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Research on "stand your ground law
Research on "stand your ground law
Research on "stand your ground law
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Stand Your Ground: Our Individual Right to Self-Defense As of late, self-defense has been a very controversial topic thanks to the trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin. This case gave American’s the cause to question Stand Your Ground Laws, the President of the United States Barak Obama even showed his concern for our nation. Many people felt that Zimmerman was acquitted due to a racial bias, but in accordance with Stand Your Ground laws and other self-defense statutes it is clear that this is not a racial issue. George Zimmerman is a 33-year-oldHispanic man running a neighborhood watch in his affluent gated community in Sanford, Florida. On the evening of February 26, 2012 Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old …show more content…
This case, among many others have caused our legal system to decide whose rights should be upheld, the victims or the aggressors? In this paper the history of self-defense laws, psychological benefits, and societal benefits will be discussed. Ultimately, the evidence shown throughout this essay will prove the absolute necessity of self-defense and Stand Your Ground laws. Not only does Stand Your Ground shift the focus of criminal law from victim to perpetrator (as it should be), our right to self-defense is written in the Constitution, and studies have shown that Stand Your Ground deters criminal behavior. (Holliday, 2012) Although some find Stand Your Ground as an open door for racial biases in criminal proceedings, the studies that prove that statement to be true are not taking into account the background and environment that the crimes occur in, simply looking at race and not any other factor of the case is not enough to prove a racial …show more content…
(Roman, 2013) In the case ofTrayvon Martin many believed the Stand Your Ground laws gave George Zimmerman a free pass to kill anAfrican-American boy. However, not every case is the same and a law cannot be repealed due to one failed case. Stand Your Ground laws value the life of the victim over the life of the criminal, which means that even if a criminal enters your home without the intent to kill or cause physical harm, they are still entering with a criminal intent. Proof that the victims life was in danger is no longer necessary because the presumption that the criminal intended to commit a crime speaks for itself. Many don’t agree with taking the life of a criminal if they didn’t intend to do physical harm to a victim, but it is impossible to know what an aggressor is planning on doing. It’s better to be safe than to have a dead victim with their back against a wall. Another issue that many find with Stand Your Ground laws is the propensity of racial bias within the court room. In a recent study done by the Tampa Bay Times newspaper, it was found that the courts seemed to value the lives of white victims more than those of black victims. (Ackerman, Goodman, Gilbert, Arroyo-Johnson, and Pagano, 2015) However, this study did not discuss the amount of black on white crimes compared to
On the night of February 26, 2012 “George Zimmerman who was the coordinator for his Sanford neighborhood watch association is charged with second-degree murder in the death of a young boy. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed high school student from Miami, Florida. (Alvarez) The case began in a small city of Sanford as a routine homicide but soon evolved into a civil rights case, examining racial profiling. On the night of the attack Zimmerman was told not to get out of his car when he was following Trayvon. He described Trayvon as a “guy who looks up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something” Trayvon had his back to Zimmerman the whole time he was on the phone with the Dispatcher, from what the conversation was saying. When the dispatcher asked Zimmerman “is the guy white, black, or Hispanic? “Zimmerman says that he “looks” black, Zimmerman still has yet to see if Trayvon was black, white, or even Hispanic because Trayvon was walking the other direction. Later on in the conversation is when Zimmerman said “now he’s just staring at me”. That would have been the right time to mention the race of Trayvon. As the dispatcher was asking mo...
The case involved a neighborhood watchman, who happened to be on duty when he saw a young black man wearing a sweater jacket called a “hoodie”, walking through the neighborhood. George Zimmerman, the watchman, who was twenty-eight years old at the time, called authorities about a suspicious character walking around in his neighborhood. The authorities told him not to do anything; just continue with his rounds and not worry. Zimmerman, however, decided he would take matters into his own hands. He confronted the young man; they got into a brawl and Zimmerman pulled out a gun and shot and killed Martin. That premise will play a role in this paper as an argument as to why George Zimmerman should have been convicted of committing a crime. Even if the jury could not have reasons to convict him of the second degree murder of Trayvon Martin; they had other choices.
Throughout history there has been considerable tension between race and crimes committed. The court trial of Bernhard Goetz initiated debate on race and crime in the major cities, and the limitations of self-defense. Bernhard Goetz in 1984 shot five bullets in a New York City subway, seriously wounding four young black men. After turning himself into the police nine days later, the public now knew who was the shooter. Bernhard Goetz was entitled the “Subway Vigilante”. The subway shooting incident ideally exemplified the exasperation with the high crime rates of the 1980s. Due to the time period that this incident occurred, Bernhard Goetz was commended and reviled in the media surrounding the case, and the public’s standpoint. The subway shooting, and the court trial following the shooting, lead to the uprise of the fight against crime in major cities. Justice is difficult to define, and in controversial acquittal of Bernhard Goetz, justice in this sense, was not served.
Individuals’ right to keep and bear arms in self-defense should be further restricted. For example, George Zimmermann – neighborhood watch citizen responsible for the teenager Treyvon Martin’s death
“A report by the United States General Accounting Office in 1990 concluded that 82 percent of the empirically valid studies on the subject show that the race of the victim has an impact on capital charging decisions or sentencing verdicts or both” (86).
