Out of curiousity, would you apply this principle to the castle doctrine - that is, would you require me to retreat from my home to avoid an attack? Let me know if you would prefer me to open another thread, in this or a different forum.
Regards,
Shodan
No. I’m comfortable with the concept that within your home, the law should not compel you to retreat, except if the conflict is with another person with equal claim to presence in your home.
In other words, if you live in a home with your brother, and he threatens to stab you, and you can retreat, you should rather than using lethal force. If your encounter is with an intruder, I agree that the balance of interests is in protecting yourself instead of retreating.
So then “preservation of human life” should not be the “highest principle enshrined”? Or is that “highest principle” geographically situational?
Thank you. Good summation; pretty much expresses my feelings (and the outrage) I’ve felt throughout this sordid affair.
Terr, you tricky devil! I never thought of that one! Eegads, you’ve bested me!
Fortunately, I just now thought of an answer.
The preservation of human life remains the highest principle. But within that highest principle, there are further gradients. The very topic of self-defense requires such analysis, because it requires weighing human life against human life.
So: a permissible inference is that a person in my home intends to do me harm, or has a risk so high of doing me harm to avoid his own capture that the risk cannot be ignored. Accordingly, the concept of retreating when the safe retreat of the home has already been breached is secondary to the risk posed by the intruder. This concept also explains the exception I mention above: if the threat comes from someone who has every right to be in the home, the principle no longer applies.
This presupposes that you “retreated” to the home in the first place from somewhere else to begin with.
I say that in virtually all cases when you’re faced with the attacker, it is safer, objectively, to shoot the attacker. If you shoot him, it’s 95% certain you will survive (5% chance you will miss or even if he’s shot he kills you somehow). If you don’t shoot him and retreat, it is not even close to 95% certainty you will survive - maybe he can run faster than you, or maybe he has a gun you don’t know about, maybe he has a knife he can throw, maybe he can throw a rock at you etc. etc.
So - do you think the law should require you to increase the danger to yourself by retreating?
How was SYG a factor in this case anyway? The defense’s story didn’t rely on SYG–in fact, it rendered SYG an irrelevancy, didn’t it? The judge included SYG instructions to the jury, but weren’t they essentially an irrelevancy as well? Zimmerman didn’t retreat, and according to the defense he COULDN’T retreat. You can disbelieve that, but that’s a separate debate, ISTM. You’d still be countering a “self defense” story, not a SYG one. The defense did not invoke SYG at any point, did they?
Lots of confusing (to a non-lawyer) noise in talking head land. This is simultaneously a “non-SYG” case and one that cries out for overturning SYG because of how horribly this case turned out. Which is it?
The judge didn’t include “SYG instructions”. The judge included standard Florida self-defense instructions. Those include “no duty to retreat”.
Most talking heads know very little about the specifics of the stuff they’re talking about. It takes time and effort to sit down and learn the details. The talking heads are always about the “big picture”.
I think the law should be re-written to require you to provide evidentiary support for those percentages.
Okay, but that’s a legal distinction too subtle for me. And I’d still say, it’s an irrelevancy. Having no duty to retreat is not a factor in a defense story that precludes the possibility of retreat.
That’s true. But if this is truly NOT an SYG case, this is a particularly egregious misunderstanding. The Internet, TV, and newspapers are festooned with the SYG implications of this case. And I’m talking as well about reporters, not columnists.
Let me pose my question differently, to anyone knowledgeable enough to answer: would this case have turned out any differently (all other things being the same) if Florida had no SYG law?
Along these lines, via The Volokh Conspiracy:
How exactly do you propose someone provide “evidentiary support” for: “maybe he can run faster than you, or maybe he has a gun you don’t know about, maybe he has a knife he can throw, maybe he can throw a rock at you etc. etc.”?
I don’t.
But that’s not all you said. I’m fine with the unquantifiable “maybes.”
It’s just that you quantified them:
I’d like to know where these 95% and 5% figures came from.
It’s a guess. It is also a guess on what the chances of survival are when you retreat. It is also a guess that the retreat chance or survival is way less than the chances when you shoot. In case of the attack scenario, all these guesses are made under enormous stress. So - how would you propose someone provide “evidentiary support” for these guesses during trial?
By describing the specific factual conditions in play.
I was right by the bank vault door and maybe I could have stepped inside and closed it, but I decided to shoot him before he covered the distance between us and stabbed me with the letter opener.
There might a case where the chances of surviving a retreat were a bit more than 5%.
I thought that 67.8% of the population understood that 78.9% of all statistics are just made up.
I must be in the other 32.2%.
Don’t worry. I actually made that up. See how easy it is?
Thanks for your response, but I don’t understand it. Would one not infer that someone who attacks you intends to do you harm no matter where the attack occurs?
IOW, someone attacks me in the street, and thereby (let’s assume) puts me in reasonable fear of my life. It is my duty to retreat, so I do, and this eliminates the risk to my life.
Now I am attacked in my living room. I am in the same fear of my life, but I could, in theory, retreat. Under your “non-castle doctrine” law, I have the same duty to retreat, and thereby eliminate the risk.
I don’t see how reaching the standard of “being in reasonable fear of your life” by being attacked in the street differs from “being in reasonable fear of your life” by being attacked in your living room.
Am I missing your point? And, if you don’t mind my asking, is this legal philosophy, or Roman Catholic philosophy?
Regards,
Shodan
There may be no reason for you to think her interpretation is better than anyone else. Jeantel knew TM and Jeantel was on the phone with TM during the time leading up to the 2nd and final confrontation.
Jeantel thought TM was safe because he had indicated that he had lost the nigga/creepy azz cracker and TM indicated to her that he was by his daddy fiance house. Jeantel’s testimony did have weight, meaning, value to the jury if the jury decided to give it weight, meaning, value.
Unlike you, the jury was expected to pay attention to and weigh the evidence and testimony presented in court. Those selected for the jury were supposed to presume that the defendant was innocent UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.