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
In a Minnesota case, State v. Gardner (1905), where a man was acquitted for killing another man who attempted to kill him with a rifle, Judge Jaggard stated:
“The doctrine of “retreat to the wall” had its origin [in Medieval England] before the general introduction of guns. Justice demands that its application have due regard to the general use of and to the type of firearms. It would be good sense for the law to require, in many cases, an attempt to escape from a hand to hand encounter with fists, clubs and even knives as a justification for killing in self-defense; while it would be rank folly to require [an attempt to escape] when experienced persons, armed with repeating rifles, face each other in an open space, removed from shelter, with intent to kill or cause great bodily harm[4]”
As I have said, I do not claim the doctrine has always been appropriately applied, only that the principle is a wise one to consider when deciding when a person should be allowed to claim self-defense.
We’ve all seen the old westerns where the gunslinger bullies the farmer into “going for his gun” and then kills him. Should he then be allowed to claim self-defense? Not in my book.
Just to be clear, I am not opposed to the actual Florida SYG law, just the way some have portrayed it.
I think SYG is unlikely to apply in the Zimmerman case. It is likely one or the other of the parties, probably though not certainly Martin, precipitated the fight by a felonious assault. That party, whichever it was, cannot under Florida SYG, claim self-defense if he kills the other person during the fight. Which is as it should be.
If Martin attacked Zimmerman, the most likely explanation for the “known” facts, then SYG doesn’t apply because Zimmerman would have had no chance to retreat safely anyway. His actions would have been self-defense before SYG was passed, thus SYG isn’t relevant to the case.
There are alternative scenarios under which SYG might apply, but they don’t appear to be very likely.