It remains unclear whether a fight ensued, who was the aggressor and whether Zimmerman had injuries consistent with his claims of being beaten up by Martin. Despite being told by the 911 operator to remain in his car until officers arrived, Zimmerman instead confronted Martin. At the time, Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer who called police after spotting Martin. In that case, Martin, 17, was walking home after buying Skittles from a nearby convenience store. “Stand your ground” laws came under national scrutiny during the trial of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Over time, states began to expand the non-retreat rule to spaces outside of the home. The “castle doctrine” permits the use of lethal force in self-defense without imposing a duty to retreat in the home. This principle emerged from the 17th-century maxim that a “man’s home is his castle.” The proliferation of states that have adopted “stand your ground” laws in recent years has complicated the analysis of self-defense involving the duty to retreat.ĭating back to early Anglo-American law, the duty to retreat has been subject to an important exception historically called the “ castle doctrine”: A person has no duty to retreat in his home. This reaffirms the law’s belief in the sanctity of human life and ensures that deadly force is an option of last resort. Only those with “clean hands” can benefit from this justification and avoid criminal liability.įinally, a person has a duty to retreat before using deadly force, as long as it can be done safely. A person’s own subjective view of this fear is not enough to satisfy the standard for self-defense.įourth, the law does not permit a first aggressor to benefit from a self-defense justification. Third, the person’s assessment of whether he is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury must be reasonable, meaning that a supposed “reasonable person” would consider the threat to be sufficiently dangerous to put him in fear of death or serious bodily injury. For instance, a person who is assaulted cannot leave the scene, plan revenge later and conduct vigilante justice by killing the initial aggressor. The threat by the aggressor must be immediate. Second, the use of self-defense is limited to imminent harm. If the aggressor lightly punches the victim in the arm, for example, the victim cannot use deadly force in response. To determine whether this standard is met, the law looks at five central concepts.įirst, the use of force must be proportionate to the force employed by the aggressor. ![]() This is the standard that every state uses to define self-defense. The law of self-defense holds that a person who is not the aggressor is justified in using deadly force against an adversary when he reasonably believes that he is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury. Photo by Mark Hertzberg-Pool/Getty Images Five elements of self-defenseĪs a professor of criminal law, I teach my students that the law of self-defense in America proceeds from an important concept: Human life is sacred, and the law will justify the taking of human life only in narrowly defined circumstances. Kyle Rittenhouse testifies during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Wisconsin on charges in the shootings of three people, two of them fatally. You cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create.” In delivering its verdict, a Wisconsin jury decided that Rittenhouse’s conduct was justified, even though the prosecution argued that he provoked the violent encounter and, therefore, should not be able to find refuge in the self-defense doctrine.Īs prosecutor Thomas Binger said in his closing argument: “When the defendant provokes this incident, he loses the right to self-defense. The lakeside city of 100,000 was the scene of chaotic demonstrations after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. ![]() The Wisconsin jury believed Rittenhouse’s claims that he feared for his life and acted in self-defense after he drove about 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois – picking up an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in Kenosha – in what he claimed was an effort to protect property during violent protests. In a two-week trial that reignited debate over self-defense laws across the nation, a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting three people, two fatally, during a racial justice protest in Kenosha.
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