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Law of Self Defense Tag

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 10, 2016 18 Comments
I know many of you have been wondering where the heck I've run off to from the pages of Legal Insurrection, so I want to immediately dispel the most common rumor:  No, Professor Jacobson and I have not broken up. :-) More seriously, the reason for my absence has been that I've been hard at work finishing the thoroughly updated newest edition of my book, "The Law of Self Defense, 3rd Edition," which I'm proud to announce published last week.  Further, I learned this morning that we've already achieved the number one position in Criminal Law new releases at Amazon.com, at that we're #6 in the Criminal Law category overall. And today we also became #1 in the Hunting & Shooting category at Amazon.

Posted by Andrew Branca on February 27, 2016 17 Comments
Yesterday, on the 4th anniversary of the self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin, we wrote about Florida's just enacted changes to its "10-20-Life" mandatory minimum sentencing law in the context of aggravated assault and self-defense. There is also another substantive change to the state's self-defense law that is advancing through the Florida legislature:  a reduction in the threshold for obtaining criminal and civil self-defense immunity. More specifically, the Florida senate has approved a change to the state's self-defense immunity law that would require state prosecutors to disprove self-defense by clear and convincing evidence in order to deny a defendant immunity from prosecution (and civil suit).

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 21, 2015 25 Comments
This past Monday we wrote about the start of the re-trial of retired firefighter Raul Rodriguez who was previously convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years in jail after shooting a neighbor over a dispute about the neighbor's noisy party. Rodriquez had claimed self-defense justification for the killing.  That prior post can be found here: Retrial Begins for Firefighter Who Selfied “Stand-Your-Ground” That re-trial ended yesterday with the jury returning a verdict of guilty of murder after three hours of deliberation, reports the Houston Chronicle. Rodriquez first murder conviction in this case was overturned because of a somewhat subtle error in the jury instructions on self-defense, as covered in some detail in a post last December, New Trial for Man Who Video Recorded Own “Self-Defense” Shooting.   No one knew, of course, whether the mistaken jury instruction had led the first jury astray and resulted in an improper guilty verdict, but a defendant is entitled to correct jury instructions and so a re-trial was ordered on appeal. This second conviction seems completely unrelated to the concerns surrounding the first--an issue of the timing of when Rodriquez may have openly displayed his concealed carry pistol--but instead focuses strictly on the issue of provocation.
"This case is about provocation, pure and simple," prosecutor Kelli Johnson told jurors in closing arguments earlier in the day. "The law doesn't allow you to create a situation and then claim self-defense."

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 06, 2015 48 Comments
I know I promised that my prior post would be my last on the thoroughly debunked "scientific" paper, "Race,law, and health: Examination of 'Stand Your Ground' and defendant convictions in Florida." The debunking took place in these posts: But then, well, THIS happened: Screen Shot 2015-11-05 at 4.33.05 PM Yep, I found two of the paper's authors in my Twitter timeline:  Melody S. Goodman and Cassandra Arroyo-Johnson, both of the Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery [!], Washington University School of Medicine.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 04, 2015 26 Comments
Last week here I wrote a post about a “scientific” study of Florida’s Stand-Your-Ground (SYG) law. That paper was published in the Elsevier journal “Social Science & Medicine.” The paper: “Race, law, and health: Examination of ‘Stand Your Ground’ (SYG) and defendant convictions in Florida” (Social Science & Medicine, Volume 142, October 2015, pages 194-201; pay-walled ) My post: “New “Scientific” Stand-Your-Ground Study Is Ignorant of the Law” In that paper the authors applied a Public Health Critical Theory Methodology to the question of whether Florida’s SYG law has a quantifiable racial bias. The key finding of the paper is that a “defendant is two times … more likely to be convicted in a case that involves White victims compared to those involving non-White victims” in the context of Florida’s SYG law. This finding was the result of statistical analysis conducted on a set of 204 purported SYG cases drawn from a total collection of 237 purported SYG cases collected by the Tampa Bay Times, a regional Florida newspaper.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 02, 2015 24 Comments
I imagine we've all chuckled at the mindlessness which the New York Times provides opportunities to observe the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect in action. From my own perspective as an expert in use-of-force law I fail to recall a single instance in which the NYT has so much as approached factual accuracy or displayed contextual understanding in a piece on self-defense laws in general or "stand-your-ground" in particular. This morning's editorial, "More Stand Your Ground Mischief in Florida" is no exception. What has the NYT Editorial Board all in a tizzy this time is a proposed change to Florida's self-defense immunity law. We covered this proposed change in detail previously here at Legal Insurrection: "Major Change Proposed for Florida Self-defense Immunity Law."   In a nutshell, currently a person claiming self-defense immunity has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that they acted in self-defense.  The proposed modification would instead require that the State bear the burden of disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt in order for self-defense immunity to be denied. Generally, these arguments would be made at a pre-trial hearing, before the trial proper itself.

