“Stand Your Ground” Nation

Ever since George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin in his Sanford, Fla., gated community, it’s become an article of faith that the rash of lethal shootings in public places—from the Florida moviegoer who was killed after a texting and popcorn-throwing incident to Jordan Davis, shot in his car at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station to last week’s lethal shooting in an Arizona Walmart—is attributable to the “stand your ground” laws enacted over the past decade in 26 states across the country. Aggressive human interaction, post-Trayvon, now follows a painfully familiar pattern: An altercation occurs. Someone says he feared for his life. An unarmed victim (often young, black, and male) is shot and killed. The headlines either explicitly or implicitly invoke “stand your ground.”

Last week, Kriston Charles Belinte Chee, an unarmed man, got into a fight with Cyle Wayne Quadlin at a Walmart in suburban Arizona. Quadlin opened fire midargument and killed Chee. Officers decided not to charge Quadlin because, they concluded, the killing was in self-defense. According to the police spokesman, “Mr. Quadlin was losing the fight and indicated he ‘was in fear for his life.’” Just a week earlier, a jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found Michael Dunn guilty on four counts of attempted murder but did not convict him on the most serious charge of first-degree murder, in the death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. Dunn shot and killed Davis, also unarmed, because the music coming from his car was too loud. Dunn claimed he saw something like a gun in the vehicle, and that was apparently enough for some members of the jury to conclude that Dunn hadn’t committed first-degree murder.

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10 Reasons Lawyers Say Florida's Law Enforcement Threw Away George Zimmerman's Case

A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts say Zimmerman didn't face anything like a serious trial.
  

 Florida law enforcement, from the local police to the special prosecutor overseeing the Trayvon Martin case, did not want to see George Zimmerman convicted of murder and deliberately threw away the case, allowing their prosecution to crumble. A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts who know jury trials and courtroom procedure say this is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the parade of otherwise incoherent missteps by George Zimmerman’s prosecutors. 

 

“I find it personally difficult to believe it was not thrown,” said Warren Ingber, a New York-based attorney who has practiced law for decades. “I am far from alone in this assessment, and it reveals even harder truth why this case was a miscarriage of justice.”

Ingber detailed his reasons in a letter sent to a NPR’s "Left, Right and Center" program after its liberal analysts would not touch that possibility. But there’s been a growing chorus saying the Zimmerman prosecution was not merely incompetent, but going through the motions and intentionally losing. This includes Florida talk radio host  Randi Rhodes, who covered the trial daily, to  New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial writer Jarvis DeBerry whose source canvassed 20 local prosecutors, to celebrity lawyers like  Alan Dershowitz and other legal  analysts, and longtime lawyers like Ingber who was indignant at NPR’s commentators ceding too much ground to right-wingers.

Here are 10 key points the lawyers in these reports cite behind this conclusion.

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Three Self-Defense Laws That Could Be Even Worse Than Stand Your Ground

The acquittal of George Zimmerman has reignited the national conversation about so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that authorize deadly force in self-defense anywhere a person has a legal right to be, without a duty to mitigate the harm by attempting retreat. The Trayvon Martin killing and many other fatal shootings are raising deeply troubling questions about what sort of civilian vigilantism, discrimination, and arbitrary judgment is authorized by laws that put discretion into the hands of civilians.

But the notorious Stand Your Ground provision is one of several that give broad discretion to civilians to use inordinate force in self-defense. Below are three other force-empowering provisions that are just as, if not even more, expansive:

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Racism, the U. S. Justice System, and the Trayvon Martin Verdict

What happens when African Americans don’t get a jury of their peers?

While the unquestionably unfair verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, rendered in Florida by five whites and one Latina, should be deeply troubling to persons of all races who care about racial justice, U. S. history, as well as the current racial reality in this country, teaches that it should not come as a surprise.

The jury, simply put, decided that a white police wannabe could justifiably profile an unarmed African-American 17-year-old as a criminal, hunt him down, and fatally shoot him.

Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump likened the case to that of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Chicago boy who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. Others have posited the question: What would the result have been if the accused was African-American and the victim was white? The Scottsboro case—nine black boys wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in Alabama in the 1930s—comes to mind. In both cases all-white juries delivered clearly racist verdicts, acquitting Till’s murderers and convicting the Scottsboro Boys.

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Zimmerman Has Been Found Not Guilty. Now What?

The racially charged trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin has ended, but George Zimmerman might not be done defending himself in court.

