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Author: Andrew Branca

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Andrew Branca

Andrew F. Branca is in his third decade of practicing law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He wrote the first edition of the "Law of Self Defense" in 1997, and is currently in the process of completing the fully revised and updated second edition, which you can preorder now at lawofselfdefense.com. He began his competitive shooting activities as a youth in smallbore rifle, and today is a Life Member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a Life Member and Master-class competitor in multiple classifications in the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA). Andrew has for many years been an NRA-certified firearms instructor in pistol, rifle, and personal protection, and has previously served as an Adjunct Instructor on the Law of Self Defense at the SigSauer Academy in Epping, NH. He holds or has held concealed carry permits for Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, Florida, Utah, Virginia, and other states.

Posted by Andrew Branca on September 13, 2018 39 Comments
A prosecutor in Colorado Springs is going to once again test the legal boundaries of Colorado’s "make-my-day" statute, which came into law in 1986. The "Make My Day" law, properly §18-1-704.5. Use of deadly physical force against an intruder, has several substantive sections:  one relaxes the proportionality requirement when dealing with a home intruder under certain circumstances.  Two others provide for criminal and civil immunity under those same circumstances.

Posted by Andrew Branca on September 05, 2018 39 Comments
This case of the week, Williams v. State, is out of the Georgia Supreme Court, in a decision handed down just last week, and involves a man whose claimed “warning shot” earned him life in prison, even though the bullet he fired wasn’t proven to have harmed anyone. Stoplight Confrontation Between Two Groups The facts involve two groups of men stopped at a red light who get into a lethal confrontation. The Defendant was in the front passenger seat of his friend’s Ford Mustang, with others in the back of the car. The Defendant and others in the Mustang were armed. A Dodge Challenger rolled up next to the Mustang containing several other men. The two groups had some pre-existing animosity, and began to yell at each other.

Posted by Andrew Branca on September 01, 2018 74 Comments
Around 2:30 AM last Tuesday, a man attacked an Uber driver, saying he had a pistol while raising his cell phone in his right hand. He abruptly discovered that the Uber driver was willing and able to defend himself from a deadly force attack with a lawfully carried handgun. Now the Uber driver, who coincidentally had just graduated from the local police academy, is being showered with praise by Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County, Florida, where these events took place.

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 22, 2018 24 Comments
This week’s case is not so much a case as it is a cautionary tale about the risks of relying upon the purported use-of-force law expertise of others based solely on their job title, and dangers of not you yourself being educated on that law. I warn students in every class that certain job titles, like lawyer, cop, or firearms instructor, do not guarantee that a person in those fields knows a darned thing about use-of-force law.

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 17, 2018 95 Comments
This week’s Case of the Week is inspired by the so-called “documentary,” Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story, produced by Jay Z and Trayvon Martin’s parents. The first two episodes focus enormous attention on the fact that George Zimmerman was not arrested until April 11, 2012, 44 days after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin on February 26.

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 13, 2018 140 Comments
Michael Drejka, the 47-year old shooter of 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton over a July 19 dispute about a handicap parking spot, has been arrested and charged with manslaughter, reports the Tampa Bay Times and other news sources.  He is being held on $100,000 bail in Pinellas County Jail.
[AFB: Update, just reading the charging document closely now, and see Drejka was charged under Florida Statute §775.087(1)), Florida's so-called "10-20-Life" mandatory minimum sentencing law, the one that caught up Marissa Alexander. I'll discuss the details of this in more detail in a future post, but in effect it means that if convicted under that provision of the law Drejka is looking at life in prison, even though charged "merely" with manslaughter rather than murder, because manslaughter is a first degree felony and this killing involved the use of a firearm.]
We previously covered this case immediately after it occurred here:

