PA Self-Defense Law: The Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground, & When You Can Use Force

Today on the Now We Defend podcast, we are going to be discussing self-defense, use of force. The Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania, the Stand Your Ground laws in Pennsylvania. This is a topic that when you find yourself in a situation where you have to react, it is usually a very emergent situation, one where you might be in that flight or fight scenario where your mind might be running, you might be panicked. So to know the laws surrounding this, what your rights are, what you can and can’t do. Now, when you’re calm and you can think through, it is important to know for the future. If you ever find yourself in a situation like this. We have a number of kind of legal points we want to go over today, but we are also going to unpack a bunch of different scenarios that are very interesting, that have actually come up in real cases that we’re going to talk about, because these are the types of situations that you don’t want to find yourself second guessing yourself on. Um, we’re all big proponents of the Second Amendment here. Uh, we all are, you know, are firearm owners. Uh, and we all do believe strongly in the right to self-defense and that it should be used when appropriate. So we want you to have that as well and be empowered with that knowledge. I got Justin and Tim here today with me. You guys want to say hi real quick. What’s up guys? How’s it going? All right. Cool. So I’m going to start here guys with just generally the right to self-defense. Right. Because this is kind of the umbrella of all of this. So in Pennsylvania you have a right to self-defense. You can defend yourself and you can also defend others. If you find yourself in a situation where you see another being assaulted or at risk of death or serious bodily injury. Um, so it’s important to understand that you can actually intervene and help another person, uh, to, to get out of a situation or to avoid the harm that they could be subjected to. Um, in a self-defense case, generally the commonwealth, meaning the The prosecution, if you make a self-defense claim, must disprove that claim at trial. The actual burden technically shifts to them to disprove it. At that point, if you assert this claim reasonably. Um, Tim, could you kind of unpack that a little bit for me, what that means? Like when we’re actually in court? Yeah. Um, so I think the burden is always on the Commonwealth. And I think a lot of people perceive this as if it’s a burden shift, but with self-defense, there’s kind of a standard in the profession that’s generally, I think, referred to as more than zero, more than zero evidence. So you have a burden of production, so to speak, and not really a burden of persuasion to put facts on the record that give rise to a finding of self-defense. And that even may be not the most precise way to describe it, but you have to raise the self-defense. And there has to be like a factual basis for that instruction to be given if there is no fact that supports self-defense. You’re the judge is not going to give you a self-defense instruction. So there has to be something more than nothing. This isn’t just pot luck. You can’t just be. Oh, I was raising self-defense because I know I’ll get a good jury instruction, and it might confuse the jury or whatever. You actually have to have, like you said, Tim, facts that actually support it to get it. And I have I’ve seen prosecutors successfully preclude that instruction on the basis that the person was clearly the aggressor and there is no legitimate claim of self-defense. So like, that is a possibility too. There has. And that’s why I said, I mean, it’s kind of like more than zero. There has to be something. And then that you get that instruction and the Commonwealth has to disprove self-defense beyond reasonable doubt. Okay. Thank you for that. That’s an important point and one to remember because we don’t want to again, like I just said earlier, everybody to think, oh, potluck, this is just something you raise in every case. Uh, there are rules around it and the judges are going to hold you to that. And as we’ll see, not every self-defense claim is created equal. Absolutely. And we’re going to unpack that for sure. Okay. So the other thing to know is self-defense. And Justin, I’m going to pop it to you for this. But talk about how there has to be a reasonable belief that in the person’s mind that they have to use self-defense. You can’t just pop off because you feel like popping off. Right? So, Justin, I’m going to shift over to you. Um, talk to me about that reasonable belief and kind of what that means. And then we’re going to get into, you know, deadly force self-defense and non-deadly force self-defense scenarios. But I want to hear about that first. Yeah. I think like you said, you know, it’s it’s what the person in that situation reasonably believed in the moment. So like you kind of said in the introduction, you know, these are split second decisions. You know, this isn’t something where you get a couple of minutes to think about what you’re going to potentially do. You’re going to, if you’re in this situation, you’re going to need to think quick and think fast. Um, And because of that short period of time that you have to react. What is reasonable in that moment could be much different than what’s reasonable if you actually have time to think. So I think that’s one of the one of the crazy parts about self-defense, and especially when it comes to deadly force. You know, it’s again, split second decision. So what you reasonably believe in that moment is again, going to be much different than what may actually be reasonable. If you had time to sit and think about it. Right. But we self-defense in the court is not Monday morning quarterbacked. Um, the court and the law allows you to take the facts as you have them in that moment and react to them as you perceive them in that moment. We don’t we don’t go back after we, you know, unpack the entire crime scene and look at all the evidence and say, wait a second, you know, you should have been aware of that or whatever. If you weren’t right, or maybe a reasonable person, wouldn’t you have to be in that panicked kind of mindset in perceiving and kind of understanding that self-defense claim? Yes. Right. Absolutely. All right. Okay. Thank you. Um. All right, Tim, I’m going to go back to you here. I want to start getting into the use of deadly force versus the use of non-deadly force. Um, obviously, we all, I think, have a general understanding of what deadly force is, right? If you’re if you’re taking an action with a weapon or even without a weapon that could cause death or serious bodily injury to somebody, I’m going to have you go through what serious bodily injury actually means in the law, because it’s not just, oh, you stabbed me or you shot me. There are some other things there that could create a risk of serious bodily injury. Um, and then I’m going to pivot to Justin to go over our kind of non deadly force situations. Like, you know, you’re in a bar and someone postures on you or swings on you or something like that. So tell me a little bit about Deadly Force, what it means, and how and when you can meet deadly force with your own deadly force in self-defense. Right. And if I may, just to piggyback on what was said about the factors that are considered, because there’s got to be a subjective belief and there has to that belief has to be objectively reasonable. And with the time to make a decision point, that is one of the factors that there’s I know in the federal system and some other places, that is a big factor because obviously, like you said, we don’t look back with twenty twenty hindsight, and if you didn’t have much time to make a decision, we understand that means that you might potentially make a like a decision you wouldn’t normally make. And so the law does account for that. When it comes to deadly force. You’re making the decision to use force that under the circumstances under which it’s used, is the kind of force that is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury and serious bodily injury is, I think, defined kind of in a weird way in Pennsylvania. Absolutely. It’s defined as bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death, or that causes serious permanent disfigurement, disfigurement, or protracted loss of limb, or, you know, the impairment of a, a function or bodily body, bodily organ. That is a very muddy way of saying that it causes some kind of permanent damage. There’s maiming involved. Potentially. Your faculties are diminished in some way. You could have vision loss, hearing loss, you know, I mean, I’ve even seen this argument advanced. If teeth are knocked out, things like that, disfigurement, basically, that’s what we’re talking about. And if the kind of force you’re using is likely to cause that kind of injury or even death under those circumstances, it’s probably going to qualify as deadly force. Yeah, and I do think it’s also important to kind of note that deadly force does not have to be always done with a weapon. I do think when someone advances deadly force on you with a weapon, it’s a bit more obvious that it’s deadly force. But there’s other things that I think I’ve gotten into arguments with prosecutors. Like, was this a deadly weapon or was it not? Obviously guns, knives, cars is a big one, right? Is that a deadly weapon? Um, even things like, I don’t know, like a fork or a tire iron, a rock, a rock, a baseball. Exactly. Right. Like, so part of that is like, how is it actually deployed or looking like it’s going to be deployed? And I’ve seen like as a prosecutor and I’m not going to mention his name, I have a ton of respect for this, this prosecutor a lot. And he was always he had a sticking point in our aggravated assault statute. We have two different subsections that could be in play here. One is aggravated assault. It’s like assault with a deadly weapon, and the other is aggravated assault, causing serious bodily injury or attempting to cause serious bodily injury. And this prosecutor was very frustrated with officers that, like if there was a stabbing or a shooting incident, a lot of officers will, by default charge the agg assault, the A4 subsection, which is assault with a deadly weapon. But what they should be charging is a one which is causing serious bodily injury or attempting to cause. It’s generally accepted that if you’re using a knife or a gun, you are you’re playing with that serious bodily injury at that point. So yeah, and the reason I think that that prosecutor feels that way, and I think we know this, and I’m just going to explain this to you guys. So you understand it is that under and when we talk about subsections A4, A1, Tim’s