Dahlia Lithwick in Slate:
I might go further. I might say that whether or not specific
jurisdictions define self-defense to include a duty to retreat, and
whether or not specific juries are charged to apply it, America is
quickly becoming one big “stand your ground” state, as a matter of
culture if not the letter of the law.
[...]
And this is not just in Florida. We are quickly becoming a nation that
would rather shoot than stand down, or at least one that thinks everyone
has the right to. We are a nation of jurors who carefully consider the
emotional state of a killer who had no obligation to even investigate
the emotional state of the person he believed was attempting to kill
him. We are a nation whose courts and legislatures have enshrined the
American values of individualism, property rights, and mistrust of the
state while eroding our duty to retreat.
After Trayvon Martin was killed, for a long time it was fashionable to
say, “I am Trayvon Martin,” in solidarity with him and his family. But a
far more worrisome possibility has begun to creep into our culture.
With each successful “stand your ground” claim, explicit or implicit, we
are all in peril of becoming more frightened, more violent, and more
apt to shoot first and justify it later. The only thing more terrifying
than the prospect of becoming a nation of Trayvon Martins is the
possibility that we are unconsciously morphing into a nation of George
Zimmermans.
Maybe some of you are happy to read something like this, but not me. I've trusted Dahlia Lithwick's legal instincts for a long time now. If she thinks this is happening -- as I've recently feared, as well -- then this trend doesn't bode well for American life moving forward.
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