallister's parents lose their beautiful house in a civil lawsuit from the plaintiffs Marv and Harry.
361
u/BecomingJudasnMyMind 5d ago
Isn't booby trapping against the law?