NOVA CLASSICAL ACADEMY DEBATE WORKSHOP
Dick Lesicko
7/30/2013
Evidence, you will soon discover, is the lifeblood of debate. Research provides you with ideas, research provides you with statistics and examples that help you prove your points, and research provides you with answers to your opponent’s arguments.
While most debate workshops spend a great deal of time having students generate evidence, my approach is to provide you with a set of evidence so that we can spend the bulk of our short workshop having you debate each other. The attached packet of evidence serves to provide you with a starter set of evidence that will let you begin debating the topic on the second day of the institute.
You should read through the evidence. There is no need for you to print the document as you will be provided with paper copies of the handbook on the first day of the workshop

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS ELIMINATE THE DUTY TO RETREAT
Elizabeth B. Megale. Professor of Law, Savannah Law School Deadly Combinations:
How Self-Defense Laws Pairing Immunity with a Presumption of Fear Allow Criminals to "Get Away with Murder ", American Journal of Trial Advocacy: Summer 2010 .
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been fiercely lobbying state legislatures around the nation for broader gun and self-defense laws. In Florida, the NRA's proposals saw nearly no opposition during the strong and quick lobby. Prior to amending section 77.012 in 2005, an individual who felt threatened outside the home or workplace had a duty to retreat to the wall and could only meet force with force where no safe means of escape was available.Known as the "Stand Your Ground" law, this statute is flawed because it places a greater power on the right to possess and use a gun than it does on the most fundamental right of all: life itself. Under common law, an individual was required to retreat before resorting to physical force, so long as retreat could be safely accomplished. The law has always recognized that, where no safe method of retreat is available, a person may meet force with force in defense of an attack. Now, anytime one claims to perceive a threat, that individual would be justified in reacting violently; they would have little incentive to diffuse the situation by retreating.

BECAUSE NO POSTIVE SOCIAL BENEFITS FLOW FROM SELF-DEFENSE, IT IS
WRONG TO SEE SUCH KILLINGS AS JUSTIFIED
Rosen, 1986
It is difficult to identify a positive benefit that accrues to anyone other than the killer from the taking of an aggressor' s life in self-defense. Thus, there is no reason for the law affirmatively to encourage such conduct. To the contrary, classification of self-defense as a justification may be detrimental to society .
1
There are a number of reasons why self-help is contrary to the interests of modern society. Reliance on self-help tends to diminish respect for the rule of law. Self-help in the form of self-defense carries the additional problem of increasing the quantum of violence in an already violent society. More troublesome is the possibility that the more widespread resort to self-help becomes, the more often nnocent people may be killed erroneously.
2
1
Cathryn Jo Rosen, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Temple University, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW
REVIEW, "The Excuse of Self-Defense: Correcting a Historical Accident on Behalf of Battered Women who Kill",
Fall 1986, p. lexis
2 Ibid.

USING STATE FAILURE TO JUSTIFY SELF-HELP OPENS THE DOOR
TO VIGILANTE JUSTICE
Rosen, 1986
Cathryn Jo Rosen, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Temple University, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW
REVIEW, "The Excuse of Self-Defense: Correcting a Historical Accident on Behalf of Battered Women who Kill",
Fall 1986, p. lexis
Even more worrisome, however, is the assumption underlying the battered woman' s defense that self-defense is necessary in some situations -- even when the threatened attack is not imminent -- because the criminal justice system has not adequately protected women.
This assertion supports the feminist demand that the concepts of imminence and necessity be broadened. Yet, it is exactly this notion that the law must suppress. For the logical corollary is that any person who believes , reasonably or unreasonably, that the criminal justice system does not offer adequate protection can resort to self-help even though there may have been sufficient time to summon the aid of lawful authority .
Even when we understand the actor' s unusual need to resort to self-help, the actor' s behavior may still be dangerous to society. If self-defense is a justification and if justified conduct is conduct we consistently encourage because it benefits society whenever similar circumstances arise, the defense cannot rationally be expanded to encompass the battered woman' s defense. Indeed, it may be that if those who suffer from battered woman syndrome or other psychological trauma induced by their social reality are more likely to kill in self-help, the criminal law should be doing even more than it currently does to prevent them from doing so. Domestic abuse is a serious societal problem but promotion of vigilantism is certainly not the solution . Treatment of self-defense as an excuse allows the judge to make a determination that it would be unjust to convict the defendant while at the same time avoiding a determination that defendant did the right and just thing and the consequent risk of increasing the quantum of violence in an all too violent society

HISTORY REMINDS US THAT CLAIMS OF STATE INEFFECTIVENESS
CARVE OUT TOO BIG AN EXEMPTION—IT IS A CLAIM THAT THE
KLAN ONCE EMPLOYED.
Kaufman, 2007
Whitley R.P. Kaufman, Department of Philosophy at University of Massachusetts Lowell, “Self-Defense,
Imminence, and the Battered Woman”, New Criminal Law Review, Volume 10, 2007 .
for example
for suspension of the imminence rul
n62 The problem is that the notion of "effectiveness" is so vague and open-ended, it would exceedingly complicate jury trials, resulting in lengthy, complex debates over how to define "effective," whether the state was effective, and just how effective it had to be before force was justified
who felt justified in resorting to vigilante justice on the grounds that the state was not doing enough to keep the streets safe. n63
from rape. n64 Whereas in cases of an imminent threat, the individual's judgment is least susceptible to bias or wrongful motives as the danger is clear and unmistakable because immediate (it is also more easily susceptible to proof of necessity after the fact), the very opposite may be said of the "effectiveness" exception: that it is highly susceptible to subjective bias.

RACIAL BIAS TAINTS STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS
Janet Shan, journalist, founding editor of the Hinterland Gazette, 2013
July 15, 2013 http://hinterlandgazette.com/2013/07/whites-who-kill-blacks-under-stand-ground-law-
354-percent-more-likely-to-be-acquitted.html
White people who kill blacks in states in which ‘Stand Your Ground’ is law are 354 percent more likely to be found justified in their killings than a white person who kills someone of the same color, according to research by John Roman, a senior analyst at Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center
Janet Shan, journalist, founding editor of the Hinterland Gazette, 2013
July 15, 2013 http://hinterlandgazette.com/2013/07/whites-who-kill-blacks-under-stand-ground-law-
354-percent-more-likely-to-be-acquitted.html
But how do you measure racial bias? John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Justice
Policy Center, recently conducted a study examining racial disparity using FBI data on 43,500 homicides from 2005 to 2009, the most recent years for which data was available. He sifted out only the killings in which there was a single shooter and a single victim, both of whom were strangers to each other — narrowing the pool to about 5,000 homicides.
And Roman looked specifically at “justified” homicides, which as defined by the FBI, are when police determine a private citizen has killed someone who is committing a felony, such as attempted murder, rape or armed robbery.
Roman found that the killings of black people by whites were more likely to be considered justified than the killings of white people by blacks. Source: PBS

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS DON’T PROMOTE PUBLIC SAFETY,
INSTEAD THEY RESULT IN INCREASED HOMICIDES
Janet Shan, journalist, founding editor of the Hinterland Gazette, 2013
July 15, 2013 http://hinterlandgazette.com/2013/07/whites-who-kill-blacks-under-stand-ground-law-
354-percent-more-likely-to-be-acquitted.html
A recent study suggests that laws may lead to more deaths. According to a June study [pdf] by researchers at Texas A&M University, the rates of murder and non-negligent manslaughter increased by 8 percent in states with Stand Your Ground laws. That’s an additional 600 homicides per year in the states that have enacted such laws.
The study, which analyzed FBI crime data nationwide from 2000-2009, says it could mean either that more people are using lethal force in self-defense, or that situations are more likely to escalate to the use of violence in states with the laws. “Regardless, the study said, “the results indicate that a primary consequence of strengthening self-defense law is increased homicide.”

