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A man who shot and killed another man in Florida this week during an argument over a parking space will not be arrested or charged by the sheriffs office because of the states so-called Stand Your Ground law, the authorities said.

Britany Jacobs, 25, was sitting in a car parked in a handicapped space outside a convenience store in Clearwater, Fla., on Thursday afternoon when a man, Michael Drejka, approached her vehicle and started looking for a handicap permit, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County said at a news conference on Friday. Ms. Jacobss boyfriend, Markeis McGlockton, and their 5-year-old son were in the store when Ms. Jacobs and Mr. Drejka began to yell at each other about whether she was permitted to be in that space, Sheriff Gualtieri said.

In a video recorded on a surveillance camera, Mr. McGlockton, 28, exits the Circle A Food Store, approaches Mr. Drejka and shoves him to the ground. After Mr. McGlockton takes a few steps back, Mr. Drejka, 47, pulls out a gun and shoots him once in the chest.

Mr. McGlockton then retreats back into the store, clutching his chest. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Sheriff Gualtieri said.

Sheriff Gualtieri said his office did not arrest or charge Mr. Drejka, who had a concealed carry permit, because of Floridas Stand Your Ground law, which removes the obligation to retreat if a person feels threatened and frees the person to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.

The law was a national flash point after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager. The case reignited a debate about racial profiling and just treatment under the law.

In the recent Florida case, Mr. McGlockton, who was black, backed away from Mr. Drejka, who is white, after pushing him to the ground. Sheriff Gualtieri said this brief retreat gave him pause, but Mr. Drejka told the authorities that he was in fear that he was going to be struck again.

Sheriff Gualtieri described the contact as a violent push. This wasnt a shove, this wasnt just a tap, he said at the news conference. He slammed him to the ground.

Mr. Drejka had previously complained about people parking illegally in handicapped spots, he said.

The sheriffs office will refer the case to the state attorneys office to determine whether Mr. Drejka should be charged. Sheriff Gualtieri added that by instituting this law, the Florida Legislature had created a subjective standard for determining whether the person who used force was in fear of bodily harm, but suggested that his hands were tied because his department could be sued if it failed to follow the laws requirements.

I dont make the law we enforce the law, he said. And Im going to enforce it the way its written, the way the Legislatures intended for it to be applied. And others can have the debate about whether they like it or not.

Ms. Jacobs declined an interview on Saturday after she was reached by phone. Mr. Drejka did not respond to a request for comment.

Floridas law, which was adopted in 2005, received support from the National Rifle Association but was vigorously opposed by law enforcement officers. Last year, the State Legislature made it easier to use the law as a defense by shifting the burden during immunity hearings from the defense to the prosecution to show that such laws should not apply.

The state attorney for Pinellas County, Bernie McCabe, will have to present clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Drejka was not entitled to use the Stand Your Ground law, Sheriff Gualtieri said. Mr. McCabe could not be reached on Saturday.

More than most other states, Florida has made it particularly difficult to prosecute when a defendant has a reasonable claim to self-defense, said Caroline Light, a Harvard professor and the author of a book on the history of Stand Your Ground-type self-defense laws. Professor Light said that, in the video, Mr. McGlockton appeared to be defending his family through nonlethal means.

He shoves him, seemingly in an effort to get him away from his girlfriend, and then walks away, she said. The video would suggest its actually not reasonable for him to fear for his life.

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Florida Sheriff Cites Stand Your Ground in Not Arresting ...

Florida caught lots of attention after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teen. On trial for the killing is George Zimmerman who claims he acted under Floridas stand your ground law.

Michigan is among several states with laws similar to Floridas. Michigans stand your ground law was revised in 2006 by bipartisan majorities in the legislature. It was signed into law by Jennifer Granholm, who was the Democratic governor at the time.

Now, more than a dozen Democratic Michigan House members have introduced legislation to repeal the law.

Democratic Representative Tim Bledsoe sponsored House Bill 5644. I think the Trayvon Martin case really showed us the problem with having a law like stand your ground," he said.

According to Bledsoe, Michigan has another self-defense law called the Castle Doctrine, which states that a person has the right to defend themselves, their family and their property in their home.

Our effort to repeal the "stand your ground" law does not in any way affect the Castle Doctrine. But what we are seeing is that, if you are in a public place, and you are in a confrontation, and there is this opportunity for you to retreat, you must take advantage of that opportunity to retreat, said Bledsoe.

The Democratic representative said although he has not identified any case in Michigan where the "stand your ground" law has been used in self defense, he said "We see this more in terms of acting in a preemptive way to try to avoid situations like the Trayvon Martin case here in Michigan."

