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

[alcibiades_mystery]

68. Hey, thanks for that

I didn't read the Florida statute, but I suspected that the severe difficulties of applying the castle Doctrine in the case of cohabitants would likely apply there as well, since it is a substantive problem rather than something that can be decided by statute. Hence my claim "It's not even clear that a similar undermining of her position wouldn't have been possible in an explicit Castle Doctrine state."

The substantive problem is clear: when an "armed robber"--which is to say, a stranger with no good reason to be there--is found dead in Jimmy's bedroom, to use TPaine7's hyperbolic and subsequently unsupported example, it is fairly clear what has occurred. If, on the other hand Jimmy's wife is found dead in the same bedroom (butcher knife still in hand, so to speak), his claims of self-defense are at least somewhat more dubious. Of course, Jimmy might have plotted with the armed robber to invade the home and attack his own wife, at which point Jimmy shoots the man as planned (this sort of thing has happened more than once, needless to say), but the investigation is there for a reason. Castle doctrine for cohabitants is clearly a difficult issue for this reason. Indeed, I'd bet that even those many states listed by TPaine7 as having no duty to retreat hedge and hem on this issue, as you demonstrate for Florida.