Two days ago, Attorney William Kirk, the President of law firm Washington Gun Law, released a YouTube video on his extremely popular channel (~360,000 subscribers) providing legal analysis of the tragic shooting death of Roger Fortson.
The title of that video: “The Florida Man Who Was Executed for Exercising His Constitutional Rights.” (Find it linked below.)
Given that this analysis was by a fellow attorney popular with the gun community, I eagerly looked forward to his analysis.
It was, to say the least, disappointing. Indeed, a good case can be made that the video not only failed to provide anything resembling sound legal analysis, it was rife with emotionally-laden misinformation.
Indeed, the video makes zero–as in zip, zilch, none–reference to any relevant Florida law that would determine if Fortson’s shooting was legally justified. Not a word.
In my opinion, criminal defense lawyers in particular should do better when covering such high-profile, emotionally-charged use-of-force events.
Transcript of Washington Gun Law Fortson Legal Analysis
Florida Jury Instruction 3.6(f). Justifiable Use of Deadly Force
Body Worn Camera Clip #1:
Body Worn Camera Clip #2:
“Two Weeks Ago” Screen Capture:
“But This Time” Screen Capture:
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Transcript
(PDF Link)
NOTE: All LOSD video/podcast transcripts are prepared in rough form, provided solely for our members’ convenience & documentation, and are not thoroughly reviewed for accuracy. Refer to the original video/podcast for the authoritative form of this content.
Welcome everybody. Welcome to today’s episode of the Law of self-defense. I am, of course, Attorney Andrew Branka for the law of self defense.
And I am here to serve you some truth justice and the American way by providing emotionless objective law based legal analysis. That’s what we do here at Law of self defense. No estrogenic hysteria. No.
Um be in the popular group. We look at the law, we look at the facts and we provide objective reasoned legal analysis that we’re happy to debate with anybody. Should anybody wish to or dare to? And we’re here to talk about some other attorneys, legal analysis. I’ll put that in square quotes that appeared a couple days ago over the Roger Fortson shooting, the tragic death of Roger Fortune at the hands of a Florida deputy back on May 3rd. I of course, did my own legal analysis of this, this past Monday. But yesterday I came across another legal analysis from William Kirk. William Kirk uh is the president of Washington Gun Law, is his practice uh very popular on youtube 360,000 subscribers.
That’s what more than six times as popular as my own youtube channel, um covers a, I presume he focuses primarily on gun law given the name of the site. Uh Certainly in his legal analysis of the fortune shooting. He doesn’t, he doesn’t mention self defense law. He doesn’t mention it once, not one word.
I mean, he doesn’t say the words self defense, much less refer to any Florida self defense law, which would be determinative on the question of whether or not the shooting death of Roger Fortson was lawful justified or as William Kirk characterizes, it was an execution. That’s the title of his analysis on youtube, the Florida man who was executed for exercising his constitutional rights, executed, executed. That’s the position of William Kirk that this deputy executed Roger Fortson merely for exercising his constitutional rights. And by the way, if you think that’s just hyperbole in the title to uh to get more clicks. Um Well, Attorney Kirk notes that it is a emotionally charged title for his video, but he backs it 100% in the substance of his video. This is an execution as far as he’s concerned and it’s worth understanding what this means in a practical sense because if you believe that this deputy executed Roger Fortson merely for exercising his constitutional rights under Florida law. That means this deputy gets executed.
He suffers capital punishment under Florida law because capital punishment is the sentence for an unlawful committing, killing, committed in a cold calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification. That’s an execution. So, Attorney Kirk is advocating whether he realizes it or not. I I’d like to think he realizes it as an attorney that he would have kind of thought this through the consequences of his legal analysis. He’s effectively advocating that this deputy suffer capital punishment under Florida law. And he arrives at that conclusion in his video without once considering any legal defense for this deputy.
And in particular, never considering a scintilla a Florida self defense law as justification for this shooting. Never even says the world self defense in his video. Not once. Now, I did put a link to his video in the description of today’s show. So I I urge you to go watch the video yourself.
Uh I’m not going to play the video here because you never know when someone’s going to get upset with you, especially when you’re critical of them and uh try to hit you with a copyright strike in your channel because you’re showing their own content. Uh What I have is I have a transcript of what attorney Kirk says in this video. And again, I’ve linked the actual video so you can confirm the transcript is accurate yourself. Uh I will include a copy of my transcript, a PDF of my transcript in the uh description of today’s show being as transparent as I possibly can be. But you have to be careful about these copyright strikes on youtube. So we’re gonna dive into Attorney Kirk’s legal analysis of the fort and shooting and his advocacy for the execution of this deputy and see how much legal merit it actually has, whether it’s a sound legal analysis based on facts and law fair, accurate representations of the facts and reference to the relevant law or whether that’s not the case, whether in fact, there’s a misrepresentation of the facts and an absolute failure to reference any Amy Florida law relevant to whether or not the shooting was justified. And with that out of the way, let’s go ahead and launch the formal start of today’s show.
And I just realized my audio settings were not quite right. Let me take a look at those now. Hopefully, hopefully it’s ok, should be fixed. Let’s see.
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My wife Emily is personally a member of CCW Safe. So I would urge you to take a look if you feel that it would be beneficial for you to have this kind of coverage CCW Safe is absolutely an organization I would urge you to consider and if you go to that URL Law of Self defense.com/trust, which is also below my name here on the screen, you’ll also get a discount code you can use for 10% off your own CCW SAFE membership. So there we are.
All right. So we’re here to talk about this, this video by attorney William Kirk, president of Washington Gun Law. Very popular youtube channel. You can see it. Can you see it here? Uh Let’s see.
Yeah, 359 sub, sub 1000 subscribers. That’s a hugely successful uh youtube channel. Uh And here is Attorney Kirk’s website, William K. Kirk, attorney at law, there’s his phone number. Um It’s just uh uh let’s see. I’ll put this in the, in the description too so you can check it out for yourself.
It’s just Washington Gun law.com. We’ll take you there and most of the, the home page of the website has to do with guns, gun law. Um There’s some reference to um you know, transferring selling guns. There is a reference here on one of these little sliding screens to self defense law, concealed carry rights, all great stuff.
We all support the second amendment here in the law, self defense community. We support concealed carry the right of self defense and lawful use of firearms. So he claims expertise on this subject. Ok. Let’s see how much expertise he applied to his analysis of the Forts and shooting.
Now I’ll mention in passing and this is not intended to be derogatory to uh attorney Kirk. He has his bio here, his, his own description of his legal background and expertise and what it is primarily. Let me zoom it in here.