talking about the aggravated assault statute statute in Pennsylvania. And there’s different subsections under there. The one that A4, which actually talks about, uh, causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon, you actually cannot add. The prosecutor cannot add a deadly weapon enhancement to your sentencing structure, which is a higher sentence, basically is what that translates into. Under that section. Which is why that a prosecutor who knows that is probably upset about that because they want it charged under a one which can add a deadly weapon enhancement to it, which jacks up the guidelines, but also because I think philosophically he understands that if you’re shooting at someone, you are attempting to cause serious bodily injury. So and sometimes you charge lesser. Yeah, you would charge both, I think ideally. And the other thing to remember is, or at least what his philosophy on this always was, was that that a for that assault with a deadly weapon, that statute in a lot of ways contemplates the dilemma that you were just talking about. It’s kind of like improvised weapons is really what’s contemplated in that statute, because it’s assault with a weapon, like a baseball. I had prosecuted people where it’s like they hit somebody over the head with a wrench, and they were getting charged with that. And that that’s kind of a drop count potentially to, you know, from the normal ag assault causing serious bodily injury. You could drop it down to that lesser felony, which is assault with a deadly weapon. Right? All right. Now, to disprove someone’s claim of self-defense in a situation where they are met with deadly force and they then use deadly force on another, the Commonwealth, when properly asserted, has to disprove that self-defense. We talked about that in the beginning, how the burden is on them to disprove it. It’s not on the defendant to prove it properly, it’s on them to disprove it. There are certain factors that can really they rely on heavily to try to disprove that from a prosecutorial standpoint. So tell me a little bit about that, Tim. Yeah, I mean, I won’t go through all of them because, I mean, there’s quite a few. Yeah. And some of them, I mean, the big ones, let’s just say some of these factors, by the way, very rarely come up. So there’s probably like three that I would say are really frequently used. And I would like you to go over those mainly. There’s some really. Well, I guess we’ll see if we’re on the same page about which three those are. I think we are. The main one would be that the belief you had wasn’t reasonable, that you didn’t reasonably believe that that the deadly force was necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to you or to someone else. Another big one that we see is that if they can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you provoked the interaction, provoked the force that was being used against you, then you’re you’re not going to be able they can disprove the self-defense claim. And I think the third one that is a little bit of a wild card because it’s a little bit muddier, is that if they can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you could have retreated with complete safety, they’re essentially invoking our state’s limited duty to retreat standard. Yeah. But it is also important to note that there’s a small caveat to that under the Castle doctrine that we’re going to talk about, that’s when you’re using deadly force in your own home or in an occupied vehicle that’s under the Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania, which we are going to talk about in detail a little bit later in the episode. Last thing I want to touch on with Deadly Force here, Tim, before I shipped over to Justin, is the claim of imperfect self-defense. Right. So tell me a little bit about imperfect self-defense. And what scenario is that used in in court? Yeah. And I think probably the most like high profile case that we’ve seen of this is, is the Carmelo Anthony trial. I think that there was there was sort of an imperfect self-defense attempt there in that defense strategy, basically imperfect self-defense. Is that you you had the first prong of self-defense. You had a subjective belief that deadly force was necessary. But the second prong is where you fail. That belief that you formed wasn’t objectively reasonable. And so what that serves to do is it reduces the charge from murder to voluntary manslaughter. Okay. And that’s, again, we’re talking about Pennsylvania law here. Uh, we understand that the Carmelo Anthony trial was a Texas case, and obviously that was in the news this week. And ultimately, I believe Carmelo was found guilty, sentenced, etc.. But we’re not going to necessarily unpack the case itself. But it is a very good example to use that imperfect self-defense claim. But the imperfect self-defense claim is only accessible to you in a murder trial. Right. This isn’t something you use in, you know. Oh, I got in a fight at the bar, or someone came at me and I hit him with a tire iron and maybe even caused serious bodily injury. You actually have to have killed the individual. It has to be a murder trial. And as it relates to the Carmelo Anthony case, a lot of legal commentators, commenters are pointing out, and I think they’re pointing out correctly, that this was one of the potential issues with the defense theory in that case, because in order to avail yourself of imperfect self-defense, you have to essentially concede that you are the one who did it and that it was an intentional act because there were some some other hypotheticals put out in the in that trial about, well, maybe the stabbing was an accident or any of those things. And so you, you know, it’s hard to argue both of those things. I mean, you can you can argue I did it. I believe self-defense was necessary. And maybe I was wrong. And in the alternative, it was an accident. But juries maybe, maybe can see you kind of lose some cred when, when you’re making that argument, you’re talking out of two sides of your mouth. I mean, that that is one of the difficulties. Yeah. Okay, great. All right. Well, hey, Justin, let’s pop over to you here. Um, let’s talk about a situation where I’m at the bar, uh, having a few drinks and, you know, some, uh, big, strong man comes up to me, uh, whatever it might be, and wants to posture and, you know, be the biggest guy in the room, right? Yeah. Um, but he’s not showing me a weapon. You know, he’s obviously a lot bigger than me. You know, he’s probably going to beat me up, but at the same time, I mean, I have some rights here. I can protect myself. Um. I can’t pull out my gun and shoot him. I can’t pull out my knife and stab him. But I can protect myself. Let’s even talk about scenario where that same strong man goes up to your buddy and postures on your buddy, and he’s not even involving you, but you happen to be there and you can intervene to protect your buddy. Yes. Now, there’s some rules around this again. You can’t be initial aggressors and things like that. But I’d like you to unpack this for us and give us some scenarios where this is used. Yeah. So for Non-deadly force you like we talked about can use force when there’s a reasonable belief that it’s necessary to protect yourself or protect others. The force has to be proportional. Like you said, you know, you can’t bring a gun to a fistfight or that’s the old adage, I love that one. Everyone remember that you cannot bring a gun to a fistfight. Well, under most circumstances, yeah. That’s true. Um, but yeah, basically, um, you don’t have to wait for someone to actually hit you, um, reasonably believing that the attack is imminent and, you know, imminent means it’s it’s coming. It’s about to happen. Yes. There’s evidence that you can see it’s going to happen. Yeah. Say someone starts to cock their fist back. You know, I think that’s, uh, reasonable to believe that, you know, the attack is imminent or the punch is imminent, uh, or a kick, etc.. Um, you cannot be the aggressor. Um, so, you know, if you’re provoking the other individual or, you know, say they come up to you and you start getting in their face and provoking them, say you shove them something like that, that’s going to, uh, probably destroy your self-defense argument there. Um, and then there’s no duty to retreat before using non-deadly force in self-defense. Right. So that’s actually kind of a big one. Um, no duty to retreat when using non-deadly force. So again, you don’t have to turn and run. You can and maybe you should. Yeah, but you don’t have to. Um, but at the same time, you have to meet that force being advanced on you with like force. It cannot be disproportionate force. Otherwise you lose the claim. Yes. Um, so, uh, you know, I know in law school, they teach us about the eggshell skull case. You guys both, I’m sure, learned about that case. And I’m going to pop back to all three of us, because this is kind of a fun one or an interesting one. Uh, in criminal law class in law school, they, they, every school, I’m sure anybody who’s a lawyer that listens to this has heard this, the eggshell skull case, uh, this is where, you know, you hit somebody and they die because of one punch to the head, right? Maybe not even a hard punch. Now we say eggshell skull. Maybe, you know, you hit them weird or whatever, but either way, that ends up resulting in death. And then the question becomes, you know, uh, and this isn’t really self-defense stuff, but this is, uh, you know, in the sense of the eggshell skull, you can end up killing someone by literally doing something what you think is not deadly force, right? Uh, and you can actually, that can happen in a self-defense situation too, right? And the law recognizes that just because someone dies does not mean you use deadly force, right? Or that you intended for right to occur. And in a self-defense situation, if you met a punch or, you know, something like that with like force, like another punch or a hit and not a gun or a knife, you probably will be protected under self-defense because you didn’t use deadly force just because the outcome was that the guy died. Um, so, you know, just keep that in mind when you’re out there, you know, please guide yourself accordingly. Don’t try to hurt people or anything like that, but please protect yourself and protect other people. I mean, we’re all in this race together, right? So we want to look out for each other. And there are those bad actors out there. And, um, we should be prepared to, you know, protect from that. So. All right, Justin, um, back to you. You mentioned, uh, provocation a little bit. Yes. Um, when you were talking about that, you can’t be the person to provoke. Right. Um, so tell me a little bit about provocation. And this goes to deadly force and non-deadly force. We’re kind of pivoting