RACIAL BIAS INFECTS THE APPLICATION OF STAND YOUR
GROUND LAWS
Katie Halper, July 15, 2013 http://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/stand_your_ground_law_helps_white_defendants_a_lot_more_tha n_black_ones/
Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School
(where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (Her writing or videos have appeared in the New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation,
Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post and Alternet, and Katie has been featured in/on New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times, In
These Times and National Review
The “stand your ground” law is notorious for being applied in a biased and inconsistent way. The
Tampa Bay Times found that defendants claiming “stand your ground” are more successful if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty. Only
59 percent of those who killed a white person got off. The Urban Institute determined that in
“stand your ground” states, when white shooters kill black victims, 34 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable. When black shooters kill white victims only 3 percent of the deaths are ruled justifiable.
In light of these trends, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted to investigate whether “stand your ground” laws are racially biased

ELIMINATING THE DUTY TO RETREAT IS AT THE CORE OF STAND
YOUR GROUND LAWS
Kris Hundley , Susan Taylor Martin and Connie Humburg, Tampa Bay Times Staff Writers June 1,2012 http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-someshocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133
People have had the right to defend themselves from a threat as far back as English common law.
The key in Florida and many other states was that they could not use deadly force if it was reasonably possible to retreat.
That changed in 2005 when Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Florida Statute 776.013. It says a person "has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground'' if he or she thinks deadly force is necessary to prevent death, great bodily harm or commission of a forcible felony like robbery.
"Now it's lawful to stand there like Matt Dillon at high noon, pull the gun and shoot back,'' said
Bob Dekle, a University of Florida law professor and former prosecutor in North Florida.
Durell Peaden, the former Republican senator from Crestview who sponsored the bill, said the law was never intended for people who put themselves in harm's way before they started firing.
But the criminal justice system has been blind to that intent.
The new law only requires law enforcement and the justice system to ask three questions in selfdefense cases: Did the defendant have the right to be there? Was he engaged in a lawful activity?
Could he reasonably have been in fear of death or great bodily harm?
Without convincing evidence to the contrary, "stand your ground'' protection prevails.

THERE ARE NUMEROUS EXAMPLES WHERE STAND YOUR GROUND
HAS LED TO ABSURD RESULTS
Kris Hundley , Susan Taylor Martin and Connie Humburg, Tampa Bay Times Staff Writers June 1,2012 http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-someshocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133
Whatever lawmakers' expectations, "stand your ground" arguments have resulted in freedom or reduced sentences for some unlikely defendants.
• An 18-year-old felon, convicted of cocaine and weapons charges, shot and wounded a neighbor in the stomach, then fled the scene and was involved in another nonfatal shootout two days later, according to police. He was granted immunity in the first shooting.
• Two men fell into the water while fighting on a dock . When one started climbing out of the water, the other shot him in the back of the head, killing him. He was acquitted after arguing
"stand your ground."
•
A Seventh-day Adventist was acting erratically , doing cartwheels through an apartment complex parking lot, pounding on cars and apartment windows and setting off alarms. A tenant who felt threatened by the man's behavior shot and killed him. He was not charged.
•
A Citrus County man in a longstanding dispute with a neighbor shot and killed the man one night in 2009. He was not charged even though a witness and the location of two bullet wounds showed the victim was turning to leave when he was shot.
Even chasing and killing someone over a drug buy can be considered standing your ground.
Anthony Gonzalez Jr.
was part of a 2010 drug deal that went sour when someone threatened
Gonzalez with a gun. Gonzalez chased the man down and killed him during a high-speed gunbattle through Miami streets.
Before the "stand your ground'' law, Miami-Dade prosecutors would have had a strong murder case because Gonzalez could have retreated instead of chasing the other vehicle. But Gonzalez's lawyer argued he had a right to be in his car, was licensed to carry a gun and thought his life was in danger.
Soon after the filing of a "stand your ground'' motion, prosecutors agreed to a deal in which
Gonzalez pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and got three years in prison.
"The limitations imposed on us by the 'stand your ground' laws made it impossible for any prosecutor to pursue murder charges,'' Griffith of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said at

the time. "This is certainly a very difficult thing to tell a grieving family member.''
STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS GIVE RISE TO A CYCLE OF
ESCALATION—MORE SHOOTING RESULT IN INCREASED
OWNERSHIP, INCREASES IN PEOPLE CARRYING, INCREASES IN
PEOPLE USING THE GUNS THAT THEY CARRY.
Kris Hundley , Susan Taylor Martin and Connie Humburg, Tampa Bay Times Staff Writers June 1,2012 http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-someshocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133
As "stand your ground" claims have increased, so too has the number of Floridians with guns.
Concealed weapons permits now stand at 1.1 million, three times as many as in 2005 when the law was passed.
"I think the (stand your ground) law has an emboldening effect. All of a sudden, you're a tough guy and can be aggressive,'' said George Kirkham, a professor emeritus at Florida State
University who has worked as a police officer.
Criminologists say that when people with guns get the message they have a right to stand and fight, rather than retreat, the threshold for using that gun goes down. All too often, Bruce
Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney for Pinellas-Pasco counties, sees the result.
"I see cases where I'll think, 'This person didn't really need to kill that person but the law, as it is written, justifies their action,' " Bartlett said about incidents that his office decides not to prosecute due to "stand your ground." "It may be legally within the boundaries. But at the end of the day, was it really necessary?"

STAND YOUR GROUND WORKS TO SPARE INNOCENT DEFENDANTS
THE COST OF A TRIAL AND THE RISK OF JURY ERROR
Kris Hundley , Susan Taylor Martin and Connie Humburg, Tampa Bay Times Staff Writers June 1,2012 http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-someshocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133
Donald Day is a Naples defense lawyer who has handled three "stand your ground" cases and believes the law is working "remarkably well."
Day said the immunity hearings are a critical backstop in self-defense cases that should never go to a jury. Of the cases in the Times' database that have been resolved, 23 percent were dismissed by a judge after an immunity hearing. That means 38 defendants facing the prospect of a jury trial were set free by a judge who ruled the evidence leaned in their favor.
"Where the defendant is clearly in the right and gets arrested, should you have to take your chance with what six people believe or don't believe?" Day said. "Judges are denying these motions where they should be denied and granting them in the limited number of cases statewide where they should be granted."

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS ENDANGER PUBLIC SAFETY
Joseph E. Kennedy is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina School of Law where he teaches and writes about criminal law and procedure. July 16, 2013 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/07/george_zimmerman_and_sel f_defense_why_it_was_too_easy_for_him_to_get_off.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content
Having Stand Your Ground laws is a bad idea because the law can too easily turn into a license to kill when bad blood, not fear, motivates the killing.
But the big problem for the prosecution in the Zimmerman case wasn’t really Stand Your Ground. It was about a broader problem with the law of self-defense—showcasing an aspect of the law that this case urgently shows should change.
Requiring prosecutors to disprove self-defense is also a particularly bad idea in states that allow people to carry guns in public places. The more people carry guns, the more reasonable the fear that the guy you’re fighting with might be reaching for his
. Or, if you are carrying a gun and rolling around on the ground with another person, like Martin and
Zimmerman, you could fear that your opponent might be about to grab your gun—as
Zimmerman claimed in his statements to police. Since your fear needs only be reasonable, not correct, a mistaken but reasonable fear that the other person is reaching for a gun legally justifies killing an unarmed person. The other person could have been reaching for a cellphone, but in a state that lets people carry concealed weapons, it would be harder for the prosecutor to prove that your fear of a gun was not reasonable. The more guns, the more grounds for self-defense—and the more licenses for violence.

