Mediaboss Marketing

Committing simple errors has become a death sentence thanks to Stand Your Ground laws.

Throughout April, three shootings have made national news due to the victims harmless mistakes. Sixteen-year-old Ralph Yarl received critical injuries after arriving at the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers. A shooter killed Kaylin Gillis because she pulled into the wrong driveway in New York. Texas cheerleader Payton Washington spent two weeks in the hospital after her teammate mistakenly entered the wrong car.

Each shooting occurred in states where Stand Your Ground laws protect a citizens right to use force in self-defense. Rather than protecting endangered citizens, Stand Your Ground laws are killing innocents. States need to rewrite these laws to protect citizens, not promote vigilante justice.

Florida passed the first Stand Your Ground law in 2005. Since then, 28 states have established self-defense laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. While the wording of each law differs slightly, the states share a common goalprotecting the right to bear arms.

Citizens should be able to access firearms for self-defense, but Stand Your Ground laws are unclear and often misinterpreted.

Floridas Stand Your Ground law states that a citizen has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm. The law does not explicitly define force or bodily harm. These words are up to interpretation.

As a result, young adults are being fatally injured in the name of self-defense, with the shooters being hailed as heroes.

The cases of Yarl, Gillis and Washington resulted in the shooter facing criminal charges. But think about the other victims who have never seen justice.

Authoring a study with Southern Poverty Law Center, Ari Freilich researched the roles of Stand Your Ground laws in the justice system.

They encourage a trigger-happy culture of anxious vigilantism that cheapens the value of human life, Freilich said.

States should amend self-defense laws to include clearer wording and detailed explanations. The laws should specify the type of situations that fall under the protection of Stand Your Ground laws. I know every situation is unique, but states should institute guidelines for Stand Your Ground laws.

Although Stand Your Ground laws aim to save lies, look at what happens when people take matters into their own handsinnocent people die.

Read more:
'Stand Your Ground' laws promote violence The Hawkeye - The HawkEye

THE CONVERSATION In one key respect, Ralph Yarl was fortunate. The wounds the 16-year-old suffered after being shot twice on April 13 by the owner of the house whose doorbell he rang, thinking it was where he was due to pick up his two younger brothers, did not prove fatal.

Others who have made similar mistakes have died. TakeRenisha McBride, who sought help after wrecking her car in a Detroit suburb in 2013, orCarson Senfield, who entered the wrong car in Tampa thinking it was his Uber on his 19th birthday. And then there is the case of 20-year-oldKaylin Gillis, a passenger in a car that turned around in a driveway in upstate New York on April 15, 2023. What these young people have in common is that they were killed in accidental encounters with armed property owners.

As ascholar who has studiedAmericaslove affair with guns and lethal self-defense, I have explored the history oflaws that selectively shield citizens from criminal responsibilitywhen they use force and claim self-defense. Since 2005, these stand your ground laws havespread to around 30 states, transforming the United States legal landscape.

While preexistinglaws regarding justifiable use of forceallowed the use of lethal force for self-defense in some circumstances, they required that people first try to retreat from a perceived threat if it was safe to do so or to seek a nonlethal solution to a hostile encounter. Stand your ground laws, meanwhile, authorize defensive violence without a duty to retreat, wherever a person may legally be. Some also expand the circumstances in which someone could use lethal force to defend property.

Although the laws appear to apply to all law-abiding citizens, research shows that they arenot equitably enforced, and that they may be emboldening property owners to shoot first and question their actions later, even when there is no real threat of harm.

Certainly that seems to be the case with the shooting of Yarl. The wounding of the Black teen, who was simply trying to pick up his siblings, generatedwidespread outrage, especially when Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves suggested that investigators would consider whether the shooter an 84-year-old white man might have recourse to the statesstand your groundlaw as a defense against prosecution.

Given that the encounter took place on the shooters property, there is a possibility the shooter could find legal protection in the castle doctrine, which allows someone to use reasonable force without first trying to retreat in self-defense in their home. But he would still have to show reasonable cause for firing two shots at the unarmed teen standing at his front door.

Defining reasonable force

It seems that in the case of Yarl, state prosecutors believe that the bar of reasonable cause was not met. Andrew D. Lester, the homeowner, hassince been chargedwith two counts: assault in the first degree and armed criminal action.

This does not preclude the defense from invoking Lesters right to stand his ground and use force in self-defense, if his lawyers can show Lester truly believed Yarl posed a real threat.