now to some issues within self-defense generally. Yeah. So essentially, again, you can’t provoke a fight or a fistfight, a knife fight, a gun fight. If you’re the one that’s going in and being the aggressor, that’s going to defeat any type of self-defense claim. Um, and going back to the three things that Tim talked about, uh, that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt to defeat those self-defense claims. Um, I think provocation is probably the one that comes up the most. Um. And I’ve had some cases. I even had a first degree murder trial where, um, you know, defense was trying to essentially paint that, uh, the victim in the case was the aggressor. He started crossing the street, um, ended up getting shot by the defendant. Um, and they were trying to argue self-defense, and we actually were able to get him to admit on the stand, the defendant, that, uh, he, his, what he was claiming his reasonable belief was. So he had a gun, in his waistband. He was sitting on a bike across the street, across Market Street. Guy came into kind of like the middle of the road there yelling back and forth. Well, he then says on the stand, well, I saw him coming towards me. His hands were up, he’s waving. So I showed him my gun and I’m like, okay, so why didn’t you leave it? At that point, you could have rode your bike away. You could have left. So there we have, you know, retreat. Um, he goes. No one that didn’t have a gun on them would continue to come at someone that showed them a gun. Right. And so, you know, so Justin so here this guy is his defense to this is he’s assuming that because he continued to advance towards him, he, he must have a gun. Yes. There’s an assumption here. Yes. Which is unreasonable. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So we ended up, uh, the judge refused to give the jury instruction for self-defense because of all of those things. Um, so essentially he, he provoked it. Um, and like we said, you know, that alone can, uh, forfeit your right to self-defense. Um, and essentially the Commonwealth has to prove that the defendant had the intent of causing death or serious bodily injury and also again, provoked the use of force. Um, and like Tim said, you know, at that point, I think, uh, or maybe it was when we talked in prep, um, you can kind of, uh, shift who has the right to self-defense if you’re the aggressor. Yeah. And it’s weird because if you play with those facts, I mean, think about like the, I think a paradigm example of what you’re talking about is if you’ve got somebody who’s in the commission of like an armed robbery. So like, if I, if I’m sticking you up and, and I’m robbing you and you produce a weapon and you attack me with that weapon, I can’t kill you and claim self-defense. Right. Because you provoked it. And I’m the aggressor. I’m the assailant, and you’re committing a felony right now. If I disengage and, like, flee it, like, let’s say I have a wooden gun. If I disengage now, you know, you at a certain point, you’re not going to be justified in continuing to apply deadly force. Okay. So this scenario would have to be fairly obvious though, right? To disengage. Like, okay. Yeah, I’m sorry, I, I’m not doing this and like turn and run, but even me turning and running with like, what appears to be a weapon in my hand does not necessarily mean the threat is past. So maybe, maybe not. I mean, you got to be careful if you’re shooting someone in the back a little bit here. I think that’s something that can be used against. People definitely have to have an attorney that can articulate that, that you had a reasonable fear that this person was not completely disengaging, but was rather attempting to regain an advantage to press the attack. Again. They were seeking cover. You didn’t know if they were truly disengaging, that there was a real chance that this person still posed a threat to you, and even though their back was to you, that you had a reasonable belief that you needed to use deadly force. Okay, so you need a good attorney that can articulate that. Yeah. And it’s in a believable way that makes sense. And again, obviously anybody who’s facing a murder charge or even an aggravated assault charge. Have a lawyer like that’s that’s a no brainer. So, okay. Um, Tim, there’s an interesting example here with, uh, self-defense, uh, under the Samuel case. I know we’ve talked about a little bit involving kind of a domestic situation. Can you tell us a little bit about that case? I love this case. I just think it’s such a weird like it factually. This is, I think, the kind of case that people get. Um, and, and this is the case, Commonwealth versus Samuel is a case that gives some predicate to the idea that it is legally permissible in the Commonwealth to do a sort of defensive display of your weapon in order to, to defuse a potentially life threatening situation. Generally, the summary of the facts are that in that case, there was a domestic violence issue between two individuals. The female was in the home, the male half showed up and was intoxicated. Was was being belligerent with her in the home. Another individual came to the home with a firearm. They both told this guy, you’ve got to leave. Get out. He refused to do it. And at one point, the individual who came to the defense of this woman had a firearm that he pulled out and had in his hand, down at his side. He was displaying it in a non-threatening manner. And that’s really important. He had it out, but it was he did not point it at the guy. He did not make threats to him. And then that individual, the decedent in this case, ultimately left the living room and went back towards the bedrooms. The man who was defending the woman set the gun down on the table in the kitchen. The woman also went to the kitchen to call police. The next time the decedent came out of the bedrooms, he had a shotgun in his hands and he racked the shotgun. And at that point, the defendant drew his weapon and shot the man and killed him. The court said that is not his defensive display of that weapon was not provocation and the exact wording they used is the initial exhibition of the gun is more consistent with a finding that the appellant was attempting to warn the victim to leave before the situation would explode. You have to be very careful if you’re if you’re producing, because that was, again, him introducing a firearm. The the person who didn’t provoke it introduced the firearm where. Yeah, where none had previously been present. But this individual is menacing and is in the home. This is a domestic violence situation. It’s volatile. He’s not leaving. And the court said this was an attempt to de-escalate. It was an attempt for for this man to say, you got to leave because this is going to get bad. I mean, point blank, it was a warning. I mean, he the factually, he displayed it in such a way, right, that it was non-threatening, right at the time. It was a warning. Like, I have the ability to do this. I’m not doing it right now, but I have the ability. You’re also putting me on alert, right? Like you’re stop, cease desist. You know, and the courts basically implicit in this ruling is that the man who went back to the bedroom to get the shotgun in that instance was not justified in attempting to to he couldn’t claim that he was defending himself at that point because he was the initial aggressor. Right. Okay. All right. I’m going to move now to the Castle Doctrine. This is a very important thing to understand and understand correctly. In Pennsylvania, the Castle doctrine is essentially that you have no duty to retreat from your home or place of business, unless you’re the initial aggressor in that situation. So what that means is if someone comes into your home, you’re not addressing, or they come into your place of business and they’re aggressing against you, they’re doing something in an aggressive manner. You do not have to retreat. You don’t have to run out the back door. You don’t have to go hide in the closet. If you have the ability to protect yourself in that situation, you are allowed to do that. There is a presumption here under the Castle Doctrine that is so important to understand, and I’m literally going to read the language to you because I think it’s important. This is a very sensitive topic. So if a person is unlawfully entering or attempting to enter your home or an occupied vehicle of yours, and they move or attempt to remove someone, that could be you or someone else from the same. So from the home or from the vehicle, it is presumed that use of force has a reasonable belief. I’m sorry that the use of force has a reasonable belief that the force was necessary in that scenario, to prevent an act that could result in death or serious bodily injury, or something like kidnapping, sexual intercourse by force or threat. So basically, guys, this is pretty actually easy to understand if you’re in your home or an occupied vehicle and someone is aggressive towards you. You can. It is presumed that they are doing that in a way that could cause you serious bodily injury or death. The law presumes this and you can actually kill them. Um, now I say this in a way with a warning because I am I want to be clear, I am not a proponent of just blowing people away because they walk into your house. There are some scenarios here where I think we need to be a little careful. Um, and I’m going to pivot around to you guys to talk about this a little bit, because I think there’s different scenarios, but the one I do want to just caution everybody to be careful with here is if you have somebody that comes into your home who is having a clearly a mental health episode or even a physical health episode, or maybe they’re confused like an elderly person or something, and they’re just lost. While the law does presume that you could kill them, I want you to be careful here, because the law and the courts may look at that a little differently depending upon that factual scenario. So just be careful there. But just understand you have that protection in your home. And that’s why it’s called the Castle doctrine, because your home is your castle. That’s, you know, you are protected and you deserve to be feeling safe and protected in that environment. So, uh, Tim, I’m going to kick it over to you to first to talk about this kind of generally give me some examples. And I know this is something that you feel very strongly about. So I’d like you to give an opportunity to speak about it a little bit. Well, I mean, I think what you’re saying is, is spot on because everybody has to make a moral judgment here because, I mean, you, you could conceivably be dealing with someone who is not an aggressor, uh, who does this and fits this definition. And it’s important to, to note, as you’ve already articulated, there are two presumptions under the law. The first