I covered the case of Gabriel Mobley before. Thanks to our friends in VPC, I found an article in ThinkProgress dealing with this situation. Taking a big grain of salt for accuracy, I was amazed to see the reason the original Judge denied SYG to Mr. Mobley:
The trial judge found that he was not, in part because he had returned to his car to get a gun, and fired without issuing any warning that he had a gun or attempting to mitigate the situation first
Again, I only have the word of this article, but if it is true, the judge said that Mr. Mobley had to commit the misdemeanor of a firearm “intentionally displayed in an angry or threatening manner, not in necessary self-defense” at best or Assault with a Deadly Weapon at worst so he could be in the right?
As for the “returned to his car,” I don’t see how that is even an issue when the first incident was already over. Mr. Mobley exercised caution that paid off when the offenders returned and created a new and definitely incident. It would be like firemen do when they put out a fire: just because there are no flames present, it does not mean it cannot go up again and keep dosing the area with water and stay attentive. The initial call is over, but you don’t relax because there are no obvious sign of a conflagration.
Again and considering the source, I don’t see appeal’s court reversed. And again I expect Andrew Branca commenting and correcting/clarifying what I posted 🙂
To use technical legal jargon, the trial judge was simply an ignorant dumb ass.
🙂
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
LOL… succinctly put!
I am somewhat concerned that FL is going down the path of “allowing” and “encouraging” warning shots. I still hold that a warning shot is always a bad idea.
[…] They really are against self-defense. […]