Brother's Keeper

Standing your Ground

Ever since Cain, we’ve been killing each other. It is an ever present feature of the human condition.

People kill each other in every country in the world.
In every town in the United States, people kill each other.

I’ve heard it argued that all governmental power derives from the need to keep us from killing each other.

So what is the newest statement from our government about killing?

The newest edition of the “Stand Your Ground” statute became law on June 6th, 2017. The change says that the Defendant has a burden of showing a prima facia case of self defense, then the State must prove it wasn’t self defense by clear and convincing evidence (prior to the change the defendant had to prove by a preponderance that they were acting in self defense).

The change may certainly effect individual cases, but the substance of the law remains stable.

“Stand your ground” stands for the proposition that if you are in a place that you are allowed to be and you aren’t committing a crime than you can kill someone if it looks like they are going to kill you, seriously injure you, or commit a forcible felony on you. There is no duty to retreat.

You don’t have to try to run away or calm the situation down. You get to kill a person if you have the reasonable belief in your mind that they were gonna rob you or hurt you badly. And of course, that belief had better be reasonable to the cops and the prosecutors.

You do have to run away or retreat “to the wall” if you provoked the attack.

The law provides a seemingly simple answer to the age old question of: when is a killing permissible?

Where the law is simple, life is complicated.

Consider: What acts are considered “provocation”? When is it reasonable to believe you will be attacked? How long do you have to wait until somebody’s actions create a reasonable belief? When is it reasonable to believe that a man grabbing a woman’s arm indicates a false imprisonment? When is it reasonable to believe that somebody knocking on your window is attempting to burglarize it? When is a pocket knife a deadly weapon? What happens to “reasonableness”if it takes a long time to kill the guy? What if ten people saw 10 different things?

When can I kill somebody? The truth is: it is up to whoever is making the decision to: arrest, charge, dismiss or adjudicate. It is up to the cop, the prosecutor, the judge or the jury.

So, in my mind, the law has not really changed so much from what we’ve always known. If you kill somebody, you better have a reason and it better be a good one. What is a good reason vs. a bad one? Well you need a lawyer to answer that question.

Don’t talk to law enforcement without me there standing with you. Your life could depend on it.