This combination of poster and post is so beautiful it caused me to shed a tear.
I would think it would serve as a cautionary tale as to why granting immunity from prosecution in a broad range of circumstances may be not always be a swell idea. Mr.
Hattori’s sole offenses consisted of going to the wrong address while looking for a Halloween party and not speaking English. For that he was shot dead in the street, and the person who shot him was acquitted.
So, how long until someone asks the wrong person for directions late at night and gets shot, and the shooter decides he had a reasonable belief it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself, and therefore he should be immune from criminal prosecution?
First, I’m curious as to the actual laws in place in the states mentioned, and how this new Florida one compares. And secondly, if it really is the same here already in California, I can say 2 things with certainty; 1) the notion that the law would create a “Wild West” mentality would appear to be absurd, seeing as how I certainly haven’t seen any evidence of that here in LaLa Land, and 2) the idea that criminals would pause before attacking someone is so assininely hilarious that I’m almost busting a gut just imagining such a scenario.
A year ago I heard one of those :dubious: stories. A friend’s brother got in a scrape in Florida. Late one night, two guys began beating on him. He grabbed a bottle off the ground and hit one. They ran away. When the police took the story, they sort of hinted he didn’t have the bottle because they would then have to arrest him.
Is this true in Florida? Is escalating from fists to bottle a chargeable felony? I’m fairly small, two big guys could easily kill me with fists and kicks? Is it my duty to lay on the ground and be beaten to death rather than hit one with a rock?
Say it ain’t so.
I had never heard of the incident with Mr. Hattori, very sad, and the shooter was obviously on the wrong on that one. I’m not sure that this particular law would apply here.
This thread did make me think of something that is usually brought up in my martial arts study though.
One of the main things you are tought in a true martial art (not a sport obviously) is that if you want to live through an encounter where your life is in danger, you must work to kill youropponent as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
But this is not how things are typically portrayed in movies and literature. People really think that in such moments police should eb able to shoot the perp’s hand, or his foot in order to disable him, or that in a knife fight you should be able to disarm your opponent and maybe brake his arm, but not seriously injure him.
The law too seems ot be written aorund this premise. If you kill someone in such a confrontation you are probably going to get in toruble unless there is absolutley no doubt that you were tyring to defend yourself.
The reality of such situations is that trying anything other than killing your opponent is liable to get YOU killed. Cops don’t shoot at perps hands or legs (unless circumstances are such that they have penty of backup, or the perp does not have a gun, there’s plenty of time, etc, in other words unusual situations), they aim for the center of mass. The largest target. If the perp manages ot go down and live despite his wounds, the better, if not, oh well.
The same applies to combat with other deadly weapons such a knife or a dagger, if you don’t move to kill your opponent quickly, you risk being the one who gets killed.
So how can this basic fact of reality be reconciled wiht current law? I don’t know, but this particular law doesn’t seem to be a bad first step, IMHO.
Heck, Florida needs to have its population cut down. It has way too many electoral votes.
It is my understanding that in Florida, private citizens are not able to exempt themselves from criminal prosecution. Your shooter would be tried, found guilty, and sent to prison.
No shit.
However, private citizens are perfectly able to go to court and claim the charges against them should be dismissed due to sections 776.013 (3) and 776.032 of the law to which UncleBeer so helpfully linked.
Just like the man who shot Mr. Hattori! Oh, wait…
Nobody’s looking at the bright side of this law. Maybe this will ramp up the gang-banger’s kill rate of rivals. They’ll think it’ll be easy to convince people the guy was coming to kill him, so he shoots him. Then, since he’s likely a felon, he spends a few decades in the pen for weapons charges.
Going back to duels, I’m picturing it as old west style where the two stand back to back and walk 10 paces. Could that be considered retreating? 
It was unfortunate that he could not understand the multiple warnings given to him before he was shot.
If that happens I doubt the new law would protect such an individual.
Marc
Huh, I never really thought about this. If I’m walking down the street and I get attacked from behind I’m legally required to try and run away before turning around and clocking the asshole in the face?
I think the bill is right, but I think the use of firearms should be exempt, or at least have some sort of dissuasion to keep from having everyone itching for someone to fire a shot so they can shoot at something other than a paper silhouette.
What’s the difference? Either the use of deadly force is justified or it isn’t. It doesn’t matter if someone uses a club, a knife, or a gun.
Marc
Though one more likely causes death. I’m trying to keep the mortitions from having to skip their lunch break while at the same time I’d like to turn around and show someone that if they whack me in the face I’m not going to run a block in front of the attorney’s office and wave to the receptionist before turning back around to beat the crap out of the guy who thought it’d be ok to hit me.
