Massad Ayoob Discusses 'Stand Your Ground' Laws

what the stand-your-ground law does is keep the innocent citizen who's telling the truth that they did shoot in self-defense from going through the kind of legal nightmare that Clayton Kramer justice gratia I've been an expert witness for the courts and shooting cases and weapons cases since the year 1979 I can point to people who want by the time they were finally acquitted had paid six figures and legal fees people who've lost their jobs and we'll talk in a minute more it goes beyond the financial you'll hear the argument well we shouldn't allow stand-your-ground because it makes the police's job more difficult and it makes the prosecutors more difficult I submit to you that that is not true the burden that the prosecution has is to show that you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt a likelihood in the high 90th percentile for you to get off on presumption of reasonableness you have to show to a greater than the not certainty level preponderance of evidence 51 percent 50.1% whatever the given law professor may quantify it as that you did the right thing do the math if you have been able to convince a judge at hearing that it's more than 50 percent likely you are telling the truth and you acted in lawful justified self-defense how on earth is any promise prosecutor who ever lived gonna turn that around in a convincing was the same impartial sure what judge or jury that nah he's 98 percent likely that he did wrong instead of right in essence it's not going to change anything if anything it may literally be more cost effective and more efficient as as well as simply more just to the legal system if within a matter of weeks after charging a hearing determines that yet more likely than not this guy really did shoot in the self defense and that's what the evidence shows it's done we preserved our fiduciary duty to the taxpayers not to squander their money in a trial that could last for weeks or even months then a world will cost thousands of dollars a day to keep that courtroom open where it cost hundreds of dollars an hour for you the defendant to pay for your defense attorney we hear people say well this law says you you could shoot anybody if you feel the least bit scared of them anyone who tells you that is tell you told you they never read the law Google that statute look in any of the states and these are the majority of the states as Clayton told you that have the stand your ground principle it doesn't say you can shoot because you're scared because you're nervous because you had mere suspicion you'll have to show that your action was reasonable now that does would you want to do in the Florida Statute the Florida statute says reasonable doesn't show you how to find reasonable so you track do a google search for the Florida jury instructions and you'll find out that just like every other jurisdiction in the country they use another English common law doctrine called the doctrine of the reasonable person that's essentially a three prong test the the Trier of the facts must ask themselves what would a reasonable and prudent person have done in the exact same situation as this defendant knowing what this defendant knew under the circumstances so if anyone tells you gee if somebody this law says if somebody looks at you cross-eyed you can shoot them they're telling you they never read the law they're telling you they don't understand the concept basically this has not been a huge sea change as Clayton explained even in the states that still have the so called retreat requirement again we need to read the fine print nowhere in this country has retreat ever been demanded unless it could be accomplished with complete safety to oneself and to others those others being those within the defendants mantle of protection their family their customers and a robbery of the store that they own something of that nature we've got what about a hundred people in here let me ask you a question that I've been asking my students for many years if any of you think of a situation where you would shoot a human being to death if you could have simply walked away and retreated in complete safety to oneself and others without trying to outrun a bullet without trying to turn your back on a draw knife without trying to walk backward faster than another human being can walk forward I see no hands don't feel bad no one else has ever been able to answer that question for me either it's not a change in how things are done we're allowed in this country to use lethal force to defend ourselves our families our loved ones when we're in situations of immediate otherwise unavoidable danger of death or great bodily harm to ourselves or to others within that mantle of our protection historically it's been a three prong test to determine whether that situation existed and different jurisdictions different police academies different training schools will use different terminology but basically the three factors are most commonly known as ability opportunity and jeopardy ability means your opponent has the power to exert deadly force that is to inflict a fatal injury or a crippling injury often that will take the form of a purse a weapon the knife the club the pistol it can also take the the form of disparity of force disparity of force is the category of situations where the unarmed attacker has such a physical advantage that he's so likely to kill a the the armed person that that advantage becomes the equivalent of a deadly weapon and allows his intended victim to respond with deadly force we can see examples in this room anyone in here with a physical handicap attacked by an able-bodied person is facing disparity of force and a no true violent attack is authorized to use a deadly weapon of self-defense as a general rule the female attacked by the male because society recognizes males tend to be Archer have greater upper-body strength and have been a culture to be more aggressive the we spoke of the physical handicap that can also be a handicap that occurs in the