How Stand Your Ground Laws Protect the Innocent

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Apparently, the ex told the PD that she tried to kill him and his two children. He has since recanted that story. How someone is trying to kill you by firing into the ceiling is beyond me -- unless, of course, you are standing on the roof.

He had a restraining order on him but was still in her home. Her fault? His fault? Who knows?

Perhaps if she had planted one CoM the story would be different. For now, she is convicted of 3 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with no intent to harm. I have never heard of that type of charge; but why would the penalty for a crime where no harm was intended be so harsh?

The part of the story which I found curious was this:

Prosecutors based their charges on the premise that Marissa could have retreated through a back door or window if she felt trapped by her husband.
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Yet that is exactly what the SYG laws are supposed to take care of.

I am getting the feeling that this prosecutor does not like the SYG law and is going to prosecute anyway.

I did find the case HERE but it doesn't tell a lot. It does show that this case has dragged on since the arrest on 8/2/2010. There is a login. Type "public" in both the login and password spaces.

There are interesting details such as a year later there was a motion to revoke bond - denied; but another motion was granted and she was remanded to jail. There was also a home monitoring system, ankle bracelet, ordered at one point.

The jury must have wanted to go home because they were in and out in thirteen minutes flat.

3/16/2012 JURY IN: 5:12; JURY OUT: 5:25
3/16/2012 1 VERDICT- GUILTY
3/16/2012 2 VERDICT- GUILTY
3/16/2012 3 VERDICT- GUILTY
 
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jimpeel said:
...I did find the case HERE [showcase.duvalclerk.com] but it doesn't tell a lot....
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No, it doesn't. It's just docket entries showing what was happening procedurally.

The bottom line is that we have no decent information about this matter, and it would be speculation and a complete waste of time to try to draw any meaningful conclusions from the limited information we have.
 
jimpeel said:
Is thirteen minutes a record for jury deliberations?
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Perhaps. And it tells us three things:

  1. Whatever the prosecution's theory of the case was, the jury bought it completely and liked it.

  2. Whatever the defense theory was, the jury didn't buy it at all.

  3. We can infer absolutely nothing about SYG laws from this result.
And now we need to put this aside and get back to the topic of this thread.
 
gc70 said:
The case of Marissa Alexander does provide an example of a Motion for Immunity and to Dismiss based on Florida's SYG law.
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[1] This thread is discussing SYG laws in general, not just Florida's.

[2] The pre-trial motion on immunity seems to be a unique procedure under Florida's immunity law.

[3] The motion was apparently not granted.

[4] Immunity is not the same as SYG. Many States enacted immunity laws at the same time they enacted Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground Laws, but they are not the same thing. Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground Laws address the requirements for establishing justification. Immunity addresses the consequences of having successfully established justification.
 
Thank God I live in Colorado where I don't have to retreat and the "Make my day" law shelters me from prosecution for defending my home.
 
Back to the article.

When a criminal brandishes a weapon and says “Give me your money if you don’t want to get hurt,” there’s no ambiguity as to what is happening and the law is applicable. Outside of these types of scenarios the Stand Your Ground law does not apply.
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That conclusion seems narrow.
 
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There is still some factual information missing here regarding why Ms. Alexander was convicted, but I think we can see why the SYG law would not apply.

According to the motion filed by her attorneys she felt threatened and left the house. At this point she could have called the cops, gotten help, etc. instead she returned to the house and a gun was fired as a threat, or warning. The jury did not believe that her returning to the house was needed and/or unavoidable. SYG did not apply.

tipoc
 
hounddawg, the document was written by the defendant's attorneys in the hope that the judge would agree with its contents and sign it. The judge did not agree and did not sign the document. As such, the document is nothing more than the defense's discussion of their view of why self defense was justified.
 
gc70 said:
...the document was written by the defendant's attorneys in the hope that the judge would agree with its contents and sign it. The judge did not agree and did not sign the document....
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And give that man a cigar -- got it in one.

