The Tribune's View: Zimmerman, Standing his ground

The Columbia Daily Tribune ^ | April 16, 2012 | Henry J. Waters III, Editor and Publisher Emeritus

[2ndDivisionVet]

The state of Florida has charged neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman with second-degree murder for shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman will defend himself by claiming Florida law allowed him to "stand his ground" against Martin's threatening behavior.

Evidence of what really happened is scant. Martin is dead, and no eye witnesses saw the encounter. A 911 recording casts doubt on Zimmerman's account, but the Florida law will make it hard to get a conviction.

It's hard to believe under the circumstances that a large armed adult had to shoot an unarmed teenager in self-defense, but the extra layer of justification provided by the ridiculous "stand your ground" law invites this sort of mayhem.

The law, passed at the behest of the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights promoters, gives people the broad right to use deadly force without having to retreat from a fight. It gives a decided edge to someone like Zimmerman, who hauls out a gun and eliminates an adversary. In defense, he need only show "by a preponderance of evidence" he was acting in self-defense to get a judge or court to deny a second-degree murder conviction.

Many observers think prosecutors made this relatively tough charge expecting it to fail, moving the onus to the court.

The basic culprit in this and similar cases is the law itself. Unless indisputable video or eyewitness evidence exists, proving self-defense is easy. Martin and Zimmerman did meet face to face. Who is to say which one was trying to "stand his ground?" Even without anything beyond the evidence at hand, a reasonable person would conclude the big, adult neighborhood watchman confronted the teenager.

That this is a "white on black" killing injects a toxic racial overtone. If Zimmerman walks, the surrounding black population might erupt; but regardless of race, the law is misbegotten. The only justifiable defense in such cases is "self-defense" without the legal encouragement for deadly force. Since hardly ever will evidence to the contrary clearly exist, shooters are almost always assured of protection under the law.

In a perverse sense, it's too bad the black kid was the victim instead of the shooter. If the killing had been black on white, the white public might be more eager to recognize the paucity of the "stand your ground" law, a sad but true indication of continuing racial bias.

In an earlier day when white vigilantes threatened black people, nobody proposed a "stand your ground law." Today the law tends to cast the likes of Trayvon Martin as a predator in an interracial encounter. If the killing had been black on black, would the "stand your ground" law be in play?

[Still Thinking]

Since hardly ever will evidence to the contrary clearly exist, shooters are almost always assured of protection under the law.

And being required to produce evidence to secure a criminal conviction is hard! It takes work, and we're liberals, we don't do "work". Shouldn't there be some kind of handouts of convictions to make everything "fair" to those of us who can't be bothered to work for one, or wait for a defendant we actually have evidence against?

[VRWC For Truth]

Never bring a bag of Skittles to a gunfight.