Self defense is an affirmative defense claim in stand your ground laws that you can claim before trial even starts. In South Carolina, the Stand Your Ground law outlines your protections for both inside and outside your home.
Specifically, the Castle Doctrine states that you do have the duty to retreat when defending yourself from inside your home. Likewise, self-defense laws allow you to use force to defend yourself, others, and property.
Stand Your Ground in Practice
Stand Your Ground gives you immunity to criminal prosecution for the use of force and civil lawsuits filed by the person injured when you use force. Read up on the difference between criminal and civil cases here.
This immunity is absolute so long as you can prove you acted in self-defense. To do this, you will need help showing you did not instigate the conflict, you believed you were in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, and you had no other means of avoiding the danger.
To outline that the outcome of these cases are heavily fact dependent, we review the shooting of Scott Spivey, a case that has been reopened due to new evidence conflicting a self-defense claim.
The Case Testing the Limits
On September 9, 2023, Spivey was fatally shot by Weldon Boyd and Bradley Williams following a road rage encounter and nine mile high speed chase. Boyd and Williams pled self-defense alleging that Spivey was the instigator of the attack by firing the first gunshots. Upon review of new evidence of a recorded phone call from the time of the shooting, Boyd and Williams are both heard boasting in their successful killing of Spivey, that they “had a good time” and “had a —– blast,” feeling “no remorse.”
Upon viewing this new record, Circuit Court Judge Eugene C. Griffith Jr. denied Boyd and Williams immunity under the Stand Your Ground law. In Judge Griffith’s order, the celebration of taking Spivey’s life illustrated that Boyd and Williams had a “complete absence of reasonable fear for their safety,” a necessary element in claiming self-defense.
South Carolina is one of twenty eight states that allows an individual to meet force with force. It’s important to know your rights when you’re in danger, but equally important to understand the consequences if your defense is inadequate.
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