Rep. Bledsoe said he and others will continue to seek out public support to pressure legislators to repeal the law.

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Michigans stand-your-ground law would be repealed under ...

The stand your ground law took effect July 1 as part of sweeping firearms legislation signed by former Gov. Terry Branstad.

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An Iowa man accused of fatally shooting an attacker has been released and granted immunity under Iowa's new stand your groundlaw.

The court ruling filed Monday ordered the release of Kevin Duane Staley, 39, of Red Oak, who was scheduled to go on trial Tuesday. Staley acknowledged shootingDevin Alexander Davis, 27, of Villisca, on Oct. 11 near downtown Red Oak.

The new law says law-abiding people don't have to retreat before using deadly force if they believe they're in danger, even if they are wrong in estimating the danger they face.

District Judge James Heckerman said in his order that Staley was ambushed in an alley by two men wearing hoodies and bandannas as they screamed and ran toward him. Staley pulled his registered handgun after he was knocked down and shot Davis.Both attackers ran off, and Davis collapsed and died a few moments later. A knife was later found near Davis' body.

"A reasonable person being attacked in a dark alley by masked men would believe their life to be in jeopardy," Heckerman wrote in his order.

Staley's lawyer, DeShawne Bird-Sell, called the outcome "exactly in line with what the Legislature put in place" andpraised Heckerman for having "enough guts to actually rule" on the stand your ground issue.

"This is the very first of its kind in Iowa, the very first ruling," she said. "So I think it was groundbreaking."

Mark Swanson, an assistant Montgomery County attorney, called Staley's case "a great test case for this new statute" and said he doesn't believe his office will appeal.

"If youre legally carrying a concealed weapon and youre jumped in an alley, it probably tells you that you can shoot somebody," he said.

Swanson said prosecutors weren't aware of the statute when they began working on the case.

"It's brand new," he said. "We're just a small county. We haven't had this issue."

Heckerman said in his order that Iowa has not developed procedures to determine "stand your ground" immunity since the law took effect last July, so he relied onprecedent in other states, primarily Florida, which has had a stand your groundlaw in effect since 2005.

He found Staley had acted in accordance with the law, based upon a preponderance of the evidence standard.

Bird-Sell agreed that Iowa law is not clear onhow to raise the issue of immunity under stand your ground.

"No, absolutely not," she said. "The Legislature has determined that this is our statute; however, they give you no implementation of the statute when they write this law."

In other states that have stand your ground laws, Bird-Sell said, it has taken years for procedure to be established through case law or through legislative revision.

"Alabama went through and actually legislated what the procedure is," she said.

She said it would be helpful for the Legislature to revisit the statute to clarify what procedures to follow, but added that many legislators aren't familiar with how pretrial procedures work and that someone familiar with Iowa's criminal law system should be involved in drafting such arevision.

For instance, Bird-Sell said, many Iowans, including attorneys and police officers, don't realize that thelaw allows defendants to claim complete immunity from prosecution rather than simply claiming self-defense at trial, which they could already do under existing law.

Heckerman's approach of holding a pretrial evidentiary hearingon stand your groundimmunity differed from the procedure followed in another Iowa case where the defendant used a stand your ground defense.

In that case, Johnson County District Court Judge Paul Miller chose to let Lamar C. Wilson's case go to trial rather than holding a pretrial evidentiary hearing, as Wilson's lawyers requested. Miller said such a hearing could give a defendant "a preview of the state's case against him."

Wilson was convicted earlier this month of voluntary manslaughter, intimidation with a dangerous weapon and two counts of assault for fatally shooting one man and injuring two others onIowa City's pedestrian mall. But even after being convicted, Wilson could still receive immunity under stand your ground and be released if Miller rules in his favor. A hearing to decide the issuewill be held next week in Johnson County.

A judge last year ruledthat the defense was not valid for a Des Moines woman accused of killing her stepfather because the slaying occurred before the law took effect.

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Iowa 'stand your ground' law prompts release of slaying ...

The state of Iowa is fairly new to the Stand Your Ground game. It only recently passed the law, which simply states that there is no duty to retreat from an attacker prior to using lethal force.

Now, it seems the law will get its first test. Unfortunately for one man, it has entered the realm of the bizarre in how its being applied(emphasis mine).

Prior to Gov. Terry Branstad signing the SYG bill passed inApril 2017by the legislature into law, Iowans needed to make a reasonable effortto retreatfrom a perceived danger before using deadly force, unless they were in their homes or reasonably believed themselves to be in immediate danger of death or severe injury.

