Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law Does Not Apply to Defendants Already Engaged in Criminal Activity

Florida’s Stand Your Ground law garnered quite a bit of attention after it was passed and surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, but it’s essentially an extension of the Florida self-defense law that allows defendants in case involving violence to petition the court for a dismissal of the charges under certain circumstances where the defendant had a legal right to use violence where he/she reasonably believed he/she was in danger of becoming a victim of violence. What is special about the Stand Your Ground law in Florida is that it is a form of immunity, and a criminal defense lawyer does not have to leave the decision to a jury, which is always unpredictable. The criminal defense attorney can file a motion with the judge and force the state to present evidence. If the judge agrees with the defendant’s self-defense claim, the case ends there, and a jury never hears it. However, there are limitations to the Florida Stand Your Ground law.

In a recent case south of Jacksonville, Florida, the defendant was charged with shooting into a building. He claimed self-defense, and his criminal defense lawyer filed a motion for immunity/dismissal under the Florida Stand Your Ground law. The defendant claimed he exited his vehicle, and someone in the building fired a gun at him so he fired back into the building. If true, this would seem to constitute a good claim under the Stand Your Ground law. However, an evidentiary hearing is required with these motions, and a video of the incident showed that the defendant exited his vehicle and pointed a gun at some people before any of the shooting started. Subsequently, someone from the building fired at the defendant, and he fired back. It is true that the defendant was seemingly defending himself when he fired his gun, but the problem for him was waving his gun at people first. Under the Florida Stand Your Ground law, a defendant cannot succeed if he was engaged in criminal conduct immediately prior to the time his self-defense claim arose. When he was waving the gun at people, he was arguably committing an aggravated assault, among other possible crimes. Because he was committing a crime when his self-defense claim arose, he cannot take advantage of the Stand Your Ground law. That law precludes relief for people involved in criminal activity. This is true even if the state does not actually charge the defendant with the criminal activity that disqualifies the defendant from relief under the Stand Your Ground law. As a result, the defendant was properly prosecuted and convicted of shooting into a building.