Does stand your ground always work?

I can't help but think race plays a big part in the charges, trial, and conviction.

I can't even fathom how a court could be unsure if a person has the right to be on a public street?
 
I can't agree with the court that the street may not qualify for stand your ground. The whole point of "stand your ground" laws is to allow people to employ deadly force for self protection, without a duty to retreat, anywhere they have a legal right to be. In most states, some variation/version of the castle doctrine takes care of that in the home, so the "stand your ground" laws are intended to extend the castle doctrine right of self defense (with no duty to retreat) beyond the home.

If that doesn't include "the street," then what good is it?

But ... is it the trial judge's duty to mention the stand your ground law? Why didn't the defense attorney mention it? In fact, why didn't the defense attorney move to have the charges dismissed, citing the law as the basis for the motion?

Here's where it gets muddy -- but not because the stand your ground law doesn't or shouldn't apply. Lee was a bystander to a fight between his cousin and a third party. Lee's cousin (Walker) initiated the physical fight with the dead guy. It may well be that the dead guy had a complete right to shoot Walker, since Walker had assaulted him. (Granted, the dead guy had been verbally harassing Walker, so had it gone to trial over the dispute between those two, we can't know how a jury might have ruled.)

So Lee was a bystander. If the dead guy had shot Walker and stopped, Lee would not have had a legal right to shoot the dead guy. He wasn't legally permitted to defend Walker, because Walker was (or might have been) viewed as the aggressor in the physical conflict between Walker and the dead guy. The way third party defense laws work (as I understand them), a person may use deadly force to defend a third party IF the third party would be legally allowed to use the same deadly force to defend him/herself.

If Walker initiated the physical conflict, he was not then legally allowed to claim self defense if the dead guy could have argued that he shot Walker because he was in fear of death or serious bodily injury. (Of course, the fact that he was verbally harassing Walker might have some bearing on the matter.)

But, at this point, Lee was out of it. He was a witness. If the dead guy had stopped after shooting Walker, and Lee then shot him, Lee probably would not have been in the right -- but not because "stand your ground" doesn't apply. However, Lee claims the dead guy then turned his gun on Lee, and that's why Lee fired. Here's where we get conflicting claims. Strictly between Lee and the dead guy, who was the aggressor? Did the dead guy have reason to believe that he was in danger of death or serious bodily injury from Lee? If not, he had no legal cause to turn the gun toward Lee, and Lee should then have been allowed to defend himself. However, Lee is Walker's cousin. Lee may very well have been verbally participating in the dispute, not watching quietly and calmly from the sidelines, and the dead guy may have believed that, having shot Walker, he could expect Lee to enter into and continue the physical altercation.

It may well be that this is a situation where the court and the jury reached a correct decision but for the wrong reason(s).
 
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I don't see why stand your ground enters into the incident. Even if you are required to retreat, you are only obligated to do so if you can safely do it. Does someone pointing a gun at you after shooting someone else dead qualify as a situation where you could safely retreat?
 
The trial judge didn't instruct on defense of others or stand your ground and the Court of Appeals didn't find that as reversible error? :confused:

That sounds a bit like North Carolina circa 1930.
 
No it doesn't "always work".
The shooting of 3 teens in a Oklahoma and another in a Florida theater, are incidents where "stand your ground" shootings didn't go well for the shooter legally.
 
No, it does not "always work".

But let's not get carried away with misinterpretation over the meaning of the ruling.

As I read it, the appeals court did not say that the law affirms the existence of a duty to retreat "on the street". Rather, the court said that, in an outdoor situation, the defendant is not afforded a presumption of a reasonable belief that an imminent threat of death or serious injury existed, as would be the case had someone entered a home unlawfully under certain circumstances.

The court said that the right of self defense is to be judged on the merits of the case--on whether the defendant had had reason to believe that deadly force had been immediately necessary for self-preservation--and that, for that reason, the judge's failure to inform the jury about the was not in error.

"....to the extent this language [(that of th "stand your ground" law)]can be characterized as extending the no duty to retreat defense to any public place, it is conditioned upon the reasonableness of a person's belief that the use of deadly force was necessary under the circumstances. In other words, the right to stand one's ground in "any public place" is conditioned as an initial matter upon whether the defender was justified in the use of self-defense without regard to the physical setting in which the confrontation occurred. ... The statutory presumption of reasonableness remains limited to the use of defensive (including deadly) force in defending one's home, motor vehicle, or workplace. See N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-51.3(a)(2) (2015); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-51.2 (2015).

"In the present case, Defendant received a self-defense instruction consistent with the language in N.C.G.S. § 14-51.3(a)(1). The jury was instructed that Defendant would be excused of first degree murder and second degree murder on the ground of self-defense if, first, [Defendant] believed it was necessary to kill the victim in order to save [Defendant] from death or great bodily harm. Second, [if] the circumstances as they appeared to [Defendant] at the time were sufficient to create such a belief in the mind [of] a person of ordinary firmness.

