Zimmerman can kill a kid outside his home. A woman can't defend herself inside her home. That's "stand your ground."
On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot to death. His crime? He happened to be black, and a racist overzealous neighborhood vigilante named George Zimmerman decided to take matters into his own hands. He believed that "those assholes always get away" and he decided to make sure Trayvon didn't. So he ignored the advice of the dispatcher and left his home, armed, and had a confrontation. We don't know the exact details of how that confrontation played out. But what we do know is that Trayvon Martin ended up dead for the simple crime of walking down his own street.
Normally, one would think that if someone ignores police dispatch, goes out of the house armed, provokes a confrontation with an innocent teenager, and then kills him, that would result in some sort of murder conviction. Not so in the state of Florida, however. Florida is one of many states with so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws, which grant immunity from prosecution if a person has a reasonable belief that they are fearing for their own life in a confrontation.
Just to be clear, this law was not the direct reason that Zimmerman is not currently in jail. The law grants immunity from prosecution, and Zimmerman was prosecuted for the homicide he committed. But as Kevin Drum wrote shortly after Zimmerman's acquittal last year, the fact that the law was in the news had a definite effect on the jury's perceptions of Zimmerman's guilt:
And consider it they did. According to the most outspoken juror, known only as Juror B-37, Stand Your Ground was key to reaching their verdict. She told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an interview that neither second-degree murder nor manslaughter applied in Zimmerman's case "because of the heat of the moment and the 'stand your ground.' He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right."
So that's it then, right? Even if you're the one that provokes the confrontation, even if you're the only one with a gun, even if the person you kill is completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever—as long as you feared for your safety at some point during the confrontation, you have a right to kill.
As long as you're a man who isn't black. If you're a woman or if you're black, it's a different story. More below the fold.
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