It’s being called “Jump Ball Justice.”
Basically, under Stand Your Ground (or “Kill at Will”) law, whoever is left standing gets to claim that the murder was committed in self-defense. It is like some vision of a dystopia.
Except this dystopia is the state of “justice” in Florida, the “gunshine” state, where more than 1 million people have concealed gun permits, “more concealed weapons permits than any other state,” Gov. Rick Scott boasted. Even more than Texas.
And one of them was George Zimmerman, who, having been found “not guilty” of murdering an unarmed 17-year old walking home at 7 p.m. on a rainy night with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea, is now free to carry a gun again. A gun store even offered him a new gun for free (since his 9 mm will be locked up as “evidence” even as he has gone free).
Here’s the irony and the tragedy of the Trayvon Martin case and Florida’s warped justice system: George Zimmerman now has a license to kill any black guy who he “thinks” is a “threat.”
That could be anyone because clearly, there is a lot of frustration out there.
After all, George Zimmerman, who murdered an unarmed teen, is free, while Marissa Alexander, who fired a warning shot into the wall as she was being attacked by an abusive ex-husband in her own home, is doing 20 years in prison.
Marissa Alexander was a mother of a newborn infant and an MBA, but she is black.
George Zimmerman was for all accounts (except for what was aired in court) a hostile, racist, serial liar (and how he was able to have a concealed gun permit when there had been an order of protection against him, is yet another mystery).
None of this was allowed to come out in trial. Instead, it was the dead boy, Trayvon Martin, who was cast as “a druggie” and “a thug,” somehow so threatening that Zimmerman claimed he had no choice but to shoot him in the chest because he feared for his life.
The case in Florida exposed the tragic trifecta of endemic racism, lax gun regulations and “Shoot First” Stand Your Ground laws.
Stand Your Ground Laws which were written by the NRA (the NRA lobbyist stood by Gov. Jeb Bush’s side as he signed the law in 2005), and promoted around the country as model legislation by ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), a sinister organization funded by corporate and special interests (Koch Brothers, NRA) which buys votes (mainly Republican), are now adopted by 22 states.
Stand Your Ground is plainly unconstitutional.
Whereas George Zimmerman had the benefit of due process, the protection of Fifth Amendment, a presumption of innocence, reasonable doubt, and the best (most ruthless) defense his money could buy, Trayvon Martin had none of those things.
Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year old, was presumed guilty by virtue of being black and walking in a “gated” community wearing a hoodie. He never had the opportunity to defend himself or his character. His character was assassinated as much as his physical self.
As his mother, Sybrina Fulton, told the New York City Justice for Trayvon rally a week after the Sanford, Fla. jury returned its verdict, how uncomfortable it was in the courtroom, “like they were talking about another man. This was a child. He had a drink and candy.
Even police are not allowed to profile, though they try (and certainly, New York City has a lot to answer for because of “Stop and Frisk” campaign.
And whereas Zimmerman had the best defense money could buy (raised by Paypal donations), Martin had a half-assed prosecution.
I knew the case was lost when Angela Corey, a special prosecutor begrudgingly appointed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott only after the massive national protest of outrage, overcharged. That was intentional to make sure Zimmerman was acquitted.
And you only had to listen to the prosecution’s opening statement – laying out Zimmerman’s defense (he had a right to carry a gun; it is a good thing to be a neighborhood watch).
“I have never seen a prosecution lay out the defense like they did here,” Congressman Charles Rangel, calling for the Department of Justice to take up its own case, said during the New York City rally.
The forensics which would have shown Zimmerman to be a liar were completely absent from the prosecution’s case. (Where is Trayvon’s blood on Zimmerman, if he fired the way he claimed; where are the bloody knuckles that Trayvon would have had if he punched Zimemrman the way he claimed, and if his head were truly was smashed on the cement 50 times so that he feared for his life as he claimed, he would be a lot more bloody and battered than he was, and interestingly, he was more battered and bloody after he was taken into police custody.)
Stand Your Ground wasn’t used explicitly in the trial, but Stand Your Ground set the stage and the parameters for the trial.
Zimmerman fabricated a story in order for police to simply let him walk that night, and the police were happy to oblige.
As a result, the evidence was not properly collected at the crime scene. It was six weeks later before any evidence was gathered.
Stand Your Ground also figured into the judge’s instructions to the jury – and clearly figured in the thinking of Juror B-37 who empathized with poor “George” and seems to have turned the rest of the jury to her side.
