Florida's Open Season On Innocents - Stand Your Ground And Racism.
The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities. - Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), historian (1834-1902).
Clear Deception:
Fucking punks. These assholes, they always get away. - George Zimmerman referring to Trayvon Martin the night he killed him.
Issue:
An innocent teenager is confronted, shot and murdered by a stranger in the night; the killer goes free. Is this justice?
Deception:
Trayvon Martin was an innocent teenager. George Zimmerman was a self-appointed cop with a bias against the type of person he perceived Martin to be. On a dark rainy night he carried a loaded gun in his unauthorized and unjustified pursuit of Martin, confronted him and shot him dead. This is murder. It takes a gross debasement of our legal system to call it anything else.
That debasement takes three forms: racism, Florida's Stand Your Ground law and the unacknowledged role of both in the trial. These make possible the deception that George Zimmerman did not commit murder.
Reality:
Racism:
Much has been made of the role of racism in this tragedy, but not enough: much of the U.S. public seems convinced that we are past racism. We have civil rights laws, a mixed-race president and have ostensibly made so much progress in abolishing racism that we are weakening affirmative action and voting rights legislation. To whatever degree these assumptions may be accurate, does any of this excuse our responsibility to consider the role of race in the commission of a killing?
No, because racism festers in the minds of individuals regardless of society's laws. George Zimmerman's history, actions and words made it crystal clear that race was a consideration when he targeted Trayvon Martin. Had the court acknowledged this truth it possibly could have resulted in a different verdict. But Florida and the U.S. are not warm to this reality. It was easier to paint the murder as a rational action under Stand Your Ground than admit to the fatal costs of racism in our multi-cultural yet racist society.
Stand Your Ground:
Florida has engineered a reverse sense of justice - as have at least twenty other states - in the form of the Stand Your Ground laws. The deception of these laws is that they excuse violent criminal actions in the dubious name of self-defense and put the burden of proof on the victim. These laws open another door to the harm and death of innocent people.
Stand Your Ground is a bastardization of our legal system and here is why. There exist two primary approaches to legal self-defense that predate the Stand Your Ground laws:
• Duty To Retreat: a basic principle of U.S. law holds that retreat is the first approach of self-defense. If you are threatened with bodily harm your first duty is to retreat, rather than respond with deadly force. Only if retreat is not possible can the use of deadly force against your assailant be possibly justified. This duty serves to defuse confrontations or, at the very least, minimize harm.
• Castle Doctrine: this makes certain exceptions to the Duty To Retreat; namely, you are not expected to retreat if you are in your home, workplace or car, spaces where you have a legal right to both be and defend and where your assailant is not authorized. Your use of deadly force might be justified under this approach.
Stand Your Ground laws, a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S., take the Castle Doctrine a step further in states such as Florida by extending it to all spaces: if you have a legal right to be in a place such as public street or park, or in a private complex (school, condominium etc.) then you do not have an duty to retreat and may even respond with deadly force. This may seem reasonable at first blush but it is not.
Using deadly force in a public encounter should be a last resort. Why? Because killing a person elimnates their life and their opportunity for defense - defense of their life and their defense in court. Stand Your Ground opens the door to wanton murder because it affords the killer, by eliminating their victim, an automatic level of protection by the state from their action whether the action is justified or not - because the state assumes that self-defense is an automatic defense even when used with deadly force.
In this way the State of Florida protected George Zimmerman from being held accountable for his murder of Trayvon Martin. It represents an inherent flaw in Stand Your Ground: I could go out in the street and murder anyone I want, even though they have a right to be there. If I weave a convincing tale of self-defense I get acquittal. Yes, it's really that stark and simple. Look at George Zimmerman and Stand Your Ground.
