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Updated 20 April 2023

Ralph Yarl survived being shot after approaching the wrong house in Missouri

Two recent cases of unarmed people being shot and killed in the US have renewed discussion of so-called "stand your ground" laws.

The shootings have prompted questions about a person's rights to protect themselves and their property in the US - and when a person can use deadly force in self defence.

The answer depends on where you live.

What is a stand your ground law?

A stand your ground law is enacted at state level and most of these permit an individual to protect themselves with the use of reasonable force, including deadly force, to prevent death or great bodily harm.

Stand your ground laws echo the common law "castle doctrine" principle, which does not carry a "duty to retreat" when a person feels they must defend their home.

The duty to retreat, or an obligation to step back and avoid confrontation where possible, is removed under most stand your ground laws, dubbed "shoot first" laws by critics.

The laws began to appear in states after a bill featuring the language "has the right to stand his or her ground" was introduced in Florida in 2005.

When defendants use a stand your ground law to defend their actions, often the case centres on whether or not their use of force meets the standard for "reasonable", given the perceived threat.

Some laws refer to "deadly force", defined as the amount of force which a reasonable person would deem likely to cause death, or serious bodily harm, to another person, according to Cornell University.

How many states have stand your ground laws?

The states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia Wyoming.

In these states, there is no duty to retreat from an attacker.

In Missouri, a person does not have a duty to retreat from their private property. An 84-year-old man has been charged first-degree assault and armed criminal action over Ralph Yarl's shooting.

Eight other states - California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, Vermont and Washington - permit the use of deadly force in self defence.

New York state, where Ms Gillis was shot as the car she was in pulled into the wrong driveway, does not have a stand your ground law, and imposes a broad duty to retreat.

But its state law also introduces the castle doctrine in certain circumstances. A man has been charged with second-degree murder over the Ms Gillis' death.

The impact of stand your ground laws

John Roman, director of the Center on Public Safety and Justice at NORC at the University of Chicago, authored a study examining 53,019 cases involving stand your ground laws.

He told the BBC that they "promote violence".

"People feel like they have an added protection that makes them more likely to shoot where they wouldn't have shot without that perceived protection," he said.

It also "tragically" increases racial disparities in the US criminal justice system, he said.

Data from the report showed that, when the shooter is white and the victim is black, the white shooter is 10 times more likely to have their actions deemed justified than when the shooter is black and the victim is white.

The study found that, in cases where stand your ground laws featured, 11.4% of white-on-black homicides were ruled as justified, compared to just 1.2% of black-on-white homicides.

The death of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 thrust conversations around the principle behind stand your ground into the national spotlight.

Lawyers for neighbourhood watchman George Zimmerman, 29, said he acted in self-defence with justifiable use of deadly force. He was acquitted of all charges.

The case sparked a fierce debate about racial profiling in the US and spontaneous protest marches were staged overnight in cities such as San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC and Atlanta.

In another prominent case, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black male, was fatally gunned down by three white men while jogging through a Georgia neighbourhood, unarmed. The men tried to justify their actions by citing stand your ground laws.

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What is a stand your ground law and which states have one? - BBC

(KMAland) -- Missouri's Stand Your Ground law has been cited a number of times since the recent shooting of a Missouri teen by a homeowner whose house he went to by mistake.

But one expert said the statute is not what authorizes a person to use lethal force when a "legitimate" threat occurs at their home or property.

Ari Freilich, state policy director for theGiffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, pointed out Stand Your Ground laws apply in public spaces, and the Castle Doctrine covers private property.

He said what the two have in common is lowering the legal requirement to avoid using lethal force when possible, by stepping away, or otherwise de-escalating the situation.

"Generally speaking, you cannot use lethal force unless it was objectively reasonable for you to believe that it was necessary to use that amount of force to prevent death or serious bodily harm, or really serious crimes from occurring," Freilich explained.

Freilich noted both the Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws fall under the umbrella of homicide laws. He added although every state has variations, the legal system has important protections, independent of the two, in the form of self-defense and justifiable homicide laws.

Freilich stressed although the Castle Doctrine does not require someone to step away or attempt to de-escalate a threat when at home, it has major restrictions.

"That does not authorize someone to use lethal force when there is no reason to believe that someone is unlawfully entering the home," Freilich emphasized. "And also, when there is really no objectively reasonable indicator that the person was a threat to life or safety."

And although de-escalating has historically been the expectation in public spaces, Freilich acknowledged people's understanding of this seems to be changing.

"Stand your ground laws have altered and distorted that and told people they have some vague affirmative right in public spaces -- wherever they might lawfully be present -- to stand their ground and not withdraw, not de-escalate in that way," Freilich said.

Freilich co-authored a study with the Southern Poverty Law Center which concluded Stand Your Ground lawsshould be repealed, stating, "They encourage a trigger-happy culture of anxious vigilantism that cheapens the value of human life. And they deepen vast and harmful disparities in our legal system."

At KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

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Legal Expert On Castle Doctrine, 'Stand Your Ground' Laws - KMAland

MACON, Ga. 38 states have some variation of a 'Stand Your Ground law,' but Georgias law could go through some changes.

Newly-introduced legislation in Georgias General Assembly could roll back the law here.

It would allow someone to decide whether they can first remove themselves from a situation without using deadly force before they shoot.

"It just changes the grounds pretty significantly if this becomes law," Attorney Frank Hogue said.

The latest legal hot point -- House Bill 842, also known as the "Georgia Shoot First Act."

"Essentially, it's trying to amend our law to say, instead of no duty to retreat, you better look for a reasonable escape from the perceived threat, because if you don't and you then kill or seriously injure somebody and then claim, 'They were threatening me,' I suppose under this bill, if it passes, a prosecution could look at it and ask, 'Could you have escaped?'" Hogue said.

