Prosecutors in Charleston, South Carolina, contend the state’s stand-your-ground law doesn’t apply to domestic disputes in the home.
Prosecutors say they will make that argument when they appeal a judge’s finding in an immunity hearing that Whitlee Jones of North Charleston was justified in fatally stabbing her boyfriend, Eric Lee, the Charleston Post and Courier reports.
. . .
Jones stabbed Lee in November 2012 in an incident that began in an argument over a cellphone. Lee had given Jones the phone, but he wanted it back, the Post and Courier says, citing court documents. Jones says she refused, leading Lee to punch her and, when she got out through the back door, to pull her by the hair down the street. A neighbor called 911 and Jones tried to do so too, but the phone went dead. She gave up the cellphone, ending the initial confrontation, and ran down the street.
When police arrived, Lee said Jones had smashed his phone and there had been no assault. Jones later returned home to gather her belongings and leave for good. She says Lee became agitated and when she saw a knife, she tucked it into her bra. Jones claims Lee tried to block her as he was leaving, shook her, and was getting ready to hit her when she retrieved the knife and stabbed Lee in the heart.
Kidd points to the wording of the state’s stand-your-ground law, which creates a presumption that a person has a reasonable fear of death when an intruder is trying to forcefully enter a home, but not when a person against whom deadly force is used has the right to be in the dwelling.The Charleston Post and Courier has the full story on the case here.
The story has caused quite a bit of backlash, with news outlets and commentators reporting everywhere that this case stands for the proposition that domestic violence victims cannot take advantage of "stand-your-ground" self-defense laws. Examples of these critical stories can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
This criticism (along with the ABA Journal's reporting) is mistaken, however, because it incorrectly claims that this case turns on questions of "stand-your-ground." More importantly, while the prosecution's argument in this case leads to what many may see as an unpleasant result, it is completely in line with the language of South Carolina's self-defense law. And most importantly, while this particular case may seem to have an unfortunate result, the defendant can still raise and successfully argue self-defense, and reading the law more broadly could have extremely negative consequences.