The “Stand Your Ground” law was first adopted in the state of florida in 2005. This law did not gain national attention until the shooting death of unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, florida, where the shooter, George Zimmerman used the “Stand Your Ground” law as his basis for defending himself against Trayvon Martin to the Sanford Police Department. However, George Zimmerman’s legal defense team did not utilize the law to argue his innocence during his trial. But the damage had been done because soon after other cases in florida began to sprout up with “Stand Your Ground” as the driving force.
Shooting innocents just by the way they dress or walking it’s a disgrace in our country. In the case of Trayvon Martin he was shoot on February 26, 2012 just because he was wearing a hoody and he was black. George Zimmerman the man that killed him said that he acted in self-defends. What would a 17 year old have done that Zimmerman acted in self-defends? I disagree George Zimmerman acted in self-defense and I feel there is something wrong with the stand your ground law. He already had previous problems with his ex wives and ex girlfriends.
Cheh, M. "Are lawsuits an answer to police brutality." Police violence: Understanding and controlling police abuse of force (1996): 247-72.
In 1990, there was a total of 2,245 murders in New York, but over the past nine years, this total has been less than 600 (NYCLU). However, there has not been evident proof that the stop-and-frisk procedure is the reason of the declination of the crime rate. Indeed, stop-and-frisk contributes to some downturn of crime but the number is not high enough for the citizen and police to rely on. Specifically, only 3% of 2.4 million stops result in conviction. Some 2% of those arrests – or 0.1% of all stops – led to a conviction for a violent crime. Only 2% of arrests led to a conviction for possession of a weapon (Gabatt, A., 2013). In other words, the decrease in crime due to stop-and-frisk is mostly due to the discovery of possessed of weapons. Therefore, stop-and- frisk is not an effective procedure to use because it does not represent a huge impact in people’s safety (Gabatt, A., 2013). The author has done research about how police base their initiation towards the procedure of stop-and-frisk. Researchers have found that stop-and-frisk is a crime prevention strategy that gives a police officer the permission to stop a person based on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity and frisk based on “reasonable suspicion” that the person is armed and dangerous. This controversy is mainly because of racial profiling. “Reasonable suspicion” was described by the court as “common sense” (Avdija, A., 2013). Although, the
In recent years American citizens have increasingly felt the need to protect themselves. This has led to laws being established in many states widely known as stand your ground laws. These laws allow citizens to take action if they feel their life is threatened or they are in potential harm, instead of retreating. Without doubt this has led to much controversy with individuals taking strong stances on both sides of the issue. Some feel it’s a necessity, while others take the opinion that it is unethical and needs to be repealed across all states. With many high profile cases such as the Treyvon Martin case, these laws have come under a lot of fire and scrutiny. Cynthia Tucker who is an African American visiting professor at the University of Georgia, experienced journalist and 2007 Pulitzer prize winner, has established her side of the issue in her article ‘Stand your Ground’ Laws Encourage Vigilantes. In her article Cynthia Tucker strongly takes the stance that Stand your ground laws should be repealed and lead gun totting vigilantes to spread bigotry and racial hate. The author of this article ineffectively demonstrates how ‘stand your ground’ laws have encouraged vigilantism due to her lack of evidence, biased opinions on the matter, and her poor claims related to the topic.
This essay will bring to light the problem of racial profiling in the police force and propose the eradication of any discrimination. The Fourth Amendment states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Despite this right, multiple minorities across the country suffer at the hands of police officers through racial profiling; the singling out of a person or persons as the main suspect of a crime based on their race. Many people have also suffered the loss of a loved one because police believed the suspect to be a threat based on their races therefore the officers use their authority to take out the “threat”. Although racial profiling may make sense to police officers in the line of duty, through the eyes of the public and those affected by police actions, it is a form a racism that is not being confronted and is allowing unjust convictions and deaths.
In several cases and studies, there is a substantial amount of racial bias in the criminal justice system. In fact, the 1978 McClesky conviction has proven to support Baldus’s study in 1998. Warren McClesky, an African American male, was found guilty of killing a Georgia police officer. The legal team who represented McClesky exposed a study that showed how biased racial inequality is in the death penalty, but the court contended the argument because “disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” (Touré). Furthermore, race has always been a serious matter in the Supreme Court and other government administrations, but they fail to recognize the
Turner, Billy. 1986. “Race and Peremptory Challenges During Voir Dire: Do Prosecution and Defense Agree?” Journal of Criminal Justice 14: 61-69.
It is important that each case is treated equally when carrying out justice to keep the United States a safe place, to form a nation with good education, and to teach people to judge right from wrong. However, sometimes rights are taken from the wrong people. Our legal system is creating a dangerous path for African Americans in our country because of its’ highest per capita incarceration rate, its’ favoritism towards those in power, and its failure to carry out justice to protect people from the dangerous acts of those who are defined as criminals. Was justice really served in the “State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman” case? Is our justice system fair to all races?
This Land May Be Your Land and My Land but I'll Shoot You If You're on Mine!