DAYTONA BEACH -- A woman who claims she was forced to stab her boyfriend to protect herself and her 11-year-old son will seek an acquittal on a second-degree murder charge Thursday.
Cindy Sue Gilliland, 41, had many supporters in court last fall when she convinced a judge to let her get bailed out of jail while awaiting trial.
Her lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Matt Phillips, will take his self-defense argument a step further Thursday in front of Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson.
Phillips will argue Gilliland should be declared immune from prosecution for the Aug. 11, 2010, stabbing death of Bradley Stradtman. Gilliland claims she had been punched in the face and was in fear for her life.
"She armed herself with a knife to protect herself," Phillips said in a court document in which he seeks to have Gilliland's murder charge dropped.
Gilliland, the ex-wife of Daytona Beach City Commissioner Rob Gilliland, faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of killing Stradtman.
She is relying on Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law," which has been used with increasing regularity in Volusia County courtrooms.
Most of the time, records show, prosecutors beat such efforts by defense lawyers to use the right to protect oneself from harm to avoid punishment.
But in at least two cases over the past few years, people have avoided prosecution because they were defending themselves. Locally, a person charged with murder has not yet won a stand your ground motion since the law changed several years ago, records show.
James Burnette tried the stand your ground defense in his pending second-degree murder case. Accused of shooting Michael Corradini, 52, of Daytona Beach during a suspected drug deal, Burnette managed to convince a judge that Corradini was killed by his own gun. But Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson said he wasn't sure the shooting happened the way Burnette described.
"If the person is no longer a danger (when he or she is killed), you're not going to get (immunity from prosecution)," said Peyton Quarles, a Daytona Beach defense lawyer who argued the stand your ground law in the unrelated Burnette case.
Records show that local judges have sometimes expressed a reluctance to be the finder of fact in such cases, preferring to let jurors decide whether the person charged should be prosecuted.
Some lawyers see that as "passing the buck."
"It's discretionary on the judge, but there are cases where appellate courts have reversed convictions," said defense lawyer Mitch Wrenn, who won an acquittal for a client in a stand your ground battery case last year. He says that arguing for immunity from prosecution for self-defense provides judicial economy, by resolving cases that should not go to trial.
"It separates the wheat from the chaff," Wrenn said.
Gilliland was in her Port Orange home on Aug. 11, 2010, with her son when Stradtman punched her in the face, according to testimony. A neighbor testified at her bail hearing that Gilliland had a bruise on her face, and told him she'd been hit by Stradtman.
Gilliland went back to her house, where she and Stradtman began fighting again. The two were standing in the kitchen when Gilliland grabbed a steak knife from a block knife-holder. Gilliland stabbed Stradtman once in the chest. He died at a hospital later.
Florida law in 2005 expanded what is known as the Castle Doctrine beyond the home, to allow a person to protect themselves with force anywhere they are entitled to be. The ability to retreat is irrelevant under the law. A danger must be present, the law states.
Since the law was broadened, there has been debate on both sides. Police officials, including Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood, have said the "good law" in some instances is being abused.
Last week, an Oklahoma City jury convicted a pharmacist of first-degree murder for the killing of a would-be-robber. The pharmacist, Jerome Ersland, 59, had sought to have the charge dropped because he was acting in self-defense.
Ersland was considered a hero in initial media accounts of the killing, in which he protected co-workers from a May. 19, 2009, robbery attempt.
But, the jury found, Ersland became a criminal when he acted as "judge and jury" by shooting the 16-year-old suspect more than five times.
Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson will preside over Gilliland's hearing in the courthouse in Daytona Beach starting at 1:30 p.m. He will consider whether the weight of the evidence shows Gilliland was justified in using deadly force, to prevent death or "great bodily injury" to herself or another.
Gilliland, who is free on $150,000 bail while awaiting trial, will most likely be called upon once again to describe the events leading up to Stradtman's death.
Detectives have already said when they pulled up to the house, Stradtman was lying outside. Gilliland, neighbors said, was found "wailing and sobbing nearby."
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