course of the fight you're an able-bodied man in prime of life but in the course of the fight the other man has been able to break your kneecap now you can't move away from him now you can't fight back and on an equal force level at this point we've reached deadly force level for you to respond with it could it be something as simple as position of advantage the two of you are exactly the same height weight physical skill but the other man manages to get you down and he's banging your head against a rock but the other man gets you down and he's stomping you a check that before might have broken a rib when you're down on the ground now becomes lethal force because if you've ever read in certain law books that are laws of states that a shod foot is a deadly weapon doesn't mean a guy kicking you in the butt it means if you're down and being stopped if my colleague on the left throws a punch at me here I can slip the punch I can roll with a punch but if he gets me down I can't do either of those things and now my head here is caught between the underlying ground and the crushing force of his whole body weight and in that situation his position of advantage becomes the same as a deadly weapon and would authorize me to draw my gun or knife and self-defense force of numbers is an extremely common example of disparity of force the single individual attacked by two people three people four so that would be the ability element the opportunity element means capable of immediately employing that power if someone up there in the back row was threatening to stab me I'd certainly be concerned about it but he has a great distance to travel he has to get past several rows of seats and he has to get past several people who at least one of whom I hope would stop him from stabbing the poor little old man but if instead he's up here with us nothing in between us the tests have shown since the pioneering work of Denis tular in 1981 excuse me 83 the average adult male from a standing start can close a distance of more than 20 feet and stab their victim in an average time of 1.5 seconds so in that situation the opportunity factor would be in and finally the third element jeopardy Jeopardy means his words and/or actions manifest an intent to cause death or great bodily harm as it would be interpreted by any reasonable and prudent person such as yourself when those three things come together deadly force is warranted and self-defense it happens very frequently in this country the stand-your-ground laws were promoted by the people who recognize that and by the people who have seen the the ironic tragedy of someone who defends them self-defense their family preserves themself from a murderous attack to come home to their loved ones suddenly having to go through the ordeal both criminal and civil of being painted as as the murderer as the reckless slaughter of men let me close briefly because I don't want to take too much time here we're not talking ancient history we're talking things that have happened recently case in point in West Des Moines Iowa October 29th of last year men named Jay Lewis middle-aged guy federal employee works in an office clean criminal record so clean he has a license to carry a concealed handgun in public his attacked on the street by two men of another color they decide it would be an excellent idea to physically assault him he draws his gun he orders them vehemently to stay back they lunge disparity of forces and play he fires one man is shot across the pectoral muscle under the bicep and wounded and the two of them decide you know what it's not fun being two coyotes on a bunny when the bunny shoots back we're leaving now does anybody have a problem with that act of self-defense J Lewis the man who fired was african-american as two attackers including the one who was wounded was Caucasian the the topic of race as that effect come affects criminal justice in America is the topic for another day at least for me J Lewis was arrested J Lewis was held on a 6-figure bond the not an ordinary working man salary he could not afford he stayed there rotting in jail meanwhile the folks who own the apartment building where he lived served a notice that said who we understand you've just been arrested for shooting someone you are altogether too scary and dangerous to live among us consider your selfie victim and they mailed it to him at his apartment address and posted it on his door at his apartment when they knew or should have known that he was in jail and could not receive them and when he did not respond to that after the 30 days or whatever they cleaned out his apartment but his furniture his clothing his computers including a novel he was writing out on the front lawn to be stolen by whoever came by and of course they all were and after 112 days in jail the prosecution dropped the majority of charges took him to trial on the rest and the jury said collectively are you kidding us and rendered the acquittal does that mean the system works to an extent it does the man was literally homeless damn near penniless that's not the way justice should work it was to prevent things like that the political activists civil rights activists when I consider we have many levels of civil rights activists and here those who fight for gun owners rights that considered to be civil rights activists as well I remember that Charlton has to inform a president of the NRA marched with Martin Luther King who was also a gun owner but their efforts have given us the Stand Your Ground laws in many states they are moving now to put that law in place in the state of Iowa to prevent the kind of injustice that J Lewis suffered from being suffered by any of their citizens there and for that reason this speaker supports the concept thank you

Channel: The Cato Institute

Views: 178,365

Keywords: catoinstitutevideo, in the gravest extreme, massad ayoob, stand your ground, stand your ground laws, trayvon martin, george zimmerman, legal immunity, Rick Scott

Id: tDXLv2mMNKQ

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 30 2012