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The Florida Supreme Court no longer plans to use a Palm Beach County case to examine whether felons can use the state's Stand Your Ground self-defense law to avoid serious criminal charges.

In July, the state's highest court announced it would consider whether Brian Bragdon a convicted cocaine dealer accused of shooting at two men in 2012 should be eligible to seek immunity from prosecution.

The Stand Your Ground question was classified as high profile, because of "significant public and media interest in this matter."

But on Dec. 22, the Supreme Court said it no longer had any basis for reviewing the case and sent it back to the 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach. There has been no recent activity in the appeals court, records show; however, a case status hearing is set for Feb. 20 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

Why the change by the Supreme Court? It turns out the appellate court had released an opinion in a separate case also from Palm Beach County that essentially wiped out the reason for the Supreme Court deciding to examine Bragdon in the first place.

On July 16, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled Harvey M. Hill Jr., 24, a felon from Riviera Beach, could try to get his 2009 aggravated battery with a firearm charge dismissed under the controversial self-defense law.

It was a reversal of the appellate court's position in the same case in 2012, and for Bragdon in 2013. Those opinions concluded Hill and Bragdon had no right to Stand Your Ground because they used guns.

It's illegal for felons to possess guns and part of the Stand Your Ground law says it doesn't apply to a person "engaged in an unlawful activity."

But that first Hill opinion conflicted with a 2013 ruling from the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which said a felon in a Lee County second-degree murder case was entitled to use Stand Your Ground to argue he was justified in shooting to protect his life when an assailant pointed two guns at him.

In its second Hill opinion, the 4th District Court of Appeal wrote it now agreed with the 2nd District court that gun-toting felons have the same rights as law-abiding citizens to use the Stand Your Ground law.

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Stand Your Ground remains a possible defense for felons