"They said, at the end of the day we can't let these kids think they can come into our house and do that," he recalled. "It was sending out a statement. It was the idea of 'If you come into my home you're dead. At least, in Texas.'

"It was the statute on trial, not Mr. Gonzales. They chose to say it's absolute, and we won't question people when they are where they are allowed to be."

Alaniz said that while he felt the jurors returned the right verdict, he understood the murky nature of the case. It's a tough issue, he said, and it is about perception becoming reality when you fear for your life.

"Nobody wins in these cases," he said. "We have an unnecessary death of a young boy, and a law abiding citizen put through a legal battle to fight for his life in a court of law. It was a tragedy all around."

Giving Chase

Proponents of Florida's Stand Your Ground law say it was never intended to apply to people who pursue someone and then use deadly force. "There's nothing in the statute that authorizes pursuit, confrontation or provocation and altercation," said Rep. Dennis Baxley, one of the sponsors of the 2005 law.

"Everything in this statute says, 'Defend yourself if you are a law-abiding citizen,'" he added. "We stand by you and the presumption of the law is with you."

But how much on the defensive was Greyston Garcia when he chased a suspected thief for a block and confronted him before killing him early on the morning of January 25, 2011? Where should authorities draw the line?

Police arrested Garcia, and prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to charge him with second-degree murder. But a judge dismissed the case late last month, citing Stand Your Ground.

Prosecutors are appealing the decision, and nobody is commenting at the moment.

But the court file tells enough of the story to show that police, prosecutors and judges continue to struggle to find the line between a justifiable homicide and a case in which someone goes too far.

Unlike the other cases, Garcia's doesn't involve a shooting, but a stabbing.

It began when another tenant told Garcia someone was outside their apartment, stealing car and truck radios. Garcia grabbed a kitchen knife, ran down the stairs and started shouting at the man.

The prowler saw him coming, grabbed a bag of stolen radios and took off running though Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

Garcia did not call police; instead, he chased the suspected thief, catching up with him about a block away. They scuffled, and the brief confrontation was captured on a neighborhood pharmacy's surveillance video.

The video, while blurry, shows the suspect, Pablo Roteto, swinging a bag at Garcia. He blocked the bag and swung his right hand, stabbing Roteto in the chest.

He later told police he didn't even know he had stabbed the man.

Roteta, 26, collapsed and died in the street, bleeding out from a stab wound that slashed his aorta and pierced a lung. Garcia, unaware the man he chased had died, retuned home and fell asleep.

Assistant Public Defender Eduardo Pereira sought to have the murder charge dismissed, arguing that Garcia's use of lethal force was justified and Stand Your Ground gave him immunity from prosecution. Prosecutor Jennie Conklin argued Garcia did not need to use deadly force because the suspect was running away.

In end, the case rested on the 30 seconds in which Garcia caught up with Roteta.

During a two-day hearing, a medical examiner testified that a blow from a four to six-pound bag of radios could cause great bodily harm, and perhaps even death.

But prosecutors presented facts that didn't seem to support a self-defense claim: Garcia had hidden the knife afterward and he sold the other stolen radios.

Judge Beth Bloom sided with the defense, noting that while prior Florida law required a person to retreat before using deadly force, Garcia "was well within his rights to pursue the victim and demand the return of his property."

"How can it be Stand Your Ground?" the lead homicide detective, Sgt. Everns Ford, told the Miami Herald. "It's on video! You can see him stabbing the victim ..."

He called the decision "a travesty of justice."