Duty to retreat vs stand your ground and castle laws: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

[csziggy]

57. The problem with the law as being used by Florida law enforcement

Is that they are taking the provision that the killer can NOT be arrested if this defense is invoked on the scene and using it as an excuse to not investigate.

Every violent death should be investigated, no matter what the claim of the surviving person is. It is in the public interest to make sure that the claims by the only person left to make a statement are verified by the evidence. Otherwise, it would simple enough to set up situations in which a confrontation is provoked, a victim is killed, and a murderer gets away completely free.

From the statements of the legislators that sponsored this bill, they never thought it could be used in this fashion. I don't know if they actually wrote the language or just accepted a boilerplate bill from the NRA and ALEC, but the effective application is that too many times it has been used to short cut the investigations needed to determine the truth.

Then there is the problem of a cop wanna be like George Zimmerman. In his capacity as a neighborhood watch member, he was NOT supposed to carry a gun and he was NOT supposed to confront any suspicious person. Instead he apparently provoked a confrontation with a young man who had RUN AWAY from him. "Stand Your Ground" does not apply in this case and Zimmerman's attorney has said it will not be used. But the Sanford police seemed to think it was applicable and may not have done a sufficient investigation.

No matter whether you think the entire concept of "stand your ground" is good or bad, at the very least the Florida version of the law needs to be changed. Every violent death needs to be investigated and the killer involved needs to be put in a position where they cannot evade arrest if they are found to be criminally at fault.