While the Manhattan District Attorney’s about-face over Jose Alba is a step in the right direction, it would be a mistake for New Yorkers to abandon the campaign for a proper stand your ground law in the Empire State. As Gotham’s crime wave rages — with major crimes up 37 percent this year — Mr. Alba’s case is a rebuke to New York’s laws, which offer New Yorkers among the most crabbed right of self-defense in the country.

In a motion to dismiss the charges against Mr. Alba, District Attorney Alvin Bragg conceded that he was unable to prove the bodega worker “was not justified in his use of deadly physical force.” That marks a defeat for Mr. Bragg, who was way ahead of himself when he tried to pin a murder rap on Mr. Alba for killing Austin Simon, who had cornered Mr. Alba behind a bodega counter.

Mr. Bragg was forced to admit that his prosecution of Mr. Alba would not stand up in court, even under New York’s current self-defense law, which affords “very limited circumstances” where self-defense can justify homicide. Mr. Bragg had to bow to the facts of the case, which led Mr. Alba to feel he was justified when, faced with what he thought was a threat to his life, he used “deadly physical force against another.” 

Yet in Mr. Bragg’s motion to dismiss Mr. Alba’s case one can sense the reluctance to abandon the prosecution of a law-abiding citizen who had been assaulted by a violent ex-convict. The case was jettisoned because Mr. Alba didn’t have to prove why he believed his actions were permitted under the law. The legal burden was on prosecutors to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not justified.”

Mr. Bragg grants — belatedly — that Mr. Alba could have “reasonably believed that Simon was about to use deadly physical force against him,” as the motion puts it. Mr. Alba was unaware Simon had a weapon, but the motion cites “an age differential (Alba is 61 and Simon was 35)” and “a height differential (Alba is 5’7” and Simon was 6’).” Simon’s “conduct” in entering the “small, private area” was also mentioned in the motion.

This conduct, Mr. Bragg reports, included “throwing Alba against the wall to a place he could not escape,” and “grabbing him by the collar.” The motion notes Simon’s behavior “could inspire deep fear in an older and shorter man as to what might be in store next,” especially after Simon’s girlfriend had previously that evening warned Mr. Alba that Simon was going to “come down here right now and fuck you up.”

Such circumstances raise questions over the Mr. Bragg pursuing charges against Mr. Alba in the first place. It’s no wonder that his ordeal has prompted calls for New York to revise its self-defense laws, which feature a “duty to retreat” in the face of an attack, except in the case of a home invasion. At least 28 states have laws requiring “no duty to retreat” from “an attacker in any place in which one is lawfully present.”

It’s hard to avoid the logic of such laws. A criminal defense lawyer, Paul D’Emilia, explains “If somebody’s attacking you, and you reasonably believe that they’re going to injure you or kill you, then you have a right to defend yourself.” Mayor Adams, while offering lip service in defense of Mr. Alba’s plight, denies the need for such a law in New York. It’s an opportunity for New York Republicans, who are making the state’s crime wave an issue for November.

We would like to think this will be a learning moment for Mr. Bragg, who is infamous for his soft-on-crime policies yet in this case managed to side against, in Mr. Alba, the actual victim. It is also a moment of reckoning for his fellow New York Democrats, who refuse to fix their misguided bail “reform” program and other anti-law enforcement experiments that have helped fuel the crime wave that is plaguing the city.