But there’s nothing “broad” about this law. It merely allows persons being physically attacked to meet force with like force. And I’ll bet it doesn’t provide immunity from prosecution either. It only serves to make use of defensive force in certain situations, a legitimate legal defense. It may deter prosecutors from attempting to get an indictment in some marginal situations, but overwhelmingly, the case is gonna go to court—or at least to the grand jury.
Look, I think this merely place Florida law with what is already standard, mre or less, in almost every other stateof the union. What’s the problem?
I suggest an amendment that requires that the defender yells “He’s coming right for me!” first.
[South Park]He’s comin’ right for us.[/South Park]
I’m not so sure about that. When I took the course required to apply for a CCW license here in Ohio, they were very explicit that a CCW holder has a legal obligation to attempt to disengage/retreat before brandishing a firearm - except in the home. I think we discussed this particular and narrow aspect of the various state CCW laws somewhere else on these boards in the not-so-distant past and the conclusion was that only a very few states did not require CCW holders to attempt to retreat/disengage before using deadly force. There is still, of course, the universal requirement that one must legitmately (and be prepared to demonstrate this is so) fear that serious physical harm is imminent before using deadly force.
This is only tangential to the discussion, but…“multiple” warnings? I’ve seen no information anywhere that suggests Mr. Hattori was given more than one warning before he was shot. If you have information that suggests otherwise, please share.
Why is that so hard to believe? Louisiana’s version of the home defense law was part of the defense in the case of Mr. Hattori’s murder.
No, the new law is more extensive than that. Section 776.012, part (a) says that a person is justified in using deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if “He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony”. (To be fair, only the “does not have a duty to retreat” part is new in this section of the law.) You don’t have to be attacked, you just have to have a “reasonable belief” that you’re about to be attacked.
So, next time you’re in Florida and a crazy homeless man starts walking towards you on the street, screaming, you may be legally justified if you kill him, if a court agrees that you had a reasonable belief that the homeless man was about to attack you. Remember Sean Lynch, the cop that shot a homeless man in Alameda who may or may not have attacked Lynch with a knife? Lynch was a trained police officer, and he still may not have made the correct conclusion as to whether or not he was in imminent danger. Now Florida has decided that anyone has the legal justification to make those kinds of decisions in the heat of the moment without making an effort to retreat first, anywhere where they have a right to be.
Hell, it may deter officers from making an arrest. Section 776.032 of the new law: officers can investigate, but they can’t arrest until they have probable cause that the force used was unlawful under the new standard. Not “charge”, even, “arrest”. And that worries me. If the cops find a man with a smoking gun standing over a dead body, I don’t want them to have to decide whether or not the suspect has a reasonable belief their life was in danger before they even take the suspect off the street.
What the hell kind of crazy ass martial art do you take? I have trained in several for about ten years and have never heard this. What they WILL tell you, however, is that the best way to survive an encounter is to retreat, as the current law requires. If it is IMPOSSIBLE to retreat (the attacker is likely faster or there is no route) than you work as quickly and efficiently as possible towards disabling them, and then retreat. Unless you have been studying Dim Mak or something it is a hell of a lot harder to kill someone than disable them, and you usually have to go through disabling them first, at which point you should stop attacking.
Plus, you don’t know if they have friends around. In fact, continuing to fight goes against the basic principles they teach in most schools.
If you have a gun you shoot to kill, and you do not draw it unless you plan to kill. That hardly applies to hand to hand combat though.
Which is exactly as it should be. Are you saying that you should be able to kill people if you weren’t trying to defend yourself?
You know why? Because they are COPS. It is their job to be there and to intervene. They are supposed to take care of the situation. You are not. You are supposed to get the hell out of there if you can. Cops hate it when citizens try to take care of these things on their own.
Absolutely not. It is rare for someone to throw a knife, and probably rare they would be accurate. Even if you are skilled it is much safer for you to just get the hell away than attempt to take him down, as you don’t know how good he is. If you can’t get away then this law doesn’t apply and you already have the right to blast him with a gun.
It is a stupid first step. You all seem to be of the opinion that you are supposed to try to escape when a guy is standing right in front of you waving a knife or revolver in your face. As I understand the application of the current law this is not so. You will be shot or stabbed in this case and have a right to defend yourself. However, if you are outside of a bar and the jerk who was threatening you earlier steps out waving a knife and cursing you about 20 feet away, then you have an obligation to try and get the hell out of there. You are not allowed to draw your own knife and ask to repeat what he just said or to move at him. Only seems to make sense.