presumption is that if you do form the belief that deadly force is necessary in this situation. There was a presumption that that belief was reasonable. The second presumption, and it is in a different subsection in this statute. The second presumption is that the person who unlawfully enters a home or tries to gain entry into your occupied vehicle. There’s a presumption that that person has the intent to cause death, or serious bodily injury, or sexual intercourse by force or threat or kidnapping. So there’s a presumption that this person means you harm. And those two presumptions together do create the framework where you can articulate a legal justification for what you do in that situation. But everyone needs to make those moral judgments on their own. I would never recommend somebody to subject themselves to any instant of risk in the name of trying to figure out what’s going on, because even someone with a mental health episode in this day and age who storms into your home suddenly could very well pose a serious threat, a grave threat to you or to your children or something like that. But you have to make that decision. You have to be prepared for what the consequences of that would be. The bottom line is entering someone’s home or trying to get into somebody’s vehicle is crossing the Rubicon. You can’t do it. There is not going to be a defense to it. And if you do that, it’s very real possibility that your life may be forfeit. Yeah. And we’ve actually, I mean, all three of us having been former prosecutors, I mean, and we’ve talked about this, like when someone is charged with a crime, say, burglary, which is entering a home with the intent to commit a crime and they don’t get killed, and then they end up getting charged with the crime. I know we were kind of laughing a little bit about this because it’s true and it’s not necessarily funny, but at the same time, I mean, that person being live in court, having the ability to plead guilty to committing that crime, count your blessings is a better sentence than death. Yeah. And you’re lucky you didn’t get shot or blown away when you went into someone’s home. And because there’s a lot of people and I, and I mean, I, I understand it, and I think they’re they’re justified in this belief is that like, if you come into my home, you’re, you’re that’s it. Like, I’m going to act decisively because I’m not going to risk my family to try to figure out what your intentions are. And the law does make allowance for that. So bottom line guys here, you don’t have to think this through in the moment, okay? Like Tim said, it’s a moral judgment. But you can protect yourself in your own home and use it if you need to protect your family, protect your kids, protect yourself. Okay. Uh, so that’s what the Castle Doctrine allows you to do. Um, now a little different than the Castle Doctrine is the stand your ground law. So this is when you’re not in your house, but there’s a situation that arises that, you know, you may need to use force. So Justin, I’m going to pivot to you for this one. This is another big one. You know, you’re outside of your home. You’re out maybe in an occupied vehicle standing in the street. Uh, you know, you’re outside of the occupied vehicle, may be outside standing next to your car. Now, there is no duty necessarily here to retreat, but only under certain circumstances. So tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. Stand Your ground is is um, I think I forget what the case was down in Florida where that security guard, Trayvon Martin. Yeah. So, oh, the Trayvon Martin case that started, you know, I think a lot of discussion around stand your Ground and, um, that case, you know, we all know how that worked out. Um, so like you said, there’s, there’s some limited circumstances, um, but essentially stand your ground, uh, you cannot be engaged in criminal activity. So like Tim said, like you can’t be robbing someone and then try to run away or do anything with their, and what you’re talking about here is yourself. Like if you’re asserting the claim of stand your ground. Yes, you cannot yourself be doing a crime. Yes. And like, oh, well, then I had to stand my ground, right? Absolutely. Okay. So you can’t be engaged in criminal activity. You cannot be, uh, in a legal possession of a firearm. So, um, and Justin. Sorry, you said illegal possession. You cannot be an illegal possession of a firearm. You can be in legal possession of a firearm. So you, you have to legally possess a firearm. Right. Exactly. Certain individuals due to, I mean, a number of things criminal history, mental health, uh, drug convictions, etc.. You’re not legally allowed to possess a firearm. So you have to be able to legally possess a firearm or we’ll say other weapon. Um, you have to be attacked. And this isn’t an or it’s an and so you need all of these things. Uh, you’re in a place where you would ordinarily, uh, have a duty to retreat, but, uh, you have a right to be in the place where you’re attacked, meaning you’re legally allowed to be there. Um, you can’t be trespassing or, you know, be somewhere where you’re not supposed to be. Um, you have to believe that it is immediately necessary to use that deadly force to protect yourself or another from death or serious bodily injury or a forcible felony like we talked about kidnapping, sexual intercourse by force or threat. And the person that you are standing your ground against displays or uses a firearm or any other deadly weapon or weapon readily, excuse me, readily or apparently capable of, um, essentially being deadly. So, I mean, that could be a lot of different things. Like we talked about a fork, a knife, a spoon, uh, in certain situations, a brick, a bat. So you have to have all of those things. Yeah, yeah. That’s, and that’s, it sounds kind of like a lot, but I feel like in scenarios where this comes up, if you’re generally a good person and you protect yourself and you, you know, exercise your Second amendment right and have a concealed carry permit and you carry your weapon around just to generally protect yourself and you’re not out doing anything you shouldn’t be doing. And someone attacks you. You have every right to protect yourself Yeah. Uh, and to, uh, protect even others that might be with you or around you that might be in that scenario. And you should exercise that again, I said this before. We’re all in this race together, guys. There’s bad actors out there. Look out for each other, like help each other when you see in these scenarios, um, I did want to talk about a case that actually, uh, a number of years ago this law firm defended, um, it involved a situation here in York, Pennsylvania, uh, where an individual and a neighbor were in a dispute, uh, for a long while actually, I think at one point it was about the fence line. At other points it was about mowing the grass in certain areas. But needless to say, these two people did not like each other and they were neighbors and they had been neighbors for quite, quite a long while. And, um, it came to a point where, uh, one day they were both in the roadway, you know, arguing back and forth. Um, not necessarily at that point aggressing towards each other, but the uh, individual who ended up dying in this case was, I believe, a marine. So and that was known to the other individual, the defendant who we defended. And that individual, uh, was there arguing, knowing this individual has combat experience or training. And during that argument, the marine, the victim, uh, ended up pulling out what ended up being a cell phone. Okay. But it was a black object. And, uh, the other individual was armed. Uh, and that individual, again, we don’t Monday morning quarterback this reasonably believed at least the jury found that this individual reasonably believed that that individual was pulling out a deadly weapon and he shot him and he ended up unfortunately, he killed him. Uh, and that individual, of course, lost his life. So we now have a scenario where all these things are met. They’re not necessarily ones not provoking the other. It’s just an argument like orally, and they’re not even necessarily extremely close to each other where they can, you know, be in arm’s reach or hitting each other. But we have what the jury found to be a reasonable belief that this individual was displaying or about to use a deadly weapon in his mind, a firearm, thinking he was about to get shot. Now that that has some questions to it, right? Because it ends up it’s a cell phone. But guys, we’re not Monday morning quarterbacking this. We’re not. It’s the reasonable belief in the mind of the individual who used that deadly force in self defense. Needless to say, after a quite a long and drawn out trial and emotional trial, the jury acquitted the defendant of that under the theory of Stand Your Ground and self-defense claim. Right. So and it illustrates another point, too, that we I mean, that we could talk about, which is that self-defense are. Legal framework contemplates situations where you very well may not have to wait for the for a weapon to actually be presented to you, because I mean to think about that in terms. If you have to wait for a weapon to be presented and leveled at you, then you are at a massive disadvantage and your right to self-defense has potentially evaporated at that point. Because if I have to wait for you to point a gun at me, and I have to wait to confirm that that is, in fact a gun, then you’re putting me on the back foot. When I was in the military, we went through a lot of combat training, and we had a lot of different scenarios. The military was very big on like judgment based training. And I remember one of the scenarios that we did in, in the, in the combat skills class that we were going through very early on, we did scenarios where an individual was armed, but they were as if they were surrendering. So the firearm was kind of up like this, like they were surrendering. And we would have our weapons trained on them. And in a great many of those situations, that person was still able to present the firearm and deploy it faster than the person who is aiming at them can process that. Oh crap, this person is no longer surrendering. They are now trying to attack me. So I mean, you just have to think about this. Your brain is fast, but it’s not all that fast. And the time it takes for you to process that is, in fact, a weapon. That could be the time where you now have no more time to, to deploy self-defense. So, and I think that’s why in this case, I just went over that’s why the jury ultimately sided with the defense because they understand, you know, and there was it’s a reasonable fear. It’s a reasonable belief. And anyone in that situation, maybe not everyone, but people in that situation will oftentimes come to the same conclusion. Yeah. And that’s the