Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling on Duty to Retreat and Self-Defense

[00:00:02][Music] [Music] did the Minnesota Supreme Court just create the strongest duty to retreat law that we have ever seen that's what we're be talking about today you're not going to want to miss this one because this is going to be insane so let's get into it so let's start with a quick summary about what happened we go back to June 2nd of 2021 and Mr bevens that's our good guy that's the defendant was basically on a train platform outside US Bank Stadium and there was a woman and two men that were lering there Mr bevens is walking past the woman she says something to him we don't exactly know what it is he spins says something back and then ultimately there's a man one of those two men that's with the woman starts walking his way over to Mr bevens now at this point a train arrived people start to step off the train now the court in their opinion Linked In the description box below described what happened next quote according to blevens the man in the sweatshirt told him to come into the platform shelter outside the view of the surveillance camera so that he could slice bevin's throat in response to the threat bevens pulled out a machete out of his waistband bevens then moved toward the woman and the Man in the sweatshirt yelling and holding the machete the woman and the Man in the sweatshirt began backing away from bevens as the man in the sweatshirt pulled his knife away because by the way he had a knife out the man in the tank top aggressively walked up to bevens so basically two the bad guys Retreats one start aggressively walking up and basically the court goes on to summarize the fact that look this whole standoff lasts for about a minute blevens has his machete that he kind of steps towards them he doesn't charge them it kind of like you know does like a like a false lunge or something like that and he's waving it around a bit and all that kind of stuff to get them to go away because hopefully the last thing bad guys or anyone wants to do is mess with a guy who's concealed carrying a machete I'd be curious to know what that backstory is but for now we press on so the whole thing lasts for about a minute the bad guys move away after they made you know a death threat while holding a knife saying that he's going to cut his throat and now have the police show up and naturally because this is Minnesota he W sorry Minnesota Minnesota or my he winds up being arrested charged with second deegree assault fear with a dangerous weapon which by the way is a felony and for those of us who speak English not legali in Minnesota that carries with it not only an up to 7year prison sentence but also a presumptive minimum for those with no criminal history of 21 months months of incarceration so Mr bevens takes his case to trial now curiously he waved his right to a jury trial now this is very unusual in America you can either have trial by jury which theoretically you're 12 of your peers or you can have a court trial which is a trial to a judge alone I suspect that there might be some ugly factors going on here for Mr bevens I don't know what they are that is just complete speculation but usually the times that you see the few and rare times that you see defense attorneys waving a right to a jury and instead taking to a court trial is because their argument tends to be based around something technical where they feel like they've got the law on their side but not the facts these are all the facts I have and I see weird stuff like conceal carrying machetes but I don't see anything that's blatantly awful or something like that you know ultimately the court winds up convicting Mr bevens finding him guilty as charged ruling that he had a duty to Retreat from the confrontation and he chose not to do so winds up going up to the court appeals who affirms the trial Court's decision and then because this is what we call a case of first impression in other words the Minnesota Supreme Court has never ruled in this before the Minnesota Supreme Court decided to take the case now I should be specific it's not that the Minnesota Supreme Court has never dealt with the self-defense case it's because what we're dealing with here to split important hairs we have got to go into a little bit of the history and this is important so stay with me the history here is this the Minnesota Legislature did not pass a duty to retreat law this is what we call a judge created common law component okay so this was something that when Minnesota updated their criminal legislation which a lot of states did after World War II in the 50s and 60s so it's not surprising to see that Minnesota did the same thing the Minnesota courts added a duty to retreat to the self-defense law so before you can exercise your right to self-defense you first have to reasonably exhaust all of your reasonable Retreat measures and opportunities all right that's basically what duty to retreat is before you can use self-defense you've got to reasonably exhaust your retreat opportunities but importantly again this was not legislature created this is Judge created this is Court created that's what we call common law so the issue of first impression here is not that we've got this duty to retreat in Minnesota the issue of first impression is that the duty to retreat has up until now only existed for people who are actually using Force so they're actually assaulting someone they're actually pulling out a gun and shooting they're actually pulling out a machete and swinging and hitting someone but that's not what Mr bevens was charged with Mr bevens was charged with fear so in other words he produced a weapon that was capable of creating death or great bodily harm and he waved it around and that created the fear of death that's what he was charged with that's where we are moving the goal posts to in Minnesota and by the way if you think Minnesota is going to be the last state that tries to move the gold poost here I don't know what to tell you cuz look around this is not going to be the first and only state this is simply going to be the first state to do something like this but that's the issue of first impression whether or not you have a duty to retreat even before you can produce a weapon to brandish to end to deescalate to discourage to disengage and keep in mind according to multiple studies depending on which one you want a cherry pick from the mere production of a victim producing weapon in self-defense when someone is attacking them you will see somewhere between about an 88 to a 92% rate of the attackers disengaging leaving fleeing you name it which is more or less what we saw here albeit it took a minute so this worked out right well the courts would say no the Minnesota Supreme Court ultimately I'm going to be getting down to the two legal arguments here but they ultimately say look you can't even brandish in self-defense we don't want to see you even produce a weapon in self-defense regardless of whether or not you use it you cannot even create fear in