Florida's 'no duty to retreat' law
 

Florida's new self-defense law that had opponents screaming would create a blood bath and essentially legalize public dueling is now an hour old.

And somehow the sky has not yet fallen. The streets are not running with blood. And villagers are not descending upon their neighbors with torches and pitchforks.

I'm only posting because a lot of people (some of them even post here) said there would'nt be enough body bags if this was allowed to happen.
All is well.
*snicker*

Wasn't there a thread on this?

wow, it's been a whole hour and everyone's not dead yet? what a shock :crazy:

Just wait, everyone in florida needs a chance to get drunk first. Then, i'm sure we'll see some fireworks.

It isn't high-noon yet!!

its been effect going on two days, (was 24 hours when I started this thread)

Sorry ziadel, that was a joke - so what exactly is this law anyway?

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...AKING/50930012

Ah OK - unfortunately, the only way to test how suitable a law is, is to see how it becomes applied in real cases. I'm sure there'll be some media interest just as soon as someone attempts to use it as a defence in a controversial murder case, and at that point, the new law will itself be put on trial.

Laws like these don't themselves really change the behaviours of people on the street (except for the most naive ones) but they do change the futures of the people who have the misfortune to fall into difficult situations, and those able to purchase the services of successful, experienced and intelligent lawyers.

I realize that zen, however the laws opponents were claiming it would create a war in the streets overnight.

This hasn't happened, and wont happen.

We need more laws like this as it doesn't decriminalize violence, it decriminalizes self defense.

the only concern I have about this law is does it do a better job then "feels threatened" to say you can defend yourself? There are a lot of ways to feel threatened. For instance if a guy walked in on a man sleeping with his wife, he could "feel threatoned that this guy was steeling his wife". If a buisness was running another buisness to the ground one of the owners could "feel threatoned". I really hope that wasn't the wording in the law.

Otherwise i'm all for people being able to defend themselfs. If someone tries to rob me, i shouldn't have to give them my stuff i should be able to pull out a gun and shoot them right there (hopefully not fatally though, like in the leg or something).

Actually in almost EVERY state if you look up the self defense laws, the "threat" of violence is all that is needed to be felt. Self defense in every state that I know of (Texas, California, Minn.) does not require to be struck or even attacked first. All this law does is protect the defender from procecution by clearing up the hickups that could lead to jailtime. For example..

A few years ago there was a man who walked into his mothers house (she was in her 60s I believe), when he saw a man raping her. He ran out to his car, got a gun and shot him. He was sent to jail for this, as he had time to go get his gun according to the procecuter it could not be self defense because he could have ran to call the cops.

Say what you want about this case, it falls through the cracks of the laws. Just teaches the rest of us to say we were carrying in the gun at the time instead of running to our car a whopping 5ft away.

How come the rest of the G-8 countries do not feel the need the legitimize gun toting, and the ability to use them, and yet the US does? Then, let's look at per capita crime stats. Maybe I'm a wuss, but I rather give you my wallet then have to shoot you.

This is not relevant to the Florida law. In Florida, even before the new law went into effect, it would have been legal for the guy to shoot the intruder, because it was inside the woman's home.

Maybe it's because the US and its people are of a completely mindset than Canada, England, and so on? Also, violent crime in the US has actually dropped rapidly since 1993.That's nice but there are those of us out there that would like to have the option of defending ourselves as opposed to having our possessions taken from us or being severely injured and possibly killed by a criminal.

Bodyhammer, fair enough.
Absolutely true about the dip in crime since 93'. Any theory on that?
As to having the option to defend oneself, it's just that once a criminal already has a weapon pointed at you, whether or not you have one is moot.
Home invasion? Well, the stats for each home invader killed versus the amount of accidental deaths (children discovering the weapon, during cleaning, etc.) are something on the order of 20-1. How about during heated arguments? Much more impersonal to shoot rather than stab or choke.
So you decide to safeguard against these types of incidents, get a triggerlock, take out the firing pin, put the ammo elsewhere, then we are back to "criminal has weapon, you don't" at the critical moment.
I'm all for hunting, shooting ranges and so on.
I know what it says in your Constitution (inspirational document, in my opinion), however I doubt the framers believed that they knew everything and that they thought future generations would review and mend when necessary.
I think any changes would have to be slowly examined, which is what the gun debate seems to be all about.

We have had this on the boards before, but....

I have a better chance of being violently assaulted in London than I do in Chicago.

As a white male I also have a lower chance of being murdered.

Go figure.

Ditto, and a half.

