Stand Your Ground

[HairOfTheDog]

These states have enacted “Stand Your Ground” laws that remove the duty to retreat before using greater force in self-defense.

Alabama
Arizona
Florida
Georgia
Indiana
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Texas
Utah

Other states have adopted a stand your ground doctrine through judicial interpretation of their self-defense laws; those are not on the list above.

So, what's the difference?


In Florida and other states with specific SYG laws, the jury is instructed to consider whether the beliefs and actions were "reasonable" to the specific defendant him or herself.

But, in California (and some other state's without SYG laws, but with SYG-like self defense clauses) the jury is instructed to consider whether the beliefs and actions of the defendant be evaluated as either justified or not based on what the jury considers that a reasonable person in the same circumstances would do.

Big difference.

I think that the "pussy defense" would have been less likely to succeed in California than Florida (that doesn't mean that Zimmerman would have been convicted here; just that it would have required a different strategy by the defense and may have been more difficult to get an acquittal here, imo).

I read that Alabama is currently reviewing its SYG laws. I hope that others do too. Not as a result of one verdict in one case, but because I believe that it makes sense to revisit the intent of the laws and consider whether they've wound up making it too easy for people to legally kill others when it should/could have been avoided.