Boise (670 KBOI News) – Two competing versions of a Stand Your Ground bill — House Bill 444 and Senate bill 1313 — were supposed to have been debated in the House State Affairs Committee today …but it was canceled two days ago.
LeAnne Anderson traveled all the way from Sandpoint to testify in favor of House Bill 444…she says had it been law on Thanksgiving Day of 2008, her husband wouldn’t have been in prison for the last nine and a half years.
“Two me came to our home, strangled my husband, threatened to kill him, and to kill me and our children, while he watched” said LeAnne Anderson. “I heard them say they had a gun and they were going to jack him up, and through a series of events, my husband ended up shooting and killing one of the men. That night, he was charged with first degree murder.”
She said her husband was convicted for second degree murder by an overzealous prosecutor, and had Senate Bill 1313 been law, it would have done nothing to protect him.
House Bill 444 has specifications that would have protected James Anderson, had it been law that night, she says. For instance, the prosecutor would not have been able to file charges until the investigation was complete, and he wouldn’t have been able to argue that James Anderson could have fired a warning shot. Idaho already has Stand Your Ground provisions in case law, but nothing in code.
