Posted on 07/31/2013 11:37:27 AM PDT by richardb72
Stand Your Ground laws have become a racial issue in the aftermath of the not guilty . President Obama and Attorney General Holder have weighed in, linking race and these laws.
On ABC News' "This Week," radio talk show host Travis Smiley declared what many think: "It appears to me, and I think many other persons in this country that you can in fact stand your ground unless you are a black man."
And they seem to have some evidence of this, now that the Tampa Bay Times has reviewed Florida's court cases to find “defendants claiming ‘stand your ground’ are more likely to prevail if the victim is black.”
In the wake of the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial musician Stevie Wonder's boycott of Florida until law is "abolished" has been joined over the last few days by Harry Belafonte and Chaka Khan.
Poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas are not only the most likely victims of crime, they are also the ones who benefit the most from Stand Your Ground laws. Meanwhile, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission has launched its own investigation on Stand Your Ground laws and the Senate Judiciary committee recently announced its plan to hold hearings in September.
But the debate has everything backwards over who benefits from the law. Poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas are not only the most likely victims of crime, they are also the ones who benefit the most from Stand Your Ground laws. It makes it easier for them to protect themselves when the police can't be there fast enough. Rules that make self-defense more difficult would impact blacks the most. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
SYG, Castle Doctrine and other self defense laws have roots in the push back against Jim Crow laws. Yet today's “black leaders” line up to help the Progressives destroy all of the progress made to secure black families.
The Castle Doctrine & Stand Your Ground – The Trial of Dr. Ossian Sweet TheConservativeTreeHouse
No Guns for Negroes Part One (video 10:00)
No Guns for Negroes Part Two (video 9:45)
Equal Gun Rights (video 0:52)
The Never Again Campaign (video 0:30)
But Al Sharpton hisself told me “Stand Your Ground” was Whitey-code for “It’s OK to shoot young black men.” Al wouldn’t lie to me would he??
The Times analysis found no obvious bias in how black defendants have been treated:
• Whites who invoked the law were charged at the same rate as blacks.
• Whites who went to trial were convicted at the same rate as blacks.
• In mixed-race cases involving fatalities, the outcomes were similar. Four of the five blacks who killed a white went free; five of the six whites who killed a black went free.
• Overall, black defendants went free 66 percent of the time in fatal cases compared to 61 percent for white defendants — a difference explained, in part, by the fact blacks were more likely to kill another black.
"Let's be clear,'' said Alfreda Coward, a black Fort Lauderdale lawyer whose clients are mostly black men. "This law was not designed for the protection of young black males, but it's benefiting them in certain cases.''
The Times analysis does not prove that race caused the disparity between cases with black and white victims. Other factors may be at play.
The analysis, for example, found that black victims were more likely to be carrying a weapon when they were killed. They also were more likely than whites to be committing a crime, such as burglary, at the time.
Experts note that most cases have unique combinations of facts and circumstances that determine whether a person goes free or goes to prison. They caution against drawing conclusions on statistics alone.
And although the Times' analysis likely included most of Florida's fatal "stand your ground" cases, some could be missing. That can make a big difference when there are few cases to examine. For example, the Times found only 26 completed cases in which a black person was killed and only eight fatalities with a Hispanic victim.
The analysis, however, is supported by numerous studies showing disparities in the way whites and blacks are treated by the criminal justice system. Studies have found that all-white juries are more likely to convict black defendants. Someone who murders a white person is more likely to get the death penalty than someone who kills a black person.
Adora Obi Nweze, state president of the NAACP, said she was not surprised that people claiming "stand your ground'' escaped penalty more often when the victim was black. But she sharply questioned whether "stand your ground'' really helps black defendants.
"It's very difficult to isolate the data on one law,'' she said, "when we have so many laws where blacks are disproportionately not released, not given the kind of equity you want in justice."
Obama and Holder are concerned that black men don’t have an equal opportunity to stand their own ground against white men as white men do against black men. The fact that so few black me are being attacked by white men appears to be racism. Black men have no problem attacking white men or other black men, orientals, Indians, Hispanics or Eskimos. It seems unfair that so many can stand their ground against black men.
How can SYG laws be applied to the aggressors?
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