Ta-Nehisi Coates: "I think the message of this episode is unfortunate. By Florida law, in any violent confrontation ending in a disputed act of lethal self-defense, without eye-witnesses, the advantage goes to the living. An intelligent, self-interested observer of this case, who happens to live in Florida, would not be wrong to do as George Zimmerman did--buy a gun, master the finer points of Florida self-defense law and then wait."
Link 1: Zimmerman had in fact studied the self-defense law, despite initial denials.
Link 2: ALEC's role in getting copies of the Florida law into other states.
Link 3: The NRA's lobbying of legislatures in Florida and other states.
UPDATE: 14 July, 10:30 am CDT: Results of states adopting such laws.
UPDATE 2: 14 July, 2:40 pm CDT: Scott Lemieux on the role of self-defense laws in the trial; (Stand Your Ground was not in fact invoked in the Zimmerman trial but rather simple self-defense).
UPDATE 3: 15 July, 11 am CDT (see below).
Lemieux:
But it is important not to lose sight of something else: the inadequacy of the law in most states to deal with America's gun culture. Carrying a deadly weapon in public should carry unique responsibilities. In most cases someone with a gun should not be able to escape culpability if he initiates a conflict with someone unarmed and the other party ends up getting shot and killed. Under the current law in many states, people threatened by armed people have few good options, because fighting back might create a license to kill. As the New Yorker's Amy Davidson puts it, "I still don't understand what Trayvon was supposed to do." Unless the law is changed to deal with the large number of people carrying concealed guns, there will be more tragic and unnecessary deaths of innocent people like Trayvon Martin for which nobody is legally culpable. And to make claims of self-defense easier to bring, as Florida and more than 20 other states have done, is moving in precisely the wrong direction.
On the other hand, a commenter writes in response to Lemieux:
From the jury instructions, page 12:
If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in anyplace where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it wasnecessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
Obviously stand your ground was important to the judge, and this paragraph defined the limits of what the jury could consider. Florida is a shoot first, shoot to kill state, the jury was obligated to ground their decision in that fact.
My contribution at this point, keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer (INAL):
[REVISED for precision after further reading, 4:09 pm CDT]: This seems to be the key: the SYG law eliminates the duty to retreat even if you have no reasonable fear of great bodily injury. But the jury instruction says you have the right to stand as well as the right to use deadly force if you are in such fear. So this was not an SYG instruction but a standard self-defense instruction.
UPDATE 3, 15 July, 11 am CDT: More commentary; this claims to have located the difference that the SYG language made relative to the previous law. It also points to the role the SYG law had on the initial police reaction. Still more commentary:
In 2005 the Florida Legislature fundamentally changed the analysis used by juries to assign blame in these cases. When the legislature passed the Stand Your Ground law it changed the rules of engagement. It eliminated the duty to avoid the danger and it eliminated any duty to retreat.
If the Trayvon Martin killing was tried prior to the Stand Your Ground law being passed, the jury would have been told that self-defense was not available to Zimmerman unless he had used every reasonable means to avoid the danger. The jury would have been told that even if they believed Zimmerman had been attacked wrongfully by Trayvon, he could not use deadly force if he could have safely retreated or run away....
By taking away from the jury the simple notion that people have an obligation to “avoid the danger” or retreat if they could do so safely, they were, essentially, authorizing stupid, venal and, as in this case, often tragic behavior.
The case was not an easy one and, frankly, made harder because the prosecution failed to present a cohesive narrative choosing instead to offer alternative and inconsistent theories. But their job was unquestionably made much more difficult by the decision of the Florida legislature to fundamentally change the behavior we will tolerate from citizens who recklessly decide to take the life of another.
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