STAND YOUR GROUND SENSELESSLY EXPAND THE CONTOURS OF
SELF-DEFENSE—FIXING SOMETHING THAT WASN’T BROKEN
Shushannah Walshe ASSOCIATED PRESS Jul 16, 2013 9:35pm http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/attorney-general-eric-holder-addresses-trayvonmartin-shooting-criticizes-stand-your-ground-laws/
Attorney General Eric Holder strongly condemned “Stand Your Ground” laws today in a speech that became intensely personal at times and addressed the shooting of Trayvon Martin and
Saturday’s acquittal of George Zimmerman .
At the NAACP convention in Orlando, Fla., Holder, the first black attorney general, said of the
“Stand Your Ground” laws that it is “time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.”
“These laws try to fix something that was never broken,” Holder said at the Orange County
Convention Center. “There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if — and the
‘if’ is important — no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely.”
“By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety,” he said.
“The list of resulting tragedies is long and — unfortunately — has victimized too many who are innocent,” Holder said. “It is our collective obligation — we must stand our ground — to ensure that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent.”
“Stand Your Ground” laws, which have passed in more than 30 states including Florida, allow people to defend themselves with deadly force, rather than retreating from the situation if they feel that they are in danger.

FULL TEXT OF ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER’S REMARKS ON
STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/attorney-general-eric-holders-remarks-on-trayvonmartin-at-naacp-convention-full-text/2013/07/16/dec82f88-ee5a-11e2-a1f9ea873b7e0424_story.html
Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation's attention, it's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods. (Cheers, applause.) These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if -- and the "if" is important -- if no safe retreat is available.
But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common-sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely. By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety.
The list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has victimized too many who are innocent. It is our collective obligation; we must stand OUR ground to ensure -- (cheers, applause, music) -- we must stand our ground to ensure that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent.

THE BEST EVIDENCE ESTABLISH THAT STAND YOUR GROUND
LAWS PROVIDE NO REAL BENEFITS TO SOCIETY
David Hemenway, Ph.D.
Director, Harvard Injury Control Research Center
Don't Ignore the Evidence: Stand Your Ground Is Bad for Florida http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-hemenway-phd/stand-yourground_b_2119322.html
As the director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, I've dedicated much of my career to researching the issue of gun violence. Too often I have seen policy makers make decisions about guns which were dictated not by the scientific evidence but rather by emotion and special interests. Thus their policy decisions have often reduced rather than promoted public safety
Contrary to that claim, the best available research evidence indicates that Stand Your Ground laws are dangerous, with few redeeming benefits to society.
A new study by economists at Texas A&M University, available through the National Bureau of
Economic Research (2012), uses police data and concludes that Stand Your Ground laws are associated with a significant increase in homicides and that these homicides are classified as murders.
Using public health data, economists at Georgia State University also recently (2012) found that passage of a Stand Your Ground law is associated with a significant increase in homicides, and particularly homicides of white males. They conclude that "these findings raise serious doubts against the argument that Stand Your Ground laws make public safer."
Have Stand Your Ground laws had some beneficial impact by allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves? The evidence doesn't show that. The Texas A&M study finds no evidence that Stand Your Ground laws deter crimes: rates of burglary, robbery and aggravated assault are unaffected by the laws. Instead, too often the law is used to protect criminals rather than innocent victims. In a review of the close to 200 Stand Your Ground cases heard in Florida courts since
2005, the Tampa Bay Times finds that most people who raise a Stand Your Ground defense have a criminal arrest record. Indeed, in more than 1/3rd of Florida Stand Your Ground defendants who killed someone have previously been arrested for threatening someone with a gun or illegally carrying a weapon. The law has been used to free gang members, drug dealers fighting with their clients, and perpetrators who shot their victim in the back. Indeed, in most of the
Florida Stand Your Ground confrontations, the victim was not committing a crime that led to the confrontation, and was not armed.
The best available research makes Stand Your Ground laws look like a disaster.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS CORRECTLY RECOGNIZE THE
SPLIT-SECOND NATURE OF THE DECISION
J.P. Neyland, attorney, Spring 2008 BAYLOR LAW REVIEW v. 60 A Man's Car is His Castle:
The Expansion of Texas' "Castle Doctrine" Eliminating the Duty to Retreat in Areas Outside the
Home
Critics also say that these amendments were unnecessary because the pre-2007 law provided a good balance between the right to self-defense and the preservation of human life.
n133 The 1995 amendments accomplished this by allowing people to resist deadly force with deadly force if it was reasonable under the circumstances. n134 When the actor was unable to safely retreat, the use of deadly force was reasonable. n135 The problem with the rule is that it placed a heavy burden upon the actor to make a split-second determination of whether the use of deadly force was reasonable. n136 A lapse in judgment in that splitsecond could result in criminal or civil liability, if he used deadly force and was later determined to not be justified. n137 If the actor erred on the side of not using deadly force, the result could be death or serious injury for him or his family. n138

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS PROTECT INNONCENT DEFENDANTS
IN TWO WAYS
J.P. Neyland, attorney, Spring 2008 BAYLOR LAW REVIEW v. 60 A Man's Car is His Castle:
The Expansion of Texas' "Castle Doctrine" Eliminating the Duty to Retreat in Areas Outside the
Home
The new law properly allows the defendant to engage in self-preservation without imparting an unfair burden on an actor who took necessary measures to protect himself or his family. The law lessens these unfair burdens in two ways. First, the law creates the presumption that in those situations expressed in subsection (b) the defendant's actions were reasonable.
n139 Second, the changes to the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provide immunity from civil actions brought by the person [*739] against whom force was used (if not deadly force, obviously) and also from actions brought by the families of the person against whom deadly force was used. n140
These two changes protect the defendant from two distinct harms. First, the presumption of reasonableness protects the person who made a split-second decision to use deadly force from a prosecutor who has months to look back on the situation and, with detached reflection, compare the defendant's response to a "reasonable" response. n141 The defendant does not have the luxury of taking his time to make a decision; his choice is nearly instantaneous. Without this presumption, the prosecutor has a distinct advantage of closely scrutinizing every action of the defendant to show why his use of force or failure to retreat was unreasonable.
The defendant is also protected from expensive civil litigation due to the expansion of the defense to civil suits. In Texas, citizens who killed intruders were normally required to at least face a grand jury, and sometimes a trial on the issue . n142 As shown above, in situations where self-defense applies the defendant's actions are justified and deemed to be the lesser of two evils. n143 Under the prior law, the "reward" for this justified killing was the threat of civil suit. These civil trials were a lose-lose situation for defendants. First, even if the defendant was determined to be innocent in the civil trial, proving this innocence often required enormous legal expenses. n144 Second, there was also the possibility that, although the use of force was justified, the actor would be found liable in the civil trial and be faced with legal expenses and a potentially substantial monetary award to the plaintiff .
Granting civil immunity to people who meet the statutory requirements of section 9.32 prevents these unlawful intruders, attackers, or their families, from profiting from their crimes through a monetary award in a civil suit . n145

