Texas "Justice"

This is a VERY bizarre (strange)  story.

In Texas, there is a law which allows a person to kill another person if the other person is trying to steal something from the first person at night.

Yes.  It's a weird (strange) law.  If someone takes something from you - at night - and you have a gun with you, you may shoot and kill the other person to get your property back.

Texas.  This is a law in the US state of Texas, where you are also allowed to carry a concealed gun with you (concealed means hidden).

So here's the story.  A man used www.craigslist.org to hire a prostitute.  She came to his house, took his money and then decided not to have sex with him.  After she took his money she started to leave his house.  So she was going to try to 'cheat' him out of his money.  So what did this Texas man do? 

He grabbed his gun (an automatic weapon - an assault rifle - a type of rifle that shoots many bullets at one time - the type of rifle he used is shown above) ran after the prostitute, and he shot into the car that was trying to drive her away.  He killed her.

He was arrested, but he was found 'not guilty' because she had stolen his money, at night, and he had the right to shoot her.  Welcome to Texas.

Craigslist.org, by the way, is one of America's most popular and useful websites.  Within the past few years, however, people have been using craigslist to steal money from other people through various schemes/scams (illegal plans).

The article:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/jilted-john-acquitted-texas-prostitute-death-article-1.1365975

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

a prostitute - a woman who sells her body for sex

to be jilted - if you are a jilted lover, it means the person you loved left you suddenly.  To be jilted, therefore, means that someone you expected to have some type of relationship with just suddenly leaves you.  i.e. a jilted bride, a jilted lover

to retrieve - to get back, to obtain, to recover

a jury - a group of 12 US citizens who determine whether a person on trial is guilty of a crime or innocent of a crime.

'he got off' - he was not found guilty. 

an AK 47 - a rifle that was used by the Russian army. It shoots lots of bullets at one time.

justified - if something is found to be justified, it is found to be OK, acceptable.

an escort - another term for a prostitute.  When prostitutes advertise their services they call themselves 'escorts' to avoid being arrested by the police. 

to be within his rights - it was legal for him to act this way.

to be cleared of murder - to be found not guilty of murder, to be found innocent of murder.

to spray her car - to spray bullets is to shoot in the direction of something while moving your gun back and forth.  You are not aiming at something, you are spraying at something.

alleged - if someone is an alleged 'something,' it means someone claims or says he is that something, but it hasn't been proved. 

a pimp - someone who tries to 'sell' the services of a prostitute and who 'protects' the prostitute.

to be paralyzed - to be unable to physically move.

to be hooked up to a respirator - to be unable to breathe on one's own, so the person has to be attached to a machine which breathes for the person.

to pull the plug - to stop the machine from keeping the person alive.  If a person is legally brain-dead in the USA, a family can 'pull the plug' on any machines that are keeping the person 'alive.'

to acquit someone/ an acquittal - to find someone not guilty, innocent.

to convict someone/ a conviction - to find someone guilty.

to hug - to place ones arms around another person and to gently squeeze that person.

a mental prison - he means that he has been suffering psychologically and emotionally since he killed the woman who was stealing his money.
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Questions for discussion/writing:

If you had been on the jury, would you have found him not guilty?

What do you think of this law?

Do you think it was worth it to kill this woman in order to retrieve $150?  Should he have just let her go and called the police?  (Perhaps he felt the police would have arrested him for soliciting - asking for - prostitution.  In fact, I think this woman was probably doing this with her pimp to lots of guys, feeling that none of them would ever call the police.)