jury. Juries are very sympathetic. And I think it’s common sense too. I mean, I think juries in those situations, they put themselves in the shoes of that individual and they think that through and they kind of do Monday morning quarterbacking, but they also are told not to. So what they’re able to do is say in that split decision and that split second, what would I have done? And I think most most of those twelve jurors would probably say probably the same thing, right? You know, so okay, um, let’s talk about, uh, duty to retreat a little bit. Um, and then I want to get into the fun examples and we got some fun ones here to unpack. Um, but Justin, I’m going to talk to you about the duty to retreat. Um, so Pennsylvania is what we call a limited duty to retreat state. Um, this means something. This, this means that, you know. Well, Justin, I’m going to give it to you. You tell me what. Basically it’s limited. And what are those limitations? Yeah. So essentially you have to be under a duty to retreat. And this is the big part. You could have done that. Meaning retreated with complete safety. Um, and like we talked about, you know, there really are a number of limited circumstances where that does apply. Um, but just generally, even though you don’t have to. I mean, if you find yourself in a situation that you think, uh, someone may begin to threaten you or threaten you if you’re able to get out of there, you should. Because just leave. Like, do not try to engage in this scenario. Don’t go. Yay! My day has finally come. I can be Superman. Like, just disengage and leave. Don’t be a hero when you don’t have to be. Yeah, because like we’ve just been talking about, you know, all these situations where you can stand your ground or I think Castle Doctrine and, you know, being in your own home is a little bit different. But, you know, if you’re out in public somewhere, um, probably ninety nine point nine percent of the time, if you see something starting to, you know, swell up or, you know, someone’s starting to get aggressive, you’re probably able to get yourself out of there and you should because like we talked about, you know, even though you have these rights, I mean, like we, like Tim said, you know, these are split second decisions. And I mean, killing someone or shooting someone or stabbing someone like that’s not only potentially going to harm the person you’re doing that to, it’s probably going to harm you as well. You know, it’s not I don’t think most of us out there, if we shot and killed someone or stab someone and killed them, like you’re taking a life like, that’s very, very heavy. Uh, so if you are able to remove yourself from a situation, even though you have these rights, just get out of there. You’re also subjecting yourself to a very real risk that you could, you could be stuck litigating for your life, for your life at that point. And so that’s why we say about like getting attorneys that, that keep up on this. I think we, we’re passionate about this. We keep up on it. Um, yeah. So like, you know, you’ve got to have attorneys that are going to understand that and that can actually mount the best defense for you because even though the law may make it look like you’re justified, depending on your prosecutor, your prosecutor may look at this and think, maybe I don’t want to clear this person. Maybe there are questions here. And what do we do when there are questions? We go to trial and we let a jury figure that out. And you don’t want to be in that position if you can avoid it. Big risk. If you can avoid it, avoid it. Well, I’ll tell you something else too. And this is a little bit off topic, but when I was in law school, actually right after I became a prosecutor, so we we were very limited with our financial means. We were living in a trailer at the time. The trailer beside us was vacated. That individual had been evicted. And I came home one night and saw that that trailer door, which had been closed and secured for ever, was now open. And with my like training experience, my knowledge, you know, I have more knowledge, I think, than a lot of people who carry firearms do have. Just because your military experience, my military, my combat training, we did see cube. We did all kinds of stuff. Right. So I, in theory, could have gone into that house and cleared it and made sure that no one was in there. But the question is, why would I ever do that even in my own home, right? Like if no one’s in there, if we’re just coming home from from church or something one day and our door is open. I mean, you know, if I have reason to believe someone’s in there, why am I going to go in there and put myself in that situation? That’s a danger. That’s a risk. So even if I could, why would I? So, I mean, I called the police. An officer came. I officer I’m familiar with very, very good guy came and let him do it. He announced his presence as law enforcement. He cleared the house. Turns out the door just didn’t latch properly. And it was just, you know, fine, but do you want to take that chance? And that’s with all of these use of force scenarios that we’re talking about. Do you really want to put yourself in that situation and take a chance? Because that could have profound consequences, like Justin is saying. Yeah. And we see that all the time. I think, you know, maybe not as often as as some people may think, but, um, like Tim said, you know, you’re potentially putting yourself at risk to having to litigate the case and actually go through it and clear yourself. And again, going to a jury trial on something like that. Any jury trial is a risk. But I mean, do you really want to play with your life? Um, so, you know, even though you have these rights, you can do these things if you don’t have, uh, a prosecutor or an officer who, uh, fully, maybe, maybe fully believes your statements or how you’re explaining what went down. Because again, these things happen so fast that how you react in that moment and what you actually do may not come out of your mouth. And, um, the way you actually convey what happened, right, uh, as it happened in the moment. Um, so if it’s not on video and again, depending on where you’re at, I mean, it’s, it’s scary to think that even if you did everything right, you may still be fighting, uh, essentially life in prison. Yeah. Because the prosecutor and the officers, they are going to Monday morning quarterback it in their charging decision. They are going to Monday morning quarterback it. And so my advice to anyone who’s in a situation where you’ve employed deadly force is just politely declined to answer questions in the immediate aftermath of that of that event because it is high stress. You’re not you’re there’s a phenomenon called tacky psyche. Your perception of what happened is going to be altered. You know, things like tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, elevated heart rate and those facts, when you reflect on what happened, may come back to you, but you do not want to make a statement under the excitement of that moment and have details come back later. And then that’s perceived as you changing your story. So it is best to politely decline to answer questions without an attorney in the immediate aftermath of a shooting. Give yourself the opportunity to Monday morning quarterback a little bit too, and think through and reflect on what you were thinking in the moment, and then make a statement that actually has real teeth to it and is true and accurate. You don’t want to try to make a truthful statement thinking you’re making a truthful statement, but not just because you were hyper stressed in that scenario. Because I think we all know this and we’ve stressed this. I mean, if you actually are in a scenario where you kill someone that is traumatic as hell, like to your life. Um, and, you know, in the scenario I gave earlier about the case, um, that individual who was ultimately had to go through the full stress of a trial like Justin and Tim, you said was fighting for his life was ultimately acquitted. He still probably struggles with the trauma of what happened in that scenario. I know at least in the trial, it was self evident that he was, um, I mean, he he definitely felt bad about what he did. And it he, his mental health suffered severely as a result of that and probably will for the rest of his life. So these decisions are not just, oh, I can get away with this because this scenario, the facts are that it meets the law, make a moral judgment as well, and just be a good person. Protect others, but do the right thing. Be a thinker. I mean like, don’t just be a rash human, but don’t be a long thinker because sometimes you don’t have time. Yeah. That’s true. Okay. Um, again, I thought, I want to leave you with on the duty to retreat. Most people who think that they’re lawfully somewhere and they generally feel threatened sometimes just think, oh, I don’t have a duty to retreat. That’s wrong. You do. In that scenario, you cannot engage. Or like in Tim’s situation or example, you know, going into that house with no need to actually do it. I’m putting myself in a situation. Yeah, don’t do that. Like do that. Yeah. Do not be the strong man, okay. In society, like just be the protector. Yeah. Especially if you have a reasonable. Yeah. You don’t want to be going around looking for fights. Yeah. And if you’re polite, you should you should be cautious. And if you have a firearm and a license to carry you better as all hell be a responsible person. That is part of getting that license to carry and you need to conduct yourself that way. Okay. One thing though, about duty to retreat that for for those of us who are, you know, very invested in this kind of law and, and this part of it, even the duty to retreat is squishy. A lot of prosecutors take a very, like, black and white approach to that. But it is squishy because the law requires that, you know, that you could have retreated with complete safety. So like my ability to retreat is going to be affected by like, if I have my children with me, that’s going to, that’s going to affect whether or not I believe I have a duty or whether I can get away safety. Those are all things that, again, having the right attorney who can articulate this could be the difference for you. Right. All right. Fun time. We’re going to go through some examples. Um, so I’m going to spitball some examples to you guys. And I kind of want to get your thoughts and I’ll add mine about kind of what we could do in this scenario. Okay. So let’s say we’ll do an easy one first. You’re outside. You’re not in your home. There’s someone who’s standing five, six feet away from you and they have a knife and they say, I’m going to kill you with this knife. Okay. Tim, in that scenario, can you use deadly force? Yes. Okay. I would think so. And why? I mean, I think