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Media fad issue: Florida no-retreat and felons
Background: of course felons are generally forbidden to possess firearms. But if put in reasonable fear of death or great bodily injury, they have the same right to self defense as has anyone else.
Then there comes the rare case where a convicted felon is not in possession of a firearm at the outset, someone puts (or allegedly puts) him in reasonable fear of death, the felon manages to obtain a firearm that he did not previously possess, and defends himself. Did he become a "felon in possession" in that instant? The cases of this are rare, I can recall 2-3 at the Federal level, with splits resulting.
In looking at this issue we must also bear in mind that (1) defendants may argue it when it is bunkum and (2) prosecutors anxious to win may respond in kind and push the envelope of reason.
Florida has a "no retreat" law, which provides that a person put in reasonable fear of death need not retreat before responding with deadly force. There are exceptions, one of which is that the defender was "engaged in unlawful activity" at the time. Some imaginative Florida prosecutors have taken to arguing that, in the case of a felon who argues self-defense, this does not apply, since by taking possession of a firearm he "engaged in unlawful activity" and is outside the statute. (I believe Florida was "no retreat" even before the statute, so I'm not sure this makes a lot of difference anyway). The lower Florida courts have split on whether this argument flies, and its Supreme Court has accepted the question in order to resolve this split.
The resulting media coverage: "Stand Your Ground may be defense for felon." "Tortured gun law now protects armed felons." "Stand your ground continues to rear its ugly head".
· Self defense ~ · media
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It probably does not matter for this discussion, but since July 1, Florida Statutes use the work criminal instead of unlawful.
This was primarily done to benefit undocumented immigrants.
Whether it will have an effect on the truly innocent I don't know.
The problem with this portion of the statute is the fact that any of us are probably in violation of some law during most of our waking hours, if not 24/7.
Florida had a great definition of "forcible felony." I suggested we use that instead of "criminal," but they didn't listen to me.
See F.S. 776 if you are curious.
My resident town had a case where a felon was pulling his two daughters along in a wagon, and a pitbull attacked. The news account said he ran into his home, retrieved a handgun and killed the dog, potentially saving one or both daughter's lives (but not physical scarring). Police declined to press charges, but I'm fairly sure they confiscated the weapon.
Public outcry would surely have occured had charges been brought.
I've always taken the meaning of "engaging in unlawful activity" to mean that you can't try to rob a person, or break into his house, or threaten someone's life, and then claim self-defense when you kill the person who tried to stop you from doing these things.
Saying that a felon is "engaging in unlawful activity" when defending his life (or the life of innocents, as WallPhone described) is certainly in violation of the Spirit of this statute, even if this text can be interpreted in this way.
Incidentally, this is one reason I am sympathetic to the idea of felons who are no longer in prison carrying arms, unless we want to make "revenge killing" legal (which I'm also somewhat partial to, but only if we get rid of the State-sponsored death penalty in the process).
Georgia just passed a law (HB60) that allows this for immunity from prosecution. Though that was not why that change was made.
The anti's were going crazy over it though.