A Fourth District Court of Appeals decision has restored uniformity statewide when it comes to determining the use of force compared to the actual use of deadly force.
The state appellate justices decided that the mere display of a firearm without pulling the trigger, even if the bearer points it at a person’s head, is non-deadly force.
“Only carrying or displaying a firearm and loading it by advancing a bullet in its chamber for it to be ready for use if needed does not constitute the unjustified or threatened use of deadly force as a matter of law,” the justices wrote in the May 25 opinion.
The decision reverses a lower court ruling in Burns v State that had set apart the Fourth District from the rest of the state. The Fourth District includes West Palm Beach, Broward County, St. Lucie County, Martin County, Indian River County, and Okeechobee County.
“Now the Fourth District has brought itself back into conformity with the rest of the state,” said David Katz, co-founder of the Firearm Firm and author of Florida Gun Law: Armed and Educated. "A previous ruling in 2020 made them stand out.”
The previous case, Little v State, had briefly set a new precedent in which the pointing of a gun was considered the threat of deadly force instead of the use of non-deadly force. But the lower court in Burns v State determined because Mr. Burns was not in reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm at the time of the incident, his actions were not justified under the circumstances.
“The Fourth District Court of Appeals overturned it saying the trial court’s reliance on their decision in Little v State in support of its conclusion that Burns’ actions amounted to a threatened use of deadly force was entirely misplaced,” Katz told the Florida Record.
In Burns v State, a property owner pulled a gun and chambered it when he saw a utility company worker on his land.
“They weren't responding when he was yelling to get off his property, not knowing who they were and the lower court found that was the threat of deadly force,” Katz said in an interview.
If the state appeals Burns' victory, the use of force and use of deadly force could be redefined throughout the state instead of just in the Fourth District, according to Katz.
"It pleasantly surprised me because the language in the Little case seemed to indicate that anytime anyone pulled a firearm on somebody in the Fourth District’s jurisdiction, it would be considered the threat of deadly force, which of course then you would have to have been threatened with deadly force yourself," he added.