In situations in which it is legal for you to employ deadly force, you won&#x27;t be convicted of any criminal statute if you apply that force or any lesser force. That is, if you have an adequate reason to shoot to kill, a application of force which results in a wound is treated equally with one which results in death. The reverse, obviously, is not true.<p>In all cases, you may be sued civilly for a wrongful death, battery, or any number of other things. And lots of parties can bring the suit: the individual himself, various members of his family, your homeowners association, etc. N is fairly big, removing one of the N probably is not meaningful. Do these sort of civil suits tend to pay more for woundings than deaths? I have no data on this but would be surprised if that were the case.<p>I expect the only thing the OP meant is that slain person cannot testify the killer. This is self-evident but not really helpful. How is it different than &quot;if you&#x27;re going to rob someone, you should also kill them&quot;. I suppose this might be good practical, tactical advice for criminals but it isn&#x27;t advancing the discussion here.