I don’t claim to be an attorney.
However, my understanding of the law is this.
It allows a person behaving lawfully in a place where he has a legal right to be to defend himself without the “duty to retreat” found, not unwisely IMO, in common law. That is the only way it changes self-defense law. If there is no possibility for an attackee to retreat safely, SYG doesn’t come into play, as older self-defense law fully covers the situation (or not).
Up to the point where things turned physical between Trayvon and George, they both had a legal right to be where they were and neither had yet committed illegal acts. As far as we know.
Somebody started the fight. (Though if you’ve ever been around a high school fist fight or a bar-room brawl, the party responsible for “starting it” is not always easy to determine.)
At the point where things turned physical, one party was at that point guilty of assault, possibly assault with a deadly weapon. SYG does not apply to this person. Since the other person is being assaulted without any potential to safely retreat (probably) SYG also does not apply to him, since the laws of self-defense would have covered him prior to SYG.
Now there are some theoretical circumstances under which the party who initiated the fight can attempt to withdraw and go back into legal self defense mode if the other party continues the attack. It seems highly unlikely that this would apply in this case, since the whole fight and killing apparently took less than a minute.
All this discussion of who followed whom and said what to whom is pretty much irrelevant. The only thing that matters, AFAICT, is who started the fight. This person probably cannot claim self-defense, which of course means the other party can. I believe the probability is over 50% that Trayvon started the fight. But from available information, not a great deal more than 50% at this time.
As stated, I don’t claim to be an attorney, but that is my understanding at this point.
Of course, I initially thought this story was being truthfully reported by the MSMS, so what do I know? Hey, wannabee cop *sshole idiots with a gun do exist. I’ve even run into them. Unfortunately for the MSM, it appears George was about as far from this stereotype as one can get. Not that they care. He was carrying a gun, therefore he is by definition the second coming of NB Forrest.
I think you summed it up rather well.
SYG does apply to that person in the events covered by Florida Statutes 776.041, and those events can happen in less than a minute. Hypothetically - and I'm not speaking about the Martin/Zimmerman situation, but you keep bringing up deadly weapons - I don't know how you intend to treat a struggle for a deadly weapon in your analysis,
At this point, you're having to throw in a non-definite 'probably' to assert your definite ''does not'. You don't have that leisure under the law.
I'll say it again. Stand Your Ground is available in Florida to an initial assailant under the circumstances found in Florida Statutes 776.041. I'm finished; have the last word and goodnight.