What Is Stand Your Ground Law?
A "Stand Your Ground" law stands for the proposition that a citizen may legally respond with lethal force if necessary if they have a reasonable belief that such a response is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury. Consequently, a "Stand Your Ground" law gives the citizen a choice in whether to use lethal force unless he or she is in a place where they have no legal right to be and the confrontation with the other party was not provoked.
Under these laws, a person has no duty to retreat from such a confrontation, i.e., "stand his ground" even if it would have been easily accomplished. However, "Stand Your Ground" laws vary significantly from state to state so it is crucial to know how these statutes differ because some provide a complete defense while others provide only a rebuttable presumption, as detailed below . The laws also may vary widely with respect to whether there is immunity from civil liability and prosecution, whether a person who uses lethal force is entitled to compensation for medical and other expenses, and whether the person using lethal force is immunized from criminal prosecution.
Note that most, but not all, "Stand Your Ground" laws specify that they are not intended to expand the doctrine of self-defense. That is, a criminal defendant cannot ignore other elements generally required to establish self-defense, such as whether he or she was an innocent party who was not engaged in unlawful activity during the altercation; whether the defendant attempted to avoid the imminent use of unlawful force, etc.
The Stand Your Ground Law in the State of South Carolina
South Carolina does not have a true ‘Stand Your Ground’ law. Instead, it has a combination of the ‘Castle Doctrine,’ an affirmative defense, and a sentencing enhancement.
South Carolina’s "Castle Doctrine" statutes provide that:
Except as provided in [one of the statutes], a person is justified in the use of deadly force upon another person when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent a serious violent crime against himself. . .
Note that this justification applies only if the use of deadly force is reasonably believed to exist. But the jury must credit the defendant’s testimony that they "reasonably believed" the use of deadly force was necessary.
However, it could be argued that one of the fatal flaws in the law is the fact that arguably neither of these defenses apply when someone enters a home or occupied vehicle. South Carolina Courts have issued two major opinions, State v. Dempsey and State v. Wellington, that deal with the "Castle Doctrine."
South Carolina has a hybrid between a "stand your ground" law and the "Castle Doctrine." The "Castle Doctrine" allows a person to use deadly force to defend themselves from an intruder without retreating to the wall, in their dwelling or workplace, in what appears to be an act of aggression towards the person.
Background of Stand Your Ground Self‐Defense Laws in South Carolina
For many years following the American Revolution, states adopted the English common law right of self-defense, which came to be known as the "castle doctrine." South Carolina codified this principle in 1839, when it enacted a statute essentially stating that individuals could make reasonable and proportionate use of force to protect themselves from unlawful arrest or other forcible injury.
In 1899, the South Carolina Supreme Court refined this common law and founding statute to hold that the use of deadly force in self-defense was appropriate only if a defendant "honestly and reasonably" believed that the unlawful intrusion created a "danger of death or great bodily injury" that could not be avoided or prevented by any means consistent with human life. However, even under this general rule, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that an individual may have a reasonable belief that the situation he confronts requires use of deadly force even though that belief is mistaken, and even though the use of deadly force may not be the most appropriate means of facing the danger presented.
In 1986, the South Carolina General Assembly adopted what has been referred to as the "true man" or "true householder" rule: "[A] man is not bound to retreat from his own home or dwelling to avoid confrontation by an assailant. He is not obliged to renounce the even to use reasonable force to thesm the intruder from forcibly entering his home. Under such circumstances he is justified in standing his ground and disposing of the intruder by any means necessary." With the 1986 amendment, the duty to retreat except in one’s own home was abolished, but the 1986 amendment did not abrogate the general common law principle that an individual cannot unreasonably provoke an altercation and then claim self-defense as justification unless he stands ready to meet the deadly force he provoked.
How is South Carolina Stand Your Ground Used in Court?
Stand Your Ground is applied differently in every state: In South Carolina, the general rule is that the State has the sole burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. However, in self-defense cases, the burden shifts back to the defendant if there is evidence of "imperfect self-defense" (i.e., an unreasonable belief that deadly force was needed). The defendant must then show that the force used was reasonable under the circumstances, but does not have to prove that the victim was actually using or threatening unlawful force. In other words, the defendant does not have to prove that he acted in self-defense — he merely has to prove that his perception of the threat of harm was reasonable.
State v. Charping, 706 S.E.2d 176 (S.C. 2011). In Charping, the defendant and the victim were "neighbors with a long history of feuding." Shortly before the shooting, the defendant’s neighbor called the cops because he did not feel "safe around [defendant]". Later that evening, the defendant, who was a state corrections officer, went to his truck and took out his service weapon (a pistol). He began moving across the street towards the neighbor’s house with the pistol raised in front of him. When the victim came out of the house and yelled for the defendant to stop, he said "I’m gonna save you some . . . trouble" and shot the victim several times (resulting in multiple decades of medical care). The defendant claimed at trial that he was acting purely in self-defense and that "the [victim] had a "bead on him" with a rifle behind his garage." At the hearing on the motion for immunity, the trial court agreed with the defendant’s assessment that the undisputed evidence (that the victim had been drinking and the parties did not always get along) established the defendant had a reasonable belief that imminent unlawful force was being used against him. Thus, the court granted defendant’s Stand Your Ground immunity and dismissed the charges. On appeal, the State argued that "the defendant was not entitled to immunity from prosecution because there was no evidence the [victim] had the means to inflict death or great bodily injury upon the defendant."