Posted by Andrew Branca on October 19, 2015 61 Comments
So this happened: A group of five self-described scientists representing prestigious institutions of higher learning, including the Harvard School of Public Health, Washington University School of Medicine, and the Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice, decided to look for racism in Florida’s “Stand-Your-Ground” laws (hereafter, “SYG”). It will come to the surprise of no one , of course, that the team behind “Race, law, and health: Examination of ‘Stand Your Ground’ and defendant convictions in Florida” found what they were looking for. From their abstract (full abstract at bottom of post):
Our results depict a disturbing message: SYG legislation in Florida has a quantifiable racial bias that reveals a leniency in convictions if the victim is non-White, which provides evidence towards unequal treatment under the law.
Surprise, surprise. Well, maybe not so much of a surprise when you read how they describe their methodology for the paper -- critical race theory (emphasis added):
We frame our study using Public Health Critical Race Theory (PHCRT) Methodology. PHCRT is a conceptual framework that builds upon critical race theory and public health theories and methods to articulate how best to understand and address social and health issues to achieve social justice for marginalized groups.
Like a child who puts on red-tinted glasses and is shocked to discover the whole world is imbued with that color, these “scientists” donned their racist-tinted lab goggles and found the whole world imbued with racism.

Posted by Andrew Branca on October 11, 2015 43 Comments
Two independent reviews of the 2014 shooting of Tamir Rice have concluded that the officers responsible acted appropriately under the circumstances--a conclusion we shared with Legal Insurrection readers four months ago.

The Narrative:

Back in November 2014 Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann (who is white) shot and killed Tamir Rice, a black 12-year-old, in a city park. [caption id="attachment_145642" align="alignnone" width="640"]tamir-rice-326e772c09b920c4 Tamir Rice: 12 years old, 5' 7" tall, 195 lbs[/caption] Sounds pretty bad, right?

The Reality:

Loehmann confronted Rice--who stood 5' 7" tall and whose 195 pounds is the weight of an average adult male--because of 911 calls reporting that Rice was walking around the park pointing a gun at pedestrians. When police pulled up to Rice in their patrol vehicle, Rice reached for the gun--later determined to be a non-deadly pellet gun with its orange "non-gun" markings removed--in his waistband.

Posted by Andrew Branca on September 15, 2015 42 Comments
Florida State Representative Dennis Braxley, often referred to as the father of the state's Stand-Your-Ground law, filed a bill HB 169 that would profoundly alter the effects of Florida's self-defense immunity law, reports the Orlando Sentinel. (The bill is embedded at the bottom of this post.) As this is only proposed legislation at this point I would normally let it go given my workload, but I'm already seeing so much misinformation about this bill being spread thick over the internet that I feel obliged to set a reality stake in place.