Missourisstand your ground law, in place since 2016, removes the duty to retreat anywhere a person may legally be, even beyond ones castle. But you still need to prove that force is used reasonably, that it was not carried out in aggression or anger, and that there was a genuine fear for your life.

Indeed, the resolution of cases like the Yarl shooting turn on a highly subjective reckoning of what counts as reasonable force, and on which side prosecution or defense bears the burden of proof.

Traditional laws on the use of force place that burden on the alleged self-defender, who must prove that their actions were reasonable. But some other states with stand your ground laws, like Florida,remove the burden of prooffrom the defense, placing it on the prosecution.

This means that the prosecution must prove that the alleged self-defender was not truly fearful when using force. In some instances, as in the shooting of Senfield after he tried to enter a car he misidentified as his Uber, the stand your ground law becomes a shield against prosecution.No charges have been filedin that case, in large part because there were no other witnesses to contradict the shooters claim that he was in fear for his life when Senfield tried to enter his car.

Increase in gun homicides

Contrary to theclaims of the framers and promotersof stand your ground laws, there isscant empirical evidencethat the laws prevent crime. In fact,multiple studiesshow just the opposite.

Research on public health and crime reveals a pernicious effect of stand your ground laws on public safety, showing a correlation withincreased rates of gun homicide. One study, which includes an assessment of Missouris law, found that the passage of stand your ground laws correlates with an8% to 11% increasein firearm homicide rates.

Ananalysis of stand your ground cases in Florida, carried out by gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety, addressed the way removal of the duty to retreat encourages violent escalation; researchers suggested that over half the cases could have been resolved without loss of life.

Further, recent scholarship shows how stand your ground lawsintensify existing racial injusticesin the U.S. criminal legal system.A study by the think tank Urban Institutefound significant discrepancies in the rate at which homicides in stand your ground cases were deemed justified, depending on the race of the shooter and the race of the deceased. White shooters were significantly more likely to to be exonerated when their victim was Black, suggesting that particularly in states with stand your ground laws white people may feel more legally empowered to use lethal force and avoid prosecution, as long as their victims are Black.

Encouraging armed citizenry

In the Yarl case, the possible presence of racial bias has notescaped the attention of Kansas City prosecutors. Lesters grandson hasdescribed his grandfatheras a QAnon devotee with racist tendencies and beliefs that likely prompted his violent reaction to Yarls presence on his doorstep.

Against the backdrop of historical legacies of racial bias in the U.S., stand your ground laws intensify the risks of shooting deaths in an increasinglygun-saturated public. With laws that encourage armed citizens to use force against any perceived threat real or imagined even the most innocent mistakes and chance encounters can turn deadly.

Read the original post:
The Conversation: 'Stand your ground' laws empower armed ... - Press Herald

Following hours of passionate debate, during which Florida lawmakers were urged to respect life from conception to the casket, 70 House members voted to effectively ban abortions in Florida.

A short time later, 67 of those same 70 voted to help prosecutors make executions easier by lowering the threshold for a death sentence to eight of 12 jurors. Florida now has the lowest execution threshold of all 50 states with repeal of a 2017 law that required a jurys death recommendation to be unanimous.

How can you be pro-life on one hand and be pro-death on the other? Rep. Yvonne Hinson, D-Gainesville, who opposed both bills, asked her colleagues.

Supporters of a less restrictive death penalty law hardly bothered to answer. It was simply a primal political scream over the 9-3 jury recommendation that spared the life of the Parkland mass murderer. No one claimed it would prevent another such massacre, which of course it wont.

But it was an opportunity not to be missed by those who want to be seen as tough on crime, especially Gov. Ron DeSantis, who, with no trace of irony, signed both pro-life and pro-death into law.

The hypocrisy was just as obvious in the Florida Senate. The vote there was 26-13 for the six-week abortion ban (SB 300), and 29-10 for the pro-death legislation (SB 450). Sens. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, sponsor of the anti-abortion bill, and Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, were the only two senators to oppose the death legislation and another bill to execute child rapists.

Only three House members who voted for the anti-abortion bill opposed the death penalty bill. They were Mike Beltran, R-Tampa, Will Robinson, R-Venice, and Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce.

Those who supported both may have cossetted their consciences by distinguishing the execution of a criminal from the dismemberment of an innocent human child, as Rep. David Borrero, R-Sweetwater, described abortion.

Thats not how the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops sees it. The Conference, which has consistently opposed executions and lobbied against SB 450, issued a statement in answer to a question from the Sun Sentinel.