your attackers Minds until you've exhausted all of your retreat opportunities that you can reasonably do how crazy is that let me know in the comment section guys very quickly don't forget to hit that like button and my question for you in the discussion section today in the comment field is this do you think other states will try to adopt these ridiculous duty to retreat laws and if so would they be as extreme or even more extreme than Minnesota let me know what you think in the comment section below now back to the video but let's get to the two legal arguments so Mr bevens on appeal made two legal arguments the first one is he said look the duty to retreat is a judge made law the legislature never passed this and basically that makes it noo well predictably the Minnesota Supreme Court says no they actually go back and they say look we first basically by we we of course we're talking about the judicial branch created this response to self-defense where we're adding the duty to retreat going all the way back to when the statute was passed in 1967 and in the 50 plus years that that has happened we knowe that the legisl not struck us down or passed a law indicating that we're stand your ground or that there is no duty to retreat so because we did something and the legislature didn't change it that means that it's okay now I want to be very clear I'm not saying that I'm recounting what the court said in the decision that you can read in the description box attached down below but that's effectively what the court uses to sweep away that argument of look you know we did something and even though it's not in the state legislature code it's not in the law it's not in the statute because we were never reversed by the legislature it's good enough now it's the law of the land legal argument number two Mr bevens basically says that look the judicially created duty to retreat when reasonably possible does not apply to people who are using a threat it only applies to people who are using force and I'm jumping around in the decision a bit here to be clear to try to make this presentation coherent but the Court's got a couple things number one they say that look no one really argued that what you're saying wasn't force and we think that a fear of force is basically the same thing as Force legally speaking right so they first basically equivocate those two and say you know force and fear of force are the same so and as soon as you read them doing that which they actually made in the preceding section you then you kind of know where they're going to wind up going with it but they also say this that look we do not have a standard ground law and if people are allowed to brandish weapons instead of retreating then we've basically created some sort of inherent right to stand your ground in Minnesota which we're absolutely not going to be doing because the last thing we want are good guys ending attacks statistically with a lower threat of violence and force we want good guys being chased through the streets with by armed bag guys and groups that's apparently what they prefer because that is going to be the consequences of this particular case the court also went on to write and I quote requiring reasonable Retreat will still permit people to reasonably defend themselves but will also serve to end altercations and prevent escalation to the point that someone actually uses physical force and causes bodily harm or death end quote there it is so they're saying that they think that this alternative to a threat of violence namely forcing someone or treat will actually end in L net deaths now what we're of course ignoring here is the fact that there's a morality of if a bad guy chooses to endanger their life and my life by attacking me I should have the right to defend myself not do I have to run away hopefully I don't trip and fall hopefully I don't run into the street and get hit by a car not further endanger my life rather I can leverage the tools that we have in society the same tools that the bad guys are using by the way in other words knives guns that kind of stuff and I can leverage those same Tools in order to defend my life without further endangering it in a statistical way that we know yields an extremely low chance of any kind of violence because we know the overall me majority of the time we'll call it 90% there's not even a single shot fired where Firearms are involved all right let's do three quick takeaways number one Mr bevens was not charged with brandishing many states lack any kind of brandishing law and brandishing is is just a generalized term of displaying a weapon to presumably end an altercation that's not what he was charged with and you have to be careful just because your state may not have a brandishing law don't think for a second that a prosecutor lacks some sort of tool in their toolbox to come charge you with as they did for Mr bevens Number Two regardless of the Injustice of Duty to retreat laws it is still best to not engage if you can and again I don't have enough details here about Mr Bev's case to know whether or not how reasonable or unreasonable his Escape could have been that's not the point I'm trying to make my point is that if you lay down with dogs you will wake up with fleas this is best policy not best law not because you have a legal duty to do so or should have a legal duty to do so but because if you choose to engage with those bad guys you are inviting cops judges and the prosecutors into your life if you decide to engage with them Mr B was convicted after someone said I'm going to cut your throat and showed him the knife the judge as part of that trial ruled that he believed Mr bevens when he said that he found that to be credible but he still convicted him think about that not to mention the fact that we know that if a bad guy is within 21 ft that is as effective arguably more so depending upon who you talk to as having a firearm pulled on you the judge still convicted him for not trying to to run away number three laws change they change with elections they change with appointments elections matter elections matter vote gun owners Sportsmen Sports women this is one of the absolute largest voting blocks in this country that under votes by percentage in other words very few gun owners choose to vote for one reason or another people look around you Minnesota Illinois New York Massachusetts May Maryland New Mexico California Hawaii Washington State Oregon State on and on and on these are the pictures of what happens when you do not go out and vote go out and vote our court of the day comes from the one the only Mahatma Gandhi quote an unjust law is itself a species of violence arrest for its breach is more so wonder what made me think of that one today I hope you're doing well I will see you in the discussion section below don't forget to hit that like button and I'll see you in the next one thanks for sticking around to the end of the video If you enjoyed this one please feel free to check out some of our other great content and we'll see in the next one [Music]