StormX
Banned
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - An effort to repeal a Florida law allowing people to use deadly force if they reasonably fear for their safety failed on Thursday, reigniting a controversy over how the law figured in the Trayvon Martin murder trial.
The statute, known as Stand Your Ground, figured prominently in the highly publicized case. Police in Sanford, Florida, citing the law, initially declined to arrest neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman after he shot Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old who was on his way back from a convenience store.
After Zimmerman was acquitted last summer, critics demanded changes to the law. Although Zimmerman's legal team did not rely on Stand Your Ground to defend him, the trial judge included the law in her instructions to the jury.
"Let's repeal and start over," the sponsor of the effort, Democrat Alan Williams of Tallahassee, told the committee. "Let's repair the broken hearts that so many families are feeling right now because they have lost loved ones."
The Republican-led Florida House Criminal Justice Subcommittee took testimony for nearly five hours over Williams's bill to repeal the Stand Your Ground law before rejecting it nearly unanimously, with a vote of 11-2. Several Democrats on the panel joined Republican colleagues to kill the measure.
"Stand your ground simply says if you're not breaking the law, if you have a right to be where you are, then you don't have a duty to turn and run," said the committee's Republican chairman, Matt Gaetz of Walton Beach, who made it clear before the hearing began that the repeal bill had no chance. "Floridians are done being hapless victims."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-florida-standyourground-20131107,0,4166906.story
The statute, known as Stand Your Ground, figured prominently in the highly publicized case. Police in Sanford, Florida, citing the law, initially declined to arrest neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman after he shot Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old who was on his way back from a convenience store.
After Zimmerman was acquitted last summer, critics demanded changes to the law. Although Zimmerman's legal team did not rely on Stand Your Ground to defend him, the trial judge included the law in her instructions to the jury.
"Let's repeal and start over," the sponsor of the effort, Democrat Alan Williams of Tallahassee, told the committee. "Let's repair the broken hearts that so many families are feeling right now because they have lost loved ones."
The Republican-led Florida House Criminal Justice Subcommittee took testimony for nearly five hours over Williams's bill to repeal the Stand Your Ground law before rejecting it nearly unanimously, with a vote of 11-2. Several Democrats on the panel joined Republican colleagues to kill the measure.
"Stand your ground simply says if you're not breaking the law, if you have a right to be where you are, then you don't have a duty to turn and run," said the committee's Republican chairman, Matt Gaetz of Walton Beach, who made it clear before the hearing began that the repeal bill had no chance. "Floridians are done being hapless victims."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-florida-standyourground-20131107,0,4166906.story