So it’s, we can all see it. Here we go. There. He is.
Uh It’s rife with references to Du I defense. Now, there’s nothing wrong with Du I defense it’s a perfectly honorable criminal defense practice. A person accused by the state of a drunk driving offense has every right to sound legal counsel to compel the state to prove them guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt, nothing wrong with being AD U I lawyer. But I, I read through this and there’s, there’s nothing in this very lengthy bio which is all to attorney C CRE credit. Again, there’s nothing wrong with being a I, I think it’s a perfectly honorable profession, be ad U I attorney.
But if I search here herself as in self defense, II, I don’t find any reference. Let me try defense. Well, du I defense comes up a lot. Criminal defense.
Ok? Du I defense impaired driving. Du I defense. Ok. No, no self defense.
And that doesn’t mean that attorney Kirk doesn’t know self defense law. Perhaps he does. I don’t know, but you can’t tell it from that bio. There’s no reference to it there. And I would suggest when we look into his legal analysis of the fort and shooting, you can’t tell it from his legal analysis because in his legal analysis of the fort and shooting, he makes zero reference, the self defense at all, much less Florida self defense law. And I’m not sure how you can do a legal analysis of a use of force event and conclude that it’s an execution without even considering whether or not that use of force might have been legally justified under the relevant self defense law. Nevertheless, that’s what Attorney Kirk has prepared for all of us in his video.
So let’s take a look again. I’ve prepared a transcript because I don’t want to get hit with a copyright violation for replicating attorney Kirk’s video. The video is linked in the description of today’s show. So you can go, I urge you to go watch it yourself. Uh And I’ll also include the uh I’ll add the uh a link to the PDF of this transcript as well. Complete transparency here. Yeah.
So I often I, I keep getting cautioned. Andrew. Andrew, everybody disagrees with you on this for and shooting. Everybody thinks you’re wrong folks. I don’t care what other people think. I’m not here to be popular.
I often do legal analysis that’s unpopular. It’s just correct. It’s correct based on the facts and the law just like my legal analysis of the fort and shooting is correct on the facts and the law. No one has yet made a law based fact based counter argument to my analysis including Attorney Kirk and the fact that Attorney Kirk has $360,000 360 followers on his youtube page, which is full credit to him.
That’s a huge success. Congratulations. Attorney Kirk. That doesn’t make his legal analysis here sound, II, I don’t believe in appeals to authority and a number of subscribers. It’s not legal authority.
So let’s take a look at what Attorney Kirk actually has to say. Whoops about the Fortson shooting. Let me make this bigger so we can see it. Now again, this is a transcript. So this is Attorney Kirk speaking. And for those of you who are saying, well, maybe it was lawful but not moral, I don’t do morals, folks if you want a moral analysis of this event. Talk to your pastor.
I do legal analysis. I’m an attorney. I do criminal law. That’s it. So quoting quoting attorney Kirk in his legal analysis of the fort and shooting and, and there’s the link to his video.
Again, it’ll be in the description of uh it is in the description today as well. Hello again, everyone. This is quoting attorney Kirk. Welcome to Washington Gun Law TV. I’m Washington Gun Law President William Kirk. Thanks for joining us. It’s gonna be a tough video to do.
But a lot of you have already seen this video right here which has been kicking around on the exosphere and other social media platforms. It deals with a horrific officer involved shooting in which a Florida officer gunned down a young African American male who appeared to be doing nothing more than exercising his constitutional rights. I would, I would ask here appear to who appeared to us with perfect 2020 hindsight or is that how it appeared to the deputy? And which of those views is relevant to a sound legal analysis on the Forts in. Shoot, this is the uh propaganda line that Roger Fortson was executed. Indeed, that’s the title, that’s the title of the video.
Roger Fortson was executed for exercising his constitutional rights. That’s why the deputy shot him. The deputy executed Roger Fortune for no other reason than Roger Fortune was exercising his constitutional rights. That’s the propaganda line that so many have been suckered into continuing now with this trend. And now of course, with the help of attorney William Kirk, continuing quote, we’re gonna go through all that here because I think there’s a lot to be dissected.
I think that seconds matter, it certainly matters is the analysis that we’re gonna do on this and it’s not gonna bode really well for this particular police officer. So, Attorney Kirk here is telling us he’s doing an analysis of this event presumptively a legal analysis, right? He’s an attorney. It’s a law show, by the way, at the, at the very end of his show, when he’s describing what Washington gun law does, this is what he says, closing paragraph. Finally, let everyone remember this is Attorney Kirk. Let everyone remember that part of being a lawful and responsible gun owner. Like we talk about all the time here is to know what the law is in every situation and how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself.
Does that apply to the deputy? Does the deputy get the benefit of due process of law or does that only apply when Attorney Kirk thinks it ought to apply for someone who advocates at his community? Know what the law is in every situation? Why does he make zero reference to self-defense law in this analysis? None? Why is he not informing his community of the relevant legal justification that this deputy would appeal to in arguing that his shooting of fortune was not an execution which should result in the deputy’s own capital punishment. Not a word of it. Not a word of what the defense would be, which is shocking coming from a lawyer whose entire professional career has been the defense of people accused of drunk driving. Surely when he goes to court for his clients, he doesn’t simply accept the narrative of guilt. Surely. He says, well, wait a minute, there’s another side to this story.
There’s a side to this story that’s favorable to my client that the state has to overcome beyond any reasonable doubt. I’m sure I’m absolutely certain. That’s what attorney Kirk does for his clients, but not for this deputy. No, for this deputy. It’s all about jumping on the bandwagon. It appears perhaps perhaps attorney Kirk has an explanation other then how this appears to me. If so, I’d love to hear it.
I’d love to debate, open to debate. We can, we can simul stream on, we can live stream simultaneously using streaming to our audiences. Happy to do it. My only condition is that the debate be fact based and law based Florida. Florida’s self defense justification, law continuing now with Attorney Kirk’s analysis quote, OK, this all took place a few days ago.
May 3rd. It happens um in Okaloosa County Florida out in the Panhandle there and many of you have seen the video. Now I’m gonna show portions of the video, I’m gonna tell you that when it gets to the really horrible part, we’re not gonna show that for a couple of reasons. One, you all know what happened.
Number two, Google and youtube have a tendency to crap themselves if we do that and shut the videos down like that. Ok. So folks full transparency. So in uh Attorney Kirk’s video, he’s showing um a version of the body worn camera that looks like it’s a um it’s a filming of a filming of the body worn camera like it’s being projected on a TV screen and someone’s filming the TV screen. I’m, I’m going to show you the actual body worn camera. It’s the same footage.
