[Phillips:] Well, it is too soon to know whether Florida is backing down from "stand your ground," but in the firestorm arising from the killing of Trayvon Martin, the self-defense statute that Florida pioneered in 2005 is getting a second look. As we mentioned Florida's governor naming members of a task force on citizens' safety and protection right now. They'll try to make sure that the laws protect the innocent and not shield the guilty. Let me read you the Florida statute verbatim. Quote, "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has the right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony." You don't have to be a famous trial lawyer to grasp that, but we've got one anyway. Paul Callan joining me from New York. So, Paul, how do laws like this change the equation for prosecutors when one person kills another?
[Paul Callan, Cnn Legal Contributor:] Well, Florida's law is especially strange, Kyra, because, of course, in every state in the United States you have the right to defend yourself. You can act in self-defense in your home or even outside of your home if you are in fear of death or if you're in fear of serious bodily injury. You can meet force with force. That's standard, old- fashioned self-defense theory. But what Florida did was they added this what's called a "stand your ground" law and, as part of the law, they created what's called an immunity hearing and what that says, basically, is that when you're charged with killing somebody, you have the right to a hearing well in advance of trial in front of a judge and, if you assert self-defense, the judge has to dismiss the case. In almost every other state, that's a jury question as to whether force was appropriate under the circumstances. You have a trial and there's a big fight about it, but Florida says, no, we'll let a judge decide that first and only then will there be a jury trial. So they really put self-defense on a pedestal, that it's not on in really any other state in the United States.
[Phillips:] Let's take a look at these laws and I want to ask you a bit of a broader question here and we've got some maps so folks can see exactly where these laws are in place. Florida may have been the first, but it certainly isn't alone in having a "stand your ground" law. We can see that and then even more states, Paul, have this so-called "castle doctrine." You touched on it, allowing deadly force against threats inside the home, the car and even the workplace. Do you think we're becoming a society that shoots first and asks questions later?
[Callan:] I don't think we've seen a radical change in that, at least in the "castle doctrine" cases, because you have to understand this castle doctrine, which basically means you can defend your home using any necessary force. This is a doctrine that goes back to King Henry VIII in England and, you know, if you broke into a peasant's hut, the peasant could kill to protect the interior. But when he went outside into the village then it was the job of the king's men to enforce the law, so that's why you had the duty to call the police and retreat, not use deadly, physical force on somebody yourself. So what has happened in the United States since about 2005 when these states started passing "stand your ground" laws, they said now, you know, you don't have to call the police. You can turn and fight and meet force with force. So we've now seen that law being used in a lot of states in a way that's never been used before, but the real question is yes, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Kyra.
[Phillips:] Do you foresee any of these laws going away?
[Callan:] I think a lot's going to depend on this Trayvon MartinGeorge Zimmerman case. This is the first time we've seen a very public display of what happens with these laws. And you also have to understand that the Florida law is very, very unusual. It has this immunity hearing that a lot of the other states don't have. A lot of the other states just have a law that says, at the time of the jury trial, you can tell the jury you acted in self-defense and you don't have this duty to retreat, to run and call the police, but Florida has this special immunity hearing. So the Florida law is especially strange and, I said, it puts self-defense on a higher pedestal than really any other state that I know of, but I do think everybody's going to be taking a second look at "stand your ground" laws.
[Phillips:] Paul Callan, thanks very much.
[Callan:] OK, nice being with you.
[Phillips:] One of the prostitutes at the center of the Secret Service scandal is talking. What she said, next.