A Georgia gun rights group asked a federal judge on Tuesday to dismiss a just-filed lawsuit attacking Georgia’s “stand your ground law.”
At the very least, GeorgiaCarry.org said in a motion filed Tuesday, the group should be allowed to intervene in the case because neither side of a lawsuit —the defendants or those who brought the suit that was announced Friday — represents the positions of GeorgiaCarry.org or its “mission … to foster the rights of its approximately 8,000 members to keep and bear arms.”
The civil rights group Rainbow Push Coalition and two families filed a federal lawsuit Monday asking that Georgia’s self-defense — or stand your ground law — be thrown out because it’s vague and unevenly applied. But on Tuesday GeorgiaCarry.org filed papers asking that the federal suit — not the law — be thrown out.
In a motion, GeorgiaCarry.org said Rainbow Push Coalition interests “appear to be diametrically opposed” to those of GeorgiaCarry.org and the state’s lawyers “cannot adequately represent the interests of its citizens when those citizens are potential (or actual) defendants in a criminal prosecution.”
Jesse Jackson, head of Rainbow Push, announced the suit on Friday, making Georgia the first of what is expected to be a series of nationwide challenges to the controversial stand your ground laws. The self-defense statutes in 22 states have been the subject of national debate and massive protests since a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year. Debate increased earlier this year with neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman’s acquittal based on his argument that he shot the teenager in self-defense.
While the debate is relatively new, the concept of the right to self-defense is centuries old. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in 1898 there was no “duty to retreat” and deadly force is allowed in some situations. But in recent years, nearly two dozen states, including Georgia, have put the “defense of castle” doctrine into statute, formalizing what had been common law.
GeorgiaCarry.org said neither Rainbow Push nor the others who brought the suit — families of two men who experienced the state’s stand-your-ground law — had “standing” to bring the suit because none of them had been harmed by Georgia’s law.
Rainbow Push “claims to have suffered an injury because it had to ‘divert significant resources away from activities central to its mission,’” GeorgiaCarry.org wrote.
And GeorgiaCarry.org said the courts and jury verdicts were to blame for the the injury the two families suffered.
Herman Smith was sentenced to life in prison for killing Cardarius Stegall at a Carroll County birthday party last November despite his claim that he shot in self defense. According to testimony, Stegall was armed and had threatened to shoot several people. Witnesses said Smith shot Stegall as he walked toward him and another party goer.
Over two nights in March 2012, James Christopher Johnson III and Adam Lee Edmondson exchanged words in a Newnan bar after Edmondson “made a rude gesture” to Johnson’s girlfriend. On the second night, Edmondson said something that led Johnson to shove him. Edmondson left the bar but came back with a gun and shot Johnson in the chest. Edmondson cited the stand your ground law and was acquitted.
“Plaintiffs complain about the outcome in particular criminal cases and hold them up as proof that the statute is unconstitutional,” GeorgiaCarry.org wrote. “The federal courts are not here, however, to second guess the state criminal courts. … The federal courts are not the complaint desk for state legislatures. “
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