"Stand your Ground" laws effectively shift the "the burden of proof" that the Use of Force as self-defense, was in-fact warranted -- shifts that burden from a Court of Law, to the gut-calls of the responding officers.
Problem is, among several legal conundrums, that usually by the time police arrive on the scene of 'shots fired' -- the other side of the story has already expired. ... So in effect they only get one side of the story.
Trayvon Martin and Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Law
Michael J.Z. Mannheimer, Law Professor, prawfsblawg -- March 22, 2012
[...]
Section 776.032 of the Florida Statutes provides that a person who uses deadly force in self-defense "is immune from criminal prosecution." This odd provision means that a person who uses deadly force in self-defense cannot be tried, even though the highly fact-intensive question of whether the person acted in self-defense is usually hashed out at trial. The law thus creates a paradox: the State must make a highly complex factual determination before being permitted to avail itself of the forum necessary to make such a determination.
Not only that, Section 776.032 provides immunity from arrest unless the police have "probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful." Again, the law creates a Catch-22: police cannot arrest the suspect unless they have probable cause, not just to believe there was a killing, but also that the killing was not in self-defense; and where, as is often the case, the defendant is the only living witness to the alleged crime, the police likely will not be able to form probable cause without interrogating the suspect.
[...] the defect in the law is in the odd provisions that grant immunity from prosecution and even arrest, preventing the machinery of criminal justice from resolving whether the self-defense claim is a valid one.
so this "granted immunity" is like sand in the gears ...
These kinds of weighty decisions used to be deliberated in a Court of Law.
Now the "self-defense" claim can be validated on a wink and nod, on largely the basis of "he-said, he-said" ...
And quite often these cases don't have a wealth of cell-phone and ear-witness evidence of what exactly occurred;
And even when they do -- that doesn't guarantee Justice will be pursued, as we have painfully witnessed in the postmortem case of George Zimmerman vs Trayvon Martin. Maybe the responding officers were having 'a bad day' ... or worse.
Sometimes it's far too easy for the police to avoid all that 'evidence gathering and report filing' -- and the "Stand your Ground" laws gives them the wide-open legal cover to do just that -- they can simply render the "it was self-defense" verdict and the case "goes away."
They can simply take "the word" of the surviving person as "probably true." ... Case Closed.
And who's to say otherwise ... in most such deadly-force cases?
Who speaks for the dead, in this brand-new legal house of mirrors?
I thought that's what Courts of Law were for -- to make such weighty and consequential determinations -- regarding "truth and guilt" and whether life was taken with -- or without -- just and legal cause.
These judicial matters should not be shifted to Police Departments -- they already have enough to do with their executive pledges to Serve and Protect the public ... from harm.
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And here's a hearty Hat-Tip to the Up with Chris Hayes show, for the citation of the Law Professor's post.
Stand your Ground Law -- Up with Chris Hayes -- Mar 23, 2012
link to video
link to previous lead-in segment