Sometimes I think that english causes some of the problems when we are trying to communicate. For example, the pavement in the US is the road while it's the side walk in the UK.
My guess, at least from when I have visited/lived in NA, the garage is outside the building and not part of the primary residence. Even if it wasn't what is clear is that there was nothing stopping this person from leaving the scene and getting away. A judge rejected Alexander’s Stand Your Ground defense, saying that she could have escaped "through the front or back door," according to court records. This was part of what the prosecution used as the reasoning behind why they threw out the stand your ground law.
The law is applied as follows:
http://www.folioweekly.com/Hot-Bullets-Cold-Truth,5556
“Stand your ground” has written limitations found in statute and court decisions and unwritten rules which cops, judges and state attorneys know but which they will disclose to you too late, if ever, when you’re before the bar in jumpsuit and chains. Lastly, there are the politics of “stand your ground,” which are smarmy.
It is impolite, of course, to hint that elected sheriffs, elected judges and elected state attorneys are influenced by the opinions of voters, the remarks of gnarled newspaper scribblers and the expressions of splendidly coiffed and barbered TV news beings. But they are. Every time there’s a grisly self-defense shooting, flacks pop out of the Police Memorial Building and courthouse to shield elites from media burn, not to help you, Mr. and Ms. Public, understand things.
So understand this:
1. You must be lawfully present where the shooting occurs. You cannot trespass or be in someone else’s house or car without permission. As soon as you get into an argument on someone else’s property, you are not lawfully present. When the shouting and pushing start, your visitation privileges are canceled.
2. You cannot be engaged in any unlawful act. If you chugged six beers while driving, sucked on a bong or gobbled those oxy-darlings you so artfully lied for at the Walmart pharmacy, your claim of self-defense will melt away just like your liver. What if, as is so often the case, the person you shoot is your drug dealer or customer? When you hear the sirens, just assume the position and hold your hoodlum hands out for the cuffs. “Stand your ground” is not a right, it’s a privilege, and it’s for law-abiding citizens only.
3. You must reasonably be in fear of death or great bodily harm. If you are defending someone else, you must reasonably believe that person is in fear of death or great bodily harm. This is easy to say but not easy to define in a courtroom.
4. You must not be the aggressor. Case in point: On Nov. 23, 2012, Michael David Dunn pulled into a Gate gas station at Southside and Baymeadows near a Durango filled with young men who were blasting music and being annoying in that ineffable, teenaged way. Dunn stated he thought he saw a shotgun. His response was to grab a Glock from the glove box, charge the Durango, and fire multiple shots into the teenagers’ vehicle, killing Jordan Davis, 17. Dunn may claim self-defense under “stand your ground,” but it won’t hold because Dunn was the aggressor and police found no shotgun.
5. You must not pursue your attacker or shoot him in the back if he flees. Case in point: In 2011, Anthony Renardo Norman was applying fists to Jennifer Charlotte Goodman’s eyeballs and jaw as he dragged her by the hair through the fragrant precincts of Shortreed Street near West Beaver Street. Goodman summoned her brothers, who opened a can of whoopass on Renardo. While her lover absorbed kicks and stomps, Goodman ran out of danger, entered the kitchen, then returned to the scene with a long knife which she plunged into his chest. The charge is second-degree murder. The judge rejected Goodman’s assertion of self-defense, apparently without irony.
6. You must not fire a warning shot. Case in point: On Aug. 1, 2010, Marissa Alexander and husband Rico Gray were having one of their periodic fights. Who shouted what and who pummeled whom are in dispute, because both parties changed their stories constantly. What’s not in dispute is that Alexander disengaged, then ran alone into the garage to grab a gun. She then re-entered the house, restarted the scrum, and fired a warning round into a wall. She claimed a “stand your ground” defense; a jury of her peers took 12 minutes to decide otherwise. Now, she’s on ice for a mandatory 20 years. Outrage at the sentence was loud, long and ineffectual. Florida legislators, Florida cops and Florida courts do not like warning shots. Fire one and weep.
7. You must not brandish a weapon or hold a potential attacker at gunpoint. See above. Oh, yeah, don’t shoot into the back of a fleeing vehicle. The only place that’s not attempted murder is on the idiot box.
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LFD