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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.

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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

I am tired of writing about gun violence in the United States and the abject failure of our political system to provide a means of effectively addressing the problem.

But here I am revisiting the topic, because horrific recent incidents are generating headlines. And, while mass shooting incidents have skyrocketed since 2018, after which each year has seen more than one such event per day, its not just mass shootings Americans have to worry about.

Since two individuals were shot within four days of each other one fatally simply for accidentally approaching the wrong house, the US public sphere is currently abuzz with discussion of the so-called stand your ground laws that have been passed in more than half of the 50 states since 2005.

Superseding the common law castle doctrine that provides wide latitude for the use of deadly force against an intruder inside ones home, stand your ground laws expand this laxity to public spaces, where, the American legal norm otherwise holds that individuals have a duty to retreat from violent confrontation if possible.

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The first US state to pass a stand your ground law was (not especially surprisingly) Florida. (At this point, all southern states have them.) The issue does not seem to have generated much media buzz, however, until 2012, when George Zimmerman, a light-skinned Latino and neighbourhood watch captain, fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an African American teenager who was simply trying to walk back to his fathers home in a gated community in Sanford, where he was staying.

Zimmermans trial he was found not guilty for reasons of self-defence in what many, myself included, consider an egregious miscarriage of justice did not ultimately hinge on Floridas stand your ground law. But this series of events highlighted the racist differential treatment with respect to gun laws that is pervasive in the US legal system, and the potential for stand your ground laws to falsely legitimise even more white violence against Black Americans than was already occurring.

On 13 April, Black high school student Ralph Yarl misinterpreted directions about where to pick up his brothers and ended up going to the wrong house in Kansas City, Missouri. After Yarl rang the doorbell, homeowner Andrew Lester, an 84-year old white man, opened the main door and immediately shot Yarl in the head through the glass exterior door. He then shot Yarl a second time, in the arm. Lester reportedly said: Dont come around here, as the 16-year-old Yarl, who is thankfully and remarkably on the road to recovery, attempted to retreat.

Missouri has a stand your ground law and, given the states reactionary politics and the facts that Yarl is Black and Lester is white, it is likely that Lester will be acquitted of the felony charges of assault in the first degree and armed criminal action that he faces. If stand your ground comes into play, Lester will, theoretically, have to convincingly demonstrate he had a reasonable fear that Yarl would harm him. From what we know about the shooting, it seems absurd to think that Lester could make such a case, but conservative American juries often do not take much convincing when a white defendant stands accused of violence against an African American person.

On 17 April, a 20-year-old white woman, Kaylin Gillis, turned into the wrong driveway in upstate New York. Kevin Monahan, the 65-year-old white homeowner who killed her, now faces second-degree murder charges. New York does not have a stand your ground law, so Monahans defence presumably faces a higher bar.

What both these shootings have in common besides the fact that both occurred in conservative areas is that they could happen to anyone (of course American white supremacy makes it more likely for African Americans in these situations to face violence). Who among us is immune from getting our directions mixed up in confusing or simply unfamiliar neighbourhoods? The thought that such a commonplace mistake could cost us our lives is absolutely chilling. And as it turns out, the two incidents that made recent headlines are far from isolated.

Meanwhile, like mass shootings, road rage shootings have also surged in recent years. According to a disturbing new report by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organisation, incidents have steeply risen year after year since 2018. The report states that one American was shot and either injured or killed in a road rage incident in 2022 every 16 hours, on average.

Using data from the Gun Violence Archive, the report notes that road rage shootings occur in every US state, but that there are patterns.

Southern states, which on the whole have particularly lax gun laws, experience the highest rates of victimisation from road rage shootings according to the report. By contrast, the north-eastern states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont have the lowest rates of road rage shootings about half those, per capita, that occur in southern states. These states have much stricter gun laws. Compare, for example, Floridas rate of 1.64 road rage shootings per million residents to New Yorks rate of 0.7 per one million residents.

Another study found similar stark regional differences in all gun homicides as opposed to just road rage incidents. The deep south has by far the highest per capita gun homicide rate, which makes Republicans claims that Americas progressive cities are war zones absurd.

While other factors may be in play for example, public intellectual Colin Woodard argues that policy is downstream from culture and attributes regional differences in gun violence to the cultural legacies of distinct groups of colonisers Everytown for Gun Safetys report provides clear cut evidence that a serious approach to gun control reduces gun violence rates. Unfortunately, acting on this obvious fact at the national level would require not only a strength of political will too often lacking among Democrats, but also the cooperation of some Republicans.

Frankly, as sad as it is to say this, if I were an official serving in another countrys foreign ministry, I would recommend that that government issue a warning against travel to the United States and especially its most violent regions. Theres just no avoiding the conclusion that for the time being, the land of the free will remain a shoot first, ask questions later nation.

Excerpt from:
US gun violence is so bad countries should warn against travelling ... - openDemocracy