The fallacy of the trial:
Although Zimmerman's defense did not invoke the Stand Your Ground law directly, this law informed the entire process by virtue of its very existence:
The fallacy of the jury verdict:
The jury was misled by the court, as most juries are, into thinking that they have only the power granted to them by court instructions to consider the case only within the parameters presented in court. The parameters they were given constituted a legal construct that favored acquittal - because they left the jury with the belief that the only way they could convict Zimmerman was to have in their hands an eyewitness account that demolished Zimmerman's claim to self-defense. But that eyewitness was in his grave and could not be present to counter his murderer's claim or provide his own claim of self-defense. The court had effectively sealed the envelope and the jury was ignorant of its choice to reopen it.
Are we to accept that Martin, who was up to nothing but the purchase of a few items at a local store, is responsible for his own death? That any struggle he may have engaged in with Zimmerman was anything other than his own actions of self-defense from being surprised and accosted by a stranger in the dark of night? Or that Martin threatened Zimmerman's life? Or that this tragedy was just an accident, a misunderstanding? We will never know because the one witness to Zimmerman's crime is dead at the hands of the man on trial for his murder.
Zimmerman admits to killing Martin. The question is whether the killing was justifiable. Zimmerman set in motion the events of that night by setting up a needless confrontation with Martin. There exists no solid evidence of deadly force against Zimmerman and we know that Zimmerman was the instigator of this confrontation. There exists no solid evidence that Zimmerman was justified in using lethal force or justified in killing Martin. Yet he killed Martin and was acquitted. This is the state of law in Florida.
A Contrast in Miami:
Marissa Alexander, a married woman with a premature nursing daughter and a restraining order against her estranged husband, a serial abuser, defended herself in their home against his further violence by firing a warning shot. Though no one was injured she was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison.
Stand Your Ground was ineffective in Marissa's case, even though she was defending herself from attack in her own home, a situation recognized as legitimate even without the Stand Your Ground law. Yet she was convicted and Florida's minimum-sentencing guidelines ensured that she would be imprisoned for twenty years.
Resolution:
For both Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Florida's Stand Your Ground law failed innocent people - and in so doing illustrates how it promotes injustice including murder and wrongful imprisonment of the innocent while the guilty get off scot-free. It fails all of us because it subverts our system of justice and puts each of us in danger - some arguably moreso than others. It moves us further away from the principles of a civil society - namely, that confrontations should be defused, if possible; and if that is not possible, that force may be met by like force but not lethal force. Lethal force should meet a very high bar for justification.
Stand Your Ground is not necessary for the legal defense of those assaulted in public and has not been a significant part of state statues until very recently. Rather, it ensures open season on the slaughter of innocents by reducing or dismissing the accountability of their killers.
As for juries: this may have been considered a jury of Zimmerman's peers but it was not a jury of Martin's peers. As illustrated earlier, in many respects it was Martin who was on trial. Yet not a single African-American was seated on the six-person jury. It was composed of one hispanic and five whites, one of whom said that her husband owned guns and that she might have trouble sending someone to prison - and one who asked why Martin was out at night. Why indeed, when self-appointed cops roam the streets armed and determined to not let "fucking punks" "get away".
As for racism: pretending it plays no role in any action is a willful disregard for its inate part in the human condition. It cannot be removed from the discussion any more than the role of self-defense.
Too bad for us all: self-defense and racism teamed up in Florida to free a killer and send him back into society.
Fucking punks. These assholes, they always get away. - George Zimmerman referring to Trayvon Martin the night he killed him.
Issue:
An innocent teenager is confronted, shot and murdered by a stranger in the night; the killer goes free. Is this justice?
Deception:
Trayvon Martin was an innocent teenager. George Zimmerman was a self-appointed cop with a bias against the type of person he perceived Martin to be. On a dark rainy night he carried a loaded gun in his unauthorized and unjustified pursuit of Martin, confronted him and shot him dead. This is murder. It takes a gross debasement of our legal system to call it anything else.
That debasement takes three forms: racism, Florida's Stand Your Ground law and the unacknowledged role of both in the trial. These make possible the deception that George Zimmerman did not commit murder.