The facts in the Ped Mall shooting case werent in dispute. Wilson admitted shooting the three men who confronted him on the Ped Mall in the earlier hours of Aug. 27. The prosecution did not dispute that those three men were armed. But in a pre-trial hearing, Judge Paul Miller ruled that whether the SYG law applied in Wilsons case would only be considered in a post-conviction hearing, if he was convicted.

Since the legislature did not specify at what stage in a criminal proceeding a SYG defense should apply, Miller relied on the 1989Iowa Supreme Court rulinginState v. Kingto make his decision. In that case, the defendant claimed a state law providing immunity to anyone reporting a case of child abuse should apply to her, because even though she was the person who injured the child, she was also the person who brought the child to the doctor for treatment. The trial court judge in that case ruled that the immunity claim would not be considered until after the jurys verdict. The state Supreme Court upheld that decision.

Im sorry, but thats just weird.

If the facts are as presented here, it sounds like a slam-dunk case of self-defense. After all, if three armed men confront me, Im not likely to assume theyre merely there because they want to invite me to afternoon tea.

As the original source linked above noted, there is a profound inconsistency in how Stand Your Ground laws are applied. Sometimes law enforcement uses the law to not forward the case to a prosecutor, other times prosecutors use it to justify not prosecuting, and so on. Theres no real rhyme or reason.

Of course, theres a reason for that profound inconsistency.

When an investigator looks at the facts, he may easily be able to tell that its an instance of Stand Your Ground and that theres no reason to forward the case. In others, the investigator may not be so sure and will send it on so an actual attorney can take a look. Still, other times, judges see where a case should never have come to trial, so they dismiss it.

Even non-Stand Your Ground related self-defense cases go through similar inconsistencies.

That said, having a trial first andthen a hearing to determine if a Stand Your Ground law applies goes beyond the ridiculous. Why waste taxpayer money on a trial when a hearing may invalidate it in the first place? Why not have the hearing first so as to avoid the hassle of a trial if its determined to apply to the defendant?

Honestly, this makes no sense at all. Absolutely none.

See more here:
Iowa's First Test Of 'Stand Your Ground' Law Enters Realm ...

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WEST PALM BEACH (CBSMiami) A deputy, previously charged with manslaughter, could soon be back on patrol.

This after an appeals court upheld the dismissal of a manslaughter charge against BSO Deputy Peter Peraza for shooting and killingJermaine McBean who was holding an air rifle.

The court had been trying to decide whether Floridas Stand Your Ground law was applied correctly in the case.

As far as Deputy Peraza is concerned, based upon my review of the opinion, its game over for him. In other words, I believe that hes prevailed, said Perazas attorneyEric Schwartzreich.

Investigators say McBean, was carrying an unloaded air rifle into his Oakland Park apartment complex back in 2013 when Deputy Peraza shot and killed him.

In this undated photo provided by Jennifer Young, Jermaine McBean, left, with his grandmother Sylvia McDonald pose for a photo at Jermaines graduation from Pace University. Jermaine McBean was shot by a sheriffs deputy while carrying an air rifle in 2013. (Source: AP)

Perazas attorney said his client was trying to defend himself when he shot at McBean and that stand your ground applies since he gets the same protection as everyone else.

Deputy Peraza should have never been charged and the men and women that wear the uniform need to know that based upon this ruling they can go out there and keep our community safe and do their job, saidSchwartzreich.

A law enforcement officer is a person as defined in the stand your ground statue. As a result of that, law enforcement officers are allowed to defend themselves, said well-known South Florida attorney David Weinstein.

Prosecutors argued that stand your ground wasnt meant to apply to police officers.

The attorney for the McBean family said they are devastated and still want a jury to decide whether hes guilty or innocent.

The family has been sad since day one. All theyve wanted in this case is for Peraza to have a day in court before a jury in which a jury can hear all of the evidence for and against him, said McBeans family attorney David Schoen. Whatever the cause was for what he did that day, he took a life unlawfully.

McBean, who was a computer engineer, suffered from bi-polar disease and was taking medication. His family believes he bought the air rifle on a whim on that fateful day.

His family said he was wearing earbuds listening to music, and likely never heard the commands to drop his air rifle.

Deputy Peraza said he feared for his life when he opened fire.

McBeans family maintains he never pointed the air gun at anyone.

Their job is to protect the citizens and you dont shoot someone before hes really, actually pointing it at you which didnt happen, said McBeans mother Jennifer Young.

The appeals court also wants Floridas Supreme Court to determine if cops can use stand your ground defense.

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Court: 'Stand Your Ground' Law Applies To Deputy Who Killed Man - CBS Miami