That is why even though the Sanford, Fla. jury returned its verdict of “not guilty” – a verdict that was prompted by the judge’s jury instructions, shaped by Stand Your Ground law – the federal Department of Justice should pursue claims that Zimmerman violated Martin’s civil rights.
Indeed, the Department of Justice should sue the State of Florida and all the states that have enacted Stand Your Ground Laws as being unconstitutional in that they provide the framework for violations of civil rights.
The Supreme Court has ruled that police don’t have the right to profile, so why should a schmuck like Zimmerman?
The police don’t have the right to shoot someone dead, and the courts do not have the right to inflict capital punishment except in the most egregious of cases, and even then, the arguments can go on for years (except in Florida, which is poised to pass a law requiring the whole thing be wrapped up in a year after imposing the death penalty).
But in Florida and 21 other states, a pissant like Zimmerman could be cop, jury and judge all rolled into one.
Stand Your Ground – or rather “Shoot First” laws – not only pump up the Zimmermans to think they have a god-given right to kill (Zimmerman told Sean Hannity, “I feel it was all God’s plan,” for him to kill Trayvon), but give an incentive to murder your adversary rather than have anyone left who can contradict your claim of self-defense. Where Stand Your Ground Laws have gone into effect, the rate of homicides has increased.
In Florida, for example, the rate of “justifiable” homicides has tripled since the state passed its Shoot First law in 2005.
Curt Anderson reported in the Huffington Post that since the law was enacted, the number of homicides deemed “justifiable” in Florida have risen from an annual average of 13.2 between 2001 and 2005 to an average of 42 between 2006 and 2012, including a record 66 in 2012, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
FBI data have shown similar increases in some states that enacted similar laws, such as Texas. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/21/stand-your-ground-laws_n_3631625.html)
“Our study finds that homicides go up by 7 to 9 percent in states that pass the laws, relative to states that didn’t pass the laws over the same time period,” Mark Hoekstra, an economist with Texas A&M University, said on NPR. “In contrast, we found no evidence of any deterrence effect over that same time period…. We find that there are 500 to 700 more homicides per year across the 23 states as a result of the laws.
And, as “stand your ground” claims have increased, so too has the number of Floridians with guns. Concealed weapons permits now stand at 1.1 million, three times as many as in 2005 when the law was passed. That is the NRA’s wet dream – the whole idea behind Stand Your Ground is to sow fear, sell more guns, and then make other people afraid, very afraid.
Even more heinous is how arbitrarily and selectively Stand Your Ground immunity is granted – the most significant indictment of endemic racism in the “justice” system.
A comprehensive investigation by The Tampa Bay Times analyzed nearly 200 “stand your ground” cases and their outcomes (https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-some-shocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133. ) Among the findings:
• Those who invoke “stand your ground” to avoid prosecution have been extremely successful. Nearly 70 percent have gone free.
• Defendants claiming “stand your ground” are more likely to prevail if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white.
“People often go free under ‘stand your ground’ in cases that seem to make a mockery of what lawmakers intended,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. “One man killed two unarmed people and walked out of jail.“
Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free.”
The Tampa Bay Times article quoted Zachary Weaver, a West Palm Beach lawyer: “’If you’re a defense counsel, you’d be crazy not to use it in any case where it could apply. With the more publicity the law gets, the more individuals will get off.’’
For example, in November, Michael David Dunn, 45, a Florida man who allegedly shot eight times into a car, killing an African-American teen during a parking lot argument over loud music is citing the state’s so-called “stand your ground” law as his defense – even though the gun he claimed he was threatened with was never found. https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/28/florida-man-cites-stand-your-ground-after-killing-black-teen-amid-loud-music-dispute/
But against all of these, you have the case of Marissa Alexander, a Jacksonville woman (black) and mother of a newborn baby (and an MBA!), who fired a warning shot in her own home (her castle) after being attacked by her abusive ex-husband who had sent her to the hospital in prior attacks and had just been released from jail.
She was not granted the Stand Your Ground immunity, instead, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She was prosecuted by Angela Corey, the same prosecutor in the Zimmerman case.
Richard Florida in The Atlantic Cities cited a study by John Roman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center: “29.3 percent of white-on-black shootings are ruled justifiable, while only 2.9 percent of black-on-white shootings are. But in states that have enacted “Stand Your Ground” laws, the situation is worse: 35.9 percent of white-on-black shootings are ultimately deemed to be self-defense. In the reverse situation, black-on-white shootings, only 3.4 percent of cases have ended with the same verdict.”