it triggers Stand Your Ground. It is the paradigm stand your ground example. Like if you’re walking down Main Street and somebody comes out of the alley and says, give me your money or I’m going to kill you. And you know, you’ve got the deadly weapon you’ve got. You’re allowed to be there. You’re not in the commission of any crime. You don’t have an illegal weapon. And the person has communicated an intent to kill you. That is that you have a reasonable. Perfect example of where you. It doesn’t get much easier than that. Yeah. All right, let’s change the scenario. The guy is fifty yards away from you and he has a knife. And he says, I’m going to kill you. But he’s not necessarily running at you at this point. Do you have then a duty to retreat, or do you stand your ground and be the strong man? I think in that exact moment, I mean, you you might have an argument there, but I mean, I think if the guy’s fifty yards away, I mean, can you pull your gun out and shoot him? I would say no. Yeah. But it does illustrate an interesting point, which is at some point between fifty yards and six feet, that analysis. And where exactly is that? Right. And that’s the moral question. And who’s closing the ground? Correct. I mean, are you then advancing towards him, or is he then advancing towards you? Right. I mean, that would be a scenario to look at too. All right. Let’s go back to the six feet, five feet away. But now we’ve got a chain link fence in front of you that you’d have to literally climb to get over. We had we were talking about this. We talked about this two or three days ago for probably about twenty five, thirty minutes. Um, I would say no initially, but then, you know what we kind of ballparked here is what happens if he starts to climb the fence. Okay, well hold on. You said no. What do you mean no? You don’t? You do have a duty to retreat. You can’t just pull out your gun and shoot him. I guess at that point, you probably do have a duty to retreat. Yeah. Do you? You know. Yeah. I mean, you would have an argument that Stand Your Ground is triggered. But there is also, I mean, that could be defeated if people believe. Well, the barrier between you, there’s literally a physical barrier there. Yeah. If it’s a sword that can fit through the chain link fence, you could take a step back. True. Yeah. I mean, he’s got to thread the needle too. Well, you never know. Yeah. But I think, yeah, what we were saying too is like if he starts climbing the fence now you’ve got someone who like they may be a pursuer at that point, they’re seeking to gain the opportunity. Now the analysis might change a little bit. How high is the fence? Six feet was what we were saying about six feet high. Okay. Yeah, that definitely changes the analysis then. Um, and yeah, so at what point. Yeah. Does it change? Yeah. Yeah. Because, uh, yeah. And maybe he’s Spider-Man and can get up and over that fence really fast. And the duty to retreat does not require you to get in a foot race with your attacker. Like to test your speed versus their speed, right? You don’t have to run away and get chased. Yeah, exactly. To then be able to use deadly force. Yeah. So that’s the whole stand your ground, right? That’s right. Yeah. If he gets over the fence at that point and say, what if you have a broken leg and he doesn’t, right. And he starts chasing you, right? Yeah. Or like, like I said, you got like your toddlers with you like, like, what am I? So I have a duty to retreat. I got to run away, but my toddler has to stay there or, or I have to pick up my toddler and now I’m carrying weight, You know what? This person puts you at a disadvantage. And I don’t know the answer to this question. Um, I’d have to read some case law, and I don’t know if you’ve read any case law on it, but when we talk about the duty to retreat, you know, it’s retreat with complete safety. Yeah. What does that mean? Well, that’s what I, that’s why I was saying. I think it’s squishy. Now there, there was a case I saw from twenty twenty five where they they said the guy could have retreated into a grocery store. And I didn’t look too much into the facts of that. But again, if you’re making that argument that you believed you could retreat, but that you could not do so with complete safety, that is like we are in it. We’re in a legal fight now at that point, and you need an attorney that and that’s very fact specific. And it’s also open to interpretation to like by different people, jurors who would have to either believe or disbelieve that you’re gonna have somebody who’s got some knowledge in this sphere about the realities of use of force. I’m very thankful for my time in the military to have gone through a lot of that good training. Uh, even when I was a prosecutor getting to go on ride alongs with officers, being at houses where Cirt was doing search warrants, you know, I was able to give and receive training in this, and I’m very fortunate for that. You got to have somebody who who, even if they haven’t gone through that training, can process these facts this way. And Tim, you’re actually part of some clubs or agencies that actually deal with Second Amendment rights, use of force. Yeah. I’m on the Usca panel. Yeah. Their attorney panel for the area. Yeah. For you. Um, United States Concealed Carry association, I think tested them there. Yeah. I just want to make sure I always just refer to it as USC. So just so people know I’m not good with that. Yeah. I mean, and again, Tim is kind of like one of our resident experts on this that we do when we get into these situations, we rely on some of that extra knowledge that he has and those, those memberships that he has, because it can be really beneficial. And actually, I think you actually get a decent amount of clients from people who are also members in these agencies that happy to help, happy to help them. And using deadly force is serious. And I mean, if you’re if you’re in that situation, you got to have somebody who, who can help you navigate it. And all of us have the experience to do that. So yeah, you know, it is, it is a valuable asset. But this next scenario that you’re going to cover, this is I told Justin, this is my nightmare scenario. Oh, you introduce it, you tell us the scenario. And this one is this one is weird, but this could happen. Yeah. So think the knockout game. You’re in the grocery store with your with your kid. Let’s say like, take one of my kids as an example. Three, you’re in there with a three year old kid and a grown man walks up to your three year old and just punches your three year old in the head as hard as possible. What do you do like at that point? What can you do? What can you do? And, and like there’s no weapon. But we were talking about this. I would argue that that individual has employed deadly force, right? I think you’re looking at the dichotomy between the sizes of the individuals, the child versus the adult punching the force use as hard as he can. Assaulting somebody under the age of five, I think is a felony, isn’t it? Isn’t that there? Isn’t it is an aggravated crime to assault a. I forget the exact age threshold, but it is six, six, six. Yeah. Um, so yeah, in in, in any event, you don’t know if that person is done attack. Like is that person now going to get on top of my child? Is that person going to turn their attention to me? Is that person going to produce a weapon with me? Right. You know, and, and we and what I was telling Justin is this is my nightmare scenario because imagine that you think this is a grown man and you employ deadly force and you kill this person. But it turns out it’s a seventeen year old high school kid, just, you know, past puberty. And this is their idea of a prank. Now you’re going to have potentially some public backlash to deal with. The family could want to sue you. Like this is this is a nightmare scenario. It is a nightmare. It is close. And you could be facing some criminal liability. But I’ll tell you, when it comes to your children. Yes. And I say this to everybody who has children. That’s one of the most sacred things that you have as a human being to have a family and to have children. And in my mind, and I think the law supports this, you have every right to protect your children. Yes. And you should. And I think juries would be very, very favorable to you. Most of them juries like a good self-defense claim. They want to believe you. If you’re if it’s if it’s a reasonable basis. Yeah. I mean, you can’t go in and be a jackass, but you have to be like, you know, reasonably emotional about this. And I think every human with a reasonable mind, like I had a trial here in New York as a prosecutor where they made out a self-defense claim. It was a terroristic threats case. Um, and there were some other charges, and there was a weird legal argument about whether self-defense is even a defense. So like, we had kind of a weird question there, but from his side of it, he said that like he had these people outside his apartment, they, he didn’t know what their intentions were. So yeah, he displayed a firearm and he had it low ready. He never pointed it at them, but he had it low ready because he was afraid. And the jury was like, yeah, we’re we’re not fine. They acquitted him of everything. And at the end of that trial, I was like, you know, I think it had to be a trial. But I don’t necessarily I don’t disagree with the verdict. I think that it was reasonable that they made that verdict that they got there. All right. Another another example I see a lot is road rage. Yeah. I mean, I can’t tell you how many cases I’ve had that involve road rage. Um, and honestly, a lot of these cases that I have is going to go off topic slightly, but I have a client who is upset with somebody on the road. They’re driving, they cut them off, they honked at them, they flipped him the bird, whatever it is, and they literally pull out their gun and pointed at the person. Yep. I mean, I literally, I just had a case that I finished with where we, this was the, that, that was the exact scenario. And you can’t do that. You cannot do that. Um, please be careful when you’re on the road. Like take a breath, uh, flipping the bird back like, you know, do something that is going to enable you to calm your psyche down and not take that action, because then you’re accelerating it to a point where, as we’re talking about in this episode, you were at risk of being shot yourself. Right. Like, I mean, if you take that scenario, like if you’re at a red light, two cars on a one way street parked beside each other and you enrage point a gun at somebody in the other car. I mean, I think you I think there’s an argument that they can deploy force at that. Yeah. And and it’s weird because I actually watched a video. I forget what state this was in. There was a case where like, there was really bumper