After more than three weeks of testimony and nearly 17 hours of deliberation, the jury in the Trayvon Martin case has found George Zimmerman not guilty

Zimmerman shot and killed the 17-year-old after a scuffle in a gated condominium complex in Sanford, Fla., on February 26, 2012. The case became a racially charged national story almost immediately due to the circumstances of Martin’s death—a black, unarmed teen shot after being tailed by Zimmerman for merely looking suspicious—and the fact that Sanford police did not arrest Zimmerman until 46 days after the killing.
But the actual trial boiled down to not racism or police inaction but whether or not Zimmerman wanted to kill Martin and if Zimmerman's life was in danger when he pulled the trigger. To get a murder conviction, the prosecution had to prove to the six women on the jury that Zimmerman acted with malice or intent when he killed Martin. This was tough to prove, given that the victim wasn’t around to offer his version of events. During the trial, the defense sought to paint Zimmerman as a poor fighter who was overpowered by Martin and who came to fear for his life during the scuffle. During his closing statement, attorney Mark O’Mara brought a slab of concrete into the courtroom, arguing that the teen used the sidewalk as a weapon.

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Zimmerman acquitted of murder in Trayvon Martin shooting

Neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was cleared of all charges Saturday in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager whose killing unleashed furious debate across the U.S. over racial profiling, self-defence and equal justice.

Mr. Zimmerman, 29, blinked and barely smiled when the verdict was announced. He could have been convicted of second-degree murder or manslaughter. But the jury of six women, all but one of them white, reached a verdict of not guilty after deliberating well into the night. Their names have not been made public, and they declined to speak to the media.

Mr. Martin’s mother and father were not in the courtroom when the verdict was read; supporters of his family who had gathered outside yelled “No! No!” upon learning of the not guilty verdict.
The teen’s father, Tracy, reacted on Twitter: “Even though I am broken hearted my faith is unshattered I WILL ALWAYS LOVE MY BABY TRAY.”

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Zimmerman Defense Attorney: ‘Trayvon Martin Did, In Fact, Cause His Own Death’

On Friday, the State rested its case in the murder trial of George Zimmerman. The lead defense attorney, Mark O’Mara, immediately moved for the judge to acquit Zimmerman as a matter of law. O’Mara concluded his lengthy argument by starkly asserting that “Trayvon Martin did, in fact, cause his own death.” Watch it:
Although many legal analysts believe the trial has gone exceptionally well for the defense thus far, Judge Deborah Nelson rejected O’Mara’s motion. She found that the state had met their burden and there are factual issues that only a jury can decide.
Specifically, the case appears to boil down to who the jury finds credible. Zimmerman, through recorded testimony, claims that Trayvon “sucker punched” him while he was returning to his car, vowed to kill him and was repeatedly bashing his head against the concrete when he fired his gun to save his life. If the jury finds this account credible, Zimmerman would have to be acquitted.

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What’s Happened In The Trayvon Martin Case Since You Stopped Paying Attention

It’s been nearly a year since George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old on his way back to his father’s townhouse. In the weeks following the shooting, the story captured the nation’s attention, culminating with Zimmerman being charged with second-degree murder last April.

But as the story has receded from the headlines, the legal case has plodded along and the trial is likely to be completed this summer. Here’s what you may have missed:

1. Zimmerman has spent over $300,000 in donations over the last year and is desperate for more funds to finance his defense. Zimmerman has “spent more than $125,000″ on living expenses — not including security — over the last year. His lawyer acknowledged that “Zimmerman’s personal spending may seem exorbitant.” Zimmerman is considering asking the court to declare him “indigent, meaning the public would have to pay for Zimmerman’s defense.” Zimmerman was also sued by a security company for unpaid bills. [Orlando Sentinel, 1/20/2013; Miami Herald, 12/27/12]

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Too many gun nuts

How Pro-Gun Laws Swept The Nation Since 2009: A Guide

Trayvon Martin’s death may have opened a nationwide dialogue about the wisdom of lax gun laws. But that hasn’t slowed down the National Rifle Association. The absolutist Second Amendment group remains firmly on offense, representing a movement that has crushed its political adversaries so thoroughly that even tragic tales can’t slow its juggernaut.

At its annual convention in St. Louis, Mo. this weekend, NRA’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, decried the “sensational reporting from Florida,” referring to stories about Martin, an unarmed teenager recently who was shot to death in late February. NRA Executive Director Chris Cox defended the state’s “stand your ground” law that may ultimately let shooter George Zimmerman off the hook, declaring, “Castle doctrine can literally save your life.”

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2nd-Degree Murder Charge in Shooting

The Florida special prosecutor announced a second-degree murder charge on Wednesday against George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Angela B. Corey, the prosecutor, said Mr. Zimmerman, 28, a crime watch volunteer, was in the custody of law enforcement officers in Florida. He is accused of fatally shooting Mr. Martin, an unarmed teenager, in a case that has captivated the country and brought to the fore issues of race, violence and precisely what constitutes self-defense.

“We did not come to this decision lightly,” Ms. Corey said. She added, “Let me emphasize that we do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition.”

“We will continue to seek the truth about this case,” she said.

