The Stand Your Ground Law is a highly debated, as well as controversial topic. The Stand Your Ground Law is law that admits an individual to stand their ground instead of retreating if they reasonably believe doing so is necessary to “prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” (Sullivan 2013) Many people agree with the law because they feel they have the right to be able to protect themselves. On the other hand, many people feel the Stand Your Ground Law is only a way to kill and get away with it. Do you know which side you are on when it comes to this particular issue? In this essay, I will address and discuss both pros and cons on the Stand Your Ground Law topic. These pros and cons will lead to the conclusion that no matter what side you are on about these laws, they need advised. Firstly, in the article titled, “Ten Reasons to Repeal Stand Your Ground Laws”, Steve Klingaman made some interesting points. There are over a dozen states that have some form of Stand Your Ground Laws which in Steve Klingaman's opinion, is too many. Stand Your Ground Laws should be abolished for several different reasons. For example, Stand Your Ground Laws force law enforcement to confirm that a suspect did not kill an individual in order to protect themselves from harm. Steve Klingaman discusses how "self defense" evidence is far too hard to prove especially when the victim is dead. If the victim is dead then the law enforcement is only left with the suspects side of the story. Also, in this article the author mentions that the Stand Your Ground Laws need repealed because they give the suspect protection from civil suits. In other words, if the state does not hand out a... ... middle of paper ... ...ect acted in self-defense when the victim is dead which I agree with. I feel we should have the right to protect ourselves if the circumstance should arise, but the law needs to be written better. There needs to be a way to hold those who are just killing to kill accountable instead of letting them get away with it because they are claiming “self-defense.” In conclusion, the Stand Your Ground Laws are always going to be a highly debated topic. There are many people who strongly feel that we have the right to protect ourselves, while on the other hand many feel this law is just a licesence to kill. There are pros, as well as cons when it comes to this issue. It does not matter which side you are on because the one thing we shoud all agree on is that this law needs to advised. We should have the right to protect ourselves, but there needs to be more guidelines.
Individuals’ right to keep and bear arms in self-defense should be further restricted. For example, George Zimmermann – neighborhood watch citizen responsible for the teenager Treyvon Martin’s death
The next cartoon I have shows a man defending his actions of shooting another person by saying that he felt threatened. He argues that Florida’s Stand Your Ground law gives him the right to do so and that the victim would also agree but the twist is that the victim is actually dead and would not be able to say otherwise. I think the artist created this illustration to emphasize how ri...
In her essay Can U.S. Citizens Be Held as Enemy Combatants, Jennifer Vanklausen explores the ethical question of our government’s policy to hold American citizens suspected of terrorist activity against the United States as enemy combatants, withholding their constitutional rights as provided in the fifth and sixth amendments, during an undeclared war.
Law enforcement officers are in constant dangerous situations while out doing their responsibilities. When in these threatening situations, police officers typically have little to no time to determine the right precaution. These precautions may lead to the death of a suspect or even the officer themselves. The media has recently shed light on police brutality with use of force. Use of force could be defined as the amount of effort an officer must use in order to make an unwilling subject compel. Police officers are usually trained to enable the proper responsible to a dangerous situation they may be put in. In this paper I will go through the guidelines that a police officer must obey when considering a certain degree of use of force. Within each guideline there will be the pro and cons with that situation and also a recent case that happened. This paper will also talk about how this topic can be addressed more properly. These guidelines that officer are taught during their training are called Use of Force Continuum.
The Castle Doctrine allows you to defend yourself or your family from criminals but, where does that stop and the line between killing someone and claiming self-defense begin. There is no boundary that is clearly defined by law, so those people that are taking advantage of the Castle Doctrine often get away with it. I think that people being able to protect themselves is a good idea because the cops don’t always make it on time or at all but I think that there should be much more limits on this law and that it should be federally mandated and the law should be the same nationwide. I think that the people who have claimed the Castle Doctrine should be investigated thoroughly and if it comes out that they were the aggressor then I don’t think they should be allowed to claim it. The Castle Doctrine really does need to be revised and made so that there are no loopholes and the fact that it is different from state to state just helps people get away with killing somebody else. I don’t think that any law that is made with the intention of letting people get off free with murdering somebody else should exist without the time and attention paid to it that taking somebody else’s life deserves.
