Stand Your Ground

[chris_gerrib]

So, on Facebook, I was asked to comment about the Trayvon Martin shooting. Since my thoughts don't easily fit on Facebook's abbreviated space, here they are in longer format.

*** I am not a lawyer. Do not rely on this post for legal advice.***

First, Zimmerman (the shooter) was out looking for trouble. There is no legal basis for him to get out of his truck and stop somebody walking down a public sidewalk. Even under Florida law, there is no excuse for Zimmerman to shoot anybody unless he was being actively attacked. "I thought he had a gun" doesn't work, even in movies. The initial police investigation appears to be half-assed at best, a deliberate whitewash at worst. Besides being flat wrong, this is the sort of thing that gives gun owners a bad name.

There is some confusion about Florida's "stand your ground" law. This law essentially says that if you are attacked in some place that you have a right to be, you do not have a "duty to retreat." A duty to retreat is exactly what it sounds like - it's the idea that you should back away from a fight. Now, backing away may be a good tactical and legal decision, but as I read the law, Martin (victim) had no legal requirement to back away from Zimmerman's aggression.

Actually, "standing your ground" is not particularly controversial in legal circles. Illinois has had such a standard since at least 1953. In this short Illinois Supreme Court decision, a murder conviction was overturned, saying, "The defendant was where he had a lawful right to be and it was not his duty to flee, but being assaulted first he had a right to stand his ground and if reasonably apprehensive of serious injury was justified in taking his assailant's life." Or as this legal expert says, it's not Florida's law that's to blame here.

No, what's to blame here are Zimmerman's rash actions and a decision by somebody in the local police to not properly investigate the case.

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of confusion in Britain about what the law actually says about self defense. tl:dr version - you have a right to defend yourself up to and including deadly force, should you have a reasonably belief your life is in danger.

What confuses people is this doesn't grant you an automatic right to use deadly force in any situation.

It's a bit subtle for most people.

So, if you catch somebody in your house and you just happen to have your cricket bat next to the bed and they come at you with a knife, and you kill them. You will be fine.

If they have a knife but run away and you chase, catch them and kill them, you will not be fine.

If you booby trap your house and shoot a kid running away in the back with an illegally sawn off shot gun, and leave it to the next morning to call the police, you will REALLY not be fine.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

And just to be clear, in largely unarmed Britain, a postmaster in a rural area was robbed at gun point, but managed to get his own, legally held shotgun up and skilled the robber and got congratulated by the local constabulary.

If somebody dies though, regardless of how and by whom, there should be a full investigation.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in the US, shooting somebody in the back is a really tough sell with judges and juries. Basically, what non-lawyer gun owners are taught is "don't shoot them if they're moving away from you."

[daveon.livejournal.com]

BTW - that is a real case and a cause celeb in various libertarian British circles about government over-reach. The issue being that because the kids had broken into his house he had the right to do what he liked.

Interestingly, on a British libertarian blog I saw a US police officer reply that having read the particulars of the case, the farmer in question would have been in jail on manslaughter charges where he lived too - mostly because he shot the kid in the back and then left it all night before calling the police.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

he shot the kid in the back and then left it all night before calling the police it's those little details that get you.

/sarcasm, for those impaired/

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Well, technically, he fired his sawn off shotgun randomly at people moving in the house and the person in the window, then left the house and went to his sisters and called the police from there the next morning when they found the dead kid on the ground outside the window.

No... that really doesn't make it sound better.

Of course, the usual suspects would have you believe that he was an honest yeoman defending his land from miscreants.