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS ARE AN UNFORTUNATE
NECESSITY..WITHOUT THEM, WE CEDE PUBLIC SPACES TO THUGS
Clayton E. Cramer ,software engineer and historian. Sept 23, 2009
His sixth book is Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=12d_1253686343#T5YEeSSZJpuBMwJ2.99
Laws removing the obligation to retreat when attacked are necessary to put some fear into would-be attackers.
Taking away the obligation to retreat in public when you have that option pretty well guarantees that someone is going to get shot and killed. Likely as not, it is going to be some testosterone-poisoned teenage or young adult male. There’s a chance that he will remain an obnoxious punk and get himself killed in a bar fight. There’s also a good chance that in a few more years this obnoxious punk will get married, settle down, raise a family, and turn into a responsible adult. As Clint Eastwood says in Unforgiven: “It’s a helluva’ thing when you kill a man. You take away everything he’s got … and everything he’s ever gonna have.” If you have to kill someone in selfdefense against death, great bodily injury, or the threat of either, that’s unfortunate, but your attacker made the decision that your life is worth less than your wallet or the joy of beating you to a pulp. The aggressor thus forfeits his own life by the standard that he applied to yours.
In a civilized society, it should not be a common event that you have to retreat in a public place to avoid using deadly force. In America today, that is not the situation. Once bullies and thugs become common, requiring peaceable people to retreat empowers the bullies — and most of them don’t need encouragement. There’s a social cost that regrettably makes it necessary to change the rules — and put some fear into the bullies. And sometimes, it means that someone who might grow up into a decent adult ends up dead.
But in a society that has largely abandoned any effort to encourage civilized behavior, “stand your ground” laws seem to be an ugly but unavoidable necessity.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS PROTECT WOMEN FROM
UNJUSTIFIED PROSECUTIONS
Clayton E. Cramer ,software engineer and historian. April 15,2012 His sixth book is Armed
America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie http://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2012/04/stand-your-groundduty-to-retreat.html
If the Republicans were smart (and if pigs flew) they would be rephrasing this Stand
Your Ground question in "war on women" terms. I'm impressed how many of the cases that I have found so far involve women defending themselves from abusive intimate partners (and sometimes the reverse, as in State v. Glowacki (Minn. 2001))--and being charged because they didn't leave their own homes rather than use deadly force.

GENDER AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ARE AT THE CORE OF THE
STAND YOUR GROUND MOVEMENT
Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and writes about law, family, and kids. She is also the Truman Capote Fellow at Yale Law School and a contributing writer forthe New
York Times Magazine. March 20,2012 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/03/why_george_zimmerman_trayvon_martin_s_killer_ hasn_t_been_prosecuted_.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2
How did we get to a place where Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, which seems barely plausible, could prevent his arrest?
The answer starts with the “Stand Your Ground” law that Florida passed in 2005. The idea was to give people who think they are being threatened the right to use force: They can protect themselves without first trying to retreat. The history behind that controversial idea is actually about gender, not race. It involves the intersection between the fight against domestic violence and the agenda of the
National Rifle Association
Not all the states adopted the true man doctrine. And 100 years later, courts and legislatures faced a new problem: What to do with women who said they were victims of domestic violence and had killed their husbands to save themselves? Did you have a right not to retreat if the person coming after you lived under the same roof? At first, the answer was no, to the fury of feminists . Then in 1999, the Florida Supreme Court said a woman who shot and killed her husband during a violent fight at home could successfully call on the
Castle Doctrine to argue self-defense. “It is now widely recognized that domestic violence attacks are often repeated over time, and escape from the home is rarely possible without the threat of great personal violence or death,” the court wrote.
[Harvard Law professor Jeannie] Suk calls this revision of the true-man rule to encompass domestic violence transformative, and you can see why. The new rules made for more shooting and less retreating. And they set the stage for Florida to ditch the duty to retreat entirely, which the legislature did in passing the nation’s first Stand Your Ground law in
2005.
Florida’s new law did three things: It further loosened the restrictions on using deadly force at home. It scrapped the duty to retreat in public places. And it gave people who use self-defense civil and criminal immunity. Pushing for these changes, NRA President
Marion Hammer focused on women and their need to protect themselves
. “You can’t expect a victim to wait and ask, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Criminal, are you going to rape me and kill me, or are you just going to beat me up and steal my television?” she said.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS ENCOURAGE VIOLENCE
Deborah Ramierz, professor of law, Northeastern University School of Law, March 30, 2012 http://phys.org/news/2012-03-3qs-debating-impact-ground-laws.html
We cannot ignore the possibility that Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” statute enables the needless use of deadly force by justifying the use of deadly force that would not be justified under the common law of murder. Under the common law of murder, a person is legally justified to use deadly force only when faced with the imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury, and only as a last resort.
As police chiefs predicted, there is evidence that the “stand your ground” statutes have been used to justify killings in a variety of tense situations: gang turf battles, backyard disputes between neighbors, road-rage incidents, arguments among drug dealers. In Florida, since the law was passed, the number of homicides described as justifiable has nearly tripled. After all, if you kill someone during a violent encounter and no one else saw the killing or is willing to say what happened, who will be there to rebut the killer’s claim that he acted in self-defense?

THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IS CLEAR—STAND YOUR GROUND
LAWS HAVE NOT DECREASED CRIME AND HAVE INCREASED
VIOLENCE
Lisa Bloom, attorney, 2012 ( November 28) http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/crime/here-come-the-stand-yourground-debates.html
We don’t need more opinion on whether Stand Your Grounds laws work or don’t work. We have something far better: facts.
According to a 2010 review by the St. Petersburg Times , reports of justifiable homicide tripled after the law went into effect. More recent academic studies from different disciplines have reached the same result. A 2012 study by economists at Texas A&M University uses police data and concludes that Stand Your Ground laws are associated with a significant increase in homicides. Using public health data, economists at Georgia State University also found in 2012 that passage of a Stand Your Ground law is associated with a significant increase in homicides.
The Urban Institute finds that in states with Stand Your Ground laws, twice as many homicides are deemed justified as in non-Stand Your Ground states.
The racial disparity in the application of Stand Your Ground is horrifying – though it is similar to the racial bias that runs rampant throughout our criminal justice system. In the Stand Your
Ground states, when white shooters kill black victims, 34 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable, while only 3 percent of deaths are ruled justifiable in the reverse situation, when the shooter is black and the victim is white.
Are these gun deaths balanced by a reduction in crime? According to the Texas A&M study: no. No change in the rates of violent crimes in Stand Your Ground states. In fact, Stand Your
Ground is most often invoked by criminals, as most defendants who invoke the defense have prior criminal records – one-third of them, gun crimes. In fact, as Harvard’s David Hemenway
(who I thank for his review of the research here ) states:
The law has been used to free gang members, drug dealers fighting with their clients, and perpetrators who shot their victim in the back. Indeed, in most of the Florida Stand Your Ground confrontations, the victim was not committing a crime that led to the confrontation, and was not armed .
Stand Your Ground results in more dead Americans and less justice.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS FILLED AN IMPORTANT GAP IN THE
OLD SCHEME OF SELF-DEFENSE LAWS
Walter Olson,
a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies
December 12, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-groundlaws-encourage-vigilantes/due-process-will-test-a-self-defense-claim
The old “duty to retreat” rule made it hard to invoke self defense even if you had faced an immediate threat of assault: “you could have run away,” the state would argue, and conviction would follow. Among those who often lost out under that old rule were domestic violence victims who turned on their assailants; feminists pointed out that “you could have run away” may not work well when faced with a stalker or vengeful ex.

FORCING PROSECUTOR’S TO BEAR THE BURDEN ON SELF-
DEFENSE PROTECTS OUR DUE PROCESS RIGHTS
Walter Olson,
a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies
December 12, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-groundlaws-encourage-vigilantes/due-process-will-test-a-self-defense-claim
Despite doomful predictions from gun foes, concealed carry (now the dominant rule) and liberalized self-defense laws (adopted by half the states) haven’t touched off the great warned-of surge of gun violence.
Yes, prosecutors may now need to take more care to marshal a show of actual evidence to counter claims of self defense. For those who value due process in criminal justice – a group that should emphatically include members of historically mistreated minorities – that should count as not a bug but a feature.