Yet, there has been an alarming disconnect between how the police, the public, and the courts view the use of force (Atherley & Hickman, 2014). Previous research on the issue of abusive or excessive force has not established a clear baseline for evaluating the use of excessive force. There has been a struggle in quantifying the use of excessive force by police and academic practitioners. This creates an issue considering the federal government is required by congress to establish a report on this issue. This holds law enforcement agencies to a certain standard that has not been thoroughly established (Atherley & Hickman,
The stand your ground law states that it is a form of self-defense that gives people the ability to use deadly force to defend themselves. This is not the main issue with people who disregard the stand your ground law. Peoples distaste for the law stems from how the stand your ground law is used. What I mean by this is that some states have different meanings and interpretations of how the stand your ground law can/is used. The rulings that have rooted the stand your ground law in the United States currently allows forty six states in America to use this as a reasonable defense. (Shapiro,2013) So, where did this all start from? Over a hundred years ago in Indiana Runyon vs State took place. It stated that the way that the American people think does not allow for them to follow a rule which tells them to retreat, but the person being assaulted or threatened cannot be at fault if they are in the right spot at the right time. Thus, allowing him to defend himself using force which in turn lets him exercise his right to self-defense. The reason that the laws of retreat were enacted dates back to the old British law when the deadly weapons used were swords, this was because swords would allow the defense to retreat lessening the amount of blood spilled during the altercation. British law reflects a “deference to the constabulary,” by which the King owed a duty of protection to his subjects. That’s obviously not part of our tradition.(Shapiro, 2013) Despite what gun prohibitionists claim, the no-retreat rule has deep roots in American law. At the Supreme Court, SYG dates to the unanimous 1895 case of Beard v. United States, in which Justice John Harlan affirmed the right to armed self-defense. (Weaver,2008) It is hard to talk about...
Defenders of the Miranda decision say that fewer crimes solved are for a good reason. They believe that law enforcement officers were forced to stop coercive questioning techniques that are unconstitutional. Over the years, the Supreme Court has watered down its stance in saying that the Miranda rules are not constitutional obligations, but rather “prophylactic” safeguards intended to insure that officers do not force a confession from a suspect. The need for both effective law enforcement as well as protection of society dictates the need for potential alternatives to the limitations of Miranda that would simultaneously protect the interest of society in effective law enforcement while at the same time providing protection to suspects against unconstitutional force (www.ncpa.org).
The “Stand Your Ground” law was first adopted in the state of florida in 2005. This law did not gain national attention until the shooting death of unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, florida, where the shooter, George Zimmerman used the “Stand Your Ground” law as his basis for defending himself against Trayvon Martin to the Sanford Police Department. However, George Zimmerman’s legal defense team did not utilize the law to argue his innocence during his trial. But the damage had been done because soon after other cases in florida began to sprout up with “Stand Your Ground” as the driving force.
The Tennessee v. Garner case impacted law enforcement agencies today by utilizing the Fourth Amendment right of not using deadly force to prevent a suspect from fleeing unless the officer is in imminent danger of their life. Consequently, before this was set into place, an officer had the right to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect by all means.” The first time the Court dealt with the use of force was in Tennessee v. Garner, in Garner, a police officer used deadly force despite being "reasonably sure" that the suspect was an unarmed teenager "of slight build" who was running away from him” (Gross,2016). Whereas, with Graham v. Conner case was surrounded around excessive force which also has an impact on law enforcement agencies in today’s society as well. “All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force deadly or not in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of s free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its “reasonableness” standard” (Doerner,2016).
Many people would argue that gun laws in America should not be put in place, as the sales of guns, are supposedly for the purpose of protection. In most instances, the people who buy these guns, are using for their own protection; however, a very small minority are using these guns for purposes other than protection, but for killing.
This is because if you are doing it after contemplating it and for protection and others, it should be deemed as correct. That is why a charge in court can be taken away if the jury finds it self-defense. It is not morally correct but, it is not something you should be sentenced to jail for committing. Although it is unfortunate that people die, it is an everyday life occurrence. It just depends on the way they die that makes it stand out. Murder is never permitted and punishable. Killing out of hate, anger, and being mentally unstable is not allowed, therefore is considered murder. Both protagonists did what they ordered to do to stay alive and protect other people from getting hurt. They did not want to kill, but it had come to be their last
Stand-your-ground Law - "Stand-your-ground Law." Wikipedia. The World of the. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Mar.
In the final analysis, we see that it is hard to prove either side. Both arguments can become faulty by debate. Murder, no matter how it is done, is wrong, how we go about prosecuting those who act against our fellow citizens is in the hands of our legal system. However, I do not want them on the streets where the people I love are, nor do I believe that a murderer can change. A person who is capable of killing another human being without cause will never fit into society and thus should not be a part of it.
Police officers primary responsibility is to protect and serve citizens and communities, not to abuse the laws by hurting innocent people. In most states Stand-Your-Ground laws allows innocent citizens the right to use deadly force to defend and protect themselves. But what if they were protecting themselves from police brutality. Police brutality has been going on for many years; they can cause riots, injuries, and even mistrust for the police.