Ms. Corey opened the news conference by saying that she had spoken to Trayvon Martin’s parents shortly after she took on the case, and that the investigation was driven by “the search for justice for Trayvon.”

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The awful repercussions of "Stand Your Ground"

The shooting of Trayvon Martin has justifiably put a focus on the insanity of "Stand Your Ground" gun laws. With reports in that George Zimmerman is in custody and will be charged with 2nd-degree murder leading to a raft of right-wing outrage, it's important to remember that the Right's rush to defend Zimmerman comes not only out of racial resentment, but out of a fear that these Wild West gun laws might be re-examined.

CNN has done stories focusing on other problematic cases in which Stand Your Ground has played a role. One of more troubling may be the recent shootings in Tulsa:

One possible motive that has been raised in the Tulsa Good Friday shooting spree, which left three dead and two critically wounded, is the 2010 killing of suspect Jacob England‘s father, Carl England, allegedly by Pernell Jefferson. Reporting on that 2010 incident has been unclear, but a review of contemporaneous news accounts and court records show echoes and shadows of the killing of Trayvon Martin, including an apparent connection to the “Stand Your Ground” laws that Martin’s case has put into focus.

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Trayvon Martin Case: George Zimmerman's Attorneys Quit, Said Client 'Disappeared'

George Zimmerman's attorneys said in a press conference this afternoon that they will no longer be representing him. The attorneys claim that Zimmerman repeatedly rebuffed their legal advice, and that they have now lost contact with him.

Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig, Zimmerman's lawyers, said that they had "lost contact" with Zimmerman, and said that he reached out to both Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, to have a conversation but would not share the details of that discussion.

"George called Sean Hannity of Fox News off the record and he was unwilling to tell us what was said," Uhrig said.

Sonner said that Zimmerman had stopped responding to their phone calls, and that they did not know exactly where he was, although they thought that he was no longer in Florida.

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'Civil Rights' Group Patrolling Sanford Florida

That's That was the title at Fox 35 in Orlando. No joke. This is not a headline from The Onion. White supremacists are now just another group in Amerika, fighting for their civil rights.

The good folks at Fox might want to open a history book sometime and read up on the most infamous of these National Socialist groups.

Florida members of the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement tells FOX35 they are patrolling the streets of Sanford.

The white rights organization says several Sanford citizens have called on them fearing their safety.

The group's commander talked with FOX35 Saturday about their presence in the now racially divided Florida town where Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman.

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Fox News stinks. Tom

Stand Your Ground laws coincide with jump in justifiable-homicide cases

When Billy Kuch knocked on the wrong door, he had a cigarette in one hand and a shirt in the other. The homeowner, Gregory Stewart, stepped outside, stood his ground, fired a round from his semiautomatic into Kuch’s chest, and in the eyes of the state of Florida, committed no crime.

Three years after that shooting, in a Land O’ Lakes subdivision called Stagecoach Village, Kuch is alive but damaged by his injuries and the shock of being shot at point-blank range. Stewart is free but lying low, still sought out by neighbors and others who want him to account for his actions.

“I have no problem with people owning guns to protect themselves,” says Bill Kuch, Billy’s father. “But somehow, we’ve reached the point where the shooter’s word is the law. The victim doesn’t even get his day in court. I don’t think most Americans realize it, but that’s where we are.”

In Florida and across the country, “Stand Your Ground” laws — the same kind of legislation that authorities cited for not arresting a neighborhood-watch volunteer after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida in February — have coincided with a sharp increase in justifiable-homicide cases.

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If George Zimmerman Were on Trial

Which evidence about the shooting of Trayvon Martin could a jury hear?

As new information continues to surface about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, we’re hearing a lot about how the facts are dividing rather than uniting us. As David Carr points out, as social media and the Internet take over the conversation, what you make of Martin’s use of the Twitter handle @no_limit_nigga, or the hard-to-hear 911 call in which Zimmerman may or may not have used a racial epithet, has a lot to do with your own predilections. Most of us have staked out a position by now. We have a gut sense about whether Martin was killed for little or no reason, or whether Zimmerman truly acted in self-defense, as he claims. We read the evidence in a way that confirms our instincts.

But let’s imagine for a moment that Zimmerman gets arrested, stands trial for homicide, and argues self-defense in court. That is what I still think should have happened, with or without Florida’s Stand Your Ground law (though it’s true that the law hasn’t helped). If Zimmerman is ever tried by a jury (instead of by public opinion), what evidence would be admitted? What would the jury likely hear in deciding whether to convict Zimmerman for Martin’s death?

I asked a few defense lawyers and criminal law experts that question—Dana Bazelon (my sister) and Paul Messing, a law firm colleague of hers; Harlan Protass (a Slate contributor); and Rachel Barkow at New York University Law School, who enlisted her colleague and evidence professor Erin Murphy. Here’s what they had to say, going through the evidence I asked them about, piece by piece.

