Is it self-defense if you pick a fistfight and then, when you realize the other person is winning, shoot to kill?
That’s the question legal reporter Dan Abrams poses in a column that gets to the heart of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman mess.
Abrams finds that Florida’s NRA/ALEC written “Stand Your Ground” law contains two exceptions that could mean the answer is yes and that Zimmerman will go free.
First, if:
[Quoting from the law] “in good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.”
There is nothing yet to suggest that Zimmerman will claim he tried to withdraw but since he was the only witness to the events just preceding the altercation, it could still become an issue. But the second exception is far more likely to be relevant. The law also states that the initial aggressor is permitted to invoke the law and claim self defense if in response to his own aggression,
[Quoting from the law] “Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant.”
So in theory this could mean that Zimmerman chases down Martin, Martin defends himself and starts pummeling Zimmerman and Zimmerman could still claim he was “standing his ground” because he now feared for his life. Essentially Wild West rules would apply, whoever shoots best and last wins. When asked about this potential issue, the law’s sponsor Florida Rep. Dennis Baxley said, “That scenario was never discussed.”
Another scenario never discussed in the state legislature’s rush to do the gun lobby’s bidding was the possibility that justifiable homicides would more than double after the law’s passage, but that’s what happened. The Orlando Sentinel noted that in the five years before Stand Your Ground became law, there was an annual average of 12 justifiable homicides in Florida. In the six years since, among the newly emboldened citizenry, the number rose to 33.
Nor did the legislators consider the chance the criminals would invoke the law to get off on charges of gang and drug war killings, but they have, in some cases, quite successfully.
Abrams says Florida’s elected representatives should never have ignored such obvious potential abuses, which Martin’s death so glaringly expose.
…this law is incredibly protective of the defendant and for everyone who has pointed fingers of blame at the police and prosecutors in connection with this case, now that we know a lot more about the evidence, I think any fingers would have been far more accurately pointed at the Florida legislature.
Abrams is right. The police and prosecutors are not to blame for the unintended consequences of a law that was meant to protect and encourage gun violence against fellow human beings. Gun sales have shot up in Florida — and the rest of the country — since the economy hit the skids and a black man was elected president.
It seems with each passing day, we move closer to becoming a society based on the whims of thousands of tiny militias and further from one based on sober and reasonable law. Too bad the state legislatures passing Stand Your Ground laws can’t be trusted to guard against that.
Ignorance will never know when to stop