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Of this down there in florida. walk us through that. well, stand your ground is very much a part of a trial like this, and the jury is specifically instructed to apply the principle that a defendant doesn t have to walk away from trouble, in fact, they have no duty to retreat and can literally stand their ground. so whether or not there is a separate stand your ground hearing, and that s where some of the confusion comes from, you have a right in florida prior to the jury trial to have a judge separately evaluate your stand your ground defense and if the judge believes you ve proven it, the judge says you can t be sued for wrongful death. there was no stand your ground hearing separately from the trial itself, but believe me, stand your ground was part and parcel of what the jury was asked to apply. your take on this, mike, has been a bit different in that you want to make sure that we remember that the other teenagers who were in that ....
Kill somebody if there s, quote, a reasonable fear of serious injury or death, that principle is very much in the jury instructions. so, no, there wasn t a separate stand your ground hearing, but the stand your ground explanation law of the jury was very much there here as it was in zimmerman. and believe me, what a jury is told about self-defense in a situation like this is fundamentally different from what they would have been told ten years ago before the stand your ground law was applied. and i want to see if we can play there s some sound that we actually have of michael dunn s attorney. he actually talked to the jury in his closing arguments, and this is where we sort of heard the stand your ground piece come in. if you have that sound available, i would love to play that just for a moment. head no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force. so, lisa, stand your ground, ....
Bloom. nbc news legal analyst, as well as a legal analyst for avoo.com, and also the author of the upcoming book, suspicion nation. i want to thank both of you guys for being here. and i want to start with you, kendall. if you could just explain, something that s become sort of a matter of confusion over this case, and that is stand your ground. whether or not or how stand your ground was actually used in the case? well, i m glad you raids sed, joy, it is confusing, and defense counsel suggested it s not a stand your ground case, but what they re saying is they did not use the right to have a separate stand your ground hearing, decided only by a judge, where a trial could be avoided entirely, criminal and civil immunity given, if in the judge-only stand your ground hearing, the judge decides that self-defense is sufficiently proven. now, stand your ground, the principle, the lack of duty to retreat, the fact that you don t have to walk away from trouble in the state of florida, you ....
Deadly force. they sound so similar. i think the defense attorney may have said, i m not going to do a pre-trial motion for a stand your ground hearing. obviously, he is not. they are about to start the trial. i don t think that he affirmatively waved being able to say to a jury, i get the benefit of the no need to retreat portion of the statute. that s a very confusing statute. i think that included in the justifiable use of force is the fact that they didn t need to retreat. they have to be able to say to that jury even though i may have been able to retreat, i did not have any reason to. so you can t consider the fact that i didn t put the car in drive and drive away. if he were to ever wave that, it would be a huge mistake and a huge tactical blunder. this is something the jury is going to wrestle through and ....
37% of latino children living below the poverty line. children. we have unbelievable numbers of children who are poor. what does that say about who we are as a country? we need to move forward. we need to have a strategy and plan. i m very proud as a democrat and the chair of our task force on poverty and opportunity that we know how to get there. if only we had a bipartisan strategy with the republicans to do this. congresswoman barbara lee, thank you so much for your work and your time tonight. my pleasure. still ahead, ted cruz uses a stand your ground hearing as an excuse to score some cheap political points with trayvon martin s mother in attendance. we have seen efforts to undermine the verdict of the jury and more broadly to inflame racial tensions. we ll talk about it with ....