RACISM RESULTS IN FALSE POSITIVES….PEOPLE BEING FEARFUL
WHEN SUCH FEARS ARE THE RESULT OF STEREOTYPES
Kenneth Nunn is a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, and is a member of the Florida Innocence Commission . March 21, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-ground-laws-encouragevigilantes/racism-is-the-problem-not-the-stand-your-ground-laws
Ordinarily, one would expect that a reasonable force requirement would provide ample protection against idiosyncratic or morally suspect behavior. But this is not the case when victims happen to be black.
As several legal scholars have pointed out, the connection between reasonableness and race is problematic. African-Americans, black males in particular, have been constructed in popular culture as violence-prone and dangerous.
Sociologists tell us this attitude toward black males is widely shared, sometimes unconsciously, as theHarvard implicit racism test discloses. In the minds of
Americans who hold these views, fear of black males, and consequently the use of deadly force against them, is “reasonable.”
A jury is particularly likely to credit a defendant’s fear of blacks when the determination of reasonableness is made not in an objective manner but from the position of someone in the defendant’s situation. Indeed, Bernhard
Goetz’s acquittalof charges for the shooting of four black men in the New York subway in 1984, and the acquittal in 2008 of the police officers involved in the Sean Bell shooting, were due in no small part to their lawyers’ “fear of the black man” manipulations.

UNTAGGED—RACE AND SYG
Kenneth Nunn is a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, and is a member of the Florida Innocence Commission . March 21, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-ground-laws-encouragevigilantes/racism-is-the-problem-not-the-stand-your-ground-laws
Simply eliminating Stand Your Ground would not get rid of racially disparate applications of the reasonableness test. It would not prevent young men like Trayvon
Martin from getting killed and their killers getting off scot-free. Self-defense claims should be limited to cases in which they are objectively reasonable, not when they are reasonable to someone in the defendant’s shoes.
Additionally, decisions regarding the reasonableness of self-defense claims should be made in court. Many Stand Your Ground statutes grant killers who claim self-defense immunity from prosecution, so they cannot be arrested if the police view their assertions of self defense to be reasonable. This is wrong. The reasonableness of a killer’s actions ought to be decided in open court by juries made up of ordinary people, and not determined prior to trial in the secrecy of the police station.
Stand Your Ground statutes may be problematic for a number of reasons. But if we really want to save lives and prevent future miscarriages of justice, we will have to confront the reality of race.

THERE WAS NO NEED TO ENACT STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS
Gregory O'Meara, a former prosecutor, is an associate professor of law at Marquette University.
March 21, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-groundlaws-encourage-vigilantes/stand-your-ground-laws-are-unnecessary
The difficulty with Stand Your Ground laws is that they are based on the assumption that neither the common law nor modern criminal codes adequately protect ordinary citizens who are under attack. This assumption is simply wrong. Contemporary criminal statutes express a nuanced and sophisticated concept of defensive force derived from hundreds of years of common law precedent. These laws adequately protect both the innocent and those who mistakenly believe they are under attack while permitting the criminal prosecution of trigger-happy cowboys.
To claim self defense or defense of others under current statutes, a person under attack
(the defender) needs to raise credible proof: first, that he reasonably thought he (or another) was unlawfully under imminent deadly attack by another; second, that each forceful action, including deadly force, he took in response to this attack was necessary to stop the attack; and third, that he acted solely with the intent to thwart the unlawful attack. In many jurisdictions, the defender must withdraw from the fight before using deadly force if he can do so in complete safety. If the defender meets these requirements, he will be found not guilty. Furthermore, even if the defender is completely wrong about the situation but his mistake is reasonable about either the imminence of the deadly attack or the necessity of his forceful response, he still gets the full defense and will be found not guilty.
This is and has been the law in the Anglo-American system for over 400 years. As a result, these sorts of cases are almost never charged by prosecutors with limited state resources. In my home state of Wisconsin, a large group of criminal prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges could come up with only one case in which any homeowner was prosecuted when he shot someone who entered his home illegally. That conviction was later overturned.

THERE WAS NO NEED TO ENACT STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS
Gregory O'Meara, a former prosecutor, is an associate professor of law at Marquette University.
March 21, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-groundlaws-encourage-vigilantes/stand-your-ground-laws-are-unnecessary
By contrast, under the Stand Your Ground law, there is never a requirement that one withdraw or retreat before using deadly force, and the requirements of reasonableness are attenuated or essentially removed because the other witness is dead, and the defender may shade the truth. Thus, Stand Your Ground laws may provide a rock-solid defense to paranoid or dangerously aggressive people who are armed with deadly force.
Current law protects those using defensive force, including deadly force, while insisting that they act reasonably. Stand Your Ground laws upset that careful balance by removing the requirement that the defender act reasonably. For that reason, these laws should be repealed.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS FUEL A CULTURE OF VIOLENCE AND
VIGILANTE JUSTICE
Victor Rios is a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
March 21, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-groundlaws-encourage-vigilantes/the-need-to-repeal-stand-your-ground-laws
Self-defense legislation breeds and fuels a culture of vigilantism and violence.
Under these "shoot first" laws, individuals and groups with the proclivity to engage in violent behavior in the name of self defense are basically given legal permission to kill.
Everyday conflicts between citizens, like road rage, neighborly disputes and unwarranted fear or suspicion of other races, may now be resolved with gunfire.
I believe that these laws will lead to an increase in murder rates. Already, the Tampa Bay Times found that in Florida, justifiable killings had increased threefold since the Stand Your Ground law had passed in 2005. When we allow people to take the law into their own hands, society pays a price.
Street justice, racist Wild West vigilantism and biblical ferocity are just a few of the scenarios that will play out more and more regularly if legislation like this continues to be approved. Add the fact that in this country, poor, young and black
(or Latino) people are the ones most often being targeted as criminals, and you have a ticking time bomb.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS FUEL A CULTURE OF VIOLENCE AND
VIGILANTE JUSTICE
Victor Rios is a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
March 21, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/do-stand-your-groundlaws-encourage-vigilantes/the-need-to-repeal-stand-your-ground-laws
What if one day I bumped into someone by accident or flipped someone off for taking my parking spot and he felt threatened? Would he have the legal justification to shoot and kill me? I shudder to think about the effect this will have on rival gang members, who are already hard-pressed to control violence toward each other. Based on my experience, retaliation is always an easy option on the streets. We don't want the law giving people the idea that their violent actions will be treated with impunity.
The public must demand that lawmakers enact legislation that presses for stricter gun control and that reverses Stand Your Ground and other similar statutes. Otherwise sociopaths, angry mobs and naïve individuals will use gunfire more and more as conflict resolution.

THE RATIONALE BEHIND THE ORIGINAL STAND YOUR GROUND
LAW
Representative Dennis K. Baxley, , sponsored the Stand Your Ground law in the Florida House of Representatives. March 20, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/21/dostand-your-ground-laws-encourage-vigilantes/the-law-is-needed-but-not-in-this-case
The catalytic event that the led to the legislation’s passage in 2005, was the looting of property in the aftermath of hurricanes. Specifically, there was a situation in the panhandle of Florida where a citizen moved an RV onto his property, to protect the remains of his home from being looted. One evening, a perpetrator broke into the RV and attacked the property owner. The property owner, acting in self defense in his home, shot and killed the perpetrator. It was months before he knew whether he would be charged with a crime because there was no clear legal definition of self defense in such a case or of when a potential victim was required to retreat.
The Stand Your Ground law, as passed, clarified that individuals are lawfully able to defend themselves when attacked and there is no duty to retreat when an individual is attacked on his property. Since its enactment, 20 other states have implemented similar statues. Additionally, the American Legislative Exchange Council used the Florida law as model legislation for other states. Quite simply it is a good law that now protects individuals in most states.

