“Duty To Retreat”

One of the bills being heard tomorrow morning at 10:15 AM at the State Office Building will be HF238 – Rep. Nash’s “Defense of Dwelling and Person Act”, sometimes called “Stand your Ground”.

This is an absolutely vital bill.  Here’s why.

To use lethal force in self defense in Minnesota, you have to meet four criteria:

1. You can’t be a willing participant
2. You need to reasonably and immediately fear death or great bodily harm
3. You can only use enough force to end the threat
4. And, at least outside your home, you have a duty to retreat.

The first three, while somewhat subjective, are relatively clear to most people, it’s this last that causes problems.

What is the “Duty to Retreat?”  How far?

Are you obliged to run away if you have a bad knee?  If your are beset by multiple younger, faster assailants?  If you are part of a group being held at gunpoint?

Those are not idle questions.  As the graphic above points out, there are at least a dozen bits and pieces of case law that govern the “Duty to Retreat” under Minnesota law.  Which one applies to your situation?   If you’re a lawyer, sitting in an office with a subscription to WestLaw, you can probably rustle up the data with a little bit of time, and gather the various interpretations.

If you’re walking to your car through a dark parking lot, and some suspicious character is tailing you?  Less so.

County attorneys like having discretion on these sorts of questions.   It’s wrong, and needs to be stopped.