Jury Says Paralegal Guilty in Stabbing
The Jury Rejects the "Stand Your Ground"
Defense in the Manslaughter Case.

By Colleen Jenkins
St. Petersburg Times
October 27, 2006

TAMPA - In a first for Hillsborough County, a jury considered, then rejected, the "stand your ground" law Thursday as a defense for a paralegal who fatally stabbed another man.

Jurors found James Behanna guilty of manslaughter with a weapon after hearing evidence that he tussled with 21-year-old Robert Mears Jr. on Dec. 7, then followed him off Behanna's property and pierced his heart with a pocketknife.

Prosecutors said the verdict sent a clear message about the year-old law, which allows individuals to meet force with force when they feel threatened in any place they have a right to be.

"Stand your ground," Assistant State Attorney Kyle Pennington said, "is a lot different than chasing someone down."

But Arthur C. Hayhoe, who watched Behanna's trial, said attorneys on both sides failed to fully explain the new law.

Hayhoe, executive director of The Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Inc., opposes the law because he thinks it gives people a license to kill. Jurors just didn't understand it, he said, or they would have acquitted Behanna.

"I don't think this law got a fair hearing," he said.

The conviction wasn't the only bad news Behanna, 37, got Thursday.

Moments before the verdict, his mother fell ill outside the courthouse and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Defense attorney Ronald Cacciatore said she had suffered a heart attack.

Circuit Judge Daniel Sleet delayed Behanna's sentencing until Dec. 4 and ordered an investigation into his background.

The judge also gave the defendant until 5 p.m. today to turn himself in so he could tend to his mother. Behanna faces up to 30 years in prison.

His attorney gave a passionate closing argument Thursday morning. He reminded jurors that Mears refused to leave Behanna's property - a law office owned by his wife, Aida Rodriguez, on N Florida Avenue - and then threw Behanna to the ground.

Behanna followed Mears about 150 yards off the property. As he tried to detain Mears for arrest, Mears turned around and choked him, Cacciatore said.

Behanna, nicknamed MacGyver at his office because he carried a pocketknife, stabbed Mears to get free, the defense attorney said.

"He didn't invite (Mears) over to beat him up," Cacciatore told jurors.

But prosecutor Pennington reminded jurors that the state had to prove Behanna acted recklessly, not in an evil or premeditated way. The "stand your ground" law didn't apply, he said, because Behanna could have gone into his office for safety instead of pursuing Mears.

Jurors took 1½ hours to render their verdict.

When the clerk said "guilty," Behanna closed his eyes. His pregnant wife and teenage daughter stifled tears, as did Mears' parents and younger brother, who traveled from Pennsylvania to watch the trial.

Jurors and Mears' family declined to comment afterward.

Cacciatore said he had one reaction: Shock.

"I guess with a jury," he said, "you just never know."

Florida Expands Right to Use Deadly Force in Self-Defense

By Abby Goodnough
New York Times
April 27, 2005

MIAMI, April 26 - Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill on Tuesday giving Florida citizens more leeway to use deadly force in their homes and in public, a move that gun-control groups and several urban police chiefs warned would give rise to needless deaths.

The measure, known as the "stand your ground" bill, lets people use guns or other deadly force to defend themselves in public places without first trying to escape.

Floridians already had the right to defend themselves against home intruders under what is known as the castle doctrine, but until now, they could not do so in public.

The National Rifle Association lobbied hard for the bill's passage, and Wayne LaPierre, the group's executive vice president, said it would use the victory to push for similar measures elsewhere. The bill's sponsor, Representative Dennis K. Baxley of Ocala, said it would curb violent crime and make citizens feel safer.

"It's a clear position that we will stand with victims of violent attacks when the law is in their favor," said Mr. Baxley, a Republican. "People want to know we stand on the side of victims of crime instead of the side of criminals."

Governor Bush, a Republican, said he supported the measure because when people faced life-threatening situations, "to have to retreat and put yourself in a very precarious position defies common sense."

But John F. Timoney, Miami's police chief, called the bill unnecessary and dangerous. Chief Timoney, who has successfully pushed his police officers to use less deadly force, said many people, including children, could become innocent victims. The bill could make gun owners, including drivers with road rage or drunken sports fans who get into fights leaving ball games, assume they have "total immunity," he said.

"Whether it's trick-or-treaters or kids playing in the yard of someone who doesn't want them there or some drunk guy stumbling into the wrong house," Chief Timoney said, "you're encouraging people to possibly use deadly physical force where it shouldn't be used."

Chief Chuck Harmon of the St. Petersburg police and Sheriff Ken Jenne of Broward County also publicly opposed the bill. The Florida House of Representatives voted 94 to 20 in favor of the bill earlier this month, while the Senate passed it 39 to 0.

The measure codifies in state law what many courts have already ruled in Florida: that a citizen need not try to escape an intruder in his home or workplace before using deadly force in self-defense.

The measure also goes a step further, letting "a person who is not engaged in unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be" use deadly force without first trying to flee.

Florida was among the first states to allow people to carry concealed firearms, and Sarah Brady, chairwoman of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a national gun-control group, said she was not surprised that the N.R.A. lobbied for the new law here first.

"The populace in Florida is very much common sense and on our side," Mrs. Brady said, "but the State Legislature is very conservative and the N.R.A. has control of them. I'm just sick. It's just a terrible, terrible bill."

Mrs. Brady, whose husband, James, was seriously injured in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, said that while the Florida measure was disheartening, other states were taking a different stance. On Monday, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have let people carry loaded guns into bars.

Mr. LaPierre of the N.R.A. said his group would introduce the bill in every state, and he predicted it would win broad national support.

"We will start with red and move to blue," he said of the states. "In terms of passing it, it is downhill rather than uphill because of all the public support."

Terry Aguayo contributed reporting from Miami for this article.

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