Editor’s Note: Informer editor Andrew Perzo is on vacation. The following column originally ran in April.
Louisiana is listed as one of the states having a “stand your ground law.” Is Louisiana’s law the same as Florida’s? If not,
would you explain it in your column?
Aside from their wording, the “stand your ground” laws in Florida and Louisiana are more or less the same.
Both allow residents to use deadly
force to prevent burglaries and carjackings if they “reasonably believe”
they may be in
danger of being killed or severely injured by an intruder. And
both states allow people to use deadly force in public to defend
themselves and others.
But Louisiana law contains a caveat not found in Florida’s statute: “The circumstances must be sufficient to excite the fear
of a reasonable person that there would be serious danger to his own life or person if he attempted to prevent the felony
without the killing.”
Additionally, neither state imposes on
residents a duty to retreat from danger, authorizing each person “to
stand his or her
ground and meet force with force.” Louisiana’s statute, however,
goes a step further than Florida’s, forbidding courts from
considering “the possibility of retreat as a factor in
determining” whether a killing was justified.
Louisiana has had a “shoot the burglar”
provision on the books since the mid- to late 1970s. It was modified in
1983 to make
it easier for residents to justify deadly force — removing the
burden of proving an intruder intended them harm and introducing
the “reasonably believes” language.
The law received international attention in October 1992 when a Baton Rouge man shot and killed a 16-year-old Japanese exchange
student who had mistaken the man’s house for the site of a Halloween party.
When the boy, Yoshihiro Hattori, and Webb Haymaker, a member of his host family, rang the doorbell, the man’s wife answered
the door. Haymaker said, “We’re here for the party,” and she shut the door and called for her husband to get his gun.
The boys walked to the sidewalk, but headed for the carport when they heard the door there open. As Hattori, who was costumed
in disco-era clothes, approached the homeowner, the man, Rodney Peairs, 30, ordered him to “freeze.”
Hattori, who spoke little English,
continued to move forward, and Peairs, armed with a .44 Magnum handgun,
shot the boy in
the chest at close range. He was acquitted of manslaughter, but a
civil court later ordered him to pay Hattori’s family more
than $650,000 in damages.
Louisiana lawmakers in 1997 added a
“shoot the carjacker” provision to the justifiable homicide law. They
again amended the
statute in 2003, barring people committing drug crimes from using
justifiable homicide as a defense for killing someone. The
law, R.S. 14:20, was last added to in 2006, when the no-retreat
provisions were adjusted.
A section of Louisiana’s statute:
There shall be a presumption that a person lawfully inside a dwelling, place of business, or motor vehicle held a reasonable belief that the use of deadly
force was necessary to prevent unlawful entry ... or to compel an unlawful intruder to leave ... if both of the following
occur:
(1) The person against whom deadly force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcibly entering or had unlawfully
and forcibly entered the dwelling, place of business, or motor vehicle.
(2) The person who used deadly force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry was occurring or had
occurred.
Online: www.legis.state.la.us; www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes.
The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098, press 5 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com