London: 7.5 million people, 2.4 murder/100k, 574 assults/100k
Chicago: 2.8 million people, 15.65 murder/100k, 800 assults/100k

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cv3lma98.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago
http://www.techcentralstation.com/012003M.html

Larger city. Fewer assults per capita. Fewer murders per capita.

Oh, and London has had a recent spike in crime recently. Chicago has had a recent downswing.

Could you cite your sources?

Note also the scale of the differences. On one hand, assult differs by +/- 50%, with completely different rules for what constitutes assult and expected reporting behaviours. Murder, which tends to be noticed and reported with a pretty high rate of accuracy, differs by a factor of over 6.

Yakk,

Regarding the 'swing' between murders and assaults, in perusing the stats for violent crimes, available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it became clearer why we might see the difference: Guns are only used in about 10% of violent crimes, of which the vast majority are assaults. Most assaults just are people pounding eachother with fists, wrestling, etc. Homocides on the other hand involve guns 50% of the time. Makes sense concidering the lethality of a gun versus a fist.

It would make sense that there isn't a huge difference between London and Chicago in assaults, since I wouldn't think that drunk Londoners in a pub or drunk Chigagoans in a pub are any more or less likely than the others to go to fisticuffs. The difference in homocides is where the use of firearms makes its presence known, and where firearms are plentiful, the number of murders being significantly higher makes sense.

Josh

That can't be all of it. After all, homicide rates in the US involving fists or objects other than guns are far higher than similar homicide rates in Europe.

What people fail to see is that there is now some guy running around south florida robbing gas stations and if he shoots at you. what would you do? Give him a hug and ask him about his parents? Sometimes it becomes necessary to defend yourself. I don't want to die any more than the next guy. somebody shoots at me and I happen to be legally carrying a weapon I am going to defend myself. Self preservation should come natural. and yes I do live in South Florida and I have yet to hear a gun shot.

Well sure...there are cultural, geographic, and economic factors that all affect the crime rates. What we were addressing was why assault rates would only be marginally higher while murder rates would be astronomically higher...I mean if both assaults and murders were say 50% higher in one place, that would seem to indicate general crime factors such as economics, legal systems, government corruption and policing policies, etc. But when a particular crime, such as murder shows such a marked uptick compared to crime in general, you look for more specific factors relating specifically to the crime in question.

In short there are no doubt hundreds of factors that could be demonstrated to be some portion of the equation. One such as weapon use, when it accounts for such a large difference in percentage, should naturally be considered a primary suspect in being a major factor though, which is what I was demonstrating.

But this was already the case before this law. In every state in the union, if someone starts shooting at you, you are within your rights to return fire. You may not be allowed to shoot him in the back if he's running away (unless he's still shooting back over his shoulder), but that's a gray area. You are allowed to use your weapon to counter a threat of harm either to you or another person, even if the perp doesn't have one. This is all before the new law, and in all 50 states.

The way I had the previous law explained to me was that a person must use ALL available means to remove themselves from the assault before being allowed to use deadly force, meaning that person had to have made an attempt(s) to run, hide, and escape the area and unless they were backed in to a corner with nowhere left to go, then they could use deadly force. This new law removes that handicap by allowing a reasonable defense to the use of deadly force.

And the courts have usually interpreted "attempt to run" etc. very liberally; e.g. just backing up a couple steps before shooting often has been considered sufficient for a self defense claim.

I'm sure a stupid case has happened, but generally, by all available, they do mean reasonable methods. I.E. if a perp attacks you, certainly you have the right to act in defense. Yes, if he attacks you and hides in a building and you go after him, then that might be seen as not taking a reasonable opportunity to escape. But if you are on the street and are attack, no court is going to require that you first turn your back on him and run for a while and only if he keeps shooting can you return fire. Like I said, there are sure to be some stupid cases where courts messed up, but in general are there really a lot of people being locked up for murder when in reality they were only doing reasonable self-defense? I'm open to the evidence, but I haven't seen a lot of these cases.

The way the law WAS, was you were required to attempt retreat, i.e., leave the situation BEFORE doing anything. If you were pursued and attacked further, and escape was not possible, then you can match force.

(P.s. i live in florida and it's been on the news a lot)

The way it is NOW, is simply you are no longer REQUIRED to attempt to leave the scene before defending yourself. You may now immediately defend yourself and your position without first having to attempt to run away.

That's all. It's not that complex. :)

I just wanted to point out a major flaw in forming any opinion on the basis of comparing London and Chicago crime statistics. Yes, what Ustwo said was incorrect, but the reason has little to do with guns (whatever it may be). It is illegal to own a gun in Chicago (unless you're grandfathered in).

