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Monday, August 07, 2006
Law - More on lethal-force law
Last week the ILB had two stories (here and here) on a trial in Kentucky involving that state's new "lethal-force" law, similar to Indiana's.
Today Adam Liptak of the NY Times has a front-page story titled "15 States Expand Right to Shoot in Self-Defense." Some quotes:
The first of the new laws took effect in Florida in October, and cases under it are now reaching prosecutors and juries there. The other laws, mostly in Southern and Midwestern states, were enacted this year, according to the National Rifle Association, which has enthusiastically promoted them. * * *The Florida law, which served as a model for the others, gives people the right to use deadly force against intruders entering their homes. They no longer need to prove that they feared for their safety, only that the person they killed had intruded unlawfully and forcefully. The law also extends this principle to vehicles.
In addition, the law does away with an earlier requirement that a person attacked in a public place must retreat if possible. Now, that same person, in the law’s words, “has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.” The law also forbids the arrest, detention or prosecution of the people covered by the law, and it prohibits civil suits against them.
The central innovation in the Florida law, said Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, is not its elimination of the duty to retreat, which has been eroding nationally through judicial decisions, but in expanding the right to shoot intruders who pose no threat to the occupant’s safety.
“In effect,” Professor Sebok said, “the law allows citizens to kill other citizens in defense of property.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 7, 2006 08:01 AM
Posted to General Law Related