STAND YOUR GROUND DOES NOT IMPOSE NEW BURDENS ON THE
PROSECUTION


Michael Mannheimer, professor of law, Northern Kentucky University, March 2012 http://overlawyered.com/2012/03/stand-your-ground-laws-contd/
First, some have pointed out that, in Florida, the prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense, assuming the defendant has adduced sufficient evidence to present a jury question. But this is true in virtually every
State: last I checked, only Ohio and South Carolina require a defendant to shoulder the burden of persuasion on self-defense. Some have pointed out that when a defendant claims self-defense in a homicide prosecution, the State has lost its best witness and the jury therefore hears only one side of the story. But this is true in any homicide case. …
So what are we left with that distinguishes Florida’s law? Well, obviously there is the “stand your ground” provision which eliminates the common-law duty to retreat. But the law in America has always been ambivalent about the duty to retreat, with about half the States at any given time recognizing the duty to retreat and about half abrogating it.
This is not a new development. Moreover, even where there is no duty to retreat, it is still a requirement that the defendant reasonably believed that deadly force was necessary to prevent the imminent use of deadly physical force. And even in a retreat jurisdiction, the prosecution generally must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew he could retreat with complete safety. So, in practice, there is not a whole lot of daylight between retreat and no-retreat jurisdictions. …

STAND YOUR GROUND IS NOT NEW AS THE EXISTENCE OF
FIREARMS EFFECTIVELY SHREDDED THE ‘DUTY TO
RETREAT’
Robert Leider, Yale Law School, 2012 http://overlawyered.com/2012/03/stand-your-ground-laws-contd/
Many have asserted that in Florida anyone who believes he is in danger can use deadly force, no matter how unreasonable his belief. These perceptions of the law are wrong. As compared with other states, Florida's Stand Your Ground law is neither extreme nor an outlier.
In Florida, as in most states, a person claiming self-defense must show that he (1) reasonably believed that such force was (2) necessary to protect himself against (3) the imminent and (4) unlawful use of force by another.
The person claiming self-defense usually cannot be the initial aggressor. And to use deadly force in Florida, as Mr. Zimmerman did, a person must also reasonably believe that the aggressor threatened him with death, great bodily injury, or intended to commit a forcible felony (e.g., rape, robbery or kidnapping).
In short, under Florida's Stand Your Ground law, Mr. Zimmerman now must show that an average person in his circumstances would have viewed the Skittle-armed Martin as a mortal threat.
To these basic requirements, a minority of states add a general duty to retreat before using deadly force. Most states in this minority apply the rule only if the defender knows he can retreat with complete safety. In Florida before 2005, a person usually could not use deadly force if he could retreat without increasing his danger.
Although expanding Stand Your Ground laws has suddenly become part of the culture war, the existence of such laws traditionally depended on geography, not politics. Older states generally inherited the duty to retreat from English common law. As the United
States expanded westward, the retreat requirement usually did not follow. Instead,
Western states followed the "true man" doctrine, named because "true men" do not retreat when faced with danger. California became a Stand Your Ground state more than 150 years before Florida .
With the prevalent use of firearms, the retreat requirement has limited application today. Individuals usually cannot know that they can retreat in complete safety when facing aggressors armed with guns.
And the retreat requirement has numerous exceptions in addition to the "castle doctrine," which exempts people in their homes from the duty to retreat.

JOHN LOTT, THE RESEARCHER BEHIND THE ‘MORE GUNS
=LESS CRIME, IS AN ACADEMIC FRAUD
Kathleen Geier ,writer and public policy researcher 2012, Washington Monthly, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_04/gun_policy_fraudster_john_lott036987.php
As Media Matters reports, on April 25, Lott published a garbage, error-riddled op ed in the New York Daily News about Florida’s infamous
“Stand Your Ground” laws. Just a day earlier, he was cited respectfully in a vomitorious New York Times “trend piece on concealed carry clothing for the ‘fashion aware gun owner’.”
As we say in my ancestral homeland of New Jersey, I gottaproblemwiththat.
Lott is problematic on a number of levels. First of all, his famous research that purports to show that more guns lead to less crime is incredibly shoddy from the standpoint of social science methodology.
So much so, in fact, that back in grad school an econometrics professor of mine taught a class based on Lott’s dataset, which basically amounted to an entire course in how not to do quantitative social science research.
Worse than the crap social science, though, are the persuasive allegations that Lott committed outright fraud, by basically making up survey data.
And as if that’s not enough, there’s the ludicrous Mary Rosh affair, in which Lott was caught red-handed writing pro-Lott comments and reviews in various internet forums, under the name “Mary Rosh.” It was, as I recall, one of the first well-known internet sock puppeting scandals.
And also … in addition to being a fraud and a hack, Lott has demonstrated himself to be, well, pretty much a jerk.
For example, he unsuccessfully sued Freakonomics author Steven Levitt for defamation for Levitt’s criticism of
Lott’s work — a dick move if ever there was one, and an act that seriously violates the norms governing scholarly debates.
In short, there is abundant evidence that Lott is in no way an honest scholarly broker. By all rights, his serious ethical lapses should have resulted in his permanent exile from the oped pages and other public opinion forums. As early as 2003, criminologist Mark
Kleiman argued that it was “past time” for “for defenders of gun rights to stop citing Lott as an authority.” So far as I have been able to determine, Lott does not currently enjoy an academic affiliation; no university in its right mind would want to tarnish its reputation by associating itself with him. Lott once held a sinecure at the right-wing think tank The
American Enterprise Institute, but even that organization has washed its hands of him.

RETREAT INCREASES DANGER
Sir Winston Churchill,
BrainyQuote.com, Winston Churchill Quotes, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu140930.html (last visited Mar. 13, 2008).

TWO EXAMPLES THAT ILLUSTRATE STAND YOUR GROUND IN
ACTION
Lydia Zbrzeznj ,
Florida Coastal School of Law.,
Florida Coastal Law Review, Winter 2012 NOTE &
COMMENT: FLORIDA'S CONTROVERSIAL GUN POLICY: LIBERALLY PERMITTING CITIZENS TO
ARM THEMSELVES AND BROADLY RECOGNIZING THE RIGHT TO ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE Lexis-
Nexis
The transformation of Florida's self-defense law is best explained through illustration. Imagine a woman walking to her car at midnight. She keeps a gun in her purse. She notices a man quickly approaching; he has a knife and charges toward her. Should the woman attempt to outrun the man or use defensive force and fire at her attacker? Consider a similar scenario where an elderly man who lives alone refuses to leave his home of fifty years, despite the deterioration of his neighborhood. He awakes in the middle of the night to see the shapes of two men approaching. He instinctively reaches for his gun and shoots. In these situations, both individuals would likely assert self-defense. Under Florida common law, the woman would have had a legal duty to retreat before using deadly force in selfdefense. n1 The man would have had to prove that he had a reasonable fear of imminent death or grievous bodily injury. n2 However, the jury would have had the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, and would have known the information, which the old man did not, that the two teenage intruders were [*232] unarmed. n3
Lastly, even if the individuals were found not guilty, the victim's family could sue them. n4
Such was the state of Florida law prior to the enactment of the highly publicized and controversial Stand Your Ground law in 2005, which abrogated the duty to retreat

PRIOR TO STAND YOUR GROUND, THE LAW FORCED JURIES TO
SECOND-GUESS A SPLIT-SECOND DECISION
Lydia Zbrzeznj ,
Florida Coastal School of Law.,
Florida Coastal Law Review, Winter 2012 NOTE &
COMMENT: FLORIDA'S CONTROVERSIAL GUN POLICY: LIBERALLY PERMITTING CITIZENS TO
ARM THEMSELVES AND BROADLY RECOGNIZING THE RIGHT TO ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE Lexis-
Nexis
Florida was a minority jurisdiction in that its courts consistently held there was a duty to retreat to the wall before using deadly force in self-defense when attacked outside the home. n66 The policy justification [*241] for imposing a duty to retreat was the importance of preserving human life, even if the life preserved was that of a criminal attacking an innocent civilian. n67 The Florida judiciary imposed the duty to retreat, for it was not required by Florida's self-defense statute. n68
The duty to retreat was vitiated if, under the circumstances, retreat would be dangerous or futile. n69 In other words, in claiming self-defense a defendant had to show that he or she had done all he or she reasonably could have done to avoid the taking of the aggressor's life before acting in self-defense. n70 The problem with analyzing whether a person should have retreated under the circumstances was the law's failure to adequately account for the difficulty in making a reasonable decision as to the availability or feasibility of retreat in a split-second, life or death situation

