I think it needs a little tweaking. If someone pushes you down and is backing away, I don't think you have the right to murder that person. Maybe a kneecap shot should be written into the law, in cases where your life is really not at risk.
Fla Stand Your Ground
- Thread starter elderdawg
- Start date
So I think this is a bit of a misstatement of what stand your ground is.
SYG takes away the “duty to retreat.” In essence, there used to be a common law duty to retreat for someone under an attack. Someone attacked had to flee if practicable and could only exercise deadly force if he was not able to flee. The media kept referencing SYG in the Travon Martin case but it was a complete misunderstanding of the law.
The second piece of SYG laws is that you can request a pretrial “immunity hearing” to claim that you are immune from prosecution because you exercised self defense. I’ve had several and judges are very receptive.
SYG laws are, in my opinion, brilliant because it’s silly to think someone should owe a duty to one who attacks them.
What you’ve described isn’t a situation where one can use deadly force (generally). You can only use deadly force to (a) prevent a forcible felony or (b) prevent serious bodily harm. What you’ve described is a classic self defense scenario and not stand your ground. Using deadly force in that situation is murder. You would certainly have the right to get up and beat the piss out of that person.
The parking space guy should absolutely be prosecuted.
(By the way - just nitpicking but when you kill someone in self defense, it is never “murder.”)
SYG takes away the “duty to retreat.” In essence, there used to be a common law duty to retreat for someone under an attack. Someone attacked had to flee if practicable and could only exercise deadly force if he was not able to flee. The media kept referencing SYG in the Travon Martin case but it was a complete misunderstanding of the law.
The second piece of SYG laws is that you can request a pretrial “immunity hearing” to claim that you are immune from prosecution because you exercised self defense. I’ve had several and judges are very receptive.
SYG laws are, in my opinion, brilliant because it’s silly to think someone should owe a duty to one who attacks them.
What you’ve described isn’t a situation where one can use deadly force (generally). You can only use deadly force to (a) prevent a forcible felony or (b) prevent serious bodily harm. What you’ve described is a classic self defense scenario and not stand your ground. Using deadly force in that situation is murder. You would certainly have the right to get up and beat the piss out of that person.
The parking space guy should absolutely be prosecuted.
(By the way - just nitpicking but when you kill someone in self defense, it is never “murder.”)
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I got no problem with it as is. That man could have hit his head and died or been very seriously injured. If you are assaulted and clearly he was, how can you limit the response to less than deadly force? I don't think you can after that severe an assault. It is not unreasonable for him to believe he is in grave danger.
Given the aggravating circumstances, the victim was likely protecting his significant other who was female. He tossed the guy to the pavement and backed away.
Murder imo if the shooter was threatening the female first.
That is a huge "if". I can tell you that the people down here have no problem with self defense. If the video is all there is, this guy walks.
The woman says that her boyfriend was protecting her. But do you really have evidence? Does the video show any such action indicating any threat to the woman … at all? It does not.
The man is just standing there and the guy who got shot walks up and shoves him, hard, to the ground. It was hard enough for the guy to have suffered very serious injuries.
What you have is he said, she said. That is why there is no murder charge.
That fat, ugly Special State Prosecutor, Angela Corey made such a mess of the Trayvon Martin farce that the state of Flarda does not want to go back down George Zimmerman Lane.
Testimony IS evidence. I assume she would testify the guy was threatening her (how credible that evidence is would be up to the fact finder). If you mean there’s no corroboration, I would agree.
I’ve seen the video and this isn’t an easy call. I think it’s a case where there’s probably probable cause to arrest but probably too much doubt to convict.
You are, of course, 100% right on Zimmerman. Should have never been prosecuted
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People down here like the "Stand Your Ground" defense. The year round warmth makes it a Mecca for a lot of crack head scumbag beach trash. There are more perverts on average also and just sorry ass deadbeats. Conversely there is the huge retirement population. So, that makes for a different mix than Georgia. The Obama cry baby years are over and "Stand Your Ground" ain't goin anywhere. If anything, it may be interpreted more loosely.
I do hate when people park in handicap spots cause their fat asses are too lazy or important to move 2 spots over so kudos to the guy for saying something to her. In hindsight doubt he wanted to go the far.
Like the chappel show skit when keeping it real goes wrong.
Like the chappel show skit when keeping it real goes wrong.
