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Stand your ground laws essay
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Within the recent years, the American legal system has encountered a number of cases that have questioned whether certain laws are more harmful to the community rather than beneficial. In the year 2010, Americans were outraged by the case of young Trayvon Martin, whose murder was deemed justifiable by the “Stand Your Ground” law found in Florida, and many other states. This case, amongst others has caused a stir about the usefulness of the “Stand Your Ground” law and whether the law should be abolished. When deciding whether a law should be kept in place or abolished, we as American citizens must look at what the law seeks to prevent; how effective was the law once put into place; is there another law that covers the crime or sanction covered under the law, and what new laws can be put into place, if any, to better fix the problem.
To further clarify, the “Stand Your Ground” law provides the ability and the right to anyone to use deadly power against someone who that person feels threatened by. The premise of this law is to hopefully deter any criminal activities that can range from petty theft all the way to grand larceny (Chuck). It has been proven that when a state allows for its citizens to protect themselves according to their personal judgment, criminal activity has gone down drastically (Maclean). However, as the late Dr. King would say,” Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On November 23, 2013, young Jordan Davis, a black male, was in the car with some of his friends when Michael Dunn, an older white man, fired upon the group of teenagers for playing loud music. Dunn later received a prison sentence of over 50 years on four accounts of attempted murder, but when questioned about his feelings all Dunn...
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...e everywhere. The Stand Your Ground Law, has become a huge controversy in American society , however it is hard to state whether the law should be eliminated or kept in play due to flexibility and array of cases that can be affected underneath this law. Though a definite response on how the law should be handled has yet to be reached , it is still a law that should be furthered researched and carefully monitored.
Work Cited
Botelho, Greg A. "Florida Had First Stand Your Ground Law, Other States Followed in 'rapid Succession'" NBC News. CNN, 17 Feb. 2014. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Chuck, Elizabeth A. "Florida Had First Stand Your Ground Law, Other States Followed in 'rapid Succession'" NBC News. NBC News, 8 July 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
“What happens when a country lives in fear?” Maclean’s 29 July 2013: 6+. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.
City of Pinellas Park v. Brown was a case brought to the District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District by the plaintiff Brown. In this case, the Brown family sued the City of Pinellas Sheriff Department on the grounds of negligence that resulted in the tragic death of two Brown sisters during a police pursuit of a fleeing traffic violator Mr. Deady. The facts in this case are straight forward, and I shall brief them as logical as possible.
Facts: On October 3, 1974, Memphis Police Officers Hymon and Wright were dispatched to answer a “prowler inside call.” When the police arrived at the scene, a neighbor gestured to the house where she had heard glass breaking and that someone was breaking into the house. While one of the officer radioed that they were on the scene, the other officer went to the rear of the house hearing a door slam and saw someone run across the backyard. The suspect, Edward Garner stopped at a 6-feet-high fence at the edge of the yard and proceeded to climb the fence as the police officer called out “police, halt.” The police officer figured that if Garner made it over the fence he would get away and also “figured” that Garner was unarmed. Officer Hymon then shot him, hitting him in the back of the head. In using deadly force to prevent the escape of Garner, Hymon used the argument that actions were made under the authority of the Tennessee statute and pursuant to Police Department policy. Although the department’s policy was slightly more restrictive than the statute it still allowed the use of deadly force in cases of burglary. Garner’s fathers’ argument was made that his son was shot unconstitutionally because he was captured and shot possessing ten dollars that he had stolen and being unarmed showing no threat of danger to the officer. The incident was then reviewed by the Memphis Police Firearm’s Revie...