First, "Stand-Your-Ground" ≠ Self-Defense Immunity

Before we even begin, please note that "Stand-Your-Ground" and self-defense immunity are two entirely different legal concepts, and conflating the two merely demonstrates an ignorance of the law.  "Stand-Your-Ground" has to do with whether a defender has a legal duty to retreat before using force in self-defense, period. Self-defense immunity has to do with whether a defendant can qualify as immune from prosecution, regardless of whether retreat is an issue in the case. Two. Different. Legal. Concepts. That out of the way, let's proceed.

Posted by New Neo on August 12, 2015 52 Comments
Here's an excellent article on the plight of the unarmed perpetrator, by John Hinderaker. Here's an excerpt:
This is the point I really want to make: the constant emphasis on police shootings of *unarmed* men that we see in the press is, for the most part, crazy. If you are a perp, or a suspect, or an inoffensive person walking down the street, you may be unarmed, but the police officer is not. Nor, in most cases, will he have any immediate way to know whether you are armed or not. If you attack him, what do you expect him to do? Challenge you to an arm-wrestling match? He is entitled to use deadly force to defend himself. Attacking a police officer rarely ends well. Likewise with fleeing a police officer who is ordering you to stop. If there is a problem here, it does not demand a thorough revamping of American police practices. Rather, it suggests that those who have influence with a small demographic group–6% of the population, according to the Post–impress upon them that they should not attack police officers under any circumstances, and if told to stop, they should stop. If they put their hands up, they are not going to get shot.
This makes the point that should be obvious to all but has somehow gotten obscured by all the post-Brown propagandist verbiage, which is that a police officer can't tell whether a belligerent aggressive suspect is armed or not unless he/she is brandishing the weapon in full sight.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 29, 2015 304 Comments
On July 19, just 10 days ago, UC police officer Ray Tensing shot and killed motorist Sam DuBose in the course of a traffic stop, according to reports by CNN and others. Today, prosecutor Joe Deters announced that Officer Tensing had been indicted for murder in the killing. The silver lining for bloggers everywhere is that much of the event was captured by Officer Tensing's body-cam. You can watch the full video here, but I have relevant portions reproduced in slow-motion and relevant screen captures below, as well. Officer Tensing claims that he shot DuBose because the driver began dragging the officer with his car. Certainly, dragging someone with your car is conduct likely to cause death or grave bodily harm, and thus warrants the use of deadly force in self-defense.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 24, 2015 180 Comments
So there's another notable arrest in the news, that of black woman Sandra Bland by white Texas patrol officer, and thus we have yet another "teachable moment" in non-compliance to lawful police orders. (Note that I address here only Bland's arrest--I've no particular insight into her death three days later while in custody.  Also, I limit my points to the issue of legality, as opposed to procedure or policy.) Thanks to the officer's dash-cam, almost all of the interaction between him and Bland is captured on video.  If you haven't seen it, here it is: Now that is a free lesson in how not to act during a traffic stop if you don't want to get yourself arrested. As usual, there's a considerable amount of outrage being expressed by people who possess a very limited practical and theoretical understanding of the laws and dynamics governing arrest.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 14, 2015 18 Comments
It’s hard to believe, but this week marks the two-year anniversary of the acquittal of George Zimmerman, on trial for second degree murder and other charges in the killing of Trayvon Martin. You can read more about it at Unexpected thanks to Legal Insurrection on 2nd Anniversary of Zimmerman Acquittal. It is timely, then, that just last week the Florida Supreme Court handed down a major decision on the state's self-defense immunity law, § 776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force, in the case of Bretherick v. State, 2015 Fla. LEXIS 1470 (FL Supreme Court 2015). Florida's self-defense immunity statute was passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor without containing any indication as to how it should be implemented by the courts; before Bretherick, it was not clear which party was meant to bear the burden of proof with regards to requests for self-defense immunity. Now, because of this ruling, we know that it is the defendant who bears the burden of proof (by a preponderance of the evidence) at the pretrial evidentiary hearing. Indeed, Bretherick is not the first time the Florida Supreme Court has had to tackle self-defense immunity procedures, with their last major effort taking place five years ago in the decision of Dennis v. State, 51 So.3d 456 (FL Supreme Court 2010).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2015 27 Comments
As our readers know, Andrew Branca is THE expert on self-defense and Stand Your Ground law. He also has a great deal of knowledge about 2nd Amendment and gun control issues. What you might not recall, is that Andrew originally was a commenter at Legal Insurrection. In the run up to the George Zimmerman Trial in June 2013, Andrew's comments were so outstanding that I asked him to cover the trial. Andrew's daily, live trial coverage was outstanding, and he has been covering self-defense and 2nd Amendment issues for us since. Andrew Branca German TV Stand Your Ground John Ekdahl, who writes at Ace of Spades HQ, tweeted about a video he just saw of Andrew being interviewed on German TV on February 28, 2014. We have posted the video before, but here it is again. A brilliant discussion of what Stand Your Ground is and is not, the Dunn and Zimmerman cases, and questionable statistics used to delegitimize SYG.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 08, 2015 123 Comments
If you hadn't already heard the internet roar, there is outrage brewing at the use-of-force by police in McKinney, Texas. The biggest driver of outrage appears to be a ~13 minute cell phone video. Here's that video in its entirety, but I call out specific relevant portions below if you don't want to sit through the whole thing: I watched the video expectantly for the claimed police misconduct. One would think from Twitter comments regarding McKinney that the police dropped uninvited onto a placid pool party of little children to wreak havoc on the festivities. Is that what really happened?  Is that even vaguely credible? Nah. So what DID happen?