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New VPC Study Details How Lax Concealed Carry Laws Are Designed to Boost Gun Sales

Study Contains Gun Industry, NRA Quotes; Examples of Gun Industry Ads Including Kel-Tec Pistol Used In Trayvon Martin Shooting

April 2 - The lethal shooting of unarmed, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by concealed handgun permit holder George Zimmerman is the predictable result of an aggressive decades-long campaign by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to promote lax concealed carry laws and attendant "Shoot First" laws that boost gun industry sales according to a new Violence Policy Center (VPC) report,“Never Walk Alone”--How Concealed Carry Laws Boost Gun Sales" (http://www.vpc.org/studies/ccwnra.pdf).

Faced with a decades-long decline in household gun ownership, the firearms industry has worked to exploit these NRA-backed laws to re-sell old customers and entice new ones. As Tanya Metaksa, then-chief lobbyist for the NRA told the Wall Street Journal in 1996--"The gun industry should send me a basket of fruit--our efforts have created a new market."

Today, ads for concealed carry or "personal-defense" handguns permeate gun publications--both industry- and consumer-focused. The January 2012 issue of the NRA's monthly activist magazine, America's 1st Freedom, contains an ad for the very model of handgun used by Zimmerman to kill Trayvon Martin--the Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol. The ad features an array of the pistols in different finishes and urges readers to "Pick your favorite color." Described by its manufacturer as being designed with "maximum concealability in mind," the PF-9 is "one of the lightest and flattest 9mm ever made." An ad for a similar Kel-Tec concealed carry pistol, the P-32, in the July 2011 issue of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement features the handgun lying on a table next to the owner’s car keys and spare change. Characterizing the handgun as "compact protection," the ad warns, "Don’t leave home without it!" On its website Kel-Tec states that it specializes in "handguns for concealed carry by law enforcement personnel and qualified citizens...." All of the company’s employees are members of the National Rifle Association.

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Tyler and Trayvon

IN 2009 President Obama signed a federal bias crimes law named for the victims of two gruesome 1998 atrocities: the young gay man who was tortured, lashed to a fence and left to die; and the black man chained to the back of a pickup by white supremacists and dragged until he was dismembered. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act joined a 40-year accumulation of statutes declaring that crimes committed with a mind full of racial spite or anti-Semitism or homophobic hatred should be punished more severely than identical crimes committed for greed or vengeance.

Today the notion is embedded in our culture. Almost every state has some variety of hate crime law. The most recent F.B.I. count, for 2010, reports 6,628 “criminal incidents” involving bias — instances where local authorities judged that the offender was motivated by hatred of a particular group. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld disparate penalties for bias crimes in 1993. The A.C.L.U., after years of resisting, endorsed a hate crime bill in 2005.

But the fact that it is constitutional and commonplace does not quiet the nagging sense that hate crime legislation resembles something from an Orwell dystopia. Horrific crimes deserve stern justice, but don’t we want to be careful about criminalizing a defect of character? Because our founders believed that democracy requires great latitude for dissent, America, virtually alone in the developed world, protects the right to speak or publish the most odious points of view. And yet the government is authorized to punish you for thinking those vile things, if you think them in the course of committing a crime.

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This is an New York Times op-ed. Tom

Can We Trust the Cops’ New Account of Trayvon Martin’s Killing?

Not as long as they rely on leaks and unnamed witnesses.

New information has been leaked about the shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman (pictured)

AFP Photo/ORANGE COUNTY JAIL/Newscom

"With a single punch, Trayvon Martin decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who eventually shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk several times, leaving him bloody and battered, authorities have revealed to the Orlando Sentinel."

Much of this “has been corroborated by witnesses,” the paper says. Also, “One eyewitness has said he saw the teenager on top of Zimmerman.”

This comes from a leak from the police to the Sentinel. Zimmerman, the 28-year-old who shot 17-year-old Martin to death in February and has not been arrested because he claimed self-defense, still hasn’t spoken publicly. Nor have the unnamed witnesses.

Which makes it very hard to know what to make of this new information. It’s entirely at odds with the account of Martin’s girlfriend, who says Martin was talking to her on his cell phone just before his death. The girlfriend says she heard Martin ask a man, “What are you following me for,” and that the man answered, “What are you doing here?” Then she heard Martin pushed to the ground. To point out the obvious, the police in Sanford, Fla., where the shooting took place, are the definition of embattled. Their chief resigned last week and the decision not to arrest Zimmerman—based on the belief that he reasonably feared bodily harm or for his life when he shot Martin—is a flashpoint for national outcry. No wonder someone in the department got fed up and leaked facts that support the cops’ decision-making.

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Florida's Stand Your Ground Law