Man Who Shot Bystander Granted Immunity Under Stand Your Ground Laws

[jeff47]

81. I think you have a rose-tinted ideal of not-retreating.

Is it completely safe to try and retreat from somebody with, say, a knife in the park?

You're setting up a scenario that almost never happens and treat it as common.

If the guy is waving a knife around on the other side of the park, you have plenty of time to retreat.
If they guy is close to you, and/or running at you, you are in obvious danger and even "duty to retreat" would not apply.

There is no, "you have to figure out if you can outrun him" step.

Gunshots? Ain't no way.

The dumbest thing you can do when being shot at is stand there so you can draw a weapon, take aim and return fire. Drop to the ground immediately. Then try to figure out your options.

if you reasonably feel in danger and there isn't a retreat path "so obvious a child could do it" you're in the clear - CT law explicitly requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you could retreat, not that you prove that you could not escape. I don't know about other states, but I wouldn't be surprised. How do you feel about that?

That's the compromise I'm saying we need to return to.

Funny thing though, at the end of the day I don't think SYG even has a role in this since the shots were fired at his house. Castle Doctrine instead

First, nobody's managed to actually find the bullets or other actual evidence of shots at his house.
Second, Castle Doctrine still requires an identified threat. You can't just shoot wildly out of your house.