Uh but Attorney Kirk had, had added some text to his and I, again, I, I don’t wanna run the copyright issues and the, the actual body worn camera is much clearer. There’s greater literally clarity of the, of the video is better. So that’s what I’ll be showing all of you. Um I’ll be showing you the portions of the body worn camera that are identical to the portions that Attorney Kirk shows in his an analysis except the the actual body worn camera, not a copy of it. He says, but let’s take a look at what I really think is the most appropriate stuff to look at, which is all the events leading up to the fatal shooting at this point. Attorney Kirk shows this video clip. Let me make sure I have the right one.
Yes, I’ll make myself smaller. Here we go. It’s about three minutes. It runs from pretty early in the body. So the whole body, one camera video is 4.5 minutes. Uh So this is skipping the first minute and a half. Uh And then it runs to the end where the shooting occurred.
Now in fairness, full disclosure. Again, Attorney Kirk, uh kind of freezes his video when the shooting occurs. He, he doesn’t want to show that imagery, uh totally acceptable. That’s his decision to make on his channel.
We will be showing the shooting here. So that makes you uncomfortable then you’re in the wrong place. Here we go. Whoops. Two weeks ago, I was walking by like by their apartment basically on this.
By the way, I’m gonna come back to that this two weeks ago remark, notice that this is where Attorney Kirk starts this video at the two weeks ago portion. He’ll circle back to this and reemphasize this. This is unbelievably misleading and a mischaracterization of the evidence.
This cherry picking of starting the video clip here when nine seconds earlier, nine seconds earlier, we know that this is not about something that happened two weeks earlier and I do not believe for an instant that Attorney Kirk was unaware of what was said nine seconds earlier in this video, but we’ll come back to that. Whoops. Uh I broke something. Hold on. I’ll have to open it again, I guess two weeks ago, I was walking by, like, by their apartment basically on this side and I was hearing someone yell like sh like stupid V word and all I tell that I just like right after it, but I wasn’t sure where it came from and I couldn’t, like, I didn’t want to call the police. Which room is it? 1401, 1401. Ok.
421. But the girl sounded scared. The one I called, she’s, uh, she was like getting out of it. Sounds like it’s getting really out of hand. So it hit number four. Yeah. Ok.
You, we sent up, by the way, everything we’re hearing. Now, is this all part of the totality of the circumstance that this deputy is aware of as he approaches apartment 1401. So much for going to the wrong apartment, by the way, he was told exactly where to go and that’s where he went. An event of domestic violence that’s been ongoing, not an isolated event and serious enough that neighbors are hearing it getting to the point where those neighbors believe they need to call the police and have armed law enforcement respond to this event. Is that additional information? Additional context beyond Roger Fortune was merely exercising his constitutional rights.
Is this knowledge that the deputy possesses as he goes into this encounter, not there in directly the deputy is coming to this area. It’s not you, you’re gonna go to the four, it’s gonna be on this side. Ok. Mhm. 3 12 1 11 312 and 111. Yeah, go ahead.
Do you have that? I sheriff’s office, open the door, sheriff’s office, open the door, the bell. Drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun. 312 shots fired suspect there do not move 312. Get ems my location. Ok. So that’s the clip.
The first clip that Attorney Kirk plays in his analysis of this event. Let’s go back to the transcript quoting. Now, Attorney Kirk. Ok. Now the title of this video and again, what is the title of the video? The title is the Florida man who was executed for exercising his constitutional rights.
Ok. Now the title of this video is a sensational one. I recognize that.
But is it just hyperbole folks, the Florida man that was executed for exercising his constitutional rights? But let’s break all that down to see just how sensational it really is because Attorney Kirk is gonna tell us that it’s not sensational. It’s an accurate description of what happened here. Quote.
First of all, let’s start at the back end of that equation. Ok. 23 year old Roger Fortin, an airman in the United States Air Force is the individual who was killed at the hands of the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department. Now, I said that he was exercising his constitutional rights.
I’m going to assume that 23 year old Roger Fort and a member of our United States military who was serving as near as everyone could tell with distinction and honor was, had lived up to that point, a crime free lifestyle. The United States military typically does not like to take a lot of convicted felons and people like that into service. So there’s absolutely zero evidence that suggests that Mr Fortune was not absolutely positively allowed to lawfully possess a firearm.
Is that the legal standard here, did the deputy know any of this when he arrived on the scene? Because what is Florida Law require an analysis of a use of for to determine whether or not it was lawful? Well, if it was done in justifiable use of deadly force, there was no crime. It is a perfect legal defense to a crime, a charge of murder or manslaughter. And what’s required is not that the deputy have perfect information and not that the deputy be judged on information he could not possibly have possessed at the time he had to make the use of force decision. None of us are held to that standard. We can only make our use of force decisions based on the information we have at the time, we have to make the use of force decision and we don’t even have to be correct about that information. We only have to reasonably believe it actual Florida law, Florida jury instruction 3.6 f justifiable use of deadly force. By the way, how many references does Attorney Kirk make to this law, the Florida law that is determinative in whether or not this shooting of Roger Ford and as tragic as it is, was lawful and legally justified.
How many times does Attorney Kirk in his legal analysis reference the actual law of self-defense that would apply to this case? Zero times never. The deputy would have been justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believed such force was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself. Does he have to be correct? No, it has to be a reasonable belief, mean, meaning application of the powers of reason to facts that he possesses and those facts don’t have to be correct. There have to be facts on which he can place a reasonable reliance like like his dispatcher in deciding whether the deputy was justified in the use of deadly force. You must consider the circumstances by which he was surrounded at the time the force was used. That doesn’t mean facts unknown and unknowable to him, none of us would want to be judged by that standard. And Florida law does not require that your use of force be judged from facts you could not have known at the time you acted in self defense.
No state requires that not even Washington State attorney Kirk. The danger need not have been actual, their needs have been an appearance of danger that a reasonable, cautious and prudent person under the same circumstances. What are some of the same circumstances that would apply here? Like this officer is responding to a domestic violence call. Violence is in the name domestic violence call would have believed that the danger could have been avoided only through the use of that force. Keep in mind folks, we know in hindsight that fortune was all these things we know in hindsight that fortune was all these things that he was exercising his constitutional rights, that he was an honorable airman, respected by his peers that he was living a crime free lifestyle that he was doing nothing illegal.
