Is Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law the 21st Century version of "the Devil made me do it"?
Ever since a 28-year-old neighborhood watch captain (and law enforcement wannabe) named George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012 during a brief but fatal confrontation in a Sanford gated community, the state of Florida's seven-year-old Stand Your Ground law has found itself in the cross-hairs of much-needed scrutiny by its supporters and critics alike.
Passed in 2005 by a Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Florida Statute 776.013 expanded the traditional "Castle Doctrine" law which, among other things, allows a law-abiding citizen to use lethal force - if necessary - to defend his or her home by extending the rights to self-defense to any location where the person who claims self-defense has a "legal right to be."
To quote from the Stand Your Ground statute:
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
Passed in 2005 by a Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Florida Statute 776.013 expanded the traditional "Castle Doctrine" law which, among other things, allows a law-abiding citizen to use lethal force - if necessary - to defend his or her home by extending the rights to self-defense to any location where the person who claims self-defense has a "legal right to be."
To quote from the Stand Your Ground statute:
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person's will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and
(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.
In the Trayvon Martin case, Zimmerman has cited his right to use deadly force in part because he thought the teenager, who was wearing a hoodie on a day when it was drizzling, was allegedly walking through the gated community as though he were casing houses for possible break-ins.
Zimmerman, not knowing that Trayvon was staying at his father's girlfriend's house in the development he was guarding, called 911 and reported that he had seen a suspicious person and that he was going to follow him in his SUV.
Zimmerman, not knowing that Trayvon was staying at his father's girlfriend's house in the development he was guarding, called 911 and reported that he had seen a suspicious person and that he was going to follow him in his SUV.
The police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to follow the teen, but Zimmerman stubbornly shadowed Trayvon until he finally caught up with him, got off his vehicle and confronted him.
What happened next is still pretty murky, but Zimmerman and Martin got into a physical scuffle which ended when the older half-white, half-Latin watchman fatally shot Trayvon with a handgun.
According to Zimmerman, Martin had viciously attacked and knocked him to the ground, forcing the older man to use his firearm in self-defense per the Stand Your Ground law.
As of today, Zimmerman has still not been arrested, in part because the details of the incident have not been clarified by law enforcement agencies.
Zimmerman, however, is not the only Floridian who has helped push the Stand Your Ground law into the spotlight.
For instance, the Miami Herald's April 6 edition reports that a Miami-Dade County jury found a North Miami Beach landlord guilty of second degree murder because he shot and killed his tenant over a rent-related dispute.
According to Herald reporter Michael Vasquez's article, "With his claim of self-defense already rejected by a jury — and Florida’s Stand Your Ground law deemed irrelevant by a judge — Julian Gonzalez was well-assured of being sentenced to a lengthy jail sentence on Thursday.
The landlord of a North Miami Beach rental home had two years earlier fatally shot a tenant in a dispute over past due rent. That action led to a second-degree murder conviction, and a minimum mandatory prison term of 25 years.
The only question before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom was whether to levy the maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Bloom ultimately decided to do exactly that — choosing a punishment that the family of Gonzalez’s victim, 25-year-old Vladimir Santos, had fervently pleaded for."
Gonzales claimed that during a heated argument over rent owed, Santos was reaching for a gun, forcing the landlord to use his own weapon in self-defense.
However, the Herald article states that Santos was unarmed and that police investigators "never found a gun in the Santos home, and witnesses contradicted Gonzalez’s version of events."
Of course, Stand Your Ground defenses have worked for some defendants.
In an Associated Press story carried in the Herald, a South Florida resident was found to be immune from charges of homicide even though he stabbed a man who had stolen his car radio after chasing him several blocks.
"A judge citing the Florida statute commonly called the "stand your ground' law has dismissed a murder charge against a man who chased and fatally stabbed a suspected thief.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom previously decided Greyston Garcia was immune from prosecution in the January killing of Pedro Roteta.
Bloom ruled Tuesday that a bag of stolen car radios Roteta swung at Garcia amounted to a lethal threat. Bloom said Garcia "was well within his rights to pursue the victim and demand the return of his property."
Bloom noted that Garcia went home instead of calling 911 and later hid the knife and sold two of the radios."
Frankly, while Garcia was partially within his rights under the provisions of Stand Your Ground, it's clear that he broke the spirit of Statute 776.013 when he chased Pedro Roteta, stabbed him, took the bag of stolen radios, hid the weapon he used and sold two radios.
(Ironically, Judge Beth Bloom was the presiding judge in both cases.)
The interesting question for the citizens of Florida and the other states which have similar Stand Your Ground laws on the books is this: Will Statute 776.013 become the 21st Century equivalent of "the Devil made me do it"?
© 2012 Alex Diaz-Granados.
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