A Houston woman shot a man who attacked her at a gas station last Sunday. There’s already a lot of talk about “Stand Your Ground”. I, along with Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection, think it’s Self Defense.
While again urging caution given the nature of the “facts” we’re dealing with, it would seem to me that this case is not a Stand-Your-Ground.
As those of you who have been following along will by now have heard ad nauseam, Stand-Your-Ground simply relieves you of any generalized duty you might otherwise have had to retreat before using deadly force in self defense.
That generalized duty, however, only exists if there is a safe avenue of retreat available to you. You are never required to take advantage of an unsafe avenue of retreat, or one that increases your danger–like retreating across a busy freeway, for example.
If there is no safe avenue of retreat available, there is no duty to retreat, and if there is no duty to retreat then there is no need to apply Stand-Your-Ground to relieve of you of that non-existent duty to retreat.
Introduction to the AOJ TriadSo, was there a safe avenue of retreat, or was the threat so imminent that her defensive use of deadly force was imminent? A good way to analyze such situations is to consider the AOJ triad (discussed at length in Chapter 3 of “The Law of Self-Defense, 2nd Edition.”)
The AOJ triad is a conceptual model for evaluating whether a threat has achieved a degree of imminence warranting the defensive use of force. I first learned the AOJ triad while taking my Lethal Force Institute course from Massad Ayoob back in the mid-1990s. The letters of the acronym stand for Ability-Opportunity-Jeopardy.
Go to the link above for a full analysis of this incident and the applicable laws.
Well, she’s black, so I guess Stand Your Ground is okay in her case. But truth be told, I don’t see why she couldn’t just get into the car and drive off.
He’s close enough with a knife that the law will favor her generally. Giver her another 25 feet perhaps, but the closing distance is too close that it would put her at grave danger of multiple stab wounds were she to get her keys in the ignition, roll up her windows, start the car, put it into gear and drive off. She’s stabbed 10 times by then at least.
SYG laws relieve her of that requirement in any case since he punched her and had a knife in his hands.
Yes. Once an assault has taken place, depending on definition of assault, she has the right to defend! In Nevada the law states that a verbal assault with obvious physical means, even nothing more that weight, size and youth, can mean an assault has taken place and if the perp starts heading toward you, 15 feet and you can defend!
Two reasons:
1. As Floyd stated, her assailant is close enough that getting into the car, locking the doors, getting it started, and getting it to take off all before he reaches her, opens her door, or busts the window is iffy.
2. Her car had a gas nozzle, presumably pumping gas, attached which would have introduced another element of danger in her only feasible escape route.
Beyond that, the display of a firearm should have been enough to have the assailant back down. That he did not speaks volumes as to how difficult it would have been for her to escape such a determined attacker.
What,we can’t see the SOB get splattered?
That woman’s a hero in my book.How do you like that,Barack?
Wonder if that happens a lot on Martha’s Vineyard?HEH!
No…the only dangers in Martha’s Vineyard are old Buicks, booze, and a bridge!
Yeah, I figure if the guy isn’t smart enough to back off when she pulls out what looks like a shot-gun, it’s no longer even self-defense. They need to be looking into city ordinance for shooting animals.