We know this in hindsight. Did the deputy know any of this or did the deputy have different information? Did the deputy have information that there was a domestic violence event taking place had been ongoing for at least two weeks and had just happened again with sufficient severity that the police were called. That’s what the deputy knew. Not this no legal analysis of this use of force justica justification that takes this knowledge that was unknowable to that deputy can be legitimate because that’s not the legal standard. Continuing. Now with the transcript, quote, Attorney Kirk again, then let us also remember that this is the state of Florida.
So unlike the State of Illinois, California, New York, someplace like that, we got to jump through 23 hoops to exercise the constitutional right. Florida allows its citizens to live like Americans like our founding fathers intended them to be. So there is very little doubt in my mind. There should be very little doubt in anyone’s mind here that Mr Fortson was lawfully in possession of the firearm.
OK. Does the deputy also get rights that the founding fathers believe in due process of law that they believe that a person accused of a crime was innocent presumptively until proven guilty? Beyond a reasonable doubt, did they establish an adversarial trial process in which both sides of the story are heard by the jury? And the facts are not grossly misrepresented because if they are the other side gets the counter argue. Unbelievable that this is coming from a lawyer, a lawyer referencing the family fathers was John Adams the founding father.
I think so. Was he not the defense counsel for the British soldiers who fired into the ground, the crowd at the Boston massacre? And did he not get them acquitted? The same John Adams who would wage war against the British shortly thereafter. But he believes in due process of law.
He believed in a legal defense. And now we get to really some, some disgusting misrepresentation here, by the way, does it matter for the legal justification? Whether or not Fortune was doing anything unlawful? No, it doesn’t matter. This shooting can be completely legally justified even if Fortune was doing absolutely nothing wrong because that’s not the legal standard. The legal standard is not, was the person you shot Actually a bad actor? That standard is, did you reasonably perceive them as a bad actor based on what you knew at the time? Continuing now with this transcript? And this is the part that really riles me up because I don’t, maybe Attorney Kirk has an explanation for why he cherry picked the video clips he shared in his analysis. I’d love to hear it continuing quote.
Now take it back to the very beginning when the sheriff’s deputy arrives here. Let us remember, Attorney Kirk says, let us remember that this isn’t a 911 call that’s contemporaneous with an event that just happened. And then Attorney Kirk presents us with this slide. This is where his video clip started. You may remember and he presents this screen capture with this text on the bottom and he circles it.
Now his slide looks a little different, but this is my version of what he presents in his video. And what’s it say there? Two weeks ago, I was walking by, this is the woman who met the deputy at the scene two weeks ago, I was walking by their apartment basically on this side. And why does, why does Attorney Kirk share this with us? What point is he making here? He’s making this point? Quote. Now, take it back to the very beginning when the sheriff’s deputy arrives here. Let us remember that this isn’t a 911 call that’s contemporaneous with an event that just happened. And then he shows us this slide referencing two weeks ago as if this deputy is responding to an event that he believes he’s been informed happened two weeks ago. Obviously, there would be no urgency if you were responding to an event that occurred two weeks ago, by the way, is it credible? Is it credible that a witness heard what they thought was domestic violence? And they waited two weeks and then decided to call a deputy to respond to something that happened two weeks earlier.
I would suggest that’s not credible on its face, but we don’t have to trust my judgment on this because this, this screen capture highlighted by attorney Kirk happens at 1629 16 on the body worn camera 16 hours, 29 minutes, 16 seconds. You know what also happens in this video clip nine seconds prior to this, this happens the same woman talking to the deputy saying, ok, but this time, it sounded like it was getting out of hand this time. This deputy is not responding to an event that happened two weeks prior. He’s responding to an event that’s taking place. In fact, the call to 911, the dispatch out to the deputy about this event happened minutes before he arrived at the scene. This is in fact a contemporaneous event.
Now, are we to believe that Attorney Kirk didn’t see this, that he, he, he, he missed this. Maybe, maybe he missed it. How reliable could his legal analysis be? This is a relevant fact. He believes he believes it’s a relevant fact because he’s trying to claim that the deputy is not responding to a contemporaneous event. Misinformation. Maybe an honest mistake.
I don’t know, Attorney Kirk and I can speak for himself. He continues, this isn’t a 911 call that involves four or five eyewitnesses to a commission of a crime actually occurring. Why would that be relevant to anything? Are the police only allowed to respond to reports of a crime if there are four or five eyewitnesses? How mu how many domestic violence events are occurring in front of four or five eyewitnesses are the cops supposed to say sorry, sorry caller.
Unless you have four or five witnesses, we’re not even gonna send a deputy to knock on the door. That’s supposed to be the law enforcement we want that is ridiculous on its face. Cork continues.
No, this appears to be a neighbor that may have heard some things and she thinks it came from that apartment and she has no idea what the noises truly were and she has no idea who’s responsible for those noises. Let’s say that’s all true. What do we do now? We do know as an incontestable fact that whatever was happening was sufficiently concerning.
First of all, it’s been ongoing because there’s the reference to the two weeks earlier event as well. She’s sufficiently concerned about what she’s hearing. She says the woman sounds scared that she calls for armed deputies to respond to the scene. She didn’t think it was nothing. Does the deputy know exactly what’s going on when he gets that report from dispatch to go to the scene? No, he knows what this woman reported to 911. Is he not supposed to rely on that? Is he, is he supposed to wave his hands and say, well, there weren’t four or five witnesses? Well, she, she doesn’t know exactly what’s happening. So I’m not going to investigate really laughable.
Attorney Kirk continues. So at best, at best at this point and again, maybe Florida law is way different, but I believe that they respect the constitutional rights of their citizens. How about the deputy? Does he get constitutional rights attorney Kirk? So at best, the officer here has the ability to go up and attempt to make a casual contact. What do you call knocking on a door and asking to speak to someone? But a casual contact. Did the officer kick the door in? Did he drag fortune out of his apartment? Did they fire smoke grenades into the apartment? What less interventional step could the deputy have taken? But knocking on the door saying, hey, can I talk to you? Which is exactly what the deputy is doing? Continuing here from attorney Kirk. Quote, a casual contact, whoever does not involve banging on the door, which we’re gonna get you, by the way, is there anything that says an officer can’t bang on a door? Part of the narrative? You were supposed to be that Fortson at least initially didn’t hear the knocking on the door because he was wearing headphones.
