Florida's Stand your Ground law

Do u see my point ??

I do. But I dissent from it.

yeah...

you wouldn't want to slug anyone back, dave.

you might break your trigger finger...

It took 45 days for police to arrest George Zimmerman, who invoked Florida's controversial stand-your-ground law when he shot an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. When Marissa Alexander offered the same defense after shooting in the direction of her abusive husband, she was jailed for 20 years. It took 12 minutes for the jury to find her guilty.

While Zimmerman's case prompted a frenzied national debate, Alexander's story has had little national media coverage since the verdict was handed down last Friday. But the cases share one crucial detail: the guiding hand of state attorney Angela Corey.

Corey was brought in to oversee the prosecution of Zimmerman after the controversy over his defense grew; in the case of Alexander, Corey vigorously argued against using the stand-your-ground law to justify shooting a violent husband. "If I can't have you, nobody going to have you," her estranged husband, Rico Gray, allegedly told Alexander, before the altercation during which he was shot at.

Lawmakers in Florida say Alexander's case is precisely the kind where the controversial defense should apply. "The stand-your-ground law was legislated and implemented to protect people like Ms Alexander," said state senator Gary Siplin. "She did not have a history of criminal or violent behavior; instead, she had a history of being physically and emotionally abused." But a week ago, a jury disagreed, and she was handed a mandatory minimum 20-year sentence.

The case dates from 1 August 2010, when Alexander and Gray got into a fight at their home after he found text messages to Alexander's ex-husband on her phone.

At some point during the altercation, Alexander went into the garage. She claims she could not flee because the garage door was not working and she did not have the keys to her car. Alexander grabbed her handgun from inside the glove compartment and went back into the house. She fired a single shot at Gray, who was standing in the living room with his sons, ages nine and 13. The shot missed.

Alexander's family claims she was an experienced shooter and the trajectory of the bullet proves she was not aiming to kill or injure anyone. But Corey disputed these claims, with photographs showing bullet holes in walls at near "adult-height".

Corey also argued that stand-your-ground did not apply because Alexander could have fled the scene, although in 1999 the Florida supreme court ruled that a woman attacked by her husband in the home they share has no duty to flee.

In a November 2010 deposition, Gray admitted he had told Alexander that "if she ever cheated on me I would kill her" and, during the tussle, said: "If I can't have you, nobody can." He said that he was he "was going towards her" when Alexander fired a shot that went "high" and to his right. Gray said the gun was not pointed at him: "She just didn't want me to put my hands on her anymore, so she did what she feel like she have to do to make sure she wouldn't get hurt."

In the deposition, Gray admitted to abusing "all five of his babies' mamas except one," and to hitting Alexander. A previous encounter had resulted in Alexander being hospitalized.

But at a hearing in July 2011 when Alexander's legal team cited self defense in a motion to dismiss the charges against her, Gray changed his story, claiming he had lied about the details of the incident to protect Alexander. He now says that it was Alexander's violent nature that caused her to shoot at him.

The rest of the state seems to have a different interpretation of the law. I'm not sure who's right, but the difference in application should be enough to support major modifications to the law, if not outright repeal

Warning shots are not usually defensible.

It could depend on exactly where you are, but if you shoot someone, it might have been in self defense, or defense of another. If you fire a warning shot, you're pretty much admitting that in your own judgement you were not in a life or death situation.

The same thinking is influencing a number of local police departments. Some no longer permit the carrying of batons, PR - 24s, and collapsable steel batons. If the officer's assessment is such that the gun is not needed, what is his position if he kills or cripples someone with a supposedly non lethal weapon.

It could depend on exactly where you are, but if you shoot someone, it might have been in self defense, or defense of another. If you fire a warning shot, you're pretty much admitting that in your own judgement you were not in a life or death situation.

At some point during the altercation, Alexander went into the garage. She claims she could not flee because the garage door was not working and she did not have the keys to her car. Alexander grabbed her handgun from inside the glove compartment and went back into the house. She fired a single shot at Gray, who was standing in the living room with his sons, ages nine and 13. The shot missed.

Alexander's family claims she was an experienced shooter and the trajectory of the bullet proves she was not aiming to kill or injure anyone. But Corey disputed these claims, with photographs showing bullet holes in walls at near "adult-height".

He'll even have a rational-sounding explanation for why this is a good idea.

David will be ecstatic, I'm sure.