Please help me get the attention that our son's death deserves. The State Attorney for the 6th Judicial Circuit failed to prosecute. The defendants should not have been able to evoke Stand your Ground. They were the initial aggressor as well as trespassing. Below is a summary of our position by our Attorney Amber Patwell.

Governor Ron DeSantis email will be listed at the bottom of the post, please send him an email requesting a special prosecutor be appointed to look into charges against Sturgis and Appling. Please help my family get Justice for Justin! #justiceforjustin

My client, Allison Garris' son, Justin Schmitt was killed by 22 year old Ryan Sturgis last year weeks before our national pandemic began; he was 18 years old and was killed one day before his 19th birthday. The Pinellas County State Attorney’s office is refusing to file any charges against the man who killed Justin.

The homicide occurred at Justin’s house; he was unarmed. There was a verbal altercation between Justin, Sturgis and Sturgis’ girlfriend, Karlee Appling. Justin told both Sturgis and Appling to leave his house. Sturgis and Appling remained there and later told police that Justin pushed Appling and advanced toward Sturgis. Sturgis had brought a knife over to Justin’s house and stabbed Justin in the chest. Justin died shortly thereafter, as a result of the Sturgis stabbing him. Sturgis and Appling made several conflicting statements to law enforcement and other individuals, including Sturgis contradicting himself within minutes of making certain statements.

The State Attorney’s office has cited Stand your Ground as the reason they are not pursing charges against Sturgis. The State Attorney’s refusal to charge Sturgis is a complete abuse and misapplication of the Stand your Ground law. This law was designed to legally authorize people to defend them by taking another’s life ONLY if that person has a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury. The ONLY allegations of physical violence in this case were that Justin pushed someone.

The practical application of the State Attorney’s failure to charge Sturgis means that if you are in your house, unarmed and you get into a fight with a guest at your house, ask the guest to leave, and then push the guest, they can kill you and claim the reason they ended your life was because they were in fear of serious bodily injury or death. That should not sit right with anyone.

To be clear, I am not attacking the Stand your Ground law. I am saying that the facts in this particular case do not at all support a defense of Stand your Ground, nor was it the intention of the legislature to permit someone that was pushed to end another’s life. The statute itself is clearly written to support our position. We don't need the assistant state attorney to be "sympathetic" to Justin's family, we need them to make the right charging decision.

What can you do to help try to fix this injustice? Contact Governor DeSantis and request that a special prosecutor be appointed to look into charges against Sturgis. We have already submitted a written request to the Governor and we are asking for as many emails as possible supporting this request

You can help by signing this petition as well as sending an email directly to Governor DeSantis’ office to:

GovernorRon.Desantis@eog.myflorida.com

Request that a special prosecutor be appointed to look into any charges that the State Attorney for the 6th Judicial Circuit failed to prosecute against Ryan Sturgis. For full details on our position, I have attached the letter I sent to the State Attorney's Office.