Eske Esquire wrote:
Bigdaddyjug wrote:
So she was getting beat up and managed to get out of the house. Rather than getting in her car and driving away or calling the police, she takes out a gun and goes back into the house hoping he's gone?
I'm not exactly sure where in this she was standing her ground. She had managed to extricate herself from the life-threatening situation and then willfully put herself back into it when she had gone and gotten a gun.
Quote:
Consider the decision made against Alexander again: the judge ruled that Alexander, who was in her mother's home and the place where she had been a resident for months, somehow had a duty to retreat from her home, in contravention of both the Stand Your Ground statute and the Castle Doctrine concept from which it sprung. Moreover, she should have left from the garage whose inoperable door even the alleged victim, Gray, admitted she could not use. He also initially acknowledged in a deposition that he blocked her only other egress while threatening to have her beaten up, and that he'd beaten her before, by his own admission, four or five times. According to her—and according to him—he said no one else could have her, then allegedly charged at her while threatening to kill her. Nonetheless, the judge concluded that she did not reasonably believe that shooting a gun without actually shooting a person was necessary to prevent great bodily harm to herself. This time, apparently.
I don't think those facts are as factual as you think. While the story being told here (great journalism going on here btw), is muddled as hell, it looks as though that wasn't here house, but his. There are several mentions of her going to his house to get some paperwork signed, when the incident occurred. And the statement from the DA suggests that she went to his house despite a court order to stay away from him (again, the "facts" being represented on the linked site(s) are absolutely horrible). If that is the case, then the castle defense does not stand. She's not protecting her property and standing her ground against someone else, she *is* the someone else.
Just as I mentioned in the Zimmerman case, if one initiates a conflict (which she does by coming out of the garage and confronting her husband with a loaded weapon), she's required to either make clear a desire to leave the conflict and is then pursued *or* be unable to do so in order to regain the right to use lethal force in self defense. Unlike Zimmerman, she was not pinned to the ground when she fired. Unlike Zimmerman, she went to get a gun and then returned to an earlier conflict that had ended. To make a comparison between those two would require that Martin jump Zimmerman, then leave him, then Zimmerman goes to his car, gets his gun and comes back and shoots Martin. Um... Which is not remotely what happened.
If she'd had her gun on her when she was attacked and used it then, she'd be in the right. But self defense doesn't allow you to get a gun *after* someone has hurt you and then go to where they are and shoot them. That's not self defense. That's retaliation.