Under current 'Stand Your Ground' law, gun owners can protect themselves or their properties with deadly force if they feel threatened by an aggressor. Our Atlanta station 11Alive spoke to state representative Marvin Lim, who introduced the bill.

"People are still allowed to defend themselves but are also required -- as everyone still is, whatever the stand your ground regime is or not to decide whether or not this is force that is necessary," Lim said.

Attorney Frank Hogue says defense lawyer organizations will likely oppose the bill because it would restrict the rights of potential defendants. He also believes it could cause complications in the courtrooms.

"We like to see nobody being out in this position in the first place. The question is if you are, should you now have the burden placed on you as a citizen to stop and wonder, 'Do I have a way out of this?' Hogue asked.

Lim also told 11Alive that many people have been killed by property owners who mistakenly thought they were being threatened.

Democrats introduced the bill in the final days of this years legislative session in March. We reached out to both Houston and Bibb County's district attorneys, but neither were available to speak on the issue.

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'Changes the grounds pretty significantly': What 'Stand Your Ground' law rollback means for Georgia - 13WMAZ.com

In fact, Jamison said, defendants are often too quick to consider the statute.

The stand your ground law is raised as a possible defense, even when it has no possible relevance to the situation," Jamison said. "And the case we're currently hearing about in Clay County here: It has no relevance.

Since no one tracks the use of the statute and some cases dont make it to court, its hard to know how often Stand Your Ground is considered for a legal strategy and for what types of cases those are.

Stand Your Ground did have relevance in the case of a woman who fatally shot an off-duty Kansas City firefighter in October 2022. Charged with second degree murder, she claimed she shot Anthony Santi, 41, in defense of another person. After declining to prosecute the woman, the Jackson County Prosecutor's office said in a statement to the news media:

We grieve with the family and community over this tragic loss of life of Mr. Santi. Missouri law governs this case, specifically self-defense and defense of others, leading us to decline charges after a careful review.

The Missouri law allows the use of physical force to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person.

Lester turned himself in at the Clay County Detention Center on Tuesday. It is not yet apparent what his legal strategy will be in defending himself against the two felony charges. Jamison, who writes and lectures about self-defense law, doubts Stand Your Ground will be part of it.

Self-defense is an affirmative defense, he said. So you have to prove that the other person was threatening you before you act in self-defense.

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Missouri has a 'Stand Your Ground' law, but it may not help Andrew ... - Nebraska Public Media | News

After the killing of an unarmed Black teenager named Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, the shooter, George Zimmerman, invoked Floridas Stand Your Ground Law (SYG) defense. A few months later, PBS reported on a study by Texas A&M University that strongly suggested that these types of laws would lead to more deaths.

In the 11 years since that study, thats been proven true. According to a Rand Corp. analysis released in January of this year, there is evidence to support that such laws increase firearm homicide rates.

Another analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found similar conclusions.

State-level increases in homicide and firearm homicide rates reached 10% or higher for many Southern states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana," it said.

Additionally, the Southern Poverty Law Center has said Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws exacerbate problems in a legal system that is already rife with racial inequity, saying nonwhite people are stopped, racially profiled, searched and arrested by police at higher rates than white people and more likely to be sentenced to greater terms than white people.

Nevertheless, SYG laws have found fertile ground in especially conservative states, according to Dr. Robert Spitzer, a distinguished service professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland.

The spread of stand your ground laws reflects the political muscle of the NRA and the gun rights issue in the Republican Party in conservative states, Spitzer told Capital Tonight. This political force has logged successes in spite of the fact that numerous studies demonstrate that SYG laws do nothing to increase safety but in fact increase homicides and make violent confrontations more likely.

Case in point: Last Thursday night in Kansas City, Missouri, another unarmed Black teenager named Ralph Yarl knocked on the wrong door to collect his two younger brothers who were on a playdate. Reportedly, an 84-year-old white man answered the door, and shot Yarl in the forehead and in the right arm. According to The New York Times, when the prosecutor announced that the man had been charged, he said what many already believed: There was a racial component to the case.

Its not yet clear if the alleged shooter will be using a SYG defense, but he may. Missouri has such a law, as do 37 other states an increase of nearly 60% since Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida in 2012.

One of the reasons why these laws are proliferating is because they have expanded the areas in which traditional self-defense laws would have other requirements, said Paula Johnson, professor of law at Syracuse University and the director of the Cold Case Justice Initiative.

Johnson explained that in the Trayvon Martin case, the stand your ground law was used by George Zimmerman in a way that expanded on the areas in which self defense has historically been used as a defense.

The law, according to some reporting, is also not applied uniformly.

For example, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, women in abusive relationships and people of color have tried and failed to invoke SYG laws in many cases, showing that these laws perpetuate inequities that are baked into the legal system."

Professor Johnson also makes a direct connection between barriers to voting and public policy that hurts minorities and people of color.

When there are restrictions on voting, that means people are locked out of the system to have their voices reflected in the laws that are passed, Johnson said. District attorneys for example are elected. Its also important regarding the people who serve on juries. Frequently, juries are selected from the voter registration rolls. People of color need to be on those rolls in order to participate in the criminal justice system.

These kinds of shootings are not exclusive to SYG states.

On Saturday, a 20-year-old made a wrong turn while driving through rural upstate New York with friends. As she turned into a driveway, the homes owner emerged from the house and shot twice.

Kaylin Gillis died as emergency crews attempted CPR.

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'Stand Your Ground' laws have increased by 60% across U.S. since ... - Spectrum News