Thanks.
You’re just about the first support I’ve gotten on this position.
If we were to take the Stand Your Ground absolutists literally, duelists would be covered. Hey, they’re in a place where they have a legal right to be and someone is trying to kill them! So whoever wins, he’s just defending himself.
A more reasonable interpretation, IMO. Each duelist is guilty of attempted murder. The loser can’t be prosecuted because he’s dead. The survivor should be charged and convicted of murder.
In a great many confrontations there is no obvious and inarguable perpetrator and victim. There are two guys both being Mr. Tough Guy, neither backs down and one winds up dead. Should the survivor, whoever he is, automatically be allowed to plead self-defense? Not in my book.
The cases the SYG law was really intended to address are probably less common than the one outlined above. Centuries of common law added a duty to retreat for a reason. It made clear who was the aggressor and who was the defender.
Centuries of common law added a duty to retreat for a reason. It made clear who was the aggressor and who was the defender.
marktwain replies:
I think that the above statement is incorrect. I believe that the “duty to retreat” is a relatively recent addition, probably in the last 75 years. Certainly in Brown v. United States in 1921 the Supreme Court held that there was not a duty to retreat. The decision was made in part based on Beard v. United States in 1895.
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/158/550/case.html