Reality:
Racism:
Much has been made of the role of racism in this tragedy, but not enough: much of the U.S. public seems convinced that we are past racism. We have civil rights laws, a mixed-race president and have ostensibly made so much progress in abolishing racism that we are weakening affirmative action and voting rights legislation. To whatever degree these assumptions may be accurate, does any of this excuse our responsibility to consider the role of race in the commission of a killing?
No, because racism festers in the minds of individuals regardless of society's laws. George Zimmerman's history, actions and words made it crystal clear that race was a consideration when he targeted Trayvon Martin. Had the court acknowledged this truth it possibly could have resulted in a different verdict. But Florida and the U.S. are not warm to this reality. It was easier to paint the murder as a rational action under Stand Your Ground than admit to the fatal costs of racism in our multi-cultural yet racist society.
Stand Your Ground:
Florida has engineered a reverse sense of justice - as have at least twenty other states - in the form of the Stand Your Ground laws. The deception of these laws is that they excuse violent criminal actions in the dubious name of self-defense and put the burden of proof on the victim. These laws open another door to the harm and death of innocent people.
Stand Your Ground is a bastardization of our legal system and here is why. There exist two primary approaches to legal self-defense that predate the Stand Your Ground laws:
• Duty To Retreat: a basic principle of U.S. law holds that retreat is the first approach of self-defense. If you are threatened with bodily harm your first duty is to retreat, rather than respond with deadly force. Only if retreat is not possible can the use of deadly force against your assailant be possibly justified. This duty serves to defuse confrontations or, at the very least, minimize harm.
• Castle Doctrine: this makes certain exceptions to the Duty To Retreat; namely, you are not expected to retreat if you are in your home, workplace or car, spaces where you have a legal right to both be and defend and where your assailant is not authorized. Your use of deadly force might be justified under this approach.
Stand Your Ground laws, a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S., take the Castle Doctrine a step further in states such as Florida by extending it to all spaces: if you have a legal right to be in a place such as public street or park, or in a private complex (school, condominium etc.) then you do not have an duty to retreat and may even respond with deadly force. This may seem reasonable at first blush but it is not.
Using deadly force in a public encounter should be a last resort. Why? Because killing a person elimnates their life and their opportunity for defense - defense of their life and their defense in court. Stand Your Ground opens the door to wanton murder because it affords the killer, by eliminating their victim, an automatic level of protection by the state from their action whether the action is justified or not - because the state assumes that self-defense is an automatic defense even when used with deadly force.
In this way the State of Florida protected George Zimmerman from being held accountable for his murder of Trayvon Martin. It represents an inherent flaw in Stand Your Ground: I could go out in the street and murder anyone I want, even though they have a right to be there. If I weave a convincing tale of self-defense I get acquittal. Yes, it's really that stark and simple. Look at George Zimmerman and Stand Your Ground.
The fallacy of the trial:
Although Zimmerman's defense did not invoke the Stand Your Ground law directly, this law informed the entire process by virtue of its very existence:
- The Sanford police did not arrest Zimmerman that night on the basis that the Stand Your Ground law assumed his innocence. Without Stand Your Ground, Zimmerman would most likely have been arrested and an an investigation undertaken. Without those actions, critical opportunities for discovering the fullest nature and extent of Zimmerman's culpability were lost.
- In the courts of both law and public opinion, the Stand Your Ground law affected the legal rationale in the case by setting a higher bar for the prosecution to disprove Zimmerman's self-defense argument. Under traditional U.S. law, Zimmerman would be held to a higher standard to prove he was justified in using deadly force. Never mind that Stand Your Ground was not invoked in this case. Everyone involved was operating under its influence, negating the need to invoke it in law.
- Perhaps most importantly, the Stand Your Ground law gave Zimmerman the cover to carry a loaded gun into that dark rainy night to confront a stranger - an innocent teenager - and use it to kill him either intentionally or as a supposed defense against supposed lethal force. Stand Your Ground has been burned into the mindset of Floridians and many U.S. citizens as an incentive to use excessive, even lethal, force.
