In the spring of 2010, 26-year-old Michael Giles was on active duty with the Unites States Air Force and stationed in Tampa. The married father of three had recently finished two tours in the Middle East and was looking forward to a career in the military, says his family. One night in February, a friend invited Giles to party at a Tallahassee nightclub. Shorty after arriving, a fight broke out among members of fraternities from nearby Florida A&M University.
According to court documents, an argument quickly escalated into a brawl involving 30 to 40 young men.
Giles reportedly was not involved in the melee but, separated from his friends, went outside to the car where he had a gun, for which he had a concealed carry permit. Giles put the weapon in his pants pocket and searched the crowd for his friends. Suddenly, he says, someone from the crowd punched him. Knocked to the ground and in fear for his life, Giles says he pulled out the gun and fired one shot into the leg of his alleged attacker.
Three men were injured, wounded by bullet fragments. Giles was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder.
Aside from his having no criminal background, Giles’ supporters argue that he was merely defending himself from an unprovoked attack. In fact, when testifying in the case, the man who punched Giles, Courtney Thrower, admitted that the assault was random. “The first person I get to I’m going to hit,” he remembered thinking.
Other witnesses testified that Thrower, having heard of an attack on one of his fraternity brothers, was outside of the nightclub pacing with his fists clenched and, in the middle of the brawl, “leapfrogged” from the crowd to hit Giles. Despite all of that, according to the Florida state prosecutors, Giles had no right to use deadly force that night.
“The evidence is clear here that the act of pointing a gun into a group of people, even if you’re not specifically deciding to kill them, is a crime,” said Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell in his closing statements during the trial. “There is no self-defense that is applicable based on the evidence that’s before the jury.”
The defense argued, however, that Giles was justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believed that such force was necessary to prevent “imminent death or great bodily harm” to himself.
“He doesn’t have to think he’s going to get killed, even though people looking in from the outside thought someone could get killed,” said defense attorney Don Pumphrey in his closing. “If the defendant was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, where he had a right to stand, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.”
The jury disagreed however and Giles was ultimately convicted in August of 2011 of the lesser charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, a crime that comes with a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years in the state of Florida. It is the same sentence Marissa Alexander received in her controversial case – a case recently awarded a new trial on appeal.
