Judge throws out amendment to Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ gun law

MIAMI: A Miami judge on Monday struck down as unconstitutional an amendment to Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ gun law on the use of lethal force in cases of self- defence, in a victory for gun control advocates and prosecutors.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch ruled on procedural grounds, saying the change to the law by the state legislature was illegal and had to be done rather by the Florida Supreme Court.

As passed in 2005, the law gave people in Florida the right to use lethal force to defend themselves if they felt their lives were under threat. It was up to the defendants to prove they were acting in self defence.

The law was at the centre of a case that drew national attention when a neighbourhood watchman named George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed black teen named Trayvon Martin during an altercation in 2012. Zimmerman was acquitted at trial on self defence grounds.

Under the amendment to the law, which was passed in May, a preliminary hearing must be held at which it became the responsibility of prosecutors to disprove defendants’ claims of self defence — not the other way round, as it had been.

And if the prosecutors failed, there would be no trial.

Prosecutors argued that under the amended law they basically had to try cases twice.

In his 14-page ruling the judge said this amendment meant effectively that some defendants would never go to trial.

The amendment to the law had been backed by the America’s powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association. — AFP