HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. -- A judge today ruled a towing company owner must stand trial for fatally shooting a man who was trying to reclaim his wife's towed car.
Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Robert A. Foster said the state's Stand Your Ground law does not give Donald Montanez immunity from prosecution.
"He acted at his own risk," Foster said.
Montanez faces second-degree murder and other charges in the death of Glen "Chuck" Rich. His attorneys are likely to appeal Foster's decision.
Montanez shot Rich about 5 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2006, as Rich was driving off in his wife's Chrysler Sebring, which Montanez's employees had towed from behind the after-hours club Sugar Shack on East Hillsborough Avenue.
Montanez said Rich was racing the Sebring toward him and employee Lorraine Marie Whitehead when he fired a single shot from his .40-caliber Sig Sauer semiautomatic pistol. Montanez and Whitehead testified that they feared for their lives.
Forensic evidence showed that bullet traveled through the passenger window, hitting Rich under his right armpit.
Prosecutor Jay Pruner argued that any danger Montanez might have felt must have dissipated once the front of the car was past him. He said Montanez and Whitehead easily stepped out of the way of the car.
Florida was the first state to adopt a Stand Your Ground law. Adopted in 2005, the law says people don't have to exhaust all avenues of retreat before using deadly force to defend themselves against an aggressor.
Use of the defense is rare in the Bay area.
Earlier this month, Hillsborough Circuit Judge Daniel H. Sleet refused to dismiss charges against James Behanna, who said he was acting in self-defense when he fatally stabbed a man in December 2005.
Behanna faces a September retrial on a manslaughter charge.
In January, Pasco Circuit Judge Michael Andrews denied a defense motion to declare Max Horn immune from a second-degree murder prosecution in a fatal shooting in March 2008.
The law's application isn't always clear-cut, said Robert Batey, a criminal law professor at Stetson University College of Law.
"These laws were passed with the idea of the innocent homeowner protecting himself but as cases come up they more reflect the reality that one side is not wholly innocent and the other side is not wholly guilty," he said.
Batey said the few cases invoking the statute in Florida have reached different results.
"At some point relatively soon the state Supreme Court is going to have to take a case and try to settle some of the confusion that has arisen in the lower courts," he said.
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