A couple things:

-- the retreat duty does not exist in any Florida statute. It is not statute, it is case law or precedent.

-- the statute used to say that use of deadly force is justified only if reasonably necessary.

So in the old days the jury had to decide: would a reasonable person believe that deadly force was necessary to counter a threat? If so, then it was self defense.

Now, with the new law, you can use deadly force even when a reasonable person knows that it was not necessary.

When the state legislature proposed this change, I don't recall anybody bringing up a Florida legal case in which a person was charged with homicide unjustly. If anybody can come up with such a case or scenario under the old law, I'd like to hear it. As far as I know, there has been no criticism of the courts' interpretation, no injustice that has ever been in need of correction.

On the other hand, there have been many cases, even under the old law when a duty to retreat existed, where people have been allowed to use deadly force under the most trivial of circumstances.

I guess what I would like to see is where is the history of people being unjustly convicted of homocide in cases of self-defense. I still can't think of a situation in which I would act in self-defense and where, should the facts be heard in court, the court would not exonerate those actions. Thus I feel no need to create blanket provisions that have the potential to allow murders to be committed under the guise of self-defense.

We've done this before, I'm doing going to do it again anytime soon, so I did this...

www.google.com
london crime rate
first link

second link...

They go on....

If you take out black-black gang murders the murder rate is lower too (and I'm not digging for it).

Many European cities were having similar issues, but again I'm not googling for ya :thumbsup:

Ustwo, you claimed that "I have a better chance of being violently assaulted in London than I do in Chicago."

You then started talking about New York. New York is not Chicago.

I'm aware that recently New York has had a huge downswing in crime, while London has had a huge upswing.

However, for the life of me, I cannot find a single god damn article comparing London crime rates post-2002 to America's...

Ok found one at the bottom of page 2 of the google search for "london crime rate 2005".

Robbery: About 1.3 / 1000
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/to...3=0&sub=0&v=24

BCS (uniform definition of violent crime)
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page63.asp
Non-uniform definition of violent crime, reflecting police reporting changes:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page66.asp

As an aside, 41% of English "violent crime" involves no injury to the victim. (the page 66 link)

See:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page107.asp
for how they changed how crimes are counted in the late 90s.

New York:
which is 3.76 burglaries per 1000.
http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/archives/2005/02/

London:
3.5 burglaries per 1000.
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/to...3=0&sub=0&v=24

Strangely, the article I found for New York burglaries claims London has 14+ burglaries per 1000.

Possibly the trick is people are choosing a very narrow region for London (the most dense area), and a wide one for New York, when they want to prove that London is unsafe?

Because I am having problems finding statistics that agree with the high numbers quoted in "London is less safe than New York" articles when I start probing in primary sources.

Here's a case, from 1979 in Florida, in which the duty to retreat might play a role.

For those folks in this thread who have expressed an opinion on the law, here's a chance for you to play judge.

What do you think the decision should be? Do you think the new law is relevant to this case?

based on the information above the defendant in that case should be found guilty of murder in the 2nd degree. This simply was not self defense. The victim left the building, the defendant then armed himself and pursued the victim. Had the victim returned to the building with a weapon, and the clark drew a gun and fired, it would then be considered self defense, but when you chase somebody down and shoot them, it's murder.

*edit* the new law in my opinion has no bearing on this case. The new law does not require you to attempt to escape, but it does not allow you to pursue someone either.

I second cj's assessment, both on the case and the relevance of the new law.

ok, any folks who are against the duty to retreat want to weigh in here? I'll wait awhile before I post the full citation.

I'd have to know more about the situation. Did the cafe manager think the guy was going out to his truck for a gun and then return and start blasting? Did the manager think it was better to confront him outside so his patrons wouldn't be in the line of fire? Did they know each other and have a history?

flstf, the guy only threatened the manager, not the patrons. I'm sure if you would have asked the manager if he feared for his patrons, he would have said yes, whether it was true or not. I think it's safe to assume they didn't have a history, otherwise it would have been mentioned.

If there are no other extenuating circumstances then on the surface it looks like the manager was wrong to pursue the guy outside. I can't imagine why he would though unless he felt it was a him or me situation, and he had a better chance of defending himself outside with less chance of anyone else getting hurt. I guess he could/should have locked the doors and called 911.

I am against the duty to retreat, but that doesn't mean I'm for the right to pursue either

As usual, 8 other things besides the real issue are being brought into the context for no reason.

