“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...
Curtis Reeves has been denied legal immunity from prosecution and civil suit over his fatal shooting of Chad Oulson, in an order issued today by Judge Susan Barthle (that order is embedded at the bottom of this post).
Reading Judge Barthle’s order, however, suggests that her legal analysis may be sufficiently defective...
It was three years ago last month that retired police officer Curtis Reeves, then 71 years old, shot and killed 43-year-old Chad Oulsen in a Florida movie theater. The case became known as the “popcorn shooting” because the shooting allegedly happened over spilled popcorn.
Reeves has been charged with second degree murder and aggravated battery....
The scientific journal JAMA Internal Medicine has published a paper utterly devoid of scientific or public policy merit, fraught with abject error and ignorance, and utterly lacking any arguable purpose other than to deceive gullible readers about the nature and merits of Florida’s Stand-Your-Ground law.
The JAMA study follows another supposedly scientific...
Missouri lawmakers have overridden a veto to allow concealed carry (Missouri already had open carry) and to grant more legal rights for self-defense.
Missouri lawmakers have overridden a veto of a wide-ranging guns bill that will let more people carry concealed weapons and give them greater legal rights to defend themselves.
The...
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...
A couple of months ago we posted here about the effort of Florida legislator Dennis Braxley to change Florida’s self-defense immunity law: Major Change Proposed for Florida Self-defense Immunity Law.
Under the proposed change a person claiming self-defense immunity for their use of force against another could be denied that immunity...
A re-trial begins this week in Houston for retired firefighter Raul Rodriguez who was previously convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years in jail, reports the Houston Chronicle. Rodriquez had unsuccessfully argued self-defense at trial. The notable oddity of this case was the fact that Rodriguez had videotaped himself rather bizarrely...
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:
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...
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...
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...
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...
I don’t suppose it will ever end–the mainstream media will continue to cover trials involving deadly force, will continue to blindly label them Stand-Your-Ground cases, and will continue to demonstrate its utter ignorance of what Stand-Your-Ground actually is.
The most recent example comes in the form of
The Orlando Sentinel reported recently on an interesting self-defense law matter currently being taken up by the Florida Supreme Court.
As seems inevitable, they have of course incorrectly categorized the case as centering on the state’s “Stand-Your-Ground” law.
In fact, the case centers on Florida’s self-defense immunity statute, and not on Stand Your Ground....
Marissa Alexander was back in court today for a pre-trial hearing on whether she will be granted yet another shot at self-defense immunity under Florida statute FL 776.032: Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.
In what has become an all too familiar pattern in this case,...
Well, I’ve finally gotten around to launching the Law of Self Defense weekly video/podcasts, and Professor Jacobson was kind enough to let me make a post about it here.
This first episode I knew I’d be struggling with IT issues–and, indeed, I am–so I kept the subject matter relatively simple.
This first ~23...
