duty to retreat
Upheld in Florida. Opinion is here.
From reader Mik.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
August 19th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
The article and the decision are not about duty to retreat by someone under attack.
The decision describes the attacker as involuntarily retreating (being pulled back by a friend) from inside the shooter’s car when he was shot. The prosecutor contended this “retreat” invalidated the castle doctrine law and attempted prosecution of the shooter. The appeals court decided the attack clearly was ongoing, as the attacker was still in the car when shot despite the friend pulling on him.
There is indeed a duty to retreat under castle doctrine law in Florida. That duty is incumbent on the one performing the attack. If they do not stop their attack and retreat, and darn fast, the law allows self defense.
August 19th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I always thought “duty to retreat” was the duty of the victim to attempt to escape attack before employing any repelling force.
When I lived in Mississippi, for example, if someone broke into your house through the front door but there was a rear exit, YOU had a duty to retreat from your own house rather than being allowed to stand and fight in your living room.
If you had an apartment with only one entrance, you had to retreat to the furthest point from the door before being allowed to fight back in any way.
That was my understanding of the law at the time, but I was in college and may have had it completely wrong.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Mikee is right, I think. The aggressor has a duty to retreat, in such a manner as to make his initiation of force a nullity.
August 19th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Your headline should read NO Duty To Retreat Upheld.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:10 am
wizard are you are most probably correct. I have lived in states where the victim had the duty to retreat until he could retreat no more. However, over the last couple of decades that has changed in a great many places.
In some of those states of which I speak, the law didn’t address “duty to retreat” but judges and prosecutors presented to juries that that was the standard.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Wizard, what you describe is what is typically known as a “the duty to retreat”. Note, however, in most states that have a duty to retreat doctrine, that duty does not exist in your own home, unless the attacker also lives there. One would be wise to know these things about their state’s laws.
Nk is getting at what an aggressor must do (in some jurisdictions) to end his attack and, thereby, regain the right to defend himself against an excessivly hostile defense by the original victim. That is, an aggressor may not claim self defense unless he has ceased his attack and then becomes the victim of an attack himself AFTER it is clear that he has ceased his attack and has succesfully disengaged.
Yes, IAAL, but I am not your L.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:16 am
One other thing that I would like to point out now that I have read the first two pages of the opinion: There is no such thing as accidental self defense. Self defense must be an intentional act otherwise it is just negligence. Think about it, if you are holding a gone and you say it “just went off”, most of us would call that a negligent discharge and if someone was killed, that would be negligent homicide.
This case is a little more interesting in that he was using the gun as a weapon when it discharged, but he was using it as a club. I haven’t gotten far enough in the opinion to know how that plays out yet, but I wanted to make the point.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I was more interested in the article about the 69 y/o CCW holder who was attacked by 30 cyclists who also trashed his car – and nobody got shot.