"The statutory reference to "any place [one] has a lawful right to be" does not change our essential analysis regarding Defendant's duty to retreat, since the right to use self-defense is not limited spatially, and the statutory presumption favoring a no duty to retreat instruction remains limited to one's home, motor vehicle, or workplace. Because Defendant was not within his home or premises, motor vehicle, or workplace, any right to "stand his ground" stemmed from the two above-described elements of self-defense, and Defendant received instructions to that effect.

"Defendant was not entitled to a presumption that his use of deadly force was reasonable [789 S.E.2d 687]under the circumstances."

(STATE of North Carolina v. Gyrell Shavonta LEE. Court of Appeals of North Carolina. August 2, 2016. Emphasis added)​

On the Defense of a Third Person issue, the appeals court said this:

"Defendant's testimony and other custodial statements established that Epps was no longer shooting at Walker when Defendant shot Epps, and Walker was already fatally wounded.

"...Defendant indicated he shot Epps in his own defense, not to protect Walker from death or great bodily harm, and "to make sure [Epps] couldn't shoot [any]body else." Notwithstanding Defendant's contention that he "drew" his gun while Epps was still shooting Walker, Defendant's claim that he shot Epps in Walker's defense fails as a matter of law because when Defendant actually shot Epps, Defendant was aware that the threat of harm to Walker had concluded.....

"In sum, the evidence failed to demonstrate that Defendant shot Epps "to prevent death or great bodily harm" to Walker, and did not support a reasonable belief by Defendant that it was necessary to shoot Epps to prevent imminent death or harm to others. Accordingly, Defendant was not prejudiced by the omission of a jury instruction on defense of others."​
 
You have to remember that "stand your ground applies to "self defense" only.
There are five things that must be true for a case of self defense.

You must be innocent - you can't be in a fight that you started or initiated in any way. An argument on the street in which you are a participant precludes self defense. (unless you disengage trying to end it)

The threat of great bodily harm or death must be real, present and imminent. Threats or insults don't count.

You can only use a similar amount of force to that which is used against you.

The threat has to be real, both objectively and subjectively.

You have to avoid the confrontation as best you can without endangering yourself more. This is where stand your ground comes into play. It only comes into play when the other four parts are applied.
 
Perhaps the most important thing the North Carolina Court of Appeals said regarding the "no duty to retreat" instruction is this:
Defendant first argues the trial court erroneously omitted a no duty to retreat instruction from its jury instructions. The "[d]efendant did not object to the ... instruction given by the trial court, and our review is therefore limited to plain error." State v. Withers, 179 N.C. App. 249, 257, 633 S.E.2d 863, 868 (2006).
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In the appellate world, the standard of review is often what wins or loses a case. The plain error standard is the most difficult standard for an appellant to overcome except for an out-and-out waiver which forecloses any review.

The court described North Carolina's plain error rule to require there be a "fundamental error" and the rule would be applied only "cautiously and only in the exceptional case." The Forbes article linked to in the first post mentions plain error but doesn't seem to understand how important that concept is to the court's holding.
 
As quoted by OldMarksman:

"...Defendant indicated he shot Epps in his own defense, not to protect Walker from death or great bodily harm, and "to make sure [Epps] couldn't shoot [any]body else." Notwithstanding Defendant's contention that he "drew" his gun while Epps was still shooting Walker, Defendant's claim that he shot Epps in Walker's defense fails as a matter of law because when Defendant actually shot Epps, Defendant was aware that the threat of harm to Walker had concluded.....

"In sum, the evidence failed to demonstrate that Defendant shot Epps "to prevent death or great bodily harm" to Walker, and did not support a reasonable belief by Defendant that it was necessary to shoot Epps to prevent imminent death or harm to others. Accordingly, Defendant was not prejudiced by the omission of a jury instruction on defense of others."
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Well, I'm certainly confused. If the defendant testified that he shot Epps to protect himself, does it matter that the evidence doesn't support that he was also acting to protect [unnamed and hypothetical] third parties? And the defendant is not a doctor, so how could be "know" that Walker was already fatally wounded and that the threat to Walker had ended?

I think this is one for which you really need to have sat through the entire trial in order to have any hope of understanding the decision.
 
So, it appears the Forbes article is wrong in a number of places. One being that the defendant didn't receive a stand your ground instruction. He did; but the instruction didn't include the presumption of reasonable self defense associated with Castle Doctrine - which is perfectly reasonable.

So that just leaves the question of whether omitting the defense of others instruction was reversible error - which would appear to require that a jury who didn't buy the shooter's self-defense story would have changed their minds and voted not guilty had they thought he was shooting to protect his already dead friend. I'm not sure I agree with the Court of Appeals decision here; but I understand where they are coming from.
 
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