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 10, 2018 64 Comments
With the “documentary” Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story by Jay Z in the news, I though it worthwhile to make this Case of the Week about the lies created by doctoring the audio file of the call George Zimmerman made to the police moments before he was viciously attacked by Trayvon Martin.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 30, 2018 37 Comments
It's hard to believe, but my first post here at Legal Insurrection was on June 5, 2013. Naturally, it was a post covering the murder trial of George Zimmerman, after Professor Jacobson noticed some of my comments on his own posts and kindly invited me to contribute to the site. I ended up watching every moment of the trial and reviewing every piece of evidence, and wrote about the trial and surrounding events rather extensively.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 29, 2018 58 Comments
When I tell you that you must assume that everything the news media has to say about self-defense law and events is 100% wrong until proven otherwise, this is why: CNN: "What you need to know about 'stand your ground' laws". The errors on "Stand-Your-Ground" in particular and self-defense law in general, whether these errors are borne of ignorance or malice, are almost too numerous to count. But let us make the effort, shall we?

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 25, 2018 38 Comments
Every once in a while a federal court in the 9th Circuit hands down an opinion consistent with the actual meaning of the Second Amendment, and the Universe threatens to lose its mind. (Generally, of course, any such 2A-favorable decision is shortly reversed en banc, c'est la vie.) One such decision was handed down yesterday in Young v. Hawaii, (embedded below) in which a 3-judge panel for the 9th Circuit correctly held that Hawaii’s extraordinarily restrictive gun laws were an unconstitutional of the Second Amendment under any level of scrutiny. (Indeed, it is this author’s humble opinion that all pre-emptive gun control laws are facially unconstitutional as applied to adult, law-abiding, mentally sound American citizens.)

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 18, 2018 77 Comments
I’m often asked to describe the most common way people screw up their self-defense claim. The truth is there isn’t a single most common way. Too many people manage to find an apparently infinite number of ways to step outside the bounds of the law. Often, there were a bunch of exits off that jail-bound freeway that they could have taken, but didn’t. For most normally law-abiding people this is not done out of malice, but ignorance. I mean ignorance not in a derogatory sense, but in a technical sense--they didn’t know where the legal boundaries were, and stepped over them without even knowing it.

“I can’t believe I got arrested for self-defense!”

In their minds they acted lawfully. “I can’t believe I’m being prosecuted for self-defense,” may be amongst the most common statements I hear from clients.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 04, 2018 47 Comments
This week’s case is a recent criminal trial sentencing out of Connecticut that purportedly involves principles of “Stand-Your-Ground,” but that in reality, of course, has nothing to do with “Stand-Your-Ground” at all.

Three-on-one Attack Ends With Defender Convicted

The defendant in this case was Jeffrey Sumpter, 21 years old, who was working his job at a Dunkin Donuts coffee shop when he was assaulted by three attackers (or “juveniles,” as the media labels this gang of aggressors). Sumpter ended up stabbing one of the attackers in claimed self-defense. He was charged with felony first-degree assault, found guilty, and just days ago was sentenced to 18 months in jail and three years probation. (All as reported per the CTPost, and other sources.)

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 27, 2018 115 Comments
Law of Self Defense Case of the Week is a new weekly series by Andrew Branca _____________________________________________ This case of the week involves the recent murder trial of a Texas man, Terry Thompson, who got into a barehanded fight with a drunk, John Hernandez, in a Denny’s parking lot. Thompson choked Hernandez to death, and was tried on charges of murder, manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide.  That trial ended days ago in a mistrial when the jury couldn't arrive at a unanimous verdict.  The prosecutor has announced he will re-try the case.

Posted by Andrew Branca on April 02, 2018 51 Comments
The Supreme Court just handed down a police use-of-force decision, Kisela v. Hughes (pdf.)(full embed at bottom of post), the most notable characteristic of which is the gutting of a typically nutty Ninth Circuit court of appeals ruling and a typically silly dissent by Sotomayor (joined, unsurprisingly, by Ginsburg). The legal issue in play is whether a woman who was shot by a police officer should be permitted to sue that officer personally.
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