Wouldn’t it make sense for the officer to knock harder in the belief that maybe the person inside didn’t hear him? Is it a crime for the officer to bang on the door? Is that not just the subject of characterization? Was the door being smashed in loud knocking is not a crime and does not strip anyone of the privileged to use force in their own defense? Loud knocking. Thank you. Continuing. Now, quote, Attorney Kirk. And what I mean by a casual contact is there are situations where an officer may have something far less than reasonable suspicion, but a somewhat level of suspicion and they can go up to and try to contact an individual to see if that individual is willing to speak to them. Ok.
First of all this officer has reasonable suspicion. What is reasonable suspicion? It’s anything that’s more than purely speculative. It has to be based on reason on information.
Was this deputy provided with information? Did he randomly select Roger Fort’s apartment door? He was there for no reason except he was magically supposed to know the person on the other side of the door was exercising their constitutional rights. That’s why he was knocking. Is that what we’re supposed to believe someone behind this door may be exercising their constitutional rights. I better execute them or did this deputy have a reason? An objectively reasonable reason to knock on that door and ask to speak to Roger Fortson, had he been informed that there’s an apparent domestic violence event taking place in that apartment. Yes, that’s why he was there. Those are facts from which he’s making reasonable inferences and conducting himself in a reasonable manner to investigate whether those suspicions are founded.
By the way, he doesn’t really need reasonable suspicion, reasonable suspicion is what’s required before an officer can stop. You can tell you you’re not free to leave. This officer never does that Roger Fortson would have been entirely within his rights to not answer the door. This officer was placing no physical coercion or threat of physical coercion on Roger Fortson.
He was simply knocking on the door and asking to speak to him. An officer would be privileged to do that if he was responding to a missing dog report. Hey, have you seen this dog in the neighborhood? He’s reported missing. We’re wondering, have you seen anything that would be enough to justify an officer knocking on the door and asking to talk to you? Does that mean you have to talk to the officer? Of course not. Is he allowed to ask if you would like to? Yes.
And that’s all this officer was doing. Attorney Kirk. If the individual is willing to speak to him, the officer will engage in a conversation ie interrogation, I would just caution here that we need to distinguish between fair enough. I think any time law enforcement is talking to you fair to characterize it as an interrogation, but it’s not a custodial interrogation, which is a completely different animal entirely that triggers things like Miranda rights, not a knock and a conversation at the door. The officer will engage in the conversation ie interrogation and may discover additional evidence that then rises to the level in which an arrest could be made. Was this officer making an arrest here? No, he wasn’t. Was he investigating to develop additional evidence that may or may not rise to the level in which an arrest could be made sure that’s his job in responding to the call.
This deputy was doing exactly what Attorney Kirk is saying law enforcement is supposed to do. He continues but under a casual contact setting, the individual who’s being investigated is under no duty no responsibility whatsoever to talk to the officer can literally tell him to go pound sand. Sure. Of course, Roger Fortson could have done that. Roger Fortson did not do that so that this is an hypothetical option for the person being solicited by the officer is not relevant to the facts of this case. The officer did not compel fortune to open the door, open the door and I’ll shoot, open the door, I’ll kick it in, open the door.
We have a warrant attorney, Kirk continues. Ok. Now, perhaps if that was what the deputy thought he was gonna do a on the door, sheriff’s office.
I was wondering if you’d be willing to talk to me for a minute might have been appropriate. That’s exactly what the deputy was doing. That is precisely what the deputy is doing. Knock, knock, knock sheriff’s office. I was wondering if you’d be willing to talk to me for a minute.
But no, no, no, when we go back and we look at the video and I wrote down the timeline here 113 in the video that I showed showed you the officer pounds on the door. Ok. Pounds on the door. Is it a crime for the officer to pound on the door? Is he breaking it in? Pound just means knocking loudly again for all he knows the person inside his headphones on is playing a video game.
Their TV is who knows. Maybe they’re not hearing. So you knock louder, the officer steps immediately away from the side so that therefore if you’re looking through the peephole, you’re not going to see him.
And note attorney Kirk says, does not announce. Now, of course, we know the officer does announce and attorney Kirk will acknowledge this the second time the officer knocks on the door, he does announce. Why would the officer announce the moment he walks up to the door? Can you imagine that you just walk up to a door and you shout sheriff’s office.
You’re not first, you’re only announcing to see if you can get someone to, if you’re speaking to someone, he’s not required to announce the first time he knocks on the door. That certainly does not strip the deputy of his right to defend his life against an apparent deadly force attack. Kirk says, and this is important on that first knock. Never announces that he’s a member of law enforcement. Ok. Ok.
Attorney Kirk, does he within seconds later announce that he’s a member of law enforcement several times before he physically interacts with Fortune. Yes. And then it’s some, by the way, is he required to announce? Could he have just kept knocking and waited for the door to open? He’s not required to announce anything.
Is he required to stand in front of the peephole cops who stand in front of doors when they’re called to scenes of violence get shot through those doors of course, he’s not standing in front of the doors. Have you not heard of the, the three, the ways of death hallways, stairways, doorways, it’s not tactically sound to stand in front of a door when you’re responding to a reported scene of violence. And then at some point, Attorney Kirk continues, it appears that the officer is not comfortable being on the left side of the door. So he immediately shifts to the right side of the door again, remaining out of view from anyone who’s looking out of the peephole. Not a crime.
Nothing wrong with any of this does not lose the deputy. The right of self defense attorney. Kirk continues. Now at 145 of the video, he knocks a second time again very aggressively and this time does announce that he is a sheriff. Oh, wait, so he’s announced he’s announced he’s a sheriff. How many seconds after was this? This is about 30 seconds after the first knock. So within 30 seconds of the first knock, the sheriffs, the deputies announced that he’s law enforcement.
Ok. Does that 32nd lapse lose him? Self defense? No, but what’s he saying at that point, he’s saying that he’s a sheriff and he needs to talk to him, Fortson. And at this point, this officer does not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that would justify any kind of unlawful detention of Mr Fortson. He’s not attempting to detain Mr Fortson. Attorney Kirk Wtf, what are you talking about? There is no detention. He’s seeking to speak to the man he’s allowed to do that. He does not even need reasonable suspicion to do that.
Continuing. Attorney Kirk. But he’s knocking and pounding away at the door saying that I need to talk to you inferring that somehow or another.
Mr Forne has a duty to open the door, which he doesn’t and talk to the officer even if he believes it to be an officer. Of course, if Mr Fortune is looking at the people, he’s hearing all this, but he’s not seeing anything. Is he, what does that have to do with anything? The officer is allowed to knock, he’s even allowed to bang.
He’s allowed to say I need to talk to you. None of that would justify fortune killing the deputy, right? That’s not a threat to Fortune. His physical safety. Ok. And then the third knock occurs at 153.
