Stand Your Ground
Wow! How many
people have to die before legislators consider changing a law that has given
some the right to think they can indiscriminately take a life? Better yet, how
long must our country wait to see reasonable laws established with reasonable
consequences for the violation of such laws? When legislators pass laws, one would think they would use
a reasonable assumption that reasonable people would understand them, interpret
them and abide by them. However, a definition of reasonable seems to be
absent when one reviews the actions of the judicial system and those who have either
shot at or killed people, especially in Florida. With current, “stand your
ground” laws in Florida, there seems to be mixture of interpretation—seemingly dependent
upon who does the shooting. Three separate incidents—involving people shooting
at or killing someone have had three separate conclusions—by three separate
juries who heard the cases. An assumption of “being reasonable” apparently does
not exist.
First of all, the
stand your ground law allows a person to use deadly force against another
person if a person reasonably believes his or her life is in danger. Included
in the wording of the law is the statement that any person fearing for their
life does not have to retreat. In other words, if a person feels someone is
threatening their life, they do not have to retreat (move away from the
situation), but use whatever deadly force available to them to survive. The
wording in the stand your ground laws is clear and practically mimic each state
that has one. I can only imagine that when legislators passed these laws they
did so with the assumption that reasonable people “would think” before
exercising their right to use them. Then there is the matter of interpretation
of these laws.
In the case of
Marissa Alexander who was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to twenty years
for firing a warning shot at her alleged abusive husband (Her husband, Rico
Gray, 36, admitted in court documents to beating, choking and punching women,
including Alexander. "I got five baby-mamas and I put my hands on every
last one of them except for one," Gray said in a deposition.), interpretation
appears to be stretched. The law gave her the right to use deadly force to
defend herself if she felt her life was threatened, but since she chose to fire
a warning shot, her right to defend herself did not exist. She was not allowed
to use the stand your ground as a defense because she did not kill the man. Had
she shot and killed him, she would have probably not have been charged with anything
based on this defense. Fortunately, she has been released. Since all the uproar behind the Trayvon
Martin case, she is now waiting for a new trial.
In the Trayvon
Martin case, George Zimmerman—a self-appointed neighborhood watchman—interpretation
bears no semblance of reasonableness. By all accounts given, with the exception
of the dead victim, Zimmerman chose to follow and antagonize an unarmed young
black man because “he thought” he might do something. Even after being told not
to get out of his car and to stop following the young man, Zimmerman chose to
ignore instructions. As a result of his insolence, a fight ensued and Trayvon
was shot and killed. Zimmerman’s defense—he was standing his ground.
Unfortunately, his defense attorneys were able to persuade a jury that he had
indeed a justifiable reason to defend himself. Now, there is no reasonable
assumption to be made in this situation. Zimmerman was not a reasonable man and
the laws were not reasonable in allowing him to claim self-defense when he was
the one who provoked Trayvon. What happened to Trayvon’s right to stand his
ground and defend himself? The interpretation of what ensued after Zimmerman’s
arrest and subsequent trial left many wondering if the laws protected one race
over another.
As we have
recently seen, Michael Dunn attempted to use the stand your ground laws in
Florida to justify his killing another unarmed young black man because “his
music was too loud.” Dunn fired shots into a vehicle killing one and
potentially harming others with no assumption of reasonableness. Granted, loud
music annoys me, too, but not enough to shoot someone over it. In this case,
there was no reasonable conclusion of a threat since the young man was not
armed. At a public gas station, most reasonable people simply ignore the idiocy
surrounding them, take care of their business and leave. I guess that was too
much to expect of a Michael Dunn, who feels justified in shooting and killing Jordan
Davis. For now, he has at least been convicted of three accounts of attempted
murder regarding the other teens in the vehicle. The judge concluded a mistrial
on the charge of the murder of Davis when jurors could not concur on a verdict and
Dunn will be re-tried. Reasonable assumption on the part of all involved would
have eliminated the need for the re-trial since no weapon was found and the
teen was in the car—and could offer no viable threat to Dunn.
In the final
analysis of the absence of reasonableness, until lawmakers establish reasonably
understood and interpreted laws, we will continue to see lives lost when the
people involved are unreasonable. Assuming one has a right to follow someone
based on their presumptions about what a person might do—unreasonable; assuming
one has the right to “monitor music volume” of other people—unreasonable.
Trying to keep someone from harming you, but not being willing to kill them—reasonable,
but apparently not lawful. America needs reasonable lawmakers, establishing
reasonable laws and reasonable people (without bias) should be able to abide by
the laws.