Here’s how Florida State Representative Dennis Baxley, who helped pass Stand Your Ground in Florida, justified the law after Trayvon’s murder: “They’re doing what they are supposed to do as a good citizen. They’re stopping a violent act. And that’s what I want the statute to do at the end of the day.”
Apparently the difference is who is deemed “a good person.” And what violent act did Trayvon commit?
Indeed, if Trayvon Martin were the 29-year old self-appointed neighborhood watch who pursued and stalked a 17-year old white boy and then shot him dead, does anyone doubt that Martin would have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted?
Or what if the 17-year old Martin had wrestled Zimmerman’s gun away and shot Zimmerman dead instead?
Would Florida have granted Martin allowed the Stand Your Ground immunity? Didn’t Martin fear from his life? He had no way of knowing who Zimmerman was – Zimmerman wasn’t wearing a uniform, did not identify himself or show a badge as a police officer would have had to do.
President Obama, in a remarkable impromptu meeting with the press raised this question, “if we’re sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we’d like to see?
And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?
And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.”
“We need to know what to tell our children,” Reverend Al Sharpton told the Justice for Trayvon rally in New York City on Saturday. “Don’t our children have a right to walk home in peace? Sybrina Fulton has said ‘Trayvon is not just my son. He’s your son, our son.”
They are calling upon the Justice Department to pursue a case against George Zimmerman for violating Trayvon Martin’s civil rights.
But the Justice Department should go further: the DoJ should sue the State of Florida for the Stand Your Ground Law which deprived Trayvon Martin of equal protection, due process, and his civil rights. Stand Your Ground is unconstitutional, giving untrained, unlicensed, unauthorized individuals a power that not even police, judges or juries have. Even murder rarely results in the death penalty.
And the Martin family, which is pursuing a wrongful death suit against Zimmerman, should sue the State of Florida, as well (though I would bet it would go to the Supreme Court and Scalia, Roberts, Alito and probably Thomas would side with Florida since they already have demonstrated their contempt for civil rights).
States that have enacted Stand Your Ground – and those legislators who supported it – should be pressured to repeal or at least amend the law so that it cannot be claimed by anyone who initiates the altercation, who shoots someone who is retreating or is down on the ground, or who did not directly threaten their life.
“It is so commonsensical: you should not have the right to be the initial aggressor, to pick the fight, and then claim Stand Your Ground self-defense,” Reverend Al Sharpton told the rally for Justice for Trayvon in New York City this past Saturday.
A point has been made that Florida’s business community supports Stand Your Ground Laws.
Well, Florida needs to feel some economic push-back. There is a call to boycott Florida – everything from vacationing at DisneyWorld and the beaches to buying Florida orange juice or patronizing the businesses that support ALEC. Already some prominent entertainers have declared they will boycott Florida – refuse to perform there – until Stand Your Ground law is overturned.
There are many in our community who have homes in Florida, who possibly vote in Florida and contribute to political candidates in Florida. There are many who have teenagers who visit them during holidays from our neighborhood.
Think about your teenager being brutally murdered by someone who claims they were playing music too loud or by accident drove up their driveway, and seemed threatening (that happened in Georgia). Our kids go to spring break in Florida. They should use their influence to get the state to repeal or amend the law.
But Stand Your Ground does not exist in a vacuum. It is part and parcel of the dismantling of the progress forged in the past 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. led a March on Washington, in August 1963, and the effort to dismantle the Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, disenfranchise voters, overturn the social safety net that helped people escape poverty and have more equal say in governance.
It is part of this unholy confluence of the power of special interests (NRA and ALEC), the control of the political process, the financial interests of the prison industrial complex, and the media which exploits hatred and bigotry. “Political correctness” is being redefined and it doesn’t include “civil rights,” “human rights.”
I hope people come out in massive numbers for the Aug. 24, 2013 March on Washington.
This country needs to be reawakened to its fundamental principles.
As the leaders said at the rally at One Police Plaza this past weekend:
“This is not a black issue, it is a human issue. This is about being human. Every human being has value, his life has meaning.
“We take seriously righteousness, justice, freedom, inalienable rights.
“This fight is not over. The revolution is just happening. But at the end, there will be justice and equality.
“We have to prepare the next generation of revolutionaries….The tragedy of this moment is that we’ve been here before.
“But we have also won many victories We have a legacy of being victorious. But the only wars and battles we don’t win are the ones we don’t fight…
“The ground we stand on is just as precious. Today we stand our ground. We are here for the long haul.”
