Last March I was called for jury duty for the she first time since I moved to California in 2010. Among the many things I learned as I listened to the judge question potential jurors was that California has a law that allows someone who is the victim of a crime to stand their ground and respond with a proportionate level of violence. It's the sort of thing some would counsel their children on a playground — don't let a bully push you around.
You can think of circumstances where such a rule makes sense for adults, too. That a woman being abused by her husband might lash back at the jerk with a frying pan in order to protect herself does not seem unreasonable.
The problem is, depending on a jury's judgment 'stand your ground' can go much farther than that. You hear what sounds like someone breaking into your house, you feel threatened, so you shoot that person dead. (There have been cases where people did that, only to discover that the 'intruder' was their spouse.) You see a bunch of blokes charging you, looking scary, so you pull a knife and stab them, but you are acquitted of any wrongdoing, even if they didn't have a weapon among them, and even if you completely misinterpreted what was going on.
That, in a nutshell, is how George Zimmerman got released on Saturday after shooting dead 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida two years ago. The circumstances of the case are astounding — Zimmerman, who had taken it upon himself to be a sort of neighbourhood security force of one, sees a black kid in a hoodie cutting through backyards and assumes the worst. (Which is what, one wonders? That the kid was going to bust into someone's house in the middle of the day?) Though the kid shows no signs of being dangerous, Zimmerman follows him.
The kid feels threatened — as he hurries on, he tells his girlfriend he's being followed by a creepy white guy. Eventually, some kind of physical confrontation ensues. What kind is almost impossible to say, as all we have is Zimmerman's point of view. Zimmerman shoots Martin, claiming he felt his life was being threatened.
And though that threat was entirely of his own making, and nowhere near the level he believed it to be, two years later, a jury of his peers agrees. It doesn't matter that