What we're looking at is a scan of the actual documents submitted to the court by the defendant's lawyer. It's a motion to dismiss, and it's based on the Florida immunity statute.

Whenever a lawyer files a motion in court (i. e., a request that that judge do something), it's SOP to include with the motion a copy of the order the lawyer is proposing that the judge sign. That both makes it clear exactly what the lawyer is asking for and saves the judge work. But the order isn't effective unless (1) the judge signs it; and (2) the clerk of the court stamps if and files it.

gc70 is absolutely correct. I just added to it because I'm naturally long winded and needed the exercise this morning.
 
tipoc said:
...According to the motion filed by her attorneys she felt threatened and left the house. At this point she could have called the cops, gotten help, etc. instead she returned to the house and a gun was fired as a threat, or warning. The jury did not believe that her returning to the house was needed and/or unavoidable. SYG did not apply.
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Thank you. At last someone has made a connection.
 
In another discussion, Bartholomew Roberts posted a link to an article on Stand Your Ground Laws. That article contained one pertinent tidbit about SYG laws that was stated more succinctly than I have seen anywhere else:

And fourth, it doesn't apply if you cannot retreat. If retreat is not an option, then the situation is governed by ordinary self-defense laws, not SYG laws.
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The N.A.A.C.P. has now weighed in on the Marissa Alexander case in favor of the state's Stand Your Ground law.

SOURCE

NAACP weighs in on what they say is a "Stand Your Ground" case against Jacksonville woman
Woman faces 20 years in prison in Jacksonville case involving shooting
Posted: April 21, 2012 - 12:11am | Updated: April 21, 2012 - 2:53am

By Charles Broward

The NAACP’s Jacksonville chapter has thrown its support behind a woman who will be sentenced Monday in a shooting where she claimed self-defense against an abusive husband under the state’s Stand Your Ground law.

<MORE>
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When is "disengaging" not disengaging?

Why, when you go to the garage to retrieve your handgun from the glovebox of your car, of course, so you can come back into the scene of the agression and shoot holes in the ceiling to show the aggressor how serious you are.

That is likely how prosecutors painted her trip to the garage. Regardless of who first started hitting on whom, leaving to go get a weapon and then coming back with your weapon and firing it, is generally something a jury would notice. I doubt she could erase that image from the juror's minds, and she seems to freely admit the facts, if not the intent. I would imagine that accounted for the 15 minute deliberation.

What seems out of whack is the potential sentence she faces, in a case with no injuries and apparently no intent to injure. That's a matter for the people and the legislature there to address, but it does outline the risk associated with mandatory sentences in borderline cases - those that get snared by the law but seem to fall outside the original intended scope of the law.

There's always clemency...
 
Should there be a duty to retreat

I am having trouble grasping why one shouldn't have a duty to utilize reasonable means of retreat before using deadly force. My primary reasoning is while the innocent person should have a right to be unmolested in a public place, I don't see where anyone should have he right to take a life if it can be easily avoided.

I see some merit in the argument that a person facong with imminent risk of death or grave injury may hesitate and lose their life shoud they have to think about if there is some available means of retreat, but what if the law only required one to use obvious avenues of retreat that didn't subject that person to further risk? I agree with the reasoning of the Santa Ana. CA court of appeal that one shouldn't have to retreat if by doing so they risk death or injury.
 
But laws frequently require the individual to be held to objective standards like what the reasonable man would do under the same circumstances. I am only asking about obvious and safe means of retreat. Say the bad guy just breaks in the front door but plainly is unarmed, while you are alone in the house on the second floor, armed to the teeth, sitting and watching television just five feet from the worlds best safe room. You live a block from a well manned efficient police station that your alarm system automatically notified and the police responded over the alarm system intercom that they are on there way with an ETA of under one minute. Assume that you are perfectly safe if you retreat to your safe room and it is perfectly obvious that during your retreat will not expose you to any risk. That may not be a very good hypo but I think you get the idea.

In such a situation why should anyone not have a duty to retreat before using deadly force?
 
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