General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Duty to retreat vs stand your ground and castle laws: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater [View all]spin
(17,493 posts)to require that the investigation of a stand your ground incident should be reviewed by a higher authority than the local police and the local prosecutor, perhaps the State Attorney's office.
In many cases there might be little question that retreat was not a viable option. For example, I am 65 years old, a candidate for a hip replacement, suffer from degenerative disk disease and have been diagnosed as having nerve damage. Now obviously if I start a fight and refuse to break it off before it turns violent, I should be accountable for my actions. Admittedly if there were no witnesses and I killed my attacker, it would be hard to determine exactly what happened. My record and the record of my attacker should be considered. I have a spotless record and if my assailant has a record of violent crimes, that should be a major consideration. If serious questions still remained, I should be charged and face a jury.
There are cases that fall in a grey area but is it a good idea to force everyone who uses a firearm for self defense to be arrested and prosecuted? I could easily lose all my life savings and end up on the street in order to defend myself from an overzealous prosecutor when I was obviously in the right to utilize legitimate self defense.
One big advantage of the Stand Your Ground law is that if the authorities do determine that I did use legitimate self defense, I can't be sued by his survivors. Once again, if I was in the right, why should I lose my life savings in a civil court?