A Miami judge has blocked the latest revision to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law which removes the government from interfering with our right to self-defense.
This judge decided that the courts get to decide the limits of our constitutional rights not the legislature. This is a clear case of legislating from the bench.
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Milton Hirsch said courts, not lawmakers, should set the process by which defendants can claim they were protecting themselves with an act of violence, according to the ruling posted online by the Miami Herald.
The revision shifted the burden of proof during pretrial hearings to prosecutors, rather than defendants, to show whether force was used lawfully. Supporters saw the changes backed by the National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. gun lobby, as bolstering civilians’ rights to protect themselves.
The revision to the law that this Judge objected to is the correct application of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Prosecutors are the ones charged with having burden of proof, not defendants. This ruling is, on its face, tyrannical and anathema to a free society.
Any half-awake first-year law student can see this argument is moronic. But, state prosecutors and judges never agree with a curtailment of their power. We live in a land where lawyers believe they are the keepers of the secret Illuminati code of right and wrong.
And us plebes exist at their sufferance. If the State is the one making the accusation that a crime has been committed then it is the State that should prove that accusation in any pre-trial hearing. Why on earth do these people think that those that act in self-defense do not deserve the same due-process protection under the law as murderers do?