THREE REASONS STAND YOUR GROUND IMPROVES THE LAW
Lydia Zbrzeznj ,
Florida Coastal School of Law.,
Florida Coastal Law Review, Winter 2012 NOTE &
COMMENT: FLORIDA'S CONTROVERSIAL GUN POLICY: LIBERALLY PERMITTING CITIZENS TO
ARM THEMSELVES AND BROADLY RECOGNIZING THE RIGHT TO ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE Lexis-
Nexis
Although Florida's Stand Your Ground law does not provide perfect solutions, it improved the law in Florida for three reasons. n335 First, it clarified the confines of self-defense by establishing bright-line rules which are important for individuals who may need to act in their own self-protection. n336 Second, self-defense laws are designed to protect innocent individuals who have resorted to violence only for their own self-protection. n337 Permitting self-defense is designed to communicate to individuals that protecting themselves when unlawfully attacked is not just allowed, it is the correct action to take, which is why actions taken in self-defense are considered justified and morally superior to defenses that are merely excused. n338 Therefore, elected representatives who are responsive to the concerns of their constituents and aware of the violence those constituents face should define selfdefense laws. n339 Lastly, the law is consistent with the policy underlying the
American criminal justice system--it is better for a guilty person to go free than an innocent person to go to prison. n340

IMPOSING A DUTY TO RETREAT OFFERS NO REAL BENEFIT TO
SOCIETY
Lydia Zbrzeznj ,
Florida Coastal School of Law.,
Florida Coastal Law Review, Winter 2012 NOTE &
COMMENT: FLORIDA'S CONTROVERSIAL GUN POLICY: LIBERALLY PERMITTING CITIZENS TO
ARM THEMSELVES AND BROADLY RECOGNIZING THE RIGHT TO ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE Lexis-
Nexis
[*274] Stand Your Ground implemented a more coherent standard for selfdefense by eliminating the duty to retreat. n341 The benefits of imposing a duty to retreat are questionable, evidenced by the fact that only a minority of states impose a legal duty to retreat. n342 Further, it relies on two implausible inferences--that individuals will understand they have a duty to retreat under the law, and they will rationally analyze the feasibility of retreat in the face of attack. n343 Florida's lenient policy in granting gun permits acknowledges the reality of the violence facing Floridians in their daily lives. n344 In light of the legislature's recognition of the importance of enabling individuals to protect themselves, it defies common sense for the judiciary to undermine this protection by imposing a legal duty to retreat, giving the unsavory choice of running for one's life or standing one's ground and facing criminal conviction. n345

THAT THE LAW IS ABUSED BY SOME UNSAVORY PEOPLE IS NO
REASON TO REJECT IT…SUCH A RESULT IS CONSISTENT WITH
OUR BELIEF THAT IT IS BETTER FOR TEN GUILTY TO GO FREE
THAN AN INNOCENT BE PUNISHED
Lydia Zbrzeznj ,
Florida Coastal School of Law.,
Florida Coastal Law Review, Winter 2012 NOTE &
COMMENT: FLORIDA'S CONTROVERSIAL GUN POLICY: LIBERALLY PERMITTING CITIZENS TO
ARM THEMSELVES AND BROADLY RECOGNIZING THE RIGHT TO ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE Lexis-
Nexis
Lastly, critics of the law are probably right-Stand Your Ground may offer protection to less than savory individuals, such as a gang member shooting another gang member after being attacked. n350 It may even encourage individuals to shoot their attackers. n351 Nevertheless, the American criminal justice system operates on the proposition that it is better for the guilty to go free than the innocent to be punished. n352 Stand Your Ground adheres to this philosophy. n353 A drug dealer asserting self-defense and receiving immunity is no different than a drug dealer who has his Fourth Amendment rights violated and therefore the charges dropped when the criminal evidence is excluded. However, this is merely a secondary effect of the law. The true purpose of Stand Your Ground is to place the protection of the law where it should lie, behind law-abiding citizens. n354 There will never be a perfect law; and therefore, if a law must err it should err on the side of protecting innocent persons, those citizens the law is designed to protect.

THE PRESUMPTION IN STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS REFLECTS
A JUDGMENT THAT IT IS BETTER FOR TEN GUILTY TO GO FREE
THAN ONE INNOCENT PERSON BE PUNISHED
Eugene Volokh, professor of law, July 14, 2013 2:29 pm http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/14/burden-and-quantum-of-proof-on-self-defense/
Who should bear the burden of proving or disproving self-defense in criminal cases, and by what quantum (preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt), is an interesting question. But on this point, Florida law is precisely the same as in nearly all other states: In 49 of the 50 states, once the defense introduces any evidence of possible self-defense, the prosecution must disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
This wasn’t always the rule. The English common law rule at the time of the Framing was that the defense must prove self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence, and Ohio still follows that rule ; the Supreme Court has held ( Martin v. Ohio (1987) ) that placing this burden on the accused is constitutional. But to my knowledge, only Ohio still takes the view — all the other states do not.
One way of thinking about that policy question is that the nearly unanimous rule takes the view, “Better that 10 guilty killers go free than one person who killed in proper self-defense go to prison for a long time (or be executed).” The Ohio rule, which is also the historical
Framing-era rule is, “It’s slightly worse for one guilty killer to go free than for one person who killed in proper self-defense to go to prison for a long time (or be executed).” And of course one can consider variations of these rules as one shifts the burden of proof, or sets a quantum of proof at some other place, such as clear and convincing evidence.
But if you’re focusing on what is the view in “most other states” on the burden and quantum of proof in self-defense cases, then you should note that Florida is entirely in line with that view.

STAND YOUR GROUND ADDRESSES A SHORTCOMING IN THE
LAW’S TREATMENT OF ABUSED WOMEN
Jeannie Suk, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. Harvard Journal of Law &
Gender Summer, 2008 THE TRUE WOMAN: SCENES FROM THE LAW OF SELF-
DEFENSE Lexis Nexis
Feminists have argued that the law of self-defense has been a particularly significant site of gender bias. n83 According to one feminist scholar writing in the late 1980s, the cohabitant exceptions to the castle doctrine "have been applied so exclusively to [battered women] that the courts over the years appear to have developed these new rules specifically to prevent women who kill their husbands from 'getting away with murder.'" n84 Whether or not such a motivation can be imputed to the courts, applying the castle doctrine to cohabitants and not imposing a duty to retreat permits battered women to stand their ground against their batterers. n85 As courts have noted, imposing a duty to retreat from cohabitants therefore causes problems for battered women who stand their ground and kill their batterers. n86

IMPOSING A DUTY TO RETREAT IN THE CASE OF DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE MAKES LITTLE SENSE AS THE WOMAN HAS
RETREATED TIME AFTER TIME
Jeannie Suk, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. Harvard Journal of Law &
Gender Summer, 2008 THE TRUE WOMAN: SCENES FROM THE LAW OF SELF-
DEFENSE Lexis Nexis
[In State v. Thomas, the Ohio Supreme Court indicated its understanding of DV and concern for battered women by citing a string of academic articles on battered women and self-defense. n89
It stated that
in the case of domestic violence, ... the attacks are often repeated over time, and escape from the home is rarely possible without the threat of great personal violence or death. The victims of such attacks have already 'retreated to the wall' many times over and therefore should not be required as victims of domestic violence to attempt to flee to safety ...
. n90
In this context, the language of "retreat to the wall" took on a new meaning. n91
Retreat was in fact what the battered woman had been forced to do "many times over" in the course of being repeatedly abused. Retreat was indicative of her lack of choice. Hence, to speak of a duty to retreat in this context was inapt. Her ability to observe such a duty would require the [*254] exercise of choice, which the court suggested the battered woman could not do because of the abuse. Indeed, to require her to attempt escape from the home was to make her more vulnerable to violence and death.
The court shifted the focus away from her self-defense right and toward her incapacity to retreat.
The traditional castle doctrine had been based on a view that the assailant's intrusion on the defender's autonomy triggered permission for the defender to use force to repel the violence. n92
Here, by contrast, the suspension of the duty to retreat was based on a revised view of the victim whose autonomy was so severely limited that retreat was not a plausible choice. She could not have a duty to retreat because escape from the home was "rarely possible

