Now on to Florida. Gibbs is a Florida precedent, and it was interpreting the Florida provocation statute, which has not been changed by the Stand Your Ground law:
The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.
Note that “provokes” here does not indicate whether D only loses his right to self-defense if he has the specific purpose of causing V to use force against D, or if it is enough if D acts in a way that he knows (or should know) is highly likely to cause V to use force against D. But Gibbs reversed D’s conviction, for the following reason (emphasis added):
The instruction stated that appellant could not defend herself with non-deadly force if she “initially provoked” the victim. By not limiting provocation to the use or threat of force, the court failed to make the jury aware that the word “provoked,” as used in the instruction, did not refer to mere words or conduct without force. Stated another way, the instruction given by the court eliminated the use of non-deadly force in self-defense if there was any provocation by the defendant — no matter how slight or subjective the provocation. By that standard, a mere insult could be deemed sufficient to prohibit defending oneself from an attacker.
In this case, appellant’s self-defense was based on testimony that the victim verbally attacked her and then aggressively approached and swung at her. According to the defense, it was only then that appellant pushed the victim and used some force against her. Because the instruction did not limit provocation to some force or threat of force, the instruction could have misled the jury to believe that appellant’s pointedly asking the victim why she failed to acknowledge her greeting and/or appellant’s racial retorts and obscene gestures were sufficient provocation to preclude appellant from defending herself from an attack by the victim.
It thus appears that the law in Florida is that the defendant loses his self-defense rights on “provocation” grounds only if he is involved in a “forcible felony” or provokes the target by “force or threat of force.” (Gibbs apparently had no occasion to resolve the separate question of whether purpose to trigger forcible reaction or mere knowledge of a high likelihood of such reaction — or even something less — is required for “provocation.”) And, as Prof. Burke points out, it seems to have been Gibbs that led the trial court to not give the “provocation” instruction. Prof. Burke, a former prosecutor, opines that the denial of the provocation instruction “may have been the moment when Zimmerman got acquitted.”
All this is not a question of stand your ground vs. duty to retreat. The provocation limitation on self-defense rights, to my knowledge, exists in all states; it certainly exists in Florida. Conversely, even states that impose a duty to retreat generally apply the “provocation” limitation only in situations where the defendant had the purpose of triggering a serious attack by the target. There are some decisions, especially in Arkansas and D.C., that read the “provocation” limitation more broadly; but they seem to be the exception.
Provocation is a separate question from the duty to retreat. And if we are to talk about whether Zimmerman should have been convicted on the grounds that he shouldn’t have confronted ****** in the first place, and that he was more generally “looking for trouble” (see Moore and Laney), we should be talking about the provocation limitation and not the Stand Your Ground law.