In 2012, the killing of Trayvon Martin catapulted Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law into the national and international spotlight. Martin was an unarmed, 17-year-old African American, who was shot and killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, when Zimmerman was acting as a neighbourhood watch coordinator in a gated community in Sandford, Florida. According to the 911 transcript, Zimmerman found Martin’s appearance and demeanour to be suspicious in relation to recent break-ins in the community, and he pursued him before the two became involved in the violent confrontation that ended in Martin’s death. When he was arrested, Zimmerman claimed he acted in self-defense and was released by the Sandford Police Department.
With permission from Andy Winters @ http://www.wintersretouching.com/
The killing ignited a wave of criticism and public discussion about the legally justified killing of young black American men. The artist Andy Winters summed up the problem in an editorial cartoon called “the stand your ground paradox”, underlining the often-indistinguishable difference between attackers and victims in everyday confrontations. This paradox sits at the heart of the Trayvon Martin case: with some viewing Zimmerman’s actions as a justifiable last resort in a violent struggle in which he feared for his life; while others see Zimmerman as the aggressor who, motivated by implicit bias and fear, mistakenly harassed an innocent bystander to the point he felt the need to resort to physical force in self-defense.
What is clear is that implicit bias in the form of racial, gender, and age prejudice make the relaxation of legal restrictions on the use of lethal force even more concerning for those communities most likely to experience the fall out, as Ohioan representative Stephanie Howse (D-Cleveland) recently explained in her opposition to the introduction of a ‘stand your ground’ law in Ohio.
n December 2019 we published new research in the journal Injury Prevention showing significant increases in adolescent firearm homicides following the enactment of Florida’s stand your ground law in October 2005 (for pre-print, see here ). Before the introduction of the law, Florida had on average 16 adolescent homicides every three months from firearm-related injuries, for its adolescent population of 1.1 million. Our study found that the law was associated with a 45% increase in rates of adolescent firearm homicide between 2005-2017 (compared with 1999-2004), following the introduction of the law. Rates of Black adolescent homicide went up even more – by 52%. After the introduction of the law, three times as many Black adolescents were fatally shot than white adolescents.
Adapted from Degli Esposti et al., (2019)
We considered alternative explanations for these increases. We examined changes in homicide rates in the same demographic groups in states without ‘stand your ground’ laws and found no effects consistent with Florida. We considered whether the increases in Florida could be due to changes in how mortality data was measured and whether other events occurring at around the same time (e.g., an economic recession) could be to blame. We found no evidence that the increases in homicide resulted from other possible explanations. Our study concludes that the rise in adolescent firearm homicide is likely related to the introduction of Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law.
Our work contributes to a growing body of research finding that minority groups are likely to be adversely affected when laws relax the conditions for legally justifying lethal force. Dr John Roman of the Urban Institute examined the role of race in cases where stranger shootings were deemed justifiable. His research found a considerable racial disparity, with 33% more white-on-black homicides ruled as justifiable compared than black-on-white homicides. This disparity differed significantly when results were compared between ‘Stand your ground’ and ‘Non-Stand your ground’ states, suggesting that these laws intensify racial injustice.
Similarly, an analysis conducted by Ackerman and colleagues using data from the Tampa Bay Times in Florida, found that, after the enactment of Florida’s ‘Stand your ground’ law in 2005, non-white homicide defendants were twice as likely to be convicted in cases where a white victim was white than in cases where a non-white individual was the victim. Using the Tampa Bay Times data combined with police-recorded crime statistics, Dr. Justin Murphy of the University of Southampton (UK) found both a racial and gender bias in self-defense conviction rates in Florida between 2005 and 2013. His analysis, published in Social Science Quarterly, found that the probability of a male being convicted in a case of domestic use of lethal self-defense was around 40%, but for a female defendant this was much higher – at around 80%, suggesting that ‘stand your ground’ laws offer much greater protection for men than for women and greater protection for whites over non-whites.
Our previous research showed that the introduction of ‘stand your ground’ laws to Florida in 2005 is associated with a significant increase in general levels of homicide and firearm homicide. Our new findings, published in Injury Prevention, contribute to a growing literature that suggests that the harmful effects of these laws may be felt greatest among society’s more vulnerable groups.
Full paper:
Increasing adolescent firearm homicides and racial disparities following Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ self-defence law
Michelle Degli Esposti, Douglas J Wiebe, Jason Gravel, and David K Humphreys
Injury Prevention; doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043530