The issue is not if you can kill someone. The issue is not if "duty to retreat" is the opposite of "pursuing".

Before: If someone attacked you, you were required to extricate yourself from the situation and if, and ONLY if, you could not remove yourself from the altercation, could you then MATCH force to defend yourself. Even if you kicked the person in the shins in defense, you would have to have proved you could not get away from the attacker to justify that simple battery.

When it came down to it, you could only ever match force, this new law does nothing to change that. All it does is says you no longer HAVE TO try and run before defending yourself. So, now if someone kicks you in the shins, you can kick right back to defend yourself.

Everyone immediately wants to go to guns on this topic, but it has fuck all to do with guns, it has only to do with being required to try and run from the attack, vs. now you can defend yourself without first having to try to get away. You can now stand your ground if attacked. Simple, not complicated.

"You shall not stir one foot to seek a foe" - Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet... if the attacker attempts to exit, any further actions to pursue them on your part are now attack, and you will be held responsible for your actions.

I still have NO fucking clue why the hell london and chicago got pulled into this whole bullshit mess of a thread. Totally irrelevant.

There's just no need to complicate matters, and that's all that seems to be happening in this thread.

Here's the full citation:

In Florida, there are two situations where there was no duty to retreat even before the new law: in your home, and in your place of business.

SO if we want to understand what the effect of the new law will likely be (everywhere, eg in public places), we can look at case histories of what people were allowed to do in their homes and in their places of business.

That's why I posted that case, and there are several others like it.

If you read why that decision was made, it had nothing to do with not having the duty to retreat, it had to do with incompetence on the part of the states attorney. The state has the burden of proof, and they dropped the ball. The fact that the defendant wasn't required to retreat is not what got him a not guilty verdict...it's the fact that the state poorly prosecuted the case by not even questioning what the defendant was thinking at the time, or whether that thought process was reasonable in the eyes of the law.

Maybe the state prosecution was just wrong to charge the manager in the first place and he really did think that the deceased was going to get a gun and kill him?
That's why:

To go back to what Analog said, this case doesn't appear to have relevance to the new law, as the 'duty to retreat' did not factor in the judgement.

If the new law was truly necessary to protect the rights of Floridians to life and liberty, then this need would be demonstrated through either one or both of the following:
1) Significant numbers of citizens being convicted of manslaughter in cases where they were rightly defending themselves or others.
2) Significant cases of citizens being harmed by assailants while attempting to flee the attack instead of responding with force, in order to perform within the law.

Unless these can be demonstrated, the need for the new law remains purely hypothetical, and thus we should be extremely wary of enacting such a law without fully contemplating potential negatives.

Josh

The state admitted that the manager thought the guy was going for a gun. That, plus the fact that he had no duty to retreat, was enough to exonerate him.

If you're talking about the case I posted, see the yellow highlight. Because it was the manager's place of business, he was within his rights to move anywhere within that property, and use force to counter the threat of force.

The relevance to the new law, is that principle now expands to apply everywhere, not just within one's home or place of business.

So what the manager did (assuming that he did so because he reasonably thought his assailant was going for a gun) presumably can now be done legally by anybody anywhere in Florida.

I see your point, and you are right to point this out. This points out the hazard of the law. If we are correct in our assessment, it would now be okay for this to be done by, say, a customer, who pursues a guy out of a bar and kills him in the parking lot after an altercation.

To introduce such a hazard would be understandable if it were correcting a demonstrable failure in the law, but as I cited before, until that failure is demonstrated (and I have yet to see the cases brought forward to do so), it is irresponsible to do so. Introducing a problem to correct a hypothetical one is not generally a basis for good legislation.

That is a good point. Also, I guess now everyone in Florida will be able to defend themselves against someone who threatens to kill them, no matter where they are, if they give you reason to believe they are reaching for a gun to complete their threat.

We don't know that from the information given about this case, we only know that the state failed to even address this issue during the case.

How do you conclude that this:

doesn't contradict your position?

besides, he didn't get a "not guilty" verdict; the case was dismissed.


EDIT: cj, do you know what the legal term "deny under traverse of oath" means? If there wasn't any legal basis for the dispute of the material fact that the defendent thought the assailant was going for a gun, then they can't challenge it or may even stipulate it.

On what basis do you think the state could have denied the defendant's belief as a factual matter?
The only way to dispute his belief about the victim obtaining a gun would have been to have witnesses saying that he didn't really believe it, or a confession. Short of either of those, there wasn't much for the prosecutor to do other than state as opinion that the defendant wasn't really in fear of his life. I'm not sure where you got the notion that the state was incompetent.