This thread, which despite digressions is related to the stand your ground case in Florida, was moved from the Hot Topics Zone

One point of my OP was this:

The person using the force cannot have provoked the confrontation. "You cannot start something and then go grab a gun," Segura said. And the use of force isn't justified in a simple verbal dispute as a result of "talking trash," he said.

In other words you can't start a fight, provoke someone and then claim self defense, if you shoot or injure the other person.

As stated in the TX penal code you linked: (2)  did not provoke the person against whom the force was used;

I also said see more at the link.  One reason I didn't quote the entire article is the Rules of Conduct has what is called property rights meaning entire articles are not to be quoted.

Throwing in a question about stealing a TV in general does not say if the thief was using a gun or not. Break-ins are not always about stealing TVs.

Apr 2, 2012 -- 2:22PM, mindis1 wrote:

Apr 1, 2012 -- 2:28PM, Stardove wrote:

But the author of the co-called "Castle Doctrine" law, which is taking center stage in the Texas debate and eases the rules on when deadly force can be used in the home, said it wouldn't even apply under the circumstances of the Martin case because the 17-year-old was killed on the street.

The Texas law is being misconstrued as being the same as Florida's "stand your ground" law, said Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.

"That's not what it is," he said.

Both Sen. Wentworth (R-San Antonio) and the writer of this article need to try to pull their heads out of their butts. Here is the Texas “stand your ground” law, in Sections 9.31 and 9.32:  www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/h...  This law explicitly allows the use of deadly force even “on the street” as happened with Trayvon Martin. The law obviously does not require that anyone be inside any building or residence.  

The article doesn’t note any difference between the Texas law and the Florida law that is quite likely going to allow the murderer of Trayvon Martin to walk free.

These “stand your ground” laws are not laws that codify the common law “castle doctrine”. There is no reason for a state to codify the common law “castle doctrine”. I guarantee there was never any rash of cases in either Texas or Florida where people were being unfairly prosecuted and convicted under the common law “castle doctrine.” The common law “castle doctrine” includes a duty to retreat. These “stand your ground” laws are laws that displace the common law “castle doctrine”. These “stand your ground” laws are nothing but licenses to murder, exactly as happened to Trayvon Martin. These “stand your ground” laws codify, not the common law “castle doctrine,” but the peculiarly American psychosis about guns.

By the way, Stardove, for some reason you didn’t quote Rep. Coleman’s excellent comments in the article:

"A young life has been lost in Florida and we don't need to see the same happen in Texas," Coleman said in a letter to constituents and in a press statement Wednesday. "The Texas Castle Doctrine too freely gives license to use deadly force based on subjective assumptions and needs to be corrected."

Coleman said he understands Martin's plight of "being born a suspect because of the color of one's skin." Martin was black. The man who shot him, George Zimmerman, is Hispanic.

Coleman said he fought the "Castle Doctrine" bill in Texas because it would have disproportionate consequences on people of color. He said Texas law already allowed the use of deadly force to defend against deadly force if one cannot escape the situation. He said he plans to press for legislation to return Texas law "to a balance that values human life."  (Emphasis mine.)

Is there anyone here who has an intelligent argument that someone who is merely believed to be stealing a TV should be shot dead by one of the millions of American psychotics-about-guns?

In the current case which is a topic at the HTZ the debate becomes who was chasing whom?  The person claiming self-defense put himself in harm's way; then a gun was fired and killed the person the man was going (some say chasing) after.  Clearly the stand your ground laws states this is not allowed.  The Stanford police get an F for failure to do their duty.