Stand Your What Now?

[kryss_labryn]

Okay, this just doesn't make any sense to me. Could someone please explain why claiming self-defense under Florida's Stand Your Ground law prevents someone from even being charged? Doesn't it make more sense that you go to trial for second-degree murder, and if it is then found to have been in self-defense, then you are acquitted?

Frankly I think

Comments

[winterlion]

From a friend in Florida:
"The "Stand Your Ground Law" gives you permission to stand your ground using like force, except if your life is in danger. If I do have a CWP and I am carrying, and I am accosted, and that individual has a knife or other weapon capable of causing my eminent death, then and only in the case of eminent death can I draw my weapon. I am ALSO required to give a warning. If they still come at me.. then I am allowed to shoot, it would be considered self defense. Now.. if no one is around, true it is my word against a dead person's word. However that is basically how the law works. "

Now, Florida is being investigated for corruption over this. They'll probably find some.

[kryss_labryn]

Ah, that makes slightly more sense. I still think it's stupid to have it mean "immune from prosecution" rather than being a mitigating factor in sentencing, though, because, as hard as it can be to determine what has happened if the only other witness is dead, it's going to be even harder if there is no investigation at all. And in this case, the kid wasn't even armed, so there's no way the shooter's life was in immediate, apparent danger.

Your friend does help to illutrate the thinking behind the implementation of such a law, but I still just can't see how someone gets off scott-free, without even an investigation to determine whether or not, in fact, it actually was a life-or-death-I-had-to-protect-myself situation. I mean, it's like mowing down someone on a crosswalk, and the driver going "But the light was green and they just stepped out in front of me," and the cops going "Oh okay then" without so much as checking to see if it was! Or if the driver was impaired, or had any history of mowing people down at crosswalks, or was

[winterlion]

It's being investigated by the FBI
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-trayvon-federal-20120329,0,7398798.story

Also: Grand jury to probe Trayvon Martin killing
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/19/2703029/us-department-of-justice-fbi-and.html

[winterlion]

There's also been movement in the US to investigate the whole system of "stand your ground" for corruption because there's been a culture of letting murders go.
er .. not the best link but:
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/mar/26/christopher-l-smith/sen-chris-smith-claimed-deaths-due-self-defense-fl/