It’s been pretty successful here too. It’s good policy IMO. I’m just not sure that this scenario fits it, but I’d like to know more about what the pushed guy was saying and what his injuries were
Injuries are completely irrelevant and what ever he said is most likely irrelevant unless it was some sort of credible threat. The guy who is pushed to the ground is put in a very vulnerable position to a person, who it is safe to assume, means you harm since he has already assaulted you. In a split second that guy could advance the attack by drawing some sort of weapon and killing you or jumping on you and beating you to death. No self defense instructor would advise you to wait and determine if/how he plans on killing you or your family. Also, as someone suggested, trying to shoot him in the kneecap is just silly. You draw your weapon and shoot the attacker until he realizes he has made a poor decision and stops.
Oh, come on now, you know the White Hispanic was just getting served justice for profiling and following the skittles eating youth. He had a duty to retreat into the pavement that was being used to batter his head.
It honestly sounds like Zimmerman could have been prosecuted for a hate crime against the pavement when you put it like that
So if it turns out ‘the man on the ground’ was the aggressor and the woman was reasonably afraid and the man who threw the man on the ground was acting within his rights and was in fact was retreating- does the man on the ground have the right to shoot someone he has provoked and call it self defense?
That is a world class "if" which thus far has no proof other than the woman making that claim. That's not strong enough to take to trial.
Plus, nothing spoken gives anyone the right to do what was done to the shooter.
If someone did that to you, would you be in fear for your safety?
Well, the law said he well within his rights..so, there's that.
My apologies in advance for the novel, but this is garbage. So, this is where we're at in this country when it comes to this idea of imminent danger? We can just invoke a law that's intended to protect people from prosecution whose lives were truly in danger, in the event they had to resort to using deadly force in the face of that danger? Really?
So, were defending murderers and victims alike, now? Answer me this. Is the idea of a fair fight in America past history? If it is, then maybe we have become a nation of punks and cowards. Lets just be honest, according to some of you, standing your ground REALLY means you can pull out a gun the moment you feel challenged or threatened? Am I understanding this correctly?
I guess I'm too old and born in a generation long-forgotten? When did we become a nation of people that can't stand our asses up and take a punch? Or deliver one? Or in this case take a push? I read people speaking in hypotheticals saying, "well he could've hit the back of his head on the pavement". Well guess what, he didn't. We can only use what was there, not some concocted scenario that never actually happened as justification. Since when is being pushed to the ground the same as somebody charging at you with a gun or knife? I'm confused?
Maybe the dad from the movie Friday was right, people are afraid to take an ass-whipping these days. According to some of the responses I've read here, the mere exchange of physical confrontation is grounds for pulling out a gun and shooting someone. Does that apply to school yard fights too? Because those happen every single day. And I'm not talking about bullying sessions, I'm talking about one-on-one, hand-to-hand fights between kids.
I've watched this video over numerous times and I'll tell you what, the eventual shooter's life wasn't in any immediate danger. It's bs to even suggest it! Common sense doesn't tell me that, visual facts do. Don't tell me I didn't see what I saw. Since some of you like hypotheticals, here is one for you. With the shooter being so close to the car, could the man from inside the store just ran out and justifiably shot him because he felt his wife was in imminent danger?
Just because the local authorities chose not to charge the man doesn't mean anything to me. Only means they're lazy. The blind uneducated use of SYG in this case is insulting. I 100% agree with premise of the law. It's supposed to be a law to protect those who had to use armed force in the face of imminent danger against prosecution for the use of that force. But it's been hijacked by cowards as a plea defense.
And honestly, all it's doing is taking away from the legitimacy of the law itself. And just for the record, all of these questions and statements have been made by a multiple gun owner and advocate. I'm just someone who obviously grew up in a different era where people dealt with their differences in a manner that made more sense to me.
So, were defending murderers and victims alike, now? Answer me this. Is the idea of a fair fight in America past history? If it is, then maybe we have become a nation of punks and cowards. Lets just be honest, according to some of you, standing your ground REALLY means you can pull out a gun the moment you feel challenged or threatened? Am I understanding this correctly?
I guess I'm too old and born in a generation long-forgotten? When did we become a nation of people that can't stand our asses up and take a punch? Or deliver one? Or in this case take a push? I read people speaking in hypotheticals saying, "well he could've hit the back of his head on the pavement". Well guess what, he didn't. We can only use what was there, not some concocted scenario that never actually happened as justification. Since when is being pushed to the ground the same as somebody charging at you with a gun or knife? I'm confused?
Maybe the dad from the movie Friday was right, people are afraid to take an ass-whipping these days. According to some of the responses I've read here, the mere exchange of physical confrontation is grounds for pulling out a gun and shooting someone. Does that apply to school yard fights too? Because those happen every single day. And I'm not talking about bullying sessions, I'm talking about one-on-one, hand-to-hand fights between kids.