The Catholic Church embraces a consistent ethic of life from conception to natural death that calls for the promotion of public policies essential to the defense of human life, whether that life is innocent or has caused great harm, the church said. It commended those whose consistent pro-life votes demonstrated respect for the inviolability and dignity of all persons.

No doubt many of those who voted inconsistently do value criminals lives less than those of fetuses, but the disconnect indicates that the anti-abortion legislation is as much about political power as about sincerity and consistency. Women are collateral victims in the Republican Partys alliance with social conservatives.

The 2023 session will be remembered as one that repealed the required permit to carry concealed weapons in Florida. Since that will spawn more murders, building on Floridas reckless stand your ground law, the death penalty bill is an ironic addition to the culture of violence. There continue to be more mass shootings this year than days on the calendar. Its becoming frequent for hotheaded homeowners to shoot people who mistakenly knock on their doors or turn into their driveways.

The death penalty, lax gun laws and gunfire are the fruit of a deep-seated culture of violence our nation cannot seem to shed. Its origins are many: the frontier, genocide against Native Americans, the brutality of slavery, the Civil War, the lynching mentality that permeated the Southern and Western states where the death penalty is still most invoked, and the lawlessness fostered by Prohibition and glorified in popular culture. It is not a stretch to argue that the anti-abortion bills are violence against women.

The law in Florida is now as pro-death as it was before 1972, when defendants of capital crimes were automatically condemned unless a majority of the jurors recommended life. Now, a death recommendation is automatic unless seven of 12 jurors oppose it. Only Alabama permits a less-than-unanimous vote of 10 to 2, although two other states let a judge decide when juries cant.

The new Florida law also requires judges to explain in writing if they dont accept jury death recommendations. That further tilts the scales and may create openings for peeved prosecutors to appeal to a state Supreme Court thats stridently pro-death penalty.

No governor since Reubin Askew in the 1970s has questioned the usefulness or morality of the death penalty. Askew said he became convinced it wasnt a deterrent, but signed the new death penalty law the Legislature passed in December 1972 to replace what the Supreme Court had outlawed.

Only three of 160 legislators voted against that bill. This time a total of 40 did (10 senators and 30 House members), so Florida has made progress. But its not nearly enough.

See the original post:
Hypocrisy on matters of life and death | Editorial - South Florida Sun Sentinel

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) The possibility for William Darby to have an immunity hearing has been denied by Madison County Circuit Court Judge Alan Mann, according to court documents.

Earlier this month, a new trial date was set after the former Huntsville Police Officers murder conviction was recently overturned. On March 24, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed his conviction, sending the case back to the trial court.

Darbys defense team filed a motion asking the court to schedule an immunity hearing in order to discuss the aspect of the Stand Your Ground law in his case, saying the trial court applied the wrong standard of self-defense, from the perspective that Darby was not a citizen, but an on-duty police officer.

Darby was sentenced to 25 years in prison after beingconvicted in 2021for the on-duty shooting of Jeffery Parker at Parkers home in Huntsville in 2018.

The defense had argued Darbys shooting of Parker was due to Parker being armed and failing to heed Darbys instructions to drop his weapon.

The appeals court said there was a failure to instruct the jury on the defenses requested instructions which stated, The reasonableness of an officers actions in using deadly force must be objectively reasonable judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, the fact that officers are forced to make split-second decisions, and in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them at the time.

The appeals court said the failure to instruct the jury on the defenses requested instructions was a reversible error.

Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard told News 19 they will try to prosecute Darby again, Probably the easiest way to picture it, is its as if hes been charged, but theres never been a trial. Its almost like youre back at the starting point, and obviously, well pursue it again.

Darbys attorneysfiled an appealarguing that the judge failed to give the jury an instruction related to police officer training in a situation with an armed suspect.

After his conviction was reversed, Darby was released from prison and is currently out on bond.

His new trial is scheduled to be held on December 11, 2023.

Original post:
Darbys Stand Your Ground law immunity hearing denied - WHNT News 19

By CAROLINE LIGHTOf Harvard University

In one key respect, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was fortunate. The wounds he suffered April 13, after being shot twice by the owner of the house whose doorbell he rang, thinking it was where he was due to pick up his two younger brothers, did not prove fatal.

Others who have made similar mistakes have died. Victims include Renisha McBride, who sought help after wrecking her car in a Detroit suburb in 2013; Carson Senfield, who entered the wrong car in Tampa, thinking it was his Uber, on his 19th birthday; and 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis, passenger in a car that turned around in a driveway in upstate New York on April 15.