So 10 seconds later again, a very vicious knock, a vicious knock. Everybody. Fortune was gonna die from that knock that was gonna cause him death or serious bodily injury. A very vicious knock. Is that unlawful to knock whatever that means viciously on the door. A very vicious knock with the announcement that this was law enforcement? All right.
So is it bad or good now that he’s announcing he’s law enforcement, Mr Fortson opens the door moments later. Now, we didn’t show you that part of the video, but I want you to be to pay careful attention to two things. Number one, this is the audio of what occurs. So again, I’m gonna show you the actual body worn camera portion and this does show the shooting. Attorney Kirk did, uh, decided to, uh, freeze frame the video, the visual. So you didn’t see the shooting but you’ll see it here.
So fair warning. Let me make sure I have the right clip. Here we go.
Sheriff. Whoops. Ok. Let me try again. Hm I don’t know why it froze. Sheriff’s office, open the door. It’s about my drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun 312 shots fired.
Suspect there do not move 312 K ems my location. Ok. So that’s the second video clip that Attorney Kirk shared. Now he says, quote, now I want you to pay attention that there are shots fired and then he’s ordered to drop the gun.
Ok. Think about that shots fired and then he’s ordered to drop the gun. What’s unreasonable about that? Maybe the officer thought he was still in possession of the gun if fortune were a bad actor and the officer shot him lawfully and Fortson falls to the ground and the officer can’t tell if he’s still in possession of the gun. Would it be inappropriate for the officer to say, drop the gun after he shot Fortson? It would be perfectly appropriate. And why did he say it after and not before. Is it possible the deputy didn’t have time to shout commands when faced with a gun in hand by Fortson, that he had to make the decision to use deadly defensive force. Right then in a fraction of a second continuing.
Attorney Kirk. Secondly, you can obviously hear how much time goes from the door opening to shots actually being fired. And here in his attorney, Kirk presents a slide that shows 2.9 seconds from, uh, the door open to the shots fired. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean in terms of the justification. Here, by the way again, Attorney Kirk spends zero seconds of this video even considering the deputy’s justification, zero seconds of this video with any reference to Florida self defense law at all, when that’s the other side of the story.
So in this legal analysis, what are we being presented both sides of the story is that an informed analysis, a balanced analysis, an objective legal analysis from an attorney or are we hearing one side of the story? The popular side, the emotional, emotional side, the witch hunt side. I understand lay people taking that position. Humans aren’t emotional creatures. We respond to things emotionally. I expect more from a criminal defense attorney whose job, by the way would be in this case to defend this deputy quoting attorney Kirk again. So listen at the very beginning of this video, what did we say? It was all about, it was about a Florida man who was executed, executed for exercising his constitutional rights as if that’s the only reason the shooting happened as if this deputy just showed up. You know what I’m looking for, someone exercising their constitutional rights so I can execute them.
That’s what we’re supposed to believe. That’s what Attorney Kirk is telling us to believe about this case, quoting him. It was about a Florida man who was executed for exercising his constitutional rights and no matter how you connect the dots.
Attorney Kirk tells us no matter how you arrange the puzzle pieces. That’s exactly what occurred here. Is it? Attorney Kirk? Is there no legal defense here? Did you even bother looking at Florida self-defense law to see if there might be a legal justification for this shooting? Because you talk about connecting the dots and you talk about arranging the puzzle pieces. You need to know what the dots are. Attorney Kirk and you need to know what the puzzle pieces are. Attorney Kirk because if you just pretend they don’t exist, you’re not connecting anything. Can imagine what kind of puzzles you put together, sir.
Quote attorney Kirk says, I’m not saying that this officer is in general overall a bad guy. And by the way, I’d like to point out, I’m not saying either that Attorney Kirk here is in general a bad guy. I’m not saying that Attorney William Kirk is in general overall a bad guy continuing now. Quote. But what I am saying is that the sheriff’s deputy had a very, very bad day at work.
Well, folks, I’m suggesting that attorney William Kirk, when he did this analysis, that he had a very, very bad day at work. This analysis is a dumpster fire coming from a criminal defense attorney. How can you do a legal analysis of the use of force event as a criminal defense attorney and never even consider the defense argument.
Continuing quote, the deputy made some horrible decisions. It had a devastating consequence for the Fortson family. If Fortune had been a bad actor, a criminal and been shot by this deputy, would that not also have had devastating consequences of the Fort and family? Of course, the killing of any family member has this devastating consequence for the for for the family of that family member. Does that mean the shooting was unlawful? That it had a devastating consequence for Fortune’s family? No, it had a devastating consequence for the Fort and family and it should if the legal system is truly just and if we have an equal application of the law will turn out to be a pretty rough outcome for the sheriff’s deputy as well. That’s rich coming from attorney Kirk, that’s rich. Just equal application of the law when you never even consider for one second in your analysis, the deputy side of the story, not one word of Florida self defense law. So much for equal application of the law, sir.
Criminal defense attorney wrapping up. Now, Kirk writes, listen, we’ll go ahead and link up everything that we relied upon down below in making this video. We’ll go ahead and find some links down below so that if you want to give to the Fortson family and help them through this terrible time in their lives, you may do so.
That’s fine. This was a tragic event. No question about it. Orson was not doing anything legally wrong. Doesn’t mean it was an unjustified shooting.
Then he solicits suggestions for uh other videos they might do. Uh And he wraps up with the paragraph I already shared with all of you. Quote.
Finally, let everyone remember that part of being a lawful and responsible gun owner like we talk about all the time here is to know what the law is in every situation and how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself until next time. Thanks for watching and stay safe. He advocates, he says that we know what the law is in every situation and how it applies to you.
How about the law in the use of force situation in Florida and how it applies to this deputy? Any consideration of that attorney Kirk Nope, not a scintilla. So again, I’m happy to debate Attorney Kirk on the legal merits of this use of force event. You in the context of actual evidence and actual applicable law.
A apparently he doesn’t care about the other side of the story. He doesn’t care about Florida self defense law. I guess I have to assume he doesn’t mention it.
This is a strange, I don’t know, I, I don’t know how you can be a criminal defense lawyer and never even consider the legal defense that would be raised here and then advocate for the capital punishment of this deputy because that’s what this deputy would be subject to. If this headline, if this video title were true, Florida man executed for exercising his constitutional rights. If this is true, if this is what attorney Kirk actually believes and he doubles down on this in his analysis, then that deputy is subject to capital punishment under Florida law. All right, let’s see what we have from the law of self defense membership. If you’d like a comment or question addressed on youtube, I’m happy to do that, but it does then need to be a $10 Super chat law of self defense members get their questions and comments answered for free so far.
