castle doctrine

noun

variants or less commonly castle rule

plural castle doctrines also castle rules

law

: a legal rule or doctrine that a lawful occupant of a home has no duty to retreat from an intruder when acting in self-defense or in the defense of another in the reasonable belief that they are in danger of death or bodily harm

And when three people broke in about 3 a.m., Whitfield shot one of them, leaving the man dead on the kitchen floor. Police investigated the shooting, but Whitfield never really faced the prospect of prosecution. Missouri's expanded self-defense law, passed in 2007 and known as the castle doctrine, not only protected him from being charged but meant he couldn't be sued over his actions that night.

—Kim Bell

After Florida's passage of a castle doctrine law in 2005, 31 states followed suit and now protect the right of homeowners to defend their property from intruders.

—Patrik Jonsson

Examples of castle doctrine in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Lawmakers should repeal them and revert to a more limited use of the castle doctrine to prevent the deaths of their constituents. —Cedric Dark, WIRED, 14 Sep. 2024

The castle doctrine permits a person who is in his or her home to defend it and themselves from harm without any duty to retreat to safety. —Cedric Dark, WIRED, 14 Sep. 2024

Florida in 2005 passed its stand-your-ground law, which expanded the right to defend one’s home from intruders — known as castle doctrine — into a more general right to use force in any public place. —María Luisa Paúl, Washington Post, 28 June 2023

A number of states have enshrined the castle doctrine in statutory law, sometimes with slightly different guidelines for when deadly force can be used. —Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN, 18 Apr. 2023

Rand's analysis includes the 25 states that have passed similar laws since 2005, and eight states that have expanded castle doctrine to motor vehicles or the workplace. —Cara Tabachnick, CBS News, 18 Apr. 2023

What are 'stand your ground' laws and the 'castle doctrine'? —N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY, 18 Apr. 2023

Word History

Etymology

from the proverbial expression "an Englishman's/a man's home is his castle," with many variants, articulated in legal contexts since the sixteenth century in both English and Anglo-French

First Known Use

1892, in the meaning defined above