Posted on 11/15/2012 7:13:08 AM PST by marktwain
Florida's permissive firearm laws have landed the state in the center of a national controversy but the Sunshine State is refusing to bow to pressure to reform its controversial Stand Your Ground Laws.
After George Zimmerman cited the law in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, Gov. Rick Scott created a Stand Your Ground task force to review the law.
And now the task force has decided not to change the gun laws, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
"The task force concurs with the core belief that all persons, regardless of citizenship status, have a right to feel safe and secure in our state," the task force wrote in its recommendation. "To that end, all persons have a fundamental right to stand their ground and defend themselves from attack with proportionate force in every place they have a lawful right to be and are conducting themselves in a lawful manner."
The group did make two small changes to the law but that might actually make it easier to claim self defense, according to the Miami Herald.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Nothing needed to be changed!
Ditto.
I strongly suggest the law be changed in one significant way.
Presently the decision whether the SYG law applies is made at the administrative level by the district attorney. Therefore it can be reversed and the shooter prosecuted for murder at any time before the Statute of Limitations runs out, which may be never in a “murder” case.
As indeed happened to Mr. Zimmerman.
The law should be changed so that the determination of self-defense is made by a court and is irreversible, so that future attempts at prosecution would constitute double jeopardy. The hearing does not need to be a full-blown trial, just a judicial hearing to establish the facts.
In fact, I suggest such a hearing should be held for every homicide. I believe this used to be common as the Coroner’s Inquest, or something like that.
There also appear to be some peculiarities in how the law is interpreted such that when two men get into a mutual fight, with neither obviously the aggressor or the victim, the survivor gets to claim self-defense, solely because he’s the survivor, and is released from all charges. That’s just wrong, not least because he would have been charged with a crime had the other guy survived. We shouldn’t give people an incentive to finish off their opponent as a Get Out of Jail Free Card. At minimum he should be charged with A&B or negligent homicide.
As anybody who’s ever been around when a bar fight starts, such a situation is not at all uncommon.
Funny how that works. Defending one’s life is called “permissive.”
Indeed—Gov. Scott is turning into a huge disappointment.
The possible Trojan in the Law is as follows:
“defend themselves from attack with proportionate force in every place they have a lawful right to be and are conducting themselves in a lawful manner.”
“Proportionate force” is not the issue and the insertion of this phrase is an open invitation for endless prosecutors to subject innocent citizens to huge legal bills.
Once an illegal attack occurs, and serious injury or death is a possibility, there must be NO Restrictions on teh force used to repel the attack.
An example would be when the attacker is stronger or has the advantage of surprise. How can anyone except a gun grabbing commie ask the weaker victim to only use “proportionate force”?
Once attacked, the victim must have the right to use such force as is available to them. Attackers have NO RIGHTS once they commence a criminal act.
If killed, the criminal signed his own death warrant - the victim carried out said warrant.
PS Put a bounty on dead violent criminals. It worked for most of American history. Just do not pay bounties to any law enforcement or gubbament persons as they are paid to “protect”.
I believe that Texas addresses this problem by sending every homicide to a Grand Jury. I believe that if the Grand Jury decides that the homicide was justifiable (or praiseworthy) self defense, it issues “no true bill” and the case is permanently closed.
Notice the media is still using the picture taken 5 years before of Martin as a child? Why not use the other more current pictures, of him flipping the bird at the camera, or holding a fistful of cash?
And no mention that he was a “poor man’s PCP”, the “lean” variation of “purple drank” user, made of Arizona Iced Tea, watermelon flavor, Skittles, and narcotic cough syrup?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_drank
The group did make two small changes to the law but that might actually make it easier to claim self defense, according to the Miami Herald.
Uhhm, perhaps I don't understand how things work in Florida, but how can a "task force" change or alter any law that was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor without going through the entire legislative process again.
Works for me.
The election is over...no need to continue to spend any political capital on defending a thug who got killed assaulting a man he did not think could defend himself.....oops!!!
I don’t really care for the “stand your ground” law. I would hate to get shot because somebody “feels threatened”. I prefer the self-defense standard, which is based on provable facts and not someone’s subjective opinion.
I read the article, and a second article that it linked to, looking for the 2 “minor” changes.
I still don’t know what the minor changes were, they must interfere with something that the writers want to get across to the reader.
You are likely reacting to MSM characterizations of the law. The standards for self defense in the "stand your ground" laws are the same as they always were. The major differences are that it is stated that you do not have a duty to retreat, which was defacto in most cases anyway, that you had immunity from civil suit if you were found to have acted in self defense, and that the prosecution had to prove your guilt, rather than you having to prove your innocence.
In most states this was not a problem, but we had to fix it in Arizona, where a number of prosecutors had lobbied to have the burden of proof changed. We returned to the traditional standard after the Harold Fish case highlighted the problems with puting the burden of proof on the person claiming self defense.
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