Why is “Duty To Retreat” Superior to “Stand Your Ground”?
Self-defense laws required a “duty to retreat”. Meaning a threatened person could not harm another, especially with deadly force, if there was an opportunity to flee. The threatened person had to be trapped or cornered.
In 2005, Florida became the first state to remove any “duty to retreat”. By 2012, 19 other states did the same. These laws became known as “stand your ground”. Today, there are 38 “stand your ground” states.
But what was wrong with a “duty to retreat”?
Too often, people were found guilty of crimes ranging from battery to manslaughter because they didn’t retreat “far enough” to meet the legal definition of self-defense. “Stand your ground” laws give the benefit of the doubt to the threatened person.
In 2012, “stand your ground” laws were nationally scrutinized after a black teenager was fatally shot in Florida by a community watch volunteer who claimed he acted in self-defense. The national media reported that an unarmed black teen was shot and killed by a white man who wasn’t arrested by the police due to Florida’s “stand your ground” laws. At this juncture, “stand your ground” critics claimed there was racial bias in the application of the law.
John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, conducted…