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...
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...
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...
There’s been a shooting in Florida (naturally?) that resulted over an argument about a non-handicapped person parking in a handicapped parking spot, and it was captured on a rather poor quality surveillance camera recording, according to news reports.
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.
“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...
