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Thanks for the clarification. Does reasonable doubt standards apply to all those provisions? In this case, the killer reported that the woman she shot said "I'll kill you" and was banging on her door - assuming it's true, is that sufficient for a reasonable fear? for 'imminent' danger?
So IANAL, but I do enjoy law as a hobbyist - so take my answers with that in mind.
As far as I know, every state in the US now has it such that if you claim self defense and meet a very low standard, the burden goes to the state to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that you did not act in self defense. The state does that typically by attacking at least one of the pillars, as if they can disprove any one pillar beyond a reasonable doubt, they win.
So for the scenario you laid out, it really depends - it would probably meet reasonable fear, but if the lady has done this once a week for years without anything coming of it, well then, probably not. If the door was well secured and locked, then that cuts against the imminence pillar - as she still needs to get through that door and close distance. However, if the door banger is armed with a gun, well, bullets can go through doors, so it may be a more reasonable argument on imminence.
Also, if the person performing self defense was in her house, it becomes a castle doctrine issue, not stand your ground, just fyi - but that is just one more thing people mix up.
At the end of the day, the defendant has to hope the prosecution can't convince 12 random people that the defendant broke one of those pillars beyond a reasonable doubt; and given the number of trials I've watched where I was shocked with the jury result given the legal and factual claims on the table, I'd always try to avoid using deadly force until I had no choice remaining, even if that means I am taking actions not required to meet the legal standard.
I know in that situation I would personally have retreated and called the police and had my gun trained on the door in case she breaks it down - but that doesn't mean what this person did was illegal, I just wouldn't bet on a jury to save me if I am firing on someone through my front door without knowing they were armed (it also breaks several of gun safety rules to do so, though those aren't laws, just best practices).
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If you want the serious legal talk you'll either need to pay for it or go to a Massad Ayoob seminar, but Cornered Cat's summary is pretty reasonable for the state of the law in most* Red States. For a tl;dr, it's not enough for someone to want to express the desire to kill you: they must be reasonably perceived as able to do so at that time, and reasonably perceived as trying to do so. That's fundamentally fact-based to be evaluated by the jury, but a jury is going to treat someone outside trying to beat a door down with their bare hands very differently from someone taking a fireax to one.
/* a tiny number of red states allow lethal force to defend property in limited situations; these are outside of the current scope of discussion.
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