An acquittal in a murder case out of Louisiana provides a real-time illustration of the difference between the application of what I refer to as “hard” Stand-Your-Ground provisions versus “soft” Stand-Your-Ground provisions. (Details here are as reported by The Advocate and other news sources.)
The facts of the case involve a bare-handed attack by a large aggressor against a smaller defender, one Jacob Westbrook, who was armed with a knife. Westbrook, who testified at trial that he had never been in a fight before, stabbed the aggressor once in the chest after, he says, the larger and stronger aggressor punched him in the head. It is noteworthy that the aggressor was a guest, perhaps little wanted, in Westbrook’s home at the time of the conflict.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/02/l ... r-ground/Louisiana, where this Case of the Week took place, is among the minority of “SYG” states that fall into the “hard” SYG category. As with Texas, this explicit prohibition on attacking a failure to retreat on the basis of reasonableness can be found in the relevant statutory language.
Louisiana Revised Statute 14:20 “Justifiable Homicide” provides in relevant part:
D. No finder of fact shall be permitted to consider the possibility of retreat as a factor in determining whether or not the person who used deadly force had a reasonable belief that deadly force was reasonable and apparently necessary to prevent a violent or forcible felony involving life or great bodily harm or to prevent the unlawful entry.
Just Because It’s Against the Law Doesn’t Mean Prosecution Won’t Try
You may be surprised (or perhaps not) to learn that this explicit statutory prohibition on arguing the reasonableness of a failure to retreat did not prevent the prosecution from trying to do exactly what the statute says they aren’t allowed to do: attack defendant Westbrook’s claim of self-defense on the basis that his failure to avoid the fight was unreasonable.
In fact, the prosecution sought to be able to be able to bake this legal argument into the jury instructions as early as during jury selection for the trial. When the trial judge rejected the prosecutions attempt, the prosecution sought to have the judge’s rejection overturned on appeal. Fortunately for the defense, the state appellate court upheld the trial rejection.