MSN News reports that a three-judge panel of Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that the state’s “stand your ground” law would allow a boy who got into a fight with a girl on a school bus to claim self-defense.

The panel reversed a ruling by a Broward County circuit court judge who found the boy guilty of battery, saying the judge’s conclusion that the statute applied only to the use of deadly force in the protection of one’s home or vehicle was incorrect.

The appeals panel ordered the trial court to reconsider the case to determine whether the girl was the aggressor and whether the boy "was reasonable in his belief that the force that he used against [the girl] was necessary to protect himself from great bodily harm."

The "stand your ground" law recently made national news during the case of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who was acquitted earlier this month of second-degree murder in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

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