What these young people have in common is this: They were killed in accidental encounters with armed property owners.

As a scholar who has studied Americas love affair with guns and lethal self-defense, I have explored the history of laws that selectively shield citizens from criminal responsibility when they use force under the cover of self-defense. Since 2005, these stand your ground laws have spread to around 30 states, transforming the legal landscape of the United States.

While preexisting laws regarding justifiable use of force allowed the use of lethal force for self-defense in some circumstances, they required that people first try to retreat from a perceived threat if it was safe to do so or to seek a nonlethal solution to a hostile encounter.

Stand your ground laws, however, authorize defensive violence without a duty to retreat, wherever a person may legally be. Some also expand the circumstances in which someone could use lethal force to defend property.

Although the laws appear to apply to all law-abiding citizens, research shows that they are not equitably enforced, and that they may be emboldening property owners to shoot first and question their actions later, even when they face no real threat of harm.

That certainly seems to be the case with Yarl. The Black teen was simply trying to pick up his siblings.

His shooting generated widespread outrage, especially when Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves suggested investigators would consider whether the shooter an 84-year-old white man might have recourse to the states stand your ground law as a defense against prosecution.

Given that the encounter took place on the shooters property, there is a possibility the shooter could find legal protection in the castle doctrine, which allows someone to use reasonable force without first trying to retreat in self-defense in their home. But he would still have to show reasonable cause for firing two shots at the unarmed teen standing at his front door, the second after the teen lay bleeding on the ground.

It seems that in the case of Yarl, state prosecutors believe that the bar of reasonable cause was not met. Andrew D. Lester, the homeowner, has since been charged with first degree assault and armed criminal action.

This does not preclude the defense from invoking Lesters right to stand his ground and use force in self-defense, however.

Missouris stand your ground law, in place since 2016, removes the duty to retreat anywhere a person may legally be, even beyond ones castle. But you still need to prove that force is used reasonably, that it was not carried out in aggression or anger, and that there was a genuine fear for your life.

Indeed, the resolution of cases like the Yarl shooting turn on a highly subjective reckoning of what counts as reasonable force, and on which side prosecution or defense bears the burden of proof.

Traditional laws on the use of force place that burden on the alleged self-defender, who must prove that their actions were reasonable.

But some states with stand your ground laws, like Florida, shift the burden of proof from the defense to the prosecution. This means that the prosecution must prove that the alleged self-defender was not truly fearful when using force.

In some instances, as in the shooting of Senfield after he tried to enter a car he misidentified as his Uber, the stand your ground law becomes a shield against prosecution. No charges have been filed in that case, in large part because there were no witnesses to contradict the shooters claim that he feared for his life when Senfield tried to enter his car.

Contrary to the claims of the framers and promoters of stand your ground laws, there is scant empirical evidence that the laws prevent crime. In fact, multiple studies show just the opposite.

Research on public health and crime reveals a pernicious effect of stand your ground laws on public safety, showing a correlation with increased rates of gun homicide. One study, which includes an assessment of Missouris law, found that the passage of stand your ground laws correlates with an 8% to 11% increase in firearm homicide rates.

An analysis of stand your ground cases in Florida, carried out by gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety, addressed the way removal of the duty to retreat encourages violent escalation. Researchers suggested that more than half the cases could have been resolved without loss of life.

Further, recent scholarship shows how stand your ground laws intensify existing racial injustices in the U.S. criminal system.

A study by the think tank Urban Institute found significant discrepancies in the rate at which homicides in stand your ground cases were deemed justified, depending on the race of the shooter and the race of the deceased. White shooters were significantly more likely to be exonerated when their victim was Black, suggesting that particularly in states with stand your ground laws white people may feel more legally empowered to use lethal force and avoid prosecution, as long as their victims are Black.

In the Yarl case, the possible presence of racial bias has not escaped the attention of Kansas City prosecutors. Lesters grandson has described his grandfather as a QAnon devotee with racist tendencies and beliefs that likely prompted his violent reaction to Yarls presence on his doorstep.

Against the backdrop of historical legacies of racial bias in the U.S., stand your ground laws intensify the risks of shooting deaths in an increasingly gun-saturated public. With laws that encourage armed citizens to use force against any perceived threat real or imagined even the most innocent mistakes and chance encounters can turn deadly.

From The Conversation, an online repository of lay versions of academic research findings found at https://theconversation.com/us. Used with permission.

See the article here:
The Conversation: Stand your ground laws open invitation to violence - News-Register