No $10 Super Chats in youtube, which is fine. I don’t want you to give youtube $10. Uh If anything, I would prefer that you simply become a law self defense member, try it out for 99 cents.
Get all your questions and comments answered for free at law of self defense.com/trial. All right. Who do you want as a criminal defense attorney, folks. Do you, do you want as a criminal defense attorney, the attorney who considers the criminal defenses in the case? Would that be nice? Just, just amazing. All right.
Uh, let’s see, Jeffrey Law Self, these are the law, self defense member, questions and comments. Uh, Jeffrey says I follow his site, I guess the Washington Gun Law site, but I must have missed this one. I believe it came down on Monday. So if you go to his uh web page uh on youtube again, very popular, 360,000 subscribers, which is unbelievably successful.
That’s gotta be 1, 1/100 of a percent success rate on um on um youtube. Um You can check it out there. Jeffery says, I don’t like you telling the truth. Andrew sounds like the Colorado Public Defender’s office. Yes, indeed. It does.
Uh Cycle boy asks question, our review of law self-defense information could be used in court good and bad as foundation for our knowledge of appropriate self-defense can knowing if police are charged, not charged in situations like this be used in court to say this frames our legal perception of legal self-defense uh because police are only given leave to be innocent and in a place. Uh No. Uh what happens in some other case like some other trial that’s, it’s not gonna be relevant to your, your legal defense. What what happens in police use of force events is not gonna be relevant to your use of force event. What will be relevant to your force of your use of force event is the facts of your event and the actual law statutes, court decisions, appellate, court decisions. Um And of course, how that’s all distilled down into jury instructions.
Um Kyle says, uh I normally like Washington gun law, but this episode was riddled with emotional appeal, uncharacteristic. So I’ve, I’ve only seen a few Washington Gun Law uh videos because he, he covers, I think mostly gun stuff, right? Second amendment type stuff. And that’s, that’s not really my focus.
Now, I, I do read in my shows, I don’t know, a dozen or two dozen uh second amendment court decisions a year. Uh because I’m an advocate for the second Amendment. I I, and when we have favorable appellate court and Supreme court decisions, I mean, I’ve read Heller and mcdonald and Caetano and, and Brewing. I’ve read all of those as shows uh and many of the recent appellate court decisions favorable to the second Amendment. I’ve, I’ve done that the whole time I’ve had a youtube channel, but gun law is not, not my focus and I don’t claim any particular expertise.
So when I hear other lawyers who claim expertise in gun law talk about gun law just as a professional courtesy, I would normally defer to their expertise. What do I know? I’m not a gun law expert. But when I see a lawyer purport to provide expert legal analysis in an area I know self defense law and they butcher it this badly. I have to wonder about the credibility of their other content. Let’s see.
Pop, pop, pop, pop psycho says would be great if our system allowed non-government actors under a penalty of having to reimburse because no, no Q I to file criminal charges against someone, then you could have independent activist groups actually investigate and prosecute corrupt officials. Uh Well, psycho boy, I would urge caution because then you would have independent activist groups investigating and prosecuting everybody. You think it’s banned on social media when you can get canceled by a pack of howling progressive fascists who don’t like what you say? Remember the old days before Elon bought Twitter, imagine of those same screeching howler monkeys on the left could drag you into a criminal prosecution.
Do you think they wouldn’t do that? Look at what they’re doing in Trump. Let’s see. Jeffrey says Kirk probably moved out of his lane on this one. Usually only talks gun law, not self defense law. I don’t know. He talks about self defense law on his website.
It’s, it’s on his home page. So presumably he’s claiming some expertise there. II I listen, all I can do is go on what he shares with us, which is what I did today. Uh Let’s see, Chuck says Branca’s point is that two people both acting lawfully can reasonably perceive that the other is a deadly threat and both can be justified in their use of force against each other. Yes. Yep. So arguably if Fortson had shot the deputy dead, Fortson would be raising a claim of self defense, right? And then we would do an analysis of the merits of that claim of self defense.
Let’s see. Tig from New Mexico says if a legal professional com quote unquote, legal professional can put something like this together. How is a jury of average adults to be relied upon to critically review the facts? Makes one think hard about situations in which you deploy your firearm and self-defense. Indeed.
Tig from New Mexico. Indeed, that’s why I find it so offensive when a layperson does this, I can just say, well, you know, they’re, they’re just, they’re uninformed, they’re ignorant of the relevant law. I don’t mean ignorant in a derogatory sense.
I mean, in the technical sense, they just, they don’t know what the law is so and humans are emotional creatures and they’re responding emotionally. I get it. Lawyers are supposed to be different, were supposed to be engaged in critical thinking and looking at both sides of the argument and taking the relevant law into account in evaluating whether or not a deputy executed a man simply for exercising his constitutional rights. Kyle says a law enforcement officer here, I damn sure never stood in front of a door when knocking. Of course not Kyle also says. So the argument, what if Fortson didn’t hear because he was wearing headphones only works for Fortson and not the deputy knocking louder. Exactly.
Jeffrey has seen that many times. A person is shot, they’re on the ground but they still shoot back. Yes, I cover events like that all the time. We just had one. It was a security guard in a convenience store and some lunatic comes in and starts waving a gun around and the security guard shoots the lunatic to the ground.
And after the lunatics on the ground, he shoots the security guard in the leg. I I covered that event in the show just within the last couple of months. Uh Brian says, as a fan of both law, self-defense and Washington gun Law, Kirk just strayed out of his lane and into Andrews. I suggested many times on Kirk’s channel that they should also follow law of self defense as a compliment.
Kirk’s expertise seems to be gun law, not self-defense and fair enough. And uh listen, I can’t evaluate someone else’s expertise in gun law. I don’t claim any expertise in gun law. I know a little bit about self defense law. I would be happy happy ecstatic to do a live stream debate on this use of force event. My only condition would be, of course, I get to stream it too.
Uh So we inherently have a unbiased platform. I’m happy if, if Kirk also wants to live stream simultaneously stream yard allows for that and that we agree beforehand that the debate will be premised on actual facts and actual law, the Florida law relevant to self defense, nobody ever agrees to debate. Well, I shouldn’t say that.
