@hawkeye10,
Quote:Relationship violence and stranger violence are two very different animals. I happen to think that they are not treated differently enough by the law an the know-it-alls, so while I have a multitude of complaints against the justice system the fact that Zimmerman and Alexander were not treated the same by police is not one of them.
The self defense laws, like Florida's Stand Your Ground law, do not make any distinction between relationship violence and stranger violence, nor should they, nor is that even the issue in the Alexander case. A person should have the protection of applicable law in all situations, and the Stand Your Ground law should have been applicable in Alexander's case--that's what all the flap is about. The murder of a domestic partner is not regarded as legally different than the murder of a stranger, murder is murder. And, since more women are murdered by their partners, or by someone known to them, rather than by strangers, they certainly should have the legitimate protection of all self defense laws in domestic situations.
Alexander's case was not a battered-wife defense, she felt imminently threatened by her husband, she feared for her life, and she could not flee the situation, so she stood her ground, and fired a warning shot, and didn't actually harm anyone, but did succeed in getting the person threatening to kill her, her husband, out of the house and away from her. Although that sort of action should have fallen within the protection of the Stand Your Ground law, at her pre-trial hearing regarding that law, the judge felt she had options to flee, and should have used them, and was not justified in firing her gun--but, since she was in her home, under the Stand Your Ground law she definitely had no obligation to try to flee--and that's what made the judge's ruling problematic in the mind of many people--his ruling was actually contrary to the law. Was the law not being applied because she was female? Because she was black? And Alexander's case seemed to follow a pattern where the Stand Your Ground law was not being upheld, in cases where it should have applied, because of the race or gender of the person involved. Alexander's case was not the only Stand Your Ground case to raise such questions.
My intention is not to veer off into a discussion of Alexander's case in particular, but simply to raise it as another controversial case, in the state of Florida, where racial factors
might be influencing the criminal justice process and the types of decisions made within that system. Would the state attorney have concurred with the lead investigator in the Trayvon Martin homicide, that Zimmerman should have been arrested and charged with manslaughter that night, if Trayvon had been white? Was there less need to carefully investigate the circumstances of the shooting because of some racial profiling of the victim in the state attorney's office?
Was Zimmerman not arrested immediately because he is a white Hispanic, and was Marissa Alexander arrested on the spot because she is black? These are the sorts of questions that many people are asking. Are laws being differentially applied or enforced, in the state of Florida, because of racial bias? That question is part of what triggered off the firestorm about the failure to immediately arrest George Zimmerman--particularly since Zimmerman had not reported that he, or anyone else, was being menaced or threatened, in any way, by this person when he called 911, nor was this person doing anything criminal, and also because it was Zimmerman who continued to follow this person, even after the 911 dispatcher told him not to do so. Should Stand Your Ground even apply if you are the pursuer, which is what Zimmerman appeared to be? If the lead investigator wasn't convinced by Zimmerman's account, why didn't the state attorney follow his recommendation to arrest Zimmerman, so a legal determination could be made as to whether this was manslaughter or justifiable self defense--was it possibly because the homicide victim was black and that fit into some pre-conceived bias in the state attorney's office?
The firestorm wasn't just about whether Zimmerman was a racist, it was also about possible racial bias in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems, and that issue is not being sufficiently emphasized in this thread. The outrage in this case came from within the black community, and was led by the black community, and it centered on civil rights issues, like the equal application and protection of law afforded to that community. And that's the "public pressure" that led to Zimmerman's arrest and the appointment of a special prosecutor. The problem is, keeping up that sort of public pressure now, to try to obtain a conviction, may be as unjust as the failure to arrest Zimmerman in the first place. Now that the case is in court, where it belongs, the process of justice can, and should, be scrutinized, but it should be allowed to run its course, without being influenced by the continued public pressure, from either side of the fence.
The main legal issue to be decided is whether George Zimmerman was legally justified in taking the life of Trayvon Martin--was this a justifiable act of self defense, as defined by, and protected by, the laws of the state of Florida, or was it an act of manslaughter or second degree murder? This question might be answered at a pre-trial hearing with a possible dismissal of the charges, or it might be answered by a jury after a trial next year. However it is answered, that answer should be arrived at on the basis of law, and all available evidence, and not in response to public pressure of any sort, from either side. Both George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin's family deserve to see the fairest, most unbiased, judicial process possible and that's what will help everyone, hopefully, to accept whatever the final verdict is. And I sincerely hope that what we will get to see in this case will be a completely fair and unbiased judicial process.
