Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC Gov­ern­ment's thrust to in­tro­duce stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion has sparked de­bate among politi­cians and the pub­lic.

The pro­pos­al, ini­tial­ly cham­pi­oned by Per­sad-Bisses­sar while serv­ing as Op­po­si­tion leader aims to em­pow­er cit­i­zens to use force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, in self-de­fence with­out an oblig­a­tion to re­treat when faced with a per­ceived threat.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that such leg­is­la­tion is nec­es­sary to ad­dress the rise in vi­o­lent crime and home in­va­sions, sug­gest­ing the lo­cal ver­sion may re­flect el­e­ments of Flori­da’s stand-your-ground law, which has served as a mod­el in sev­er­al US states.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie con­firmed that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has been in­struct­ed to as­sem­ble a spe­cial ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee to ex­plore the fea­si­bil­i­ty and le­gal im­pli­ca­tions of such leg­is­la­tion.

Je­re­mie stat­ed that the com­mit­tee is ex­pect­ed to be formed by the end of June, with its rec­om­men­da­tions to be sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment fol­low­ing the up­com­ing mid-year bud­get re­view.

Flori­da’s le­gal frame­work

Flori­da was among the first states to en­act a stand-your-ground law, which it did in 2005. The leg­is­la­tion ex­pand­ed on the tra­di­tion­al Cas­tle Doc­trine, which per­mits self-de­fence in one's home, by re­mov­ing the du­ty to re­treat in any place a per­son law­ful­ly oc­cu­pies.

Key pro­vi­sions of the Flori­da statute in­clude:

1. No Du­ty to Re­treat:

A per­son who is not en­gaged in an un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty and is in a place where they have a right to have no du­ty to re­treat be­fore us­ing force in self-de­fence.

2. Use of Dead­ly Force:

Dead­ly force is jus­ti­fied if the per­son rea­son­ably be­lieves it is nec­es­sary to pre­vent im­mi­nent death or great bod­i­ly harm to them­selves or oth­ers or to pre­vent a forcible felony.

3. Pre­sump­tion of Rea­son­able­ness in Home or Ve­hi­cle:

The law pre­sumes that a per­son has a rea­son­able fear of death or great bod­i­ly harm if:

An in­trud­er un­law­ful­ly and forcibly en­ters their home, dwelling, or oc­cu­pied ve­hi­cle.

The de­fend­er knew or had rea­son to be­lieve that this un­law­ful en­try was oc­cur­ring.

4. Im­mu­ni­ty from Pros­e­cu­tion:

Those who use force un­der the law are im­mune from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion and civ­il ac­tion un­less the force used is de­ter­mined to be un­law­ful.

5. Ex­cep­tions:

The law does not ap­ply if:

* The per­son us­ing force was en­gaged in un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty.

* The per­son against whom the force was used had a le­gal right to be in the lo­ca­tion and there is no re­strain­ing or­der or sim­i­lar le­gal ac­tion.

* The per­son us­ing force pro­voked the use of force un­less they with­drew and the oth­er par­ty con­tin­ued at­tack­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to We­in­stein's le­gal team, while stand-your-ground pro­vides sig­nif­i­cant pro­tec­tion for self-de­fence, it is not an ab­solute shield against pros­e­cu­tion.

There are sev­er­al sce­nar­ios where this law may not ap­ply, leav­ing in­di­vid­u­als vul­ner­a­ble to crim­i­nal charges.

"Stand-your-ground pro­tec­tion may be for­feit­ed if the per­son claim­ing self-de­fence was en­gaged in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties at the time of the in­ci­dent. Stand-your-ground does not pro­tect in­di­vid­u­als who pro­voke an at­tack or are the ini­tial ag­gres­sors in a con­fronta­tion. This lim­i­ta­tion is of­ten re­ferred to as the 'clean hands' doc­trine in self-de­fence law."

While Flori­da's stand-your-ground law gen­er­al­ly elim­i­nates the du­ty to re­treat, there may be ex­cep­tions in cer­tain lo­ca­tions or cir­cum­stances. For ex­am­ple, in some work­place sit­u­a­tions, em­ploy­ees may still have a du­ty to re­treat, if pos­si­ble, be­fore us­ing force against a co-work­er or cus­tomer.

Flori­da’s law gained in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion fol­low­ing the 2012 killing of Trayvon Mar­tin, an un­armed teenag­er, by George Zim­mer­man. Though Zim­mer­man was ac­quit­ted, the case ig­nit­ed wide­spread crit­i­cism of stand-your-ground laws and their po­ten­tial for mis­use.

Then-gov­er­nor Rick Scott con­vened a task force to ex­am­ine the law. The 19-mem­ber task force rec­om­mend­ed the stand-your-ground law not be over­turned, find­ing the "ma­jor­i­ty of Florid­i­ans favour an ex­pan­sive right to self-de­fence".

Op­po­nents ar­gue that stand-your-ground en­cour­ages a “shoot first, ask ques­tions lat­er” cul­ture, while sup­port­ers view it as a crit­i­cal tool for pro­tect­ing per­son­al safe­ty in in­creas­ing­ly dan­ger­ous en­vi­ron­ments.