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Originally Posted by pax
...Legally speaking, I suspect a person's a lot more likely to get into trouble by shooting too late (eg, after the bad guy has thrown down his firearm, or fainted unconscious, or started to run away) than by drawing too early (eg, brandishing). But I'm not a lawyer -- you are. What's your experience on that? Is my impression generally correct?...
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I'd agree. Although I don't have any direct experience, certainly that's consistent with some of the discussions I've had with Massad Ayoob and what he's said about his experiences.
Mas, IIRC, was involved in at least one case in which the defender fired late, as the assailant was breaking off the attack. The defense was able to prevail by putting on expert testimony about reaction times and the time lag involved in trying to stop and reverse an action in progress. But whenever a legal defense needs to be based on that sort of reasonably esoteric information, there's a risk that a jury won't be able to process the concepts.
On the other hand, if you draw your gun and don't fire, at least no one has been shot. At worst someone has been scared. So, with no blood on the sidewalk and no holes in any protoplasm, you'll probably be okay if you can do a decent job of articulating why (1) in the same situation a reasonable and prudent person would have concluded that lethal force was necessary to prevent otherwise unavoidable, immediate death or grave bodily injury to an innocent; (2) you reasonably determined it was necessary to draw your gun to defend yourseld, or an innocent third party; and (3) the situation changed so that there was no longer a reason to shoot.
All things considered, the latter should be a much easier sell than trying to explain why you used high speed lead projectiles to punch holes in the living flesh of someone who had given up or otherwise was no longer a threat.