On July 19 , 2018 , outside a convenience store in Clearwater , Florida , 47 - class - honest-to-god Michael Drejka , begin contend with Brittany Jacobs about a handicap parking spot while her beau , Markeis McGlockton , shopped inside the store . After ascertain of the argument , McGlockton allegedly returned to the car and pushed Drejka to the ground . Drejka then pulled out a Glock .40 - caliber side arm and , accord to police reports , shot McGlockton in the thorax . Thirty moment later on McGlockton , founding father of three , was dead .
Michael Drejka was not arrested or buck . The next day the sheriff of Pinellas County , Bob Gaultieri , state , " The law on Stand Your Ground is clear , and the Florida legislature has spoken on this . [ Drejka ’s action at law are ] within the bookends of Stand Your Ground , and within the bookends of force being absolve , and the immunity that the great unwashed are granted under the ' resist Your priming coat ' constabulary is not just resistance from being charge , not just an resistance from convicted , but is an immunity from arrest . "
But what are " Stand Your Ground " jurisprudence , and where do they total from ? In short , these laws are legal justification for self - defence from perceived threats against an individual , including the use of deadly force . Florida legislative act 776.013 , the Stand Your Ground law of Florida , states : " A person who is in a home or abode in which the someone has a right to be has no duty to retire and has the rightfulness to brook his or her primer coat and apply or imperil to use : Nondeadly force against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such demeanour is necessary to hold himself or herself or another against the other ’s impendent use of unlawful force ; or deadly military force if he or she reasonably believes that using or peril to use such force is necessary to forbid impending destruction or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to forestall the close at hand commission of a forcible felony . "
The Castle Doctrine
The idea behind Stand Your Ground laws comes from the Castle Doctrine , according to Caroline Light , generator of " remain firm Your Ground : A History of America ’s Love Affair with Lethal Self - Defense , " and senior lecturer and director of undergraduate study at Harvard University . The Castle Doctrine was a uncouth law that allowed for an individual to oppose themselves in the home , whereas typical English common police force school of thought stated soul had a duty to retreat when faced with a unfriendly terror . Light explicate that the Castle Doctrine see back to the 1600s " and was the one exception to the duty to retreat to preserve life and allow the land decide the wrongfulness . "
" The bound of the castle commence to move out of the habitation around the meter of the American Civil War . After the Civil War there were state subject that inflate the boundaries that of where a man can fight down himself outdoors of his dwelling house , " Light says .
" There was a deliberate push by the NRA ( National Rifle Association ) and the ALEC ( American Legislative Exchange Council , bleed by the Koch Brother ) , to exposit bear your earth laws in the mid-2000s , starting with the southward — with Florida being the rough , " Light enounce . The first Stand Your Ground jurisprudence in American came to pass in Florida in 2005 . Beyond offering immunity , it has been expanded with amendments that call for the prosecution to essay the individual threatened wasnot reasonableindefendingtheir property .
" Approximately half the nation have SYG practice of law , " suppose Light . " The variation is in the definition of the societal geographics where ego - defence can be used . “According to Giffords Law Center , 29 states have Stand Your Ground laws of some pattern or another . Another seven " countenance the employment of mortal force in self - defense in public with no tariff to retreat through a combining of statute , juridical decision and/or panel instructions . "
Light offers that there are a host of underlie roots to the development of Stand Your Ground laws , most of them staunch from racial and gender issues .
" In the U.S. , the [ story of ] the Castle Doctrine was specifically for snowy , property owning man . It sounds like a universal , write in slipstream and sex - neutral terminal figure , but it ’s not decide that way . Stand Your Ground laws are the selective elaboration of the Castle Doctrine , but only for certain hoi polloi ; one that ’s save for everyone , but not adjudicated for everyone . There are cases where black house are prosecuted for the same defense . Women who seek to take digest Your Ground against violent partners go to jail , " she says .
The chief example she points to is that of Marrisa Alexander , a Florida fair sex who was convicted in 2012 of three counting of aggravated rape with a deadly weapon after firing a warning shot , in her home , after her boyfriend threatened to kill her . She was released from prison house in 2017 . The jurisprudence has also been turn up to be ineffective in combating offense . In 2017 a subject area byOxford University , published by the American Medical Association discovered that homicide rate in Florida have increase nearly 25 percent since the introduction of its Stand Your Ground law .
In the case of Michael Drejka , Florida ’s Stand Your Ground law prove to be no Defense Department for his shooting of Markeis McGlockton . On Aug. 13 , 2018 , the Florida States Attorney ’s Office charged Drejka with manslaughter .
