grzegorz wrote:Drejka was also found guilty because according to the stand your ground law you can't cause a dispute and then claim stand your ground which is also why Zimmerman should be in jail.
It can be argued that Drejka was not the instigator, but McGlockton was. Under SYG, Drejka did not have the duty to retreat. Pinellas County Sheriff did not arrest Drejka, stating SYG precluded him from doing so.
However, Drejka was found guilty because he did not prove self defense in his manslaughter case brought by the State Attorney’s Office, not because of SYG.
Excerpts from "In latest ‘stand your ground’ case, a question: Who started it?"
Kathryn Varn on August 3 2018 wrote:Florida law does have a provision that says in part that someone cannot assert a "stand your ground" defense if the person "initially provokes the use or threatened use of force against himself or herself."
. . . But whether that part of the law comes into play in this case is iffy. According to legal experts, it generally doesn’t apply when the confrontation is just verbal, barring any threats of violence.
"Initiation of conduct that’s offensive, annoying, sticking your nose into somebody else’s business — those actions don’t preclude stand your ground protection from the person that did it," said Clearwater defense attorney Stephen Romine.
Or, in the words of Stetson University College of Law professor Charles Rose: "The law is set up to allow you to be as big an ass as you want to be, as long as it’s just with words."
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who has said the stand your ground law precludes his agency from arresting Drejka, has taken a similar stance. At a recent news conference, the sheriff, who is a lawyer, said what was "merely a discussion about why she’s parked there … didn’t provoke the attack." His agency has forwarded the case to the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office to decide whether to press charges.