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...
This case of the week involves an armed employee stopping a vicious bare-handed attack in the kitchen of a Milwaukee restaurant:
(more…)
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.
The defendant in this case was Jeffrey Sumpter, 21 years old, who was working his...
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...
The Supreme Court just handed down a police use-of-force decision, Kisela v. Hughes (
Last week Idaho’s Governor Butch Otter allowed a substantive change to the state’s self-defense law to take effect, albeit without his own signature, reports the Idaho Spokesman-Review and other sources. Although Senate Bill 1313 (embedded below) mostly just summarized in statute form Idaho’s already existing self-defense law, one provision, in particular,...
Today the University of Cincinnati announced that it would settle a grievance brought by former UC police officer Ray Tensing by paying him almost $250,000 in back pay and $100,000 in legal fees he incurred, reports NBC and other sources.
Just days ago, on Friday, March 16, Wyoming became the 36th state to join the large majority that qualify as “Stand-Your-Ground” jurisdictions, furthering a trend that has been moving in only a single direction for quite a few years.
Former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager has been sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to Federal civil rights charges in the April 2015 killing of Walter Scott, reports ABC News and other sources.
The sentence was based upon Slager’s pleading guilty to a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242, Deprivation of...
Attorney Alan Gura has scored another huge win for civil rights in today’s Wrenn v. DC decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal District of Columbia Circuit (you know, the one Harry Reid blew up the fillibuster for in order to load it up with Progressive...
Two years ago tomorrow University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing, who is white, shot and killed black motorist Sam DuBose during a traffic stop.
The stop, DuBose’ attempt to drive away while dragging Officer Tensing down the road, and the fatal shot were largely captured on Tensing’s body-cam. Today, after trying...
“Stand-Your-Ground” was back in the headlines against over the just-concluded Independence Day weekend, thanks to a 14-page decision by Miami-Dade Circuit judge Milton Hirsch that recent legislative changes to Florida’s self-defense immunity law were unconstitutional, reports the Bradenton Herald newspaper and other sources. (That decision is embedded below.)
Specifically, the recently signed law...
Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into a law a modification to the state’s self-defense immunity statute, according to Reuters and other news sources.
The self-defense immunity, generally mis-identified by media as a “stand your ground” law, provides for criminal and civil immunity for a use of force that is determined to...
Yesterday, Tulsa OK Police Officer Betty Shelby, who is white, was acquitted of first-degree manslaughter charges arising from the September 16, 2016 shooting death of Terence Crutcher, who was black, according to reports by CNN and local Tulsa television news station KTUL.
Before issuing a verdict Wednesday night, the nine white jurors and...
Yesterday morning, Bob Owens—a husband, a father, my friend, and a tireless defender of our Second Amendment rights—took his life. We are all diminished as a result.
I don’t suppose we can ever really know what drives a person to make such a decision. Their pain must be unimaginable. Whatever the cause,...
Former police officer Michael Slager has accepted a Federal plea bargain deal in which he concedes to having violated the civil rights of Walter Scott when he fatally shot Scott five times as the apparently unarmed Scott fled from him. The shooting occurred in April 2015 in Charleston SC. Slager is...
Some of you may be aware that the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) has licensed my book, “The Law of Self Defense, 3rd Edition.” They’ve added their own cover, and a foreword by their CEO, Tim Schmidt, but otherwise it’s the same book. I’m also a member of USCCA’s Legal...
