Trayvon Martin's killing has some debating Pennsylvania's "castle doctrine" law

HARRISBURG - Could a shooting like the controversial one that left a Florida teenager dead happen here and no one be prosecuted?

Does Pennsylvania's recently expanded "castle doctrine" law, affording gun owners greater leeway to open fire if they feel threatened away from home, set the stage for a tragedy like the one that cost 17-year-old Trayvon Martin his life?

Doubtful, says Ed Marsico, president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. The group opposed the original bill on grounds it would lead to criminals getting away with murder.

In fact, Marsico credits prosecutors in Florida with offering crucial advice to their Pennsylvania counterparts when the law was being crafted here. In essence, he says, the message was: Learn from Florida's mistakes.

Marsico says Florida prosecutors cautioned against adopting an identical version of the so-called "stand your ground" law that state adopted in 2005. He says those prosecutors warned that the first-in-the-nation law had become a ticket out of court for criminals.

"We were concerned about drug dealers using [such a law] to build a defense to shoot other drug dealers on the street," Marsico said.

Pennsylvania had already granted citizens "castle-doctrine" rights, allowing deadly force to defend one's "castle," or home, from intruders. The expanded law, signed by Gov. Corbett last year, allows use of such force in other places, such as an automobile or a public street, if the individual is there legally.

Chief among the modifications to Pennsylvania's legislation before it was enacted: The perceived assailant has to be seen displaying a weapon before an individual can use deadly force in self-defense. And, unlike Florida's law, Pennsylvania's does not permit the shooter to claim immunity from criminal prosecution.

A crime-watch volunteer's fatal Feb. 26 shooting of Martin, a Florida high school senior carrying only a package of Skittles and an iced tea, has ignited a national debate on "stand your ground" laws and prompted lawmakers and others in several states, including Florida and Wisconsin, to call for repeal of those statutes.

A former Philadelphia police commissioner, John F. Timoney - who in his later role as Miami police chief opposed the Florida legislation - has entered the debate, calling such laws a "recipe for disaster."

"Laws like 'stand your ground' give citizens unfettered power and discretion with no accountability," Timoney, now a police adviser to the government of Bahrain, wrote Friday on the New York Times op-ed page.

Calls for revisiting or repealing Pennsylvania's law have to date been more muted.

The gun-control advocacy group CeasefirePA contends Pennsylvania's law, which was actively promoted by the National Rifle Association, makes innocent people vulnerable to attack.

"Pennsylvania's legislature needs to recognize that blind allegiance to the NRA brings with it real potential for tragic results," said CeasefirePA board president Dan Muroff. "We now see how last year's expansion of the 'castle doctrine' can lead exactly where concerned citizens feared it might."

Another opponent of the law, Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery), says the Martin case highlights the need to review Pennsylvania's statute.

"When we were debating this law, many raised the concern that it would allow people to shoot without fully understanding a situation if they subjectively felt 'threatened,' " Leach said. "If it turns out that this is what happened in Florida, then it would certainly give added weight to that concern."

But the castle doctrine bill's prime sponsor says Pennsylvania's law sets a higher standard.

"I think the accused killer of Trayvon Martin would be in jail right now awaiting charges," State Rep. Scott Perry (R., York) said Monday in an interview.

He said the law draws an appropriate balance between "the rights of law-abiding citizens and the responsibilities of everybody."

Questions about the castle doctrine have cropped up in several deadly-force incidents since the Pennsylvania law took effect Aug. 27. The latest was in Montgomery County, where, on Friday, District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman announced she would bring no charges against Angel Gonzalez for shooting two men who attacked him with baseball bats in Upper Frederick Township last Dec. 17.

Gonzalez fatally shot Zachary Levin, 19, and wounded Levin's stepfather, Joshua Levin, 34.

"Gonzalez was justified in using non-deadly and deadly force in this situation," Ferman said in a statement. "The actions he took before making the decision to shoot . . . are evidence he made a concentrated effort to avoid using deadly force."

Of course, the debate over other issues in Pennsylvania's gun law is far from settled. On Tuesday, Mayor Nutter and leaders of other cities plan to join CeasefirePA at a news conference here denouncing efforts in the legislature to strip municipalities of their right to pass their own gun laws - such as the lost-and-stolen-weapon reporting requirement enacted in Philadelphia.