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Born Against
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Returning to the thread topic, I took a look at the Florida bill and related statutes, and find no reason to change my concerns.
In Florida, it is legal to use "deadly force" if you have a "reasonable fear" that someone is about to commit any "forcible felony" against you or someone else, and if "deadly force" is the only way that this can be prevented. So for example, if running away is not an option (outside your home only; you don't have to retreat inside your home). Forcible felonies are a fairly large gray area, in which either force or the threat of force is involved in the commission of any felony.
With this new bill, even if it is reasonable to assume that retreating would eliminate the threat, you can still kill somebody who verbally threatens you.
I looked in LEXIS for some case history, and found lots. My impression is that in Florida very little is required to justify killing somebody. I've appended a couple news stories below for illustration.
One story particularly was interesting in the context of "duel". In this case, a teenager got into a fist fight with a father of his friend. During the fight the kid eventually picked up a metal bar and bashed the man's head in, killing him. Prosecutors charged him with murder, because he did not need to kill the man to get out of danger, he could have simply run away. He was convicted of second degree murder.
I see nothing in the proposed bill that would prohibit what that kid did. He was physically threatened ("forcible felony") and under the new bill he is not obligated to retreat before striking. Now this is not a duel, it is a fist fight. But there isn't much difference between the two.
In another case a man shot and killed a homeless man during a verbal confrontation in which the homeless man said repeatedly "I'm going to fuck you up" and the killer said that he thought he saw a sharp object in the homeless man's hand. The fact that the killer was being threatened ("forcible felony") was not in dispute. He was arrested and charged because it appeared that he failed to retreat before shooting. The homeless man turned out not to have anything in his hand.
Again, the new bill would apparently make this homicide perfectly legal.
These are just the first two cases on the search screen, there are many others very similar.
Quote:
Copyright 2001 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
Tampa Tribune (Florida)
October 19, 2001, Friday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: PASCO, Pg. 5
LENGTH: 427 words
HEADLINE: Teen Found Guilty In Death Of Zephyrhills Dad During Fight
BYLINE: JULIET GREER , jgreer@tampatrib.com; Reporter Juliet Greer can be reached at (813) 779-4614.
BODY:
DADE CITY - A 19-year-old charged with second-degree murder for hitting a man in the head with a metal pole during a fight, killing him, was found guilty as charged Thursday.
Harvey Leroy Jones of Zephyrhills could spend the rest of his life in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 7.
Prosecutors tried to show that Jones could have walked away from the fight but instead chose to hit a Zephyrhills father, 44-year-old Loy Lee Hardwick, over the head with a metal weight-lifting pole with two to three blows that ultimately killed him.
The defense tried to show that Jones was only defending himself and his twin brother that day in April 2000.
Jones testified in his own defense Wednesday, a move his court-appointed attorney, Liz Hittos of New Port Richey, thought would have helped him.
"His statements were consistent with the police report and with written statements," she said.
"For six hours, he was interrogated by the police and was never read his rights. [Prosecutor] Manny [Garcia] did a heck of a job trying to shake him off his statements, but he didn't impeach him," Hittos said.
On the stand, Jones said Hardwick had a crazed look in his eyes and was growling during the fight. Garcia asked whether Hardwick resembled a dog.
"No man is like a dog," Jones replied.
Jones was accused of engaging Hardwick in a fight and then using the metal weight-lifting bar - which Hardwick had brandished during the fight - to kill him.
The altercation happened at the Hardwick home four to five months after a verbal confrontation between his teenage son and Jones, who were schoolmates.
"The defense is arguing self-defense in this case," Garcia said in his closing statement Thursday. "[Jones] could have run away. He could have used the pole defensively. But he chose not to do that.
"He chose to stay there . . . He was not acting in self-defense. He had every duty to retreat."
Hittos argued that nobody aspires to be violent.
"But in the ugly face of reality," she said, "when there is no choice left to make in a split-second decision to determine whether you are going to protect yourself or your loved one or succumb to violence, violence under the law is allowed and is lawful."
She also argued that Hardwick, who had a congenital defect that made his skull thin, should not "have engaged in anything more taxing than a game of chess.
"He had no business trying to engage anybody in a fight," Hittos said. "This is the most unusual, the most fragile skull the medical examiner had ever seen."
LOAD-DATE: October 21, 2001
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Quote:
Copyright 1995 Times Publishing Company
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
November 18, 1995, Saturday, Tampa Edition
SECTION: TAMPA TODAY; Pg. 1B
DISTRIBUTION: TAMPA TODAY; TAMPA BAY AND STATE
LENGTH: 557 words
HEADLINE: Charge filed in motel shooting
BYLINE: SUE CARLTON
DATELINE: TAMPA
BODY:
A week ago, Richard Zane Britt told investigators he shot a homeless man named James Robert Curtis in self-defense in a confrontation outside an abandoned motel.
But Friday, police said what happened between the two men on Gandy Boulevard that night was a case of murder.
Britt, a 46-year-old cabinetmaker and woodworker, turned himself in to police Friday morning and was charged with second-degree murder. At a hearing a few hours later, a judge agreed to release him on his own recognizance.
"The victim was unarmed," homicide prosecutor Karen Cox said in court Friday. "He did not touch or strike Mr. Britt in any manner."
But Britt's attorney, Bennie Lazzara Jr., had a different take: "This man came at him in an aggressive fashion," he said. "He believed his own life was at stake."
In the early morning hours of Nov. 11, a woman who lived near the abandoned Expressway Inn, 3693 W Gandy Blvd., called Britt, who has a wood shop nearby. Britt, described by his attorney as the unofficial caretaker of the property, said the woman thought was worried someone was breaking in. He went to the motel armed with two guns.
James and Laura Curtis, a homeless couple who lived in a tent in a nearby vacant lot, had gone to the motel's pay phone to call their parents. Mrs. Curtis, who is 8 1/2 months pregnant, later told police they heard a noise from upstairs, and her husband went to check it out while she used the phone.
Britt later said he saw a man upstairs kicking in doors "Rambo-style." He called 911 once to report a break-in, and called again with a description.
But when police arrived, they mistakenly pulled in to a motel across the street. Britt said he was calling over to the officer and walking toward Gandy when Curtis approached him.
What happened next is in dispute.
Britt said Curtis confronted him in the street, saying, "I'm going to f-- you up." Britt said he started walking backward and saw a shiny metal object in Curtis' right hand. He said he told Curtis to go away, but Curtis said, "Go ahead and shoot me. I'm still going to f-- you up."
"Then I shot him," Britt told a reporter last week.
But according to testimony Friday, Curtis was unarmed and was shot from 8 to 12 feet away. Mrs. Curtis told investigators her husband had been walking toward Britt with his hands down at his sides.
"Before you can resort to using deadly force, you have to use every reasonable means within your power and consistent with your own safety to avoid the danger," Cox said Friday. "The fact that you're wrongfully attacked doesn't justify the use of deadly force if you can avoid the use of deadly force by retreating."
Said defense attorney Eddie Suarez: "Britt in fact did take every reasonable action to retreat and get himself out of danger before he resorted to deadly force."
Britt spent a few hours at the Hillsborough County Jail Friday before he was released. Several people, including the parents of former Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman, appeared at a bail hearing to support him.
Acting Circuit Judge Walter Heinrich told Britt to turn in his guns to his attorney.
"I believe that there's a very good likelihood that you have a self-defense claim," the judge said. "I guess we'll see where this ends up someday."
LOAD-DATE: November 20, 1995
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