The South Carolina Supreme Court agreed and stated that "[w]here self-defense is premised upon an alleged belief that the use of deadly force is immediately necessary to prevent death, great bodily injury, or sexual assault, the defendant must establish the reasonableness of his belief." Testing the defendant’s belief against South Carolina’s self-defense/protection of persons statute, the Court found that the situation was mere "words, gestures, and other erratically aggressive conduct" that would not justify the use of deadly force by the defendant. As a result, the trial court erred in granting defendant’s motion for immunity.
Sociopolitical Response to Stand Your Ground
Public opinion sometimes sees another law in place of the self-defense statutes. People say that South Carolina needs a "Stand Your Ground" law. Forty-two other states have adopted one since 2005. Focusing on the self-defense statute – and also on Stand Your Ground laws in general – South Carolina legislators have proposed several bills since 2006 to enact a Stand Your Ground law, which had not moved out of committee as of late 2013. Almost a dozen other states have done the same thing, either without success or after passing a version vetoed by the governor .
Nationally, groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), criticized their own Stand Your Ground law after two high-profile shooting deaths. This new analysis, by the second most prominent group behind the drafting of many Stand Your Ground laws around the country, calls into question South Carolina’s self-defense statute and the justifications for it.
Within the state, the law has more supporters than detractors, but skeptics feel a Stand Your Ground law would lead to an increase in gun violence and have more unintended consequences.
Other States and Their Stand Your Ground Laws
When comparing the South Carolina Stand Your Ground law to those in other states, most state laws have adopted the key provision – self-defense with no duty to retreat – but vary in their application and enforcement. Some states, like Florida and Texas, have significantly expanded the doctrine to include immunity from prosecution and civil suits, while others, like Alabama, have laws that provide only a limited right to stand your ground and then require an analysis of a multitude of factors. And still others, like Alabama and Georgia, have created numerous exceptions to their state’s Stand Your Ground law.
Florida, known for its controversial "Shoot First" law passed in 2005, launched Stand Your Ground legislation into the national mainstream. Florida’s law not only creates a broad duty to retreat but also extends immunity from prosecution or civil suit to those engaging in protected conduct. The law shifted the burden of proof for immunity from the defendant to the state beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, a defendant is presumed to have engaged in lawful conduct during a self-defense shooting. That presumption can be overcome only if the state can prove by competent and substantial evidence that a defendant was not eligible for Stand Your Ground immunity. In other words, Florida essentially reversed its typical standards for the burden of proof on stand your ground immunity in criminal cases. Florida’s byzantine Stand Your Ground immunity law is so calorie-rich, it is more commonly known as the "Castle Doctrine" or "Shoot First" law.
Even after Stand Your Ground laws were passed across the country, some states took a different approach. Kansas, New Hampshire, and Utah have all expressly amended their Constitutions to enact a constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and defense of one’s home and property.
Missourians passed a Stand Your Ground law in 2016. However, Missouri’s law is similar to many others enacted after Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin, who were motivated more by fears of a federal assault weapons ban than by the specific contours of the self-defense immunity/rebuttable presumption provisions.
It should be noted, however, that unlike self-defense statutes, Castle Doctrine laws apply only to claims of negligence, not to claims of intentional torts, such as wrongful death or assault. This means that when immunity applies to a self-defense shooting, the self-defense shooter may be immune from prosecution and civil liability for the shooting. The immunity, however, does not protect the shooter from being sued by a victim for intentionally shooting him. All of the legislatures that have passed Stand Your Ground laws in recent years have recognized that only civil immunity is appropriate in intentional tort actions.
Irrespective of the varied applications of Stand Your Ground laws, it seems as if every state has a criminal or civil immunity statute in some form.
The Legal Consequences of Stand Your Ground in South Carolina
While South Carolina’s Stand Your Ground law gives individuals almost unlimited right to use force, including deadly force, to defend themselves, that does not mean that individuals are free to do exactly that whenever they feel threatened. Those who respond to a perceived threat to their person with deadly force run the risk of civil liability and criminal prosecution. In criminal cases, prosecutors frequently utilize South Carolina’s law of self-defense to move for dismissal of criminal charges where evidence establishes that individuals acted in self-defense under the Stand Your Law statute.
Although such defenses can lead to a dismissal of the case, if evidence is not properly developed showing that defendants acted in self-defense (as outlined above), prosecutors will move to trial . Although juries often find in favor of defendants who claim self-defense under the Stand Your Ground statute, a conviction can result from an individual invoking self-defense if jurors are not convinced by the defendant’s account. Convictions can also be obtained when jurors do not believe that the use of deadly force was justified or that it was reasonable.
Civil litigants may also bring suits against individuals who have claimed immunity from prosecution after invoking the Stand Your Ground self-defense statute. However, the language of the statute intended to limit actions by third parties against defendants who have successfully invoked the Stand Your Ground statute should insulate defendants from such lawsuits.