Stand your ground laws are controversial. Anti-gunners argue that the laws are used to let people get away with murder, but pro-gun folks argue that stand your ground laws prevent anti-gunners from abusing gun owners through lengthy legal proceedings simply for protecting their lives.
Obviously, because the other side is irrational about this issue (which, to be fair, they’d accuse us of being, as well), this isn’t an issue that is going away anytime soon.
But, for a Florida man, hopefully, a legal nightmare is ending (hat tip to here for the lead). Melissa E. Holsman writes,
Two years after Jason Dames was jailed for fatally shooting a man at a Fort Pierce restaurant, a judge threw out his case after ruling the killing was justified under the state’s “stand your ground” law.
Dames, 33, was charged with second-degree murder with a firearm in connection with the Sept. 1, 2018 homicide of Jackie McMiller, 38, of Fort Pierce, which records show occurred at a restaurant at the southwest corner of North 25th Street and Avenue D in Fort Pierce.
Second-degree murder is defined as an intentional killing that was not premeditated.
Following a Sept. 14 “stand your ground hearing,” St. Lucie County Circuit Judge William Roby ruled that Dames “was justified in the … ultimate use of deadly force pursuant to Florida law.”
Holsman continues,
Under Florida’s “stand your ground” law, a person may use deadly force in self-defense if he or she is in imminent threat of death or bodily harm.
“Stand your ground,” which went into effect 15 years ago, expanded Florida’s long-standing “justifiable use-of-force” statute that governs a citizen’s right to self-defense. Previously, a person confronted in public only could use deadly force after first trying to retreat. “Stand your ground” removed that duty to retreat in the face of an attack.
In 2017, the Legislature made a change to the law that forces prosecutors, rather than defendants, to shoulder the burden of proof in such cases.
In this case, Roby ruled the state failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Dames was not entitled to immunity from prosecution.
While it’s good that Dames was cleared in this incident, the fact of the matter is that he should have never been arrested and should never have been charged.
But this is the kind of situation that, as a gun owner, you have to be aware of. Even if you are in the right, that doesn’t mean that a law enforcement officer or a district attorney with an agenda isn’t going to come after you to try to make an example of you, and that’s beside the possibility of civil lawsuits from other people at the location when the shooting occurred or the family of the person that was shot.
In other words, if you have any way to protect life other than actually shooting, you should choose that other way because just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that you won’t have to go through this kind of nightmare, too.
In Virginia ALL lethal force law for EVERYONE is case law.
LE does not get a break beyond they are NOT brandishing
if they pint a gun at someone.
And while they must also follow all their department’s rules,
those rules do not apply to the population.
It might be a good idea to have some knowledge of them.
“The Virginia Gun Owner’s Guide” has is an excellent resource to
summarize and name the applicable cases.
No one should ever face the loss of their freedom, job, savings, and home for keeping some violent attacker from killing them.
We need a national “stand your ground” / self defense law to protect those acting in self defense from not just Law Enforcement, and unjustified felony charges from some overzealous prosecutor looking to keep their billionaire backers happy, but from the civil suits of family members looking to profit from their criminal family member’s actions as well.
Hopefully he can sue the Prosecutor/Persecutor for Malicious Prosecution and claim millions in damages. After all, one thing that Prosecutors tend to ignore: in the event of reversal, one thing that ***can’t*** be given back is TIME. The innocent self-defender had TWO YEARS taken away from him and that Prosecutor owes him big time. We should not tolerate any Prosecutor who decides that our God-given Right To Life goes out the window any time a criminal attacker decides to take it and expects the “attackee” to bow for execution.
You are right on “Stand Your Ground” especially in Florida with so many senior citizens, many of whom are handicapped. Also, trying to retreat is likely to infuriate the attacker into more violence.
Exactly.
John Rively from California University of Pennsylvania and a former aide at Utah State University to Dr. Ray Boyles,PhD, Dr. Asif Rahman, PhD and Dr. Ed Reeves. PhD. I John Rively am normal or straight. I have the odd homos with inordinate interests in myself, tacitly and cautiously stalking me. These are mentally unbalanced people who see things nobody else can see, or whatever in their own little world of pestilence. They hide behind homo rights. STAND YOUR GROUND laws, and JUSTIFIED MAN SLAUGHTER may be the remedies. The First Amendment sanctions FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. I used to romance a Kappa Alpha Kappa sister at IUP, Indiana, PA before a severe car wreck so reality is there if chosen to be understood. I want no trouble at all. But I live in the real world too. Any ideas please communicate. Thank you. JKR
Real World solution: MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!
John Rively: did all of that mean that you are for protecting yourself and your family by whatever means necessary to keep them safe, including STAND YOUR GROUND?
Elect DAs who can follow the letter and spirit of the law. And politicians who know what it means when the minutes of the Senate from Sept. 9, 1789 show that it voted DOWN putting the words “for the common defense” next to the words “to bear arms” in what became the 2nd amendment. Lawyers ramble about “precedent”, how much more “precedent” can you get about the subject
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