Posted by Andrew Branca on May 12, 2015 12 Comments
We first wrote about the shooting of Tony Robinson (black) by Police Officer Matt Kenny (white) way back in March of this year. Back then our angle on the story was to shine the light of reality on the increasingly popular meme of "white cop shoots unarmed young black man for no damn good reason" and noting how quickly the narrative was imploding in the case of Robinson. Today the district attorney declined to bring charges against Kenny: For the gritty details, see that prior post Analyzing Wisconsin police shooting of unarmed Black teen.  But for those of you short on time, here's a taste for how the "narrative" began wildly unwinding within a day of the police shooting of Robinson:

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 08, 2015 94 Comments
Stop me if you've heard seen this one before: the now tiresome and wholly predictable cycle of news coverage when a white police officer shoots and kills an unarmed black teenager: Step 1: Build the false narrative. Mainstream media outlets report that a police officer has shot an unarmed black teenager, and provide extensive coverage of the victim's grieving family alongside flattering photographs and background stories of said teenager. The event is followed within hours--hours!--by well-organized protests, family spokespersons, and (naturally) lawyers (these last two typically combined). Step 2: Watch the false narrative implode.  These mainstream media reports are inevitably followed by factually correct and comprehensive reports of the victim's violent and criminal background and actions at the time of the shooting. These facts place responsibility for his death squarely on the victim's own shoulders, and make it clear that the police acted appropriately. Sounds familiar, right? In case you've not yet had enough of that cycle, allow me to introduce you to the late Tony Robinson, the "unarmed black teenager" who was shot and killed by a veteran Wisconsin police officer this past Friday evening (so, not even 48 hours prior to the writing of this post).

Step 1: Build the False Narrative

Let's take a look at  how NBC covered this shooting in a post headlined: Black Teen Tony Robinson Shot Dead by Cop in Madison, Wisconsin, Was Unarmed. First, their lede:

Posted by Andrew Branca on March 03, 2015 95 Comments
This "standing headline" is becoming so ubiquitous it ought to be formally recognized as an internet meme. A robbery suspect, identified in the CNN report simply as "Africa" or "Brother Africa" was being arrested by four LAPD officers yesterday in Los Angeles.  He was violently non-compliant, as evidence by the video below and by eye witness testimony.  Witness Yolanda Young told local news reporters from KTLA:
He was down, but then he jumped up, like he was juiced up, and then he started swinging at the police and they were fighting him back.
[NOTE: Video above was replaced on 3/3/315 with a version that was not "fuzzed-out," as was original video.]
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