Legally Pink Law wants to share that Fox News reported on Friday, March 1st, that a state task force concluded that Florida’s “stand your ground law” works and should not be overturned. However, the task force suggested that the standards for neighborhood watch groups should be looked at by the Legislature.
“Governor Rick Scott’s office released a 44-page report saying that Florida residents had a right to feel safe and secure and had a fundamental right to defend themselves from attack,” Fox News reported. This task force was initiated because the parents of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was shot and killed a year ago by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, had asked the task force to change the 2005 law to make it harder for someone who starts a fight to use a self-defense argument.
When the task force issued their final report, they concluded that Florida “stand your ground law” is fine as is; but several minor recommendations were suggested. The task force recommended that the role of neighborhood watch participants should be limited to observing, not pursuing, confronting or provoking potential suspects.
It’s been just over a year since Sanford, Fla., neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin, and the case remains as divisive and confounding as ever. Florida’s “stand your ground law” states:
“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”
The second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, charged in the killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, is tentatively set for June 10, 2013.
If you need a Personal Injury Attorney in Orlando, Florida then give Legally Pink Law a call today to schedule a consultation with one of our attorneys.