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS WERE AIMED AT CORRECTING THE
FAILURE OF THE LAW TO PROTECT WOMEN
Jeannie Suk, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. Harvard Journal of Law &
Gender Summer, 2008 THE TRUE WOMAN: SCENES FROM THE LAW OF SELF-
DEFENSE Lexis Nexis
Violence against women has played a pronounced role in the discourse surrounding the Castle Doctrine laws. The new laws have been described as being protective of women, designed to enable women to defend themselves against men, and specifically to remedy the disability that the prior law placed on women's ability to protect themselves from male violence. Marion Hammer, the conceiver of the new self-defense law, promoted it in these expressly gendered terms:
[A] woman is walking down the street and is attacked by a rapist who tries to drag her into an alley. Under prior Florida law, the woman had a legal "duty to retreat." The victim of the attack was required to try to run away. Not anymore. Today, that woman has no obligation to retreat. If she chooses, she may stand her ground and fight. n173
Tellingly foregrounding rape as the relevant violent crime, Hammer portrays the duty to retreat as harmful to women. As she put it, "You can't expect a victim to wait and ask, 'Excuse me, Mr. Criminal, are you going to rape me and kill me, or are you just going to beat me up and steal my television?'" n174 [*267] Her reasoning is both protective of women as victims and focused on their rights and autonomy. In it, recognition of a victim's right to "stand her ground and fight" n175 like a true man coexists with the view that we "can't expect a victim" n176 to retreat.
In other words, her right to stand her ground and her subordinated status go hand in hand .

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS HAVE THE UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCE OF ALLOWING ABUSERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO
CLAIM SELF-DEFENSE
Jeannie Suk, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. Harvard Journal of Law &
Gender Summer, 2008 THE TRUE WOMAN: SCENES FROM THE LAW OF SELF-
DEFENSE Lexis Nexis
Some Castle Doctrine supporters have expressed the view that DV victims "should be cheered by the legislation" and "should see the legislation as working in their favor." n189
But an obvious worry is that in general, laws that are more permissive of violence, even for self-defense purposes, increase dangers to DV victims. n190 Specifically, by easing the duty to retreat, the new laws may make it easier for abusers themselves to claim self-defense and avoid conviction. n191 The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence [*270] expressed the concern that "the law will be abused to defend people who shoot in the emotional rage that often accompanies domestic violence ... ." n192 Democratic senator Paula Aboud, the lone
Arizona senator to vote against that state's Castle Doctrine law, n193 did so out of concern that the law "could end up working against victims of domestic violence." n194 n189. Howard Fischer, Self-Defense Gun Bill Goes to Napolitano, Ariz. Daily Star, Apr.
20, 2006, at A1 (characterizing views of Arizona Senate Majority Leader Timothy Bee). http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2005-2006/billanalysis/Senate/htm/2005- SFA-
1046-E.htm (stating "Also , prosecutors and a representative of the domestic violence prevention and treatment board raised concerns about domestic abusers' being able to claim their actions were in self defense." ). n191. See Matthew Benson, New Law Bolsters Self-Defense Rights, Ariz. Republic, Apr. 25,
2006, available at http://localsearch.azcentral.com/sp?catId=&aff=1100& searchkeyword=&searchcategory=&keywords=New+Law+Bolsters+Self-Defense+
Rights&advkeywords=& address=; Chris Christoff, Self-Defense Shooters Get House Boost;
New Measures Extend Immunity, Detroit Free Press, Apr. 20, 2006, at 1 (including the Michigan
Domestic Violence Control Board in list of those unhappy with the law ); Fischer, supra note 189
(quoting Arizona Senate Majority Leader Tim Bee "Bee acknowledged that groups who advocate for domestic-violence victims were concerned this would allow an abusive spouse to kill a mate and claim self-defense, leaving police and prosecutors unable to prove otherwise. He acknowledged that could make getting a conviction more difficult.");
Editorial, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 17, 2006, at 8A (quoting Alice Johnson, director of
Georgians for Gun Safety; "The implications are enormous: domestic violence situations, disgruntled employees who are suffering from mental illness"); Defense of Self & Others S. 85 and H. 5142, 5143, 5153, & 5548, General Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Mich. 2006): Enrolled Analysis
Before Senate Fiscal Agency (2006)
,

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS ENDANGER RACIAL MINORITIES
P. Luevonda Ross, professor of law, Faulkner University 2007 SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW
REVIEW (March) THE TRANSMOGRIFICATION OF SELF-DEFENSE BY NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION-
INSPIRED STATUTES: FROM THE DOCTRINE OF RETREAT TO THE RIGHT TO STAND YOUR GROUND
Lexis-Nexis
These new statutes present potential danger for society at large, but they particularly endanger racial minorities. These statutes create a vigilante atmosphere. n200 The hypersensitive individual, such as Bernhard Goetz, n201 will interpret every act as being menacing and life-threatening if made by any member of a group he fears. Operating under a "reasonable belief" that he faces a threat of harm to himself, and a "reasonable belief" that deadly force is necessary to defend him, he will shoot quickly. n202 [*36] In many cases, his victim will be a member of a different race or class. n203 The new laws will presume that his act was proper n204 and grant him immunity n205 for his deed.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS DON’T PROTECT INNOCENT PEOPLE
FROM CRIMINALS…ACTUALLY, THEY PUT INNOCENT LIVES AT
RISK
P. Luevonda Ross, professor of law, Faulkner University 2007 SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW
REVIEW (March) THE TRANSMOGRIFICATION OF SELF-DEFENSE BY NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION-
INSPIRED STATUTES: FROM THE DOCTRINE OF RETREAT TO THE RIGHT TO STAND YOUR GROUND
Lexis-Nexis
With the passage of these so-called "Castle Doctrine" statutes, the NRA seeks to grant immunity from prosecution, civil or criminal, in all cases of "self-defense" killings. The stated goal is to protect innocent people from the criminals. However, a paradox is created. These laws are passed to protect the lawabiding people from criminals. Yet innocent people may end up being killed because of the new laws, while nothing will happen to the killers. No one will be punished. There once was a time when we punished all homicides. Soon, we will punish none. Thus begins a transmogrification of the law.
With this article, I propose that, where enacted, these new laws should be repealed and where pending, they should be tabled. These " stand your ground " statutes have passed quickly and quietly in state legislative bodies across the United States. Most were passed without any notice of the great change that the law will bring. n257 There are deadly consequences to their passage. More violence is not the panacea for violence

EXAMPLE FOR CROSS-FIRE: THE SWORD-WIELDING MAN IN A
WHEELCHAIR
Brian Palmer | July 16,2013 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/07/is_stand_your_ground_unique_to
_the_united_states.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content
To see how the doctrinally distinct English common law and European systems can converge on the same result in practice, consider a classic hypothetical: A disabled man in a wheelchair, carrying only a sword, assails an able-bodied victim, who responds by shooting the attacker to death. Under English common law, the killer could not rely on the self-defense justification, because he used deadly force when retreat was an equally safe option. On a different basis, a court in Germany, Argentina, or Spain would almost certainly convict the killer as well, despite the lack of an explicit duty to retreat. Deadly force was both unnecessary and disproportional.
Because any given case is factually distinct, and the laws are subject to human interpretation, it’s impossible to say with certainty when one has a practical duty to retreat in any country.