I've watched this video over numerous times and I'll tell you what, the eventual shooter's life wasn't in any immediate danger. It's bs to even suggest it! Common sense doesn't tell me that, visual facts do. Don't tell me I didn't see what I saw. Since some of you like hypotheticals, here is one for you. With the shooter being so close to the car, could the man from inside the store just ran out and justifiably shot him because he felt his wife was in imminent danger?
Just because the local authorities chose not to charge the man doesn't mean anything to me. Only means they're lazy. The blind uneducated use of SYG in this case is insulting. I 100% agree with premise of the law. It's supposed to be a law to protect those who had to use armed force in the face of imminent danger against prosecution for the use of that force. But it's been hijacked by cowards as a plea defense.
And honestly, all it's doing is taking away from the legitimacy of the law itself. And just for the record, all of these questions and statements have been made by a multiple gun owner and advocate. I'm just someone who obviously grew up in a different era where people dealt with their differences in a manner that made more sense to me.
I agree with a lot of what you say here. Except for the first two sentences of your next to last paragraph, it's obviously the product of some effort to think beyond asking Oprah how you should feel. So, I doubt any of the 'RATs will be able to reply intelligently.
I'll make my response simple.
1) Your inference that the shooter should be more of what you learned was a man, are irrelevant.
2) It is not a matter of only looking at the video and forming an opinion (from that outside perspective) as to whether or not the shooter is in danger.
The real question is:
Given the attack by the larger, stronger, apparently younger man on the shooter, is it reasonable for the shooter (in that instant) to honestly believe he is in imminent danger of serious injury or worse.
When I think about it honestly, I say yes.
I could be wrong, but I believe that is why he has not been charged and not your assertion that the police are lazy.
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Don't know a thing about the prosecutor but taking away from the legitimacy of the law could be the tactic.
Other than that, the aggressor in any attack loses the right to determine the severity of his victim's retaliation. Like you, I think the shooter crossed the line by a good bit BUT unless the victim was in obvious retreat, it's almost impossible to determine what was on the shooter's mind. If I was the DA, I would have brought charges but I would also realize it was going to be a tough case to gain a conviction.
Agreed. However, the Shooter was haranguing the victim’s significant other who was female. What was the level of altercation there? Was there fear in the part of the female? Was there contact with the female or the car?
We already know the shooter approached the car and instigated the dialogue. It has also been reported the shooter has set a pattern of this behavior with other persons in the same parking lot.
Just a bad situation that escalated and needs more investigation to see what part the shooter played in any instigation of his own “thrown into the pavement” ...
Haranguing is talk, the attacker's companion being a woman is not relevant. A pattern of such behavior by the shooter could be used in his defense as well as in his prosecution. It does not give the attacker the right to attack. Unless the shooter physically attacked one of the two, there is no legal basis for the attack on the shooter.
I'd love to hit Maxine Waters in the face with a baseball bat. But unless she did more than run her ugly mouth, I would go to jail.
Ok, I agree. But was it threatening haranguing or Haranguing with spittle and hands on or near the car with raised voices and gesticulating? To the point where a normal reaction of a responsible male would be to quickly present himself between the haranguer and the haranguee?
At which point it escalated into physical contact between the two parties and the victim tossed the shooter down?
There is a very Robert Perry Sentell Jr question here of “But for the initiating acts of the shooter” ________.
Close to maybe being a new rule of “You pick a fight and lose Bad Enough so you get to shoot the guy who bested you with a concealed weapon?”
Unless the shooter attacked, almost won't do. If they get his DNA off the woman, that's changes things some. But the fact remains. The shooter was attacked with enough force to make any reasonable person (in that instant) feel mortal threat. If you got shoved down that hard, would you be in fear of serious injury or worse? I know I would.
Sure you would & so would I - but if you were the initial aggressor - you lose you SYG privilege imo.
You keep relying on things you cannot prove.
If there is evidence that the shooter attacked 1st … game changer.
If there is not … game over.
Maybes & Opinions don't matter. The facts have to stand alone.
If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
I ain’t relying on cr@p, I’m just what if fishing.
I don’t think you can provoke a fight, lose it badly, and shoot the winner because you are the ass whoopee.
The guy jumped out to run in the store with his 5 year old kid. Appears something was going on that concerned him enough to leave the 5 year old in the store and go see about.
FWIW, I agree with the cops not making an arrest “yet”.
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