- People will tell you that the prosecution did not prove Zimmerman's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore were required to acquit. This is deception. Zimmerman admitted to killing Martin - his responsibility for this is without doubt. But thanks to the influence of Stand Your Ground, "reasonable doubt" was turned on its head. Instead of asking "does the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman killed Martin," the question became "does the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman did not act in self-defense?" The burden was reversed. It is akin to asking if an embezzler did not act in self-interest. This is the deception and the travesty of Stand Your Ground. It is also the price we impose upon those who suffer our racist attitudes: Martin had to prove that he was innocent because it was assumed he was guilty for who he was. Except that he is dead and could offer no defense.
The fallacy of the jury verdict:
The jury was misled by the court, as most juries are, into thinking that they have only the power granted to them by court instructions to consider the case only within the parameters presented in court. The parameters they were given constituted a legal construct that favored acquittal - because they left the jury with the belief that the only way they could convict Zimmerman was to have in their hands an eyewitness account that demolished Zimmerman's claim to self-defense. But that eyewitness was in his grave and could not be present to counter his murderer's claim or provide his own claim of self-defense. The court had effectively sealed the envelope and the jury was ignorant of its choice to reopen it.
Are we to accept that Martin, who was up to nothing but the purchase of a few items at a local store, is responsible for his own death? That any struggle he may have engaged in with Zimmerman was anything other than his own actions of self-defense from being surprised and accosted by a stranger in the dark of night? Or that Martin threatened Zimmerman's life? Or that this tragedy was just an accident, a misunderstanding? We will never know because the one witness to Zimmerman's crime is dead at the hands of the man on trial for his murder.
Zimmerman admits to killing Martin. The question is whether the killing was justifiable. Zimmerman set in motion the events of that night by setting up a needless confrontation with Martin. There exists no solid evidence of deadly force against Zimmerman and we know that Zimmerman was the instigator of this confrontation. There exists no solid evidence that Zimmerman was justified in using lethal force or justified in killing Martin. Yet he killed Martin and was acquitted. This is the state of law in Florida.
A Contrast in Miami:
Marissa Alexander, a married woman with a premature nursing daughter and a restraining order against her estranged husband, a serial abuser, defended herself in their home against his further violence by firing a warning shot. Though no one was injured she was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison.
Stand Your Ground was ineffective in Marissa's case, even though she was defending herself from attack in her own home, a situation recognized as legitimate even without the Stand Your Ground law. Yet she was convicted and Florida's minimum-sentencing guidelines ensured that she would be imprisoned for twenty years.
Resolution:
For both Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Florida's Stand Your Ground law failed innocent people - and in so doing illustrates how it promotes injustice including murder and wrongful imprisonment of the innocent while the guilty get off scot-free. It fails all of us because it subverts our system of justice and puts each of us in danger - some arguably moreso than others. It moves us further away from the principles of a civil society - namely, that confrontations should be defused, if possible; and if that is not possible, that force may be met by like force but not lethal force. Lethal force should meet a very high bar for justification.
Stand Your Ground is not necessary for the legal defense of those assaulted in public and has not been a significant part of state statues until very recently. Rather, it ensures open season on the slaughter of innocents by reducing or dismissing the accountability of their killers.
As for juries: this may have been considered a jury of Zimmerman's peers but it was not a jury of Martin's peers. As illustrated earlier, in many respects it was Martin who was on trial. Yet not a single African-American was seated on the six-person jury. It was composed of one hispanic and five whites, one of whom said that her husband owned guns and that she might have trouble sending someone to prison - and one who asked why Martin was out at night. Why indeed, when self-appointed cops roam the streets armed and determined to not let "fucking punks" "get away".
As for racism: pretending it plays no role in any action is a willful disregard for its inate part in the human condition. It cannot be removed from the discussion any more than the role of self-defense.
Too bad for us all: self-defense and racism teamed up in Florida to free a killer and send him back into society.