Detroit porch shooter convicted of murdering Renisha McBride

A jury convicted a suburban Detroit homeowner of second-degree murder and manslaughter on Thursday in the killing of an unarmed woman on his porch last year, rejecting his claim that he was afraid for his life and had acted in self-defense. The case is the latest to call into question laws that allow people to use deadly force and avoid prosecution when protecting their homes.

Theodore Wafer shot Renisha McBride through a screen door on Nov. 2, hours after she crashed into a parked car a half-mile from his house while drunk. No one knows why she ended up at the Dearborn Heights home, although prosecutors speculated that the 19-year-old woman may have been seeking help.

"She just wanted to go home," prosecutor Patrick Muscat said during closing arguments, holding the shotgun Wafer used to kill McBride. "She ended up in the morgue with bullets in her head and in her brain because the defendant picked up this shotgun, released this safety, raised it at her, pulled the trigger and blew her face off."

The Wayne County jury heard eight days of testimony before beginning deliberations. Wafer, 55, could face up to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but it is likely his actual sentence will be much shorter.

Wafer, an airport maintenance employee who lives alone, said he was woken around 4:30 a.m. by pounding at his front and side doors. He testified that the noises were "unbelievable."

"I wasn't going to cower in my house," Wafer said.

He said he thought there could have been more than one person outside his 1,100-square-foot home. Wafer said he pulled the trigger "to defend myself. It was them or me."

"He armed himself. He was getting attacked," defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter told jurors. "Put yourselves in his shoes at 4:30 in the morning."

But prosecutors said Wafer could have stayed safely in his locked home and called 911 instead of confronting McBride.

"He had so many other options. ... We wouldn't be here if he had called police first," Muscat told the jury.

Other recent cases have raised questions about self-defense, especially the 2012 killing of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

Zimmerman was acquitted last year after arguing self-defense.

Earlier this year, a Montana man was accused of killing a 17-year-old German exchange student after setting a trap to find whoever was responsible for recent thefts at his home.

Beginning with Florida in 2005, at least 22 states have expanded the self-defense principle known as the "castle doctrine" — which gives people the right to defend their homes against attacks.

Critics argue that the laws make it easier for people to shoot alleged intruders and avoid prosecution by saying they felt an imminent danger.

The Associated Press