to bumper traffic and a guy, they were like jockeying, trying to pass each other. And the dude was road raging, pulled a gun out and shot it into the back seat compartment. Just thought he was. He was raging. I’ll send a message. But he struck the dude’s kid and killed him. Yeah. And like, that’s what you’re dealing with. Like the person in the car, when they see that gun come out, what are they supposed to think? Especially if it’s gridlock, traffic. I have nowhere to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let’s use an example where, um, you’re, you know, on the roadway, everybody’s legally on the roadway. You’re, uh, you’re driving down the road, you know, another car in front of you, that car in front of you stops. Maybe you don’t even know why. Right? They’re upset. Maybe, uh, they think you got too close to their bumper and you were tailgating them. Okay? They stopped their car, and they get out. You’re in your vehicle. Okay, so, Justin, you’re in your vehicle. You have I want to I want to do a few scenarios here. So you have the ability in this scenario that I’m talking about right now to drive away. You literally could just pull off, turn around, go around, you know, there’s some offshoots that you can drive down. Hopefully, hopefully. Well, this scenario that I’m giving you is, okay, so I’m trying to give you the fact pattern, hypothetical, Tim hypothetical. We’ll do the ones you want to do to I don’t want I don’t want to be any part of this. Okay. All right. So the person is advancing towards your vehicle at that point. Do you do you have a right to stand your ground in that scenario? They get out of the car. I’m sorry, did you say that they do have a weapon or they don’t? The first scenario is they are not displaying a weapon at this point. They’re just walking towards your vehicle. Maybe they look angry. Ooh, that’s a tough one. Um, I think if you can go around safely, um, and say they haven’t displayed anything, but, you know, their hands are out, you could see their hands, they’re not reaching for anything. If you actually can get around them and drive away. Um, without thinking, like if I do this, can they still shoot me or do something? I would absolutely drive away. Yeah. I think in that scenario, if you can drive away, you drive away. Yeah, yeah you do. And I thought it was you that had this case, but it was another attorney that used to work at the firm. Okay. Um, when I was in the DA’s office and I actually was, was very hard on this case because when I was younger, I just turned seventeen. Uh, after I got my license, I was driving my dad’s car for a little bit, but I had my first car was a two thousand and one Ford Ranger five speed little short cab with the fold down seats, and I was actually driving to go pick up my grandmother. Um, I got off the highway. It was Interstate eighty one up in the Scranton area. And when I got off the highway, there was a light and I made a left turn and it was two turn lanes, and I was in the right lane and there was another truck in the left lane. Well, when he started to go, he, you know, pulled off kind of into the right lane that I was in. So I went into the left and this dude lost it. And he ends up like speeding up to like, catch up to me. And what do you know, he’s holding the gun. So I took off, meaning, like, I, I’ve probably never driven that fast since then. And I ended up getting back on the highway, was able to get away, call nine one one. Like that was so scary. So I’ve been in a situation where, you know, not that they stopped in front of me, but you know, that happened. So this case kind of brought me back to it. And it was an older guy and his wife were driving up on one of the back roads here in New York County. There was a sixteen year old kid driving and he had his girlfriend in the car. I think she was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. They were, you know, younger. Um, apparently they had cut this guy off a little while back. So the guy caught up to them, pulled in front of, pulled around, stopped in front of them, got out of the car, pulled his revolver out and fired two rounds into the ground. So he was charged with, you know, um, what was it? Uh, I guess aggravated assault, assault, simple assault by physical menace, etc.. Terroristic threats. Um, and, uh, you know, you never know what’s going to happen in that situation. If that were me in that car and if it was my kid or, you know, just anyone or even myself, if I saw someone get out of their car with a gun, I’m reacting. And that could be with, you know, firearm. I mean, you could put your car in drive and run them over at that point, you know? Right. And that gets to the it triggers using your vehicle as a deadly weapon. Yeah. Yeah, you absolutely could. I think that’s honestly what I might think to do if I. Because, I mean, to get your gun out of your glove box and to react, that might take some time. And you’re already freaking out. You’re fumbling. You might just hit him. And he brings up a good point to, to that we didn’t talk about, but like warning shots are not legal in Pennsylvania. So that’s another thing to remember. If you if you discharge your weapon, you have used deadly force as far as the law is concerned. So like that guy shooting rounds into the ground, it doesn’t even need to be at the person that is. I mean, that he used deadly force as an aggressor. So deadly force against him was definitely on the table there. Yeah. But I mean, there was no getting away from, you know, that guy for those kids. And, um, like we talked about, you know, you never know what somebody else has in their vehicle, what they’re capable of with the road rage thing. Like I used to, you know, definitely speed a little bit. And I wouldn’t say it was a crazy driver, but definitely had my fair moments where, you know, I’d get pissed at somebody, cut me off or whatever. Now I drive the speed limit. Speed limit for the most part, you know, five over whatever. But if somebody, you know, cuts me off or for some reason thinks I did something, I just let them go. I don’t react at all. Yeah. Because and I noticed you qualified that with I used to speed a little. I used to I don’t now and you can ask and I’m gonna I’m gonna plug my wife here for a second. Um, okay. Uh, so my wife tells me all the time, do not react to people on the roadway because I’m guilty of this too. Like I, I get angry when someone does something and it either upsets me or it puts me at risk. A lot of bad drivers out there, let’s be real. I do, but I’ve actually I have gotten a lot better, partially with her prodding me over and over about this to just like you said, Justin. And this is the advice I do want people to take away from this. It is not worth it. Yeah. Like it just isn’t worth it. It’s momentary. If someone is doing something that’s upsetting you, just be the bigger person and just let them go. Be an idiot, but don’t engage in that idiocracy yourself and become potentially the subject of a crime or having to use deadly force and putting yourself in that scenario. But a person stopping their vehicle on the road and getting out, like we all understand that is irregular behavior. That is irregular. That is a red flag to me. And I was telling you guys that I was in a situation one time where a dude stopped in front of me and I, I maybe could have had the ability to get around him, but it would have been close. It would have been. And if he moved in front of me now, what am I supposed to do? Run him over, right? So like, yeah, I mean, I guess, but he, uh, he stopped at the place in the roadway, and the second his door was open, I had my gun out, my gun was out. I didn’t show it to him. I didn’t point it or threaten him, but it was below the steering column because my thinking is this dude, I have no idea what’s about to happen next. And I was fortunate that I got a good draw at that point. Like I didn’t get hung up and start fumbling. The gun was out and I was prepared that if the next thing I see come out of that car door is a firearm, I’m going to be stepping on the gas and I’m gonna be potentially returning fire like this is going to be a bad situation, but I need to be ready and I need to like, I need to not be the one that gets shot on the side of the road here. Yeah. Or, or that stray bullet goes into someone else or whatever. Um, because there were people behind me. I want to do you want to add something? I was going to say, I think, you know, just do a little plug here. If you’re going to carry, uh, or if you do conceal carry in your vehicle. Um, most people will have it in their glove box at some point, but, you know, they make holsters that go on like essentially the side of your dash, um, the side of your door. Um, it may be worth picking one up. Um, if you’re going to carry in your vehicle because like Tim said, you know, if, if something happens super quick and you’re not able to react, uh, essentially, then what’s the point? Yeah. Right. You get hung up on your clothing or your holster or whatever. Yeah. Or accidentally discharged. Correct. Yeah. So your leg. Yeah. You want to know or something? You want it in a safe space that’s readily accessible. And I think that there’s other places other than the glove box. Um, for those I’m surprised you had that in your waistband. Usually you’re, you’re more on point with it in a holster. But like, I mean, and I usually when I’m carrying, I do carry with a holster. Like I don’t have one of those magnetic, uh, things in my car. I mean, they are cool looking, but yeah, but yeah, I was fortunate. Well, let’s use it. Let’s go to another example that this is, this has happened to me where the vehicles are already like kind of legally stopped, right? Okay. This is, this is your nightmare. This is kind of my nightmare. This actually happened to me. And, um, yeah, I had to deal with it. My wife was in the car. My kids were in the car. Um, so you have a scenario where you’re. I call this the Sam’s gas station, uh, scenario here. This would be, you know, when you’re getting gas at BJ’s or Sam’s on a Saturday or a Sunday, and the line is a mile long and you’re sitting there for like what feels like an hour literally waiting to just get gas because it’s three cents cheaper than the place down the road, which is stupid to begin with. But in any event, you’re in the line for a while and some guy zips right in front of you, uh, in the gas station line that you’ve been in for like thirty minutes to an hour and just pulls right up into that pump as soon as it opens up. That I got angry. That put me in a scenario where I was angry. I think that’d piss most people. Yeah, right, I got angry. I think I think I even honked my horn and I got yelled at by my wife, which is like a cardinal sin nowadays. If you honk your horn at somebody. Like that’s