According to a scathing new report from the American Bar Association, “Stand Your Ground” laws increase homicides, foster a shoot-first mentality that is a “license to kill,” disproportionately justify violence against people of color, and endanger police officers. Coincidentally, this occurred during the same week that the infamous shooter most associated with Stand Your Ground, George Zimmerman, ratcheted up his overtly racist Twitter posts.
Quick background on Stand Your Ground laws: In 2005, Florida enlarged the right to use deadly force, without a duty to retreat, to any situation where a person believed they were in grave danger in a place they were lawfully entitled to be present. On the street. In a park, or a car, or an office. Other states quickly followed suit. Thirty-three states now have some form of Stand Your Ground laws, allowing citizens to shoot (or stab, or fight— but mostly shoot) their way out of threatening situations, rather than remove themselves from them.
Why? As I wrote in my book, SUSPICION NATION: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It:
Standing one’s ground has a ring of bravery and virility, of film lines that cause audiences to erupt in applause: bring it on, or make my day, or say hello to my little friend (as Scarface pulls out his M-16). A popular T-shirt and bumper sticker after 9/ 11 featured an American flag with the words, “These colors don’t run,” emphasizing that we are a people who stay put and fight . . . Each part of Stand Your Ground resonates with these values: “Stand”—plant your feet, don’t run like a coward; “Your”—that turf belongs to you, fight for it!; “Ground”—don’t lose your position, physically or in the argument. No surrender. Man up. Don’t give ’em an inch.
During the 2013 Zimmerman trial, Stand Your Ground laws became a hot topic of national discussion. Shortly before the trial, the defense announced that it would not invoke Zimmerman’s rights under the law because his account was that he was restrained at the time he fired the shot, unable to escape. Retreat was impossible, according to Zimmerman’s story, and hence the law did not apply to the facts of the case. During the trial, neither side argued that the Stand Your Ground law applied or didn’t apply—it was a nonissue.
But then a curious thing happened. The language crept into the jury instructions. On page twelve of all the legalese, Judge Nelson included this sentence:
If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm . . .
And Stand Your Ground was part of the jurors’ decision making as well. Juror B37 said that Stand Your Ground was part of the law the jury considered in reaching its verdict. “The law became very confusing. It became very confusing,” she told Anderson Cooper on CNN. “We had stuff thrown at us. We had the second-degree murder charge, the manslaughter charge, then we had self-defense, Stand Your Ground.”
Later in the interview she said that Zimmerman was acquitted “because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground.” (“Heat of the moment” was also not a defense in the case.)
In the Zimmerman trial and others since, Stand Your Ground became a proxy, shorthand for the concept that altercations can turn deadly without any legal accountability. More broadly, Stand Your Ground is understood as a rule allowing citizens to pull out a gun and shoot in any fight, even if that’s not the law.
While Stand Your Ground laws are sometimes justified as protecting crime victims, I argued in Suspicion Nation that Zimmerman was the aggressor in his altercation with Trayvon Martin, and that Zimmerman’s targeting of the teenager was largely based on race. While Zimmerman’s trial team hotly denied any racial bias, Zimmerman, emboldened by his acquittal, now openly embraces KKK-style racist language, calling black folks “apes,” “primates” and “black slime,” and posting racist “humor,” like his tweet this week:
https://twitter.com/TherealGeorgeZ/status/646415046197792768
This precise vile stereotype, that African Americans are all criminals—even kids, even Trayvon Martin who was unarmed, had no criminal record and was simply walking down the street with candy in his pocket—is what led Zimmerman to suspiciously eye his victim, follow him, start the altercation, and ultimately kill him.
That same pernicious blacks-are-criminal bias, which has justified racist violence for centuries, helped acquit Zimmerman. As the ABA found, racial stereotypes influence the courts: a white shooter who kills a black victim is 350 percent more likely to be found justified in the use of lethal force than if the same shooter killed a white victim. This is consistent with our long history of turning a blind eye to the killing of black men and women, whether by police or vigilantes.
The ABA calls for a halt on enacting more Stand Your Ground laws, and a repeal of laws currently on the books. It also calls for clearer jury instructions, which may have helped in the Zimmerman trial. Its recommendations are based on fact and reason and should be supported by all Americans who value equality, nonviolence and the preciousness of human life.
For more info, here’s a PDF of the full ABA report.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Avvo.
Image courtesy of wallpaper222.com
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7 comments
Jason
You could not be more wrong. We should have more rights to protect our family's. If left up to you and all other liberals the criminals will rule all. I pray I never have to kill. However, will not hesitate nor lose sleep over killing a slime bag protecting my family. Maybe if it happen to more libs more often their views would change. You want no guns, move to France.
michael
Not surprised that you would write a deceptive article about stand your ground and george zimmeman.
you deliberately truncated the quote from juror B-37.
full quote: because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground,” she said. “He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right"
There, I fixed it for you. Of course you cut out the part where she precisely cites the Law of self defense and how it applied to zimmerman.
why wouldn't zimmerman be angry with Obama, Holder, all the race hustlers and extortion attorneys that destroyed his life for political purposes? he had a bona fide self defense claim by any legal standard, which is precisely why the original prosecutor refused to charge him.
Cabro
The new mentality is that the majority have to surrendered their rights to criminals. Let me keep my gun, if you don't want to get shot: respect the right of others. Don't take what doesn't belong to you! Is that simple!!! Read the 10 rules to live by, and you will never end up in jail, and you will live a happier longer life!
Allen Benge
It is obvious to me why Ms/ Bloom holds the ideas she does. A civil rights attorney licensed to practice in California and New York, the two main states that want to disarm the law abiding citizens while doing nothing to stop criminals from preying on people. Between New York and Granolaland, these two states have some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, while also having some of the highest rates of gun crimes. Well, Ms. Bloom, it is not the lawful gun owners committing the gun crimes, It is the criminals, who the proposed gun laws do nothing about. You are obviously one who believes it is morally superior for a woman to be raped and murdered than to blow the perpetrator out of his socks. Your views mean no more to a lawful gun owner than a bucket of warm spit.
David
So by the authors reasoning, a 22yr old 110lb woman should conceivably be held liable for shooting a 200lb rapist. A 75yr old senior who shoots an armed robber on the street should lose his life savings defending himself in criminal court, then lose his home win or lose in civil court when sued by the family. Before trying to dump the law, try researching what caused it to be passed in the first place. Also consider that being drug through the legal system through no fault of your own is just another form of rape and robbery. The ABA must be getting desperate for more income flow, as someone protected by stand your ground doesn't have insult added to injury unless evidence or witnesses show otherwise. It's called self-defense, a natural right.
Steve
"Stand Your Ground" needs to remain intact.
Rvpl
You need to get your facts straight, the artical is written by "anti-gun" influence and has no real basis. This is a self defense law, so one can "defend" without prosecution as our laws are far from perfect...