I don’t have a cite. My belief is that more people have preformed opinions about armed self defense than about thechild running into the street. I think getting a fair hearing on the child scenario is more likely than in the armed self defense scenario - especially in certain regions that are traditionally anti gun.
But even so - SYG laws are attainable. Changing the criminal and civil justice system is not. Do you have any alternative to the problem that SYG addresses?
Until you establish that a problem exists, there’s no point in offering an alternative. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that a problem does exist, I laid it a better solution in the post you were responding to.
Are you disputing the problem that an overzealous prosecutor could ruin your life (figuratively) if you ever had a case of legitimate self defense absent SYG? Una mentioned an example. SYG mitigates that problem. And no, your solution of addressing the criminal justice system is not a better solution. Since SYG is already in place in the majority of states, it is the status quo. Changing that for the unlikely outcome of improving the criminal justice system as a whole is not achievable, and therefore is automatically an inferior solution.
I could come up with many more that would be considered “prosecutorial misconduct” if you are legitimately asking, but I think a simple search would yield many results. If you are okay with that, then I think we disagree on the level of burden a person should bear should they need to defend themselves.
First you were talking about overzealous prosecutors. Then you were talking about prejudiced juries. Now you’re talking about prosecutors again.
Could an overzealous prosecutor ruin my life? No. That requires the assent of the jury. Deeply inconvenience me? Sure, but that’s the price I pay for living under the rule of law. If you can come up with many cases of prosecutorial misconduct, then you will also come up with many cases of civil verdicts making victims of such misconduct whole.
Una-I ask this in all sincerity, and without malice intended: Have you ever been in counseling to deal with the aftermath of your attack? Support group?
I would normally answer this but I don’t see how it’s relevant to this thread.
I might note that in my community, where I am a mentor and advisor now, being a victim of serious violent crime - battery, rape, hate crimes, and even attempted murder - is the norm, not the exception. I told the story once of a large group of us t-girls sitting around a table, when I asked who else had been raped. And every, single hand went up, and then the tears fell. I asked how many had been raped multiple times - half the hands remained up.
Self defense advocacy is not something I do now out of PTSD-it’s just part of what you must advocate being in my community and out.
I’m not concerned with scenarios where victims of prosecutorial misconduct were made whole - it should never happen in the first place.
If you are okay with the “deep inconvenience” (expending your life savings, selling your house, financial ruin) at the hands of an overzealous DA should you ever have to defend yourself, then we have a fundamental disagreement as to how we should structure our laws in this arena. I knew that already - but hopefully you can appreciate the other side more than you did before.
It may or may not be the interpretation ultimately adopted by the Florida courts, but it’s not strange. The statute is poorly drafted no matter which interpretation one finds most plausible. The legislative intent, I think, was that, if requested, there would be an SYG hearing in the criminal case - determining whether the defendant is immune from prosecution - which, if sustained, would also be an immunity from civil suit. This remedy isn’t self-executing, though, so the defendant would have to incur legal fees and other costs interposing the immunity. These, the statute says, may be recovered.
What’s an open question is whether a defendant may request an SYG hearing in a civil action after having waived it in the criminal trial. I don’t think that’s a natural reading of the statute - it doesn’t make sense to speak of the civil court finding the defendant is immune from prosecution, especially if he has already been acquitted - but it’s certainly possible the Florida courts will rule otherwise.
Sorry I dropped out, I had a party.
The judge is not a Walter Mitty because she has had legal training and experience over decades, and is presumably selected because of they are found competent to be a judge. Whereas the average juror is an idiot who thinks the earth is 6,000 years old, angels watch over all of us, ghosts are real, cars work by magic, etc.; and they are completely untrained in law.
Sure - how is that even possible? Perhaps SYG is a proxy for tackling the true problem, because the true problem is intractable? It’s sort of like saying “we don’t need tort reform; there are already measures to punish those who bring frivilous lawsuits” - and yet I can search and easily find thousands of cases which should never even make it into court (people suing God, etc.) - with no punishment on record for attorneys or plaintiffs who bring such.
God doesn’t need to recover his attorneys’ fees. It may be true that reforming the system is impracticable, but I see no evidence that the NRA and others pushing SYG have made any effort to do so. Until they do it’s hard to see how this isn’t using a jackhammer to swat a fly.
That’s what you think. [passes collection plate]
Who pays for the court’s time? It’s not cheap, and it comes out of the taxpayer’s pockets, and it takes time from serious cases. It’s not frivolous to say we have too many frivolous cases, and yet sanctions seem to be nearly nonexistent.
Maybe, but that seems to be a discussion for another thread - unless the legislatures are passing SYG laws for the benefit of the overburdened judiciary.
Where does all of this love for the olde common law come from? Should we also go back to the idea that a man cannot rape his own wife and that alienations of affection should be a tort?
I oppose a duty to retreat on two grounds: 1) It will inevitably lead to a judge or jury looking at your actions through a microscope months after the fact when you were presented with a life or death decision and had to act in a split second. It simply isn’t fair to require such uber wise behavior in such a circumstance, and 2) Why in the hell should anyone have to retreat from a place where they have a lawful right to be? Just that concept alone is absurd. I am in Target’s parking lot. I have a lawful right to be there. Someone threatens me with violence. Now I have to leave? Again, why? Why have a policy that good and decent people have to abandon their streets and neighborhoods to criminals who would do them harm?
Is there a greater public policy that some asshole who would threaten you with death or seriously bodily harm be able to stay where he is while you run like a gazelle?
Because a result on which everyone escapes bodily harm is preferable to a situation in which someone is killed.
Exactly.
I’m not blind to the negative implications of policy that would force a person to back off from where they have a legal right to be – to cede to the bully the win.
But as a general principle, we live in a nation of laws. And even a bully’s life is worth more than the pride you might have standing your ground.
I am a fan of ye olde common law when it works. I am simply pointing to the age of the doctrine, in conjunction with the lack of complaint about it, as evidence that it doesn’t need fixing. I could give two shits about preserving it simply because it’s old.
What percent chance or standard of measure must I have had to escape at the time I shoot my attacker for my action to be lawful or a crime. serious question
And they’re still there today.