Stand your ground’: a get-out-of-jail-free card
Posted on Saturday, 06.02.12
Stand your ground’: a get-out-of-jail-free card
Florida is seeing a rise in ‘stand your ground’ defenses, as lawyers use it in ways legislators never imagined.
By Kris Hundley, Susan Taylor Martin and Connie Humburg
Tampa Bay Times
Florida’s “stand your ground” law has allowed drug dealers to avoid murder charges and gang members to walk free. It has stymied prosecutors and confused judges.
It has also served its intended purpose, exonerating dozens of people who were deemed to be legitimately acting in self-defense. Among them: a woman who was choked and beaten by an irate tenant and a man who was threatened in his driveway by a convicted felon.
Seven years since it was passed, Florida’s “stand your ground” law is being invoked with unexpected frequency, in ways no one imagined, to free killers and violent attackers whose self-defense claims seem questionable at best.
The shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, by a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain has prompted a renewed look at
~snip~
In the most comprehensive effort of its kind, The Tampa Bay Times has identified nearly 200 “stand your ground” cases and their outcomes. Among the findings:
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/02/2830091/stand-your-ground-a-get-out-of.html#storylink=cpy
= new reply since forum marked as read