Happening in today’s society, there have been countless number of citizens being killed by law enforcement. Some situations may not cause for force and others may. This case can be a reference in regards to making sure that the force you use is appropriate for the situation. As for the justice system, it is all about being fair and listening to both sides and issuing out the right punishment if there is any. Many people in today’s time needs to get educated when it comes to the reason behind why law enforcement uses force to handle the situations they have to deal with. But in the end it all comes down to right and
The case involved a neighborhood watchman, who happened to be on duty when he saw a young black man wearing a sweater jacket called a “hoodie”, walking through the neighborhood. George Zimmerman, the watchman, who was twenty-eight years old at the time, called authorities about a suspicious character walking around in his neighborhood. The authorities told him not to do anything; just continue with his rounds and not worry. Zimmerman, however, decided he would take matters into his own hands. He confronted the young man; they got into a brawl and Zimmerman pulled out a gun and shot and killed Martin. That premise will play a role in this paper as an argument as to why George Zimmerman should have been convicted of committing a crime. Even if the jury could not have reasons to convict him of the second degree murder of Trayvon Martin; they had other choices.
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution states that the State shall not deprive any person equal protection of the laws. When equal protection is guaranteed, the outcome must be fair; in other words, substantive justice must be present. Based on this interpretation, McCleskey v. Kemp should be overturned because McCleskey’s death was a racially biased and unfair outcome that was not constitutionally protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Justice Blackmun wrote in his dissenting opinion that in order for McCleskey to prove his innocence and the presence of a racially discriminatory criminal sentencing procedure, he had to meet a three-factor standard. First, he had to prove he was a member of a group that has historically suffered differential treatment. Second, McCleskey had to establish the extent of this treatment. Last, he had to prove that the process by which the death penalty was chosen was open to racial bias. McCleskey met all three prongs of this standard, and even though the Court’s decision denied his claim that he was not guaranteed equal protection, there is enough evidence to prove the selection process was not racially neutral and that a violation of the 14th Amendment was present. Furthermore, Justice Kennedy’s idea of “evolving standards of decency” in Roper v. Simmons (2005) demonstrates that the growing national consensus is against the death penalty and therefore in favor of equal protection for all persons.
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
Meyer v. State of Nebraska. 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 Sct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042. (1923)
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...
On March 12, 2012 Bill Lee, the Chief of Police for Sanford Florida, explained Zimmerman had not been arrested because the police found no evidence to refute Zimmerman’s self-defense claim (Timeline of events: Trayvon Martin shooting case). Then the media decided to bully the state of Florida into bringing Florida by influencing public opinion. One of the ways the media achieved this was by making it seem like the reason there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, and Zimmerman’s eventual acquittal, was because of the controversial law in several states, including Florida, known as “Stand-Your Ground.”
The article, Racial Conflict, written by Peter Katel in January 8, 2016, is about racism in the United State and to discuss if U.S. policies are discriminatory. Propelled largely by videos of violent police confrontations with African- Americans, protesters have taken to the streets in Chicago, New York and other cities demanding changes in police tactics. These brutal policing tactics had lead persons to say that U.S. policies are discriminatory. For example, Chicago police officer shot 17-year-old Laquan Mc Donald 16 times in the street. Official kept the video away from the public until a reporter forced its release through freedom of information request. Keeping the video under wrap prove that Mc Donald was killed innocently which also
The case between Terry and the state of Ohio presented major concern for the Fourth Amendment which deals with unreasonable searches and seizure without a warrant. On October 31, 1963, Officer McFadden stopped and searched John W. Terry, Richard Chilton, and another individual for weapons during a night in the state of Ohio because he suspected that they were planning on robbing a store because they kept walking up and down in front of the store. The officer approached them announcing that he was a police officer and decided to search them for weapons for his own safety. The officer soon found out that Terry and Richard Chilton both had a concealed weapon with them and he confiscated the guns and both were taken into custody. The third individual
Westlaw (February 6, 1997). Joyce Bernice Hawthorne v. State of Florida. Retrieved on November 16, 2013 from https://a.next.westlaw.com/Document/I3dd08cf00d9b11
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.
Stand-your-ground Law - "Stand-your-ground Law." Wikipedia. The World of the. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Mar.
Proffitt v. Florida. UAA Justice Center Web Site U.S. Supreme Ct. 1976. 18 Nov. 2003 http://www.uaa.alaska.edu>.