PA Bill Number: SB99
Title: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ...
Description: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ... ...
Last Action: Re-referred to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 8, 2024
Florida: Stand Your Ground Burden of Proof Could Change :: 10/16/2015
Prosecutors may soon think twice about charging someone with a crime when they are claiming Stand Your Ground. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, Legislation being heard next week shifts the burden of proof in stand your ground cases to prosecutors, making them prove it was not self defense.
A five year old ruling by the State Supreme Court requires people claiming stand your ground immunity to go to court and prove they feared for their life or safety. But Legislation being heard next week would shift that burden…. to prosecutors…making them prove someone is not innocent.
Marion Hammer from Unified Sportsmen of Florida, the states chapter of the NRA says the issue is simple…“You are innocent until proven guilty.”
“They created a special Stand Your Ground hearing, and reversed the burden of proof, making a defendant who exercises self defense guilty until they can prove themselves innocent” says hammer.
Under the legislation, prosecutors can still make you go to court and prove you are innocent, but if you do, they could be forced to pay your legal fees.
Prosecutors who make the wrong decision could be on the hook for up to two hundred thousand dollars.
Sot: Willie Meggs says no one has ever been prosecuted in his circuit that didn’t deserve it. “I don;t think you can point to a single case, I know in the second circuit where we have charged someone who was legitimately acting in self defense” says Meggs.
Meggs says the legislation gives someone two bites at the apple.
“Which means we have to basically try the case first before a judge which gives them a shot at dismissal of the charge and if we win there, we have to go in and convince a jury in a second trial.”
The bill is expected to survive next weeks hearing, but after that it faces an uncertain future.
The bill’s next stop is the Senate Judiciary…the same committee that stopped concealed carry on campus earlier this year.