apparently like, a terrible thing. And in traffic, though, when people, like, just people just knew how to merge, right? Can you imagine? Even my wife was like, why are you honking at that guy? You’re just gonna upset him. Like, you know, you don’t know who he is. And in a way, she’s right. Yeah. Like, you know, part of me was like, this is bull crap. Like, you know, I was angry, I was upset, but I could have done it very differently. I mean, I could have approached the guy. I could have got my gun out and started waving it, yelling and screaming. But should I have? No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But what if I honk my horn and he pulls his gun out? Yeah. I mean, I think at that point it’s different. Yeah. Because honking your horn is not provocation. I mean, like, I don’t see how you could. There are people, I think, who would say that. I think those people are wrong. Yes, I think they’re wrong. And it speaks a lot about our society that that honking your horn is enough to set people off like that says something sad about us. It’s honking your horn. Like if somebody honks their horn at me. Yeah, it bothers me, especially because I’m if I’m like, well, you’re the one that’s in the wrong, why are you honking at me? But it’s not cause for me to pull a gun out. Right. And it’s sometimes it’s startling to when somebody honks at you, you’re like, whoa. And like, it kind of brings you back to reality for a second. Uh, and sometimes you deserve it when someone honks the horn at you. I mean, yeah, you know, but at the same time, I mean, when you’re in those situations that are already highly stressful, I mean, you have people that will pull guns out in those scenarios, and you have to be the higher minded person and not do that, you know? Um, and I think that example is also kind of interesting because it’s one where the person is not advancing on you. They’re just out of their car pumping gas. So they didn’t get out like in the middle of traffic where it’s a different heightened scenario. They’re already out of the vehicle. And, you know, let me ask you this, because I don’t know that it was clear from just the example that you gave, but, um, was he already out of the vehicle and then like pulled his gun or did he get out of the vehicle with the gun? Because I think those are two very different things. Well, they are, but isn’t the reaction kind of the same? Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they are if he’s out pumping gas and he pulls the gun out because he’s angry, you honk your horn at him. Or maybe you flipped him the bird or something, right? Um, well, he’s still displaying a weapon. Or if he gets out with the gun, that might even be a little more aggressive. Yeah. And so that’s my that’s my point. Like if, if, if I honked at someone in that scenario and they get out of their vehicle with the gun already ready to roll, that’s way different than, you know, he starts pumping gas and just like flashes it if he’s getting out the gun, I think. Yeah, because I mean, people accidentally display firearms all the time that are concealing, like if they, they reach a certain way or if they’re reaching for their wallet, like the gun could become visible to you. I think, Justin, in a scenario where he gets out aggressively with the gun, from even though he’s stopping to get gas. I think in that scenario, Stand your Ground applies. I do too. I can I can stand my ground. Yeah. Yeah. If I beep at him, he’s already pumping gas and he flashes a pistol at me. I can’t kill him. No, no, but I think you’re like. It’s definitely an escalation. And I think there is an argument to be made that he has done something illegal at that point. Like, oh, he definitely has. Yeah, he has done something wrong. And it’s weird because when I was at my duty station in Mississippi in Gulfport, we had a Walmart incident there where somebody came, went into like the bathrooms and came out. They had like a trench coat on. They came out of the bathrooms, they had a shotgun that they pulled out of their coat, and they racked it twice and then put the shotgun back in their coat and left the store. MM. Bizarre situation, right? Strange individual. But they were able to see that that happened on security cameras. And then they were there was an investigation. But like that’s a weird situation. If you see someone come out of the Walmart bathroom with a shotgun and rack the slide. Immediate fire. Yeah. Like that’s deadly force, especially in today’s society. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, I want to go to another example of, you know, this comes up, I think for people who are a lot of times younger teenagers, they get in these like fights and then they, we’re going to meet up and do a headlight fight, right? We’re going to get in a mutual fight and we’re going to, you know, do this and whoever wins wins, right? And, you know, yeah, we call this in law mutual fray, right? It’s actually a crime. You cannot agree to do a fight. It’s a misdemeanor. Three yeah. But in any event, um, in the scenario I’m going to use, let’s say two people agree to fight. The fight begins. Okay. And then out of nowhere, one of those people pulls out a knife. So this brings up a lot of questions because both people agreed to be mutually in combat with each other initially. So what do you guys think about that? Does the pulling of a knife then give the other person the ability to stand their ground, or do they forfeit that when they agreed to be in a mutual fight. I personally think it’s an acceleration of the situation. I agree to a point where you can, yeah, you can stand your ground. Yeah. But you also, if you have the ability to disengage at that point, you should cease the fight, right? I think that’s the key point there. If you are able to at that point, you know, get out of there, retreat. I think you you probably do have a duty to retreat at that point because you’re technically engaged in criminal activity by, by agreeing to fight. Um, but if you can’t get out of there and I think you make reasonable efforts to stop it and ultimately can’t and then do use deadly force, I think that would be justified. Yeah. Because at that point, you’re not in a like you’re trying to break contact and the person continues, they are clearly the aggressor escalating, you know, the, the, the force essentially. Um, I think changes a lot of things. It’s such muddy water. Yeah. Well, there’s a concept in use of force and escalation of force with law enforcement, military. And I think it even applies on the civilian side, which is that whatever force is being used against you, it’s not that you have to match it equally, but rather if you’re defending yourself. The principle of self-defense is to eliminate the threat. So you’re going to use the minimum amount of force necessary. But generally it’s accepted that that force is going to be slightly higher than what you’re being you’re faced with. So like if somebody is deploying a knife at you, I mean, that’s deadly force. There’s no, you can’t go higher than deadly force at that point. But you know, if somebody is using fisticuffs with you, you know, to defend yourself, obviously proportionately use fisticuffs, but you’re not it’s not like a sophisticated boxing match. So, okay, let’s, let’s tweak the example a little bit. So you’re in the fistfight, you’re winning, meaning you’re beating up the other guy. Okay, he he’s butt hurt or he’s just hurt and he pulls out the knife probably to just stop the fight, but he doesn’t come at you with it. Right? Right. And you’re, you’re a reasonable few feet away at that point. He’s just kind of squirrely. Pulls out the knife. Like stops that. At that point. I don’t think you can. I agree, and I think at that point he may potentially have a reasonable basis to produce the knife. Yeah, exactly. Like if he’s on the ground and you’re pummeling him. Yeah. He may have a reasonable basis to produce the knife at that point. Yeah. Because at that point he didn’t agree to be in a deadly fight. Correct. Right. Okay. Yeah. All right. Would you say one of. I feel like this is like a movie scenario that’s in like, you know, a bunch of movies where two people are fighting or multiple people are fighting, and then someone either pulls out a gun or a knife to stop the fight. I think that is reasonable, especially if, you know, again, they’re getting close to just pummeling someone to the point that, you know, they might not be alive. Right. Um, and that was, those were the, the facts of the George Zimmerman case. Was that like, he. Now, obviously there was a lot more of a backdrop to it. But like the, the central theory for the prosecutor, for the defense was that he was on the ground getting his head slammed off the ground being pummeled. And that’s why he deployed deadly force at that point. Good. Well thanks, guys. Yeah. Yeah. One of the reasons we wanted to do this episode this week was because in the news it’s been very prevalent. The Carmelo Anthony trial. And this has been something that a lot of people have had questions about. We obviously follow our socials, and I don’t know if any of you have been the ones that have responded on TikTok or Instagram, but we have engaged with you. We’ve responded and these are the types of things we like to do. That’s actually why we do this. We want to get the word out. We want to help you. We want to answer your questions. So keep doing it. And I just this is a good point to remind everybody we are, you know, our podcast here now we defend the current law podcast is on YouTube and Spotify. And we recognize that most people are not watching an hour and a half long episode. We hope you do. But if you aren’t, we’re we put a lot of shorts on TikTok, Instagram. Our handle there is at Kearney Law, PA Kearney is spelled K e a r n e y law p a, so look for us on there. Um, like our stuff. Subscribe to us every week. We’re going to be coming out with a new episode with a new topic. And we are going to try to keep things fresh too. Like if there is something that’s going on in the country that is relevant that week, we’re going to try to maybe do an episode on that so we can keep it fresh and important for the people that are looking for that type of information. Um, so again, please like us, please subscribe to our, uh, our Instagram, our TikTok. And we’re also on LinkedIn. That’s more of a professional site and Facebook. Um, thanks again for watching. I do want to also lastly, remind everybody every week there’s going to be something about our podcast that is different, uh, you know, about our studio and if you find it and you note it in the comments, I will contact you. And we’re going to be giving out free merch, uh, to people that, that find that and hopefully you can be a winner. Thanks again for watching the Now We Defend podcast.