Um, I guess a year or two ago there was a, uh, a law professor here in, uh in uh Colorado who uh did a law review article on uh self-defense law comparing American self-defense law to various European countries. Self-defense law. And uh I covered his law review article in a show and I was critical of it. Uh and he called me and uh we had lunch and it was great and uh it turns out we weren’t that far in our little, little, little, not fully aligned, but not that as far as one might think. And, and he came on my show uh on a live stream and uh that was great.
Um But 99.99% of the time when I offer to debate someone on a use of force event, they decline. I don’t know why that is. Kenneth says, I expect, saying drop the gun don’t move is simply the deputy articulating his training. It’s just something cops always say during a shooting. Yeah, that’s just preprogramming. I mean, maybe it’s responsive to what he’s observing. There’s no harm in saying it, it doesn’t make anything he did unlawful.
There’s no reason not to say drop the gun will, says I guess I can see an argument for self defense, but there’s also argument from some other videos emphasizing some stuff to spike the officer’s presumed mindset. I don’t know that there’s a, what’s the presumed mindset seems to me like there are serious questions of fact, that would be a jury’s territory. Well, ok, so share them. Kyle says, I felt that the deputy either didn’t notice or that the drop the gun was buffering while he reflexively defended himself. I think that’s probably the case cycle.
Boy says, I don’t like that. What happened elsewhere isn’t allowable in court for me. Why are such similar facts with wildly different results? Yeah, that’s just, that’s just the way the system works. Folks, you’re, you’re judged on your use of force events, your facts, the relevant law, what happened in some other trial is just completely irrelevant.
It happens a lot. By the way, uh most commonly this, this occurs when uh when there’s not a trial. So, uh for example, uh some uh normal law abiding citizen will uh go to the gun, they’ll wave a gun at somebody in what they think is lawful, self-defense.
Um And maybe they’re actually committing aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But the prosecutor looks at the case and says, well, that guy’s never been in trouble with the law before. The person he pointed the gun at is a known bad actor in the community. I’m not gonna prosecute him. He didn’t even fire a shot. All he did was point the gun.
He thought it was lawful self defense. It wasn’t really justified because there was not a deadly force threat. But I choose not to prosecute that person. And then you do exactly the same thing a week later and you get prosecuted, they’re allowed to do that will says, uh, I still have issues leading up them getting to the door with the mindset of their being active. Domestic violence and play.
He was told about an event two week in the past where they didn’t know which apartment then given this apartment number by the person who didn’t call. No, he was, he was responding to a call from dispatch of a contemporaneous domestic violence event, not something from two weeks prior. And he was, he didn’t go to the wrong apartment door, he went to the door, he was directed to go to Will says, gets to the door and there’s nothing consistent with there being an emergency in the moment. Well, he’s, that’s what he’s investigating again. We know Fortson wasn’t committing domestic violence on anybody, right? But of course, domestic violence does happen and there is evidence consistent with domestic violence. The call, the report of those observed facts by the caller to 911 and the fact that it’s quiet at the moment does not mean the crime has not occurred.
What if the domestic abuser has killed their victim? Now there’s no more noise from the victim. Does that mean the cop doesn’t investigate? I got up to the door and I didn’t hear any screaming and there’s a dead body cooling off inside that apartment. The fact that there’s no sound of a struggle in the moment does not invalidate the facts that were reported on the 911 call. If your daughter was the victim of domestic violence and the person abusing her maybe had just scared her into silence. When the cops knock you better not say anything, I’ll shoot you.
So the cop knocks, he doesn’t hear anything. Does he just walk away or does he knock again? Kyle says, I’ve walked into medical emergencies where everything was quiet and it was a bloody and violent scene. Indeed.
Robert says, uh you covered Roberts V Texas where the Texas Court of Appeals had to point out that both parties can act in lawful self defense. Even judges get that wrong. Yes, they do. Sadly. All right. One more look to see if there’s any uh super chats that came in.
I would urge people not to do this. Become a member, try it after 99 cents law of self defense.com/trial. And that’s all the law, self defense member content. All right, folks. So I will go ahead and wrap up today’s show. Uh Again, I will include, uh, well, there’s already a link to Attorney Kirk’s video that I critiqued here today.
Uh So you can watch that video yourself in its entirety. Uh I’ll include a transcript, um, my transcript of that just for transparency purposes. Um, and whatever else I can think of that might be useful. Um And, uh, and there we go, that’s what I have for all of you today.
So I’ll just remind all of you that if you carry a gun. So you’re hard to kill. By the way, folks, when it comes to use of force events, you, you might want to actually know and consider the actual laws that govern the use of force in self defense. If attorney Kirk would like, I’d, I’d be more than happy to send him a, a nice hard cover autographed version of the law of self defense. Perhaps it would be informative. Uh But if you carry a gun, so you’re hard to kill if you carry a knife.
So you’re hard to kill if you carry pepper spray. So you’re hard to kill if you study jiu-jitsu. So you’re hard to kill. I’ll be heading off to jujitsu. As soon as I sign off this show, then you also owe it to yourself to make sure you know the law. So you’re hard to convict as well. Until next time I remain attorney Andrew Branka for the law of self defense, stay safe.
Speaking of debates, does Sunny Hostin still owe you $100?
Yep.
Just a footnote: The “pounding” on the door (IMO, having responded to 30 years of those type of calls) was appropriate considering it was a domestic violence in progress call and the urgency to speak with someone inside.
If it was a lesser call, I doubt the knock would have been like that. Not that it matters in the scope of things however.
Just finished reading the Knibbs case.
Since the court simply vacated a summary judgement and remanded the case, I was curious about the outcome.
Looks like a hung jury on the first round:
https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/35171-after-two-weeks-in-court-a-hung-jury-leads-to-mistrial-in-knibbs-case
Doesn’t mean there won’t be a new trial, but if they had this much trouble on a civil burden of proof, imagine how unlikely a criminal conviction beyond a reasonable doubt would be.
PS looks like it settled:
https://mountainverdict.com/settlement-of-estate-of-knibbs-v-momphard-police-wrongful-use-of-deadly-force-lawsuit/
Thanks for the excellent LEGAL (not emotional) analysis of the incident. I seriously doubt Mr. Kirk will take you up on your offer to debate him. I’m sure he realizes you would make him look like a complete fool.
Everyone can claim self defense in a homicide case if they meet their burden of production. The prosecution is not required to present evidence of self defense and that means the deputy will have to take the stand and raise the claim of “I thought I saw him raising the weapon”. Whether there was an overt act by the victim that would make such an obviously incorrect belief reasonable is a question of fact for the jury and the video doesn’t show any such overt act. The deputy’s only hope in a court case is to hope for jury nullification.