{"id":909,"date":"2022-02-05T23:50:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-06T04:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatercriminallawyer.net\/?p=909"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:41:54","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:41:54","slug":"florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Court Explains Self-Defense in the Context of Forcible Felonies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Under Florida law, the use of force is acceptable in certain circumstances. As such, a person charged with a crime involving the use of deadly force may be able to argue that the actions out of which the charges arose were justifiable self-defense. Self-defense is not justified if a person was committing or trying to commit a forceable felony when the act occurred, however. In a recent Florida case, a court issued an opinion<\/a> discussing what forcible felonies preclude a defendant from arguing he acted in self-defense, in a case where the court ultimately affirmed the defendant\u2019s convictions for third-degree murder and other offenses. If you are accused of a violent crime, it is smart to speak to a skilled Clearwater violent crime defense lawyer regarding your rights.<\/p>\n

The Facts of the Case<\/b><\/h2>\n

It is alleged that the state charged the defendant with numerous offenses after he shot a man who threatened his friend on social media. The man ultimately died as a result of his wounds. Following a trial, a jury convicted the defendant of third-degree murder with a weapon, grand theft of an automobile, and two counts of false imprisonment with a gun. The defendant appealed, arguing in part that the trial court gave an improper jury instruction regarding the justifiable use of force and that the homicide was self-defense. The appellate court rejected his assertions and affirmed his convictions.<\/p>\n

Self-Defense in the Context of Forcible Felonies<\/b><\/h2>\n

On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court made a fundamental error by instructing the jury regarding the justifiable use of deadly force where there was no independent forcible felony and that in doing so, the trial court prevented the jury from accepting his self-defense argument. The forcible felony instruction provided stated that deadly use of force is not permitted if the defendant was attempting to commit or committing numerous crimes, including third-degree murder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under Florida law, the use of force is acceptable in certain circumstances. As such, a person charged with a crime involving the use of deadly force may be able to argue that the actions out of which the charges arose were justifiable self-defense. Self-defense is not justified if a person was committing or trying to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-defense","category-violent-crimes"],"yoast_head":"\nCriminal Appeal: Self-Defense Jury Instructions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on self defense context forcible may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Criminal Appeal: Self-Defense Jury Instructions\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on self defense context forcible may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Criminal Appeal: Self-Defense Jury Instructions","description":"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on self defense context forcible may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Criminal Appeal: Self-Defense Jury Instructions","twitter_description":"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on self defense context forcible may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"Florida Court Explains Self-Defense in the Context of Forcible Felonies","datePublished":"2022-02-06T04:50:33+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:41:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/"},"wordCount":536,"articleSection":["Criminal Defense","Violent Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/","name":"Criminal Appeal: Self-Defense Jury Instructions","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-02-06T04:50:33+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:41:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on self defense context forcible may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-explains-self-defense-in-the-context-of-forcible-felonies\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Florida Court Explains Self-Defense in the Context of Forcible Felonies"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/","name":"Clearwater Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Florida Defense Lawyer \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1448,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}