The Homicide Loophole

As juror No. B39 notes in her recent interviews regarding the jury deliberations in the George Zimmerman criminal trial, by all standards of decent human interaction and sense of justice, Mr. Zimmerman murdered young Trayvon Martin, but under the eyes of the law as it stands in Florida, the jury had to vote for acquittal. Now, it could be argued that a jury has the discretion to rule as it sees fit, we call that jury nullification, but in this case the court's instructions were faithfully followed to an unjust end.

Much of the controversy around the verdict stems from Florida's so-called "stand your ground" law. This law purports to protect the gun-toting victims of eminent bodily harm or death from legal repercussions normally stemming from shooting another human being. If you see fit to walk among fellow humans only with the reassurance of a handgun on your hip, and you decide you're in danger from a fellow human, by all means blow their head off.  In some contexts this behavior would be cowardly. In Florida and several like-minded states this behavior is regarded as deep American virtue. I would suspect that the virtuousness of that gun-toting shoot 'em up behavior runs about as deep as your skin color and societal position. As President Obama eloquently stated, would we feel the same way about the Zimmerman situation if the roles were reversed? What if George Zimmerman were an unarmed neighborhood watch volunteer confronting an armed, for his protection of course, Trayvon Martin? What if Trayvon Martin had decided the encounter endangered his life and decided fill Mr. Zimmerman with hot lead? What if only Trayvon Martin lived to tell his side of the story? What if his story was one a gallant fight for life from a stranger with unknown intentions in the night? Whose cries for help would we hear then?

Please remember the original public controversy surrounding this murder.  At first, the police were reluctant to even arrest Mr. Zimmerman. He probably would not have faced any charges or further scrutiny if the public eye were not turned on the police or prosecutors in Sanford. Therein lies the true menace of stand your ground laws in America. Even the possibility of uneven interpretation and enforcement by front-line government employees (read police) with wide discretion makes these laws inequitable and unfair. The failure to appropriately and fairly apply the law without consideration of race, gender, income, or societal standing means the law is a corrupt means to make distinctions between homicides and vigilantism.

"Stand your ground" really means "homicide loophole".  If you are the right kind of American, you now have a loophole in the law to cover your life and liberty when you decide a fellow human deserves to die. To take advantage of the loophole you better have your gun with you at all times, be light-skinned, be middle-class, be a man, and most importantly, make sure the other guy doesn't live to tell a different side of the story.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/juror-says-george-zimmerman-got-away-with-murder/?_r=0

http://blogs.lawyers.com/2013/07/syg-laws-fair-protection-or-racist/