Reply #128: I don't believe you understand the "stand your ground law" at all...

[spin]

Let me direct you to an interview with Marion Hammer a former NRA President who was greatly responsible for the law in Florida.

HAMMER: The castle doctrine law was signed into law on April 26th of this year. It did not take effect until October 1st because jury instructions had to be re-written. The jury system and the prosecutors in this state had started changing the law and jury instructions to simply give the edge to criminals. So because there was a delay in the legislation taking effect, the Brady Campaign, who had been unsuccessful in defeating the campaign, had decided to run a campaign and get a lot of publicity and in essence terrorize our tourists by attempting to make them think that if they came to Florida they could be shot. That is absolute nonsense.

The castle law doctrine has three major components. It restores the right of a law-abiding citizen to protect himself and his family in his home. It establishes the presumption that if someone breaks into your home or forcefully intrudes into your home of your occupied vehicle, that they are there to do harm and that you may therefore use force, including deadly force, to protect yourself and your family and you are not going to be badgered by a justice system that protects criminals.

The second thing that it does is it removes the duty to retreat when you are under attack by a criminal. The duty to retreat had been imposed by the system and essentially if someone had tried to drag a woman into an alley to rape her, the women – even though she might be licensed to carry concealed and ready to protect herself, the law would not allow her to do it. It required her to try to get away and run and be chased down by the perpetrator before she could then use force to protect herself. That was wrong. So the duty to retreat from any place that you have the right to be has been removed. If you are attacked, you can still run if you want to. But if you want to protect yourself, you can in effect stand your ground and protect yourself.

The third component deals with a prohibition against civil lawsuits by criminals or the families of criminals who had begun to profit by their crimes by suing victims who may have harmed or killed criminals who were attacking them or intruding into their homes. It is just wrong for a system to allow criminals who have attacked you to turn around and sue you when you defend yourself and do harm to them.

So that basically is what the law does. When you are outside the home you can only meet force with force and then deadly force only if you reasonably believe that it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm. In your home, they break in, you can use whatever force you choose.

GIACHINO: You mentioned that it applies inside the home and outside the home. Outside the home, your car is treated like your home. What about on the street? You mentioned the example of the woman being dragged into an alley. So long as she is in a public place, that she is lawfully entitled to be, she has the protection, right? If she is trespassing, then she is not afforded the same protection under the law, is that right?

HAMMER: You are absolutely correct. The law states that if you are in a place where you have a lawful place to be. It also specifically deprives an individual of these rights if they are committing a crime. So there is no way that criminals – street gangs in fact, could claim self-defense. Mutual combat has never been justified in the eyes of the law but those who like to ban guns attempted to say that this law would allow street gangs because they were legally in the street. Well combat in the streets is not legal. The law specifically says that you do not have the protection if you are engaged in unlawful criminal conduct.

GIACHINO: One thing that is a little bit confusing – well, actually a lot of things are confusing about this law, particularly because of the misinformation that is being given by the Brady group, but one thing that confused me, and I read the law several times myself and would consider myself qualified to read it and understand it with my legal background, but nonetheless someone who is retreating, a perpetrator who is retreating, what happens then? If they had entered the person’s home unlawfully and the person felt that their life or someone in their family’s life was in danger, even if at some point the perpetrator turns to retreat, if deadly force is used against them would this law still apply?

HAMMER: The law is designed to allow you to use deadly force against an individual who breaks into your home. If someone turns around, you have no way of knowing whether or not they are retreating or whether or not they are going for a gun or something else. So yes, if someone breaks into your home they are at your mercy. Once they get outside your home – if they turn around and run and get outside your home, then you cannot take action against them.

GIACHINO: Let me ask you about that because when you read the statute yourself, the law also allows a citizen to use deadly force to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. So how does the new law come into play, if at all, in an example say where someone breaks into a bank and they tie up to the tellers and steal the money and they are in the process of fleeing? If the citizen has witnessed this, do they have the right to use deadly force to stop that bank robber?

HAMMER: This bill really does not allow a citizen to do that. It does not speak to it because if you are in a place where you have legal right to be, you may meet force with force. So you would have to be under attack before you could use force, including deadly force, when you are in a bank or somewhere else. When it comes to helping someone else who is under attack, or the situation you described, those are going to be jury questions, just like they have always been jury questions. And this bill really did not address that situation specifically. It addressed self-defense and defense of your family.
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/marion-hammer-nra-interview.htm