{"id":56327,"date":"2013-12-30T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56327"},"modified":"2014-02-16T22:40:01","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T03:40:01","slug":"stand-your-ground-laws-increases-racial-bias-in-justifiable-homicide-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/30\/stand-your-ground-laws-increases-racial-bias-in-justifiable-homicide-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"Stand Your Ground Increases Racial Bias in “Justifiable Homicide” Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re celebrating the end of the year with our most read posts from 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today a jury found George Zimmerman\u00a0not guilty<\/a>\u00a0of second-degree murder. It is\u00a0widely<\/a>\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that Florida\u2019s stand your ground statute, which was considered by the defense, and which Zimmerman previously\u00a0studied in a criminal litigation course<\/a>, was at play. The statute allows people to use proportionate force in the face of an attack without first trying to retreat or escape.\u00a0More than 20 other states<\/a>\u00a0have such laws.<\/p>\n

At MetroTrends<\/a>, John Roman and Mitchell Downey report their analysis of 4,650 FBI records of homicides in which a person killed a stranger with a handgun. They conclude that\u00a0stand your ground “tilts the odds in favor of the shooter.” \u00a0In SYG states, 13.6% of homicides were ruled justifiable; in non-SYG states, only 7.2% were deemed such. \u00a0This is strong evidence that rulings of justifiable homicide are more likely under stand your ground.<\/p>\n

But which<\/em> homicides?<\/p>\n

Ones similar to the one decided in favor of George Zimmerman\u00a0today<\/a>. \u00a0A finding of “justifiable homicide” is much more common in the case of a white-on-black killing than any other kind including a white and a black person. \u00a0At PBS’s request<\/a>, Roman compared the likelihood of a favorable finding for the defendant in SYG and non SYG cases, consider the races of the people involved. \u00a0The data is clear, compared to white-on-white crimes, stand your ground increases the likelihood of a not-guilty finding, but only when a person is accused of killing a black person.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice, however, that white people who kill black people are far more likely to be found not-guilty even in states without<\/em> SYG and black people who kill whites are less likely to be found not-guilty regardless of state law.<\/p>\n

It’s simple: We are already biased in favor of the white defendant and against the black victim. Stand your ground laws give jurors more leeway to give defendants the benefit of the doubt. \u00a0This\u00a0increase even further the chances that a white-on-black homicide will be considered justifiable because\u00a0jurors will likely give that benefit of the doubt to certain kinds of defendants and not others. Stand your ground may or may not be a good law in theory but, in practice, it increases racial bias in legal outcomes.<\/p>\n

It is contested whether stand your ground played a role in this case, Media Matters offers strong evidence<\/a> to suggest that it did.\u00a0Cross-posted at Ms.<\/a>, PolicyMic<\/a>, Pacific Standard<\/a>, and Global Policy TV<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re celebrating the end of the year with our most read posts from 2013. Today a jury found George Zimmerman\u00a0not guilty\u00a0of second-degree murder. It is\u00a0widely\u00a0argued\u00a0that Florida\u2019s stand your ground statute, which was considered by the defense, and which Zimmerman previously\u00a0studied in a criminal litigation course, was at play. The statute allows people to use proportionate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":56328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,283,285,1760,20063,1757],"class_list":["post-56327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/07\/11.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56327"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61648,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56327\/revisions\/61648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}