The one big lesson that I learned while doing criminal defense and prosecution is that the prosecution must keep a tight focus on the proceedings. Only one theory works for the prosecution. "This is what happened and this is how it was done and the defendant did it." Make you case with all points of the law in contention and keep it simple. In this case the prosecution allowed their own witnesses to muck up the scene, then in the final moments they got an included lesser offense. Fine but the elements of the crime are a little different and now the jury has to think this one or this. The prosecution looses it best weapon, certainty, when they are suddenly arguing two theories of the case.
The defense can argue as many theories as they want. Why? Because they claim not to have committed the crime so maybe it was this or maybe it was that doesn't hurt the case, or in this case I was just trying to see that nothing went wrong when this kid went ballistic on me. His word against a corpse.
I am not a fan of stand your ground, it is applied unfairly in Florida and would still be a bad law if it were applied evenly. Why? Because it encourages heroics that lead to tragedy. The long standing rule of retreat if you can is one designed to keep crimes form happening. George Zimmerman gave up on this one when he went looking for trouble when he confronted a kid in the dark, violence happened and a gun went off. Zimmerman should have stayed in his car and any law that encourages a different result encourages provocation and escalations to death. Any law that does that does not increase our security or well being, it makes our world a vigilante ruled wilderness.
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