Sentencing a person to death is indisputably the most draconian and barbaric punishment we still have in the U.S. Usually, that's why capital punishment is treated with a massive level of care that other sentences are not.
Florida - along with 16 other states since 2005 - has turned that concept on its head with "stand your ground" laws. As long as you're somewhere that you're allowed to be and someone attacks you, you have the right to kill the person trying to harm you.
This kind of lex talionis certainly has a popular appeal. After all, if someone is trying to hurt you why shouldn't you be able to do whatever it takes to get him or her to stop?
Maybe we should ask Trayvon Martin about how well that concept works.
Martin was watching basketball with his dad on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. At halftime, Martin decided to walk from his father's townhouse in a gated community to a local 7-Eleven to get some snacks.
Since it was drizzling and dark out, Martin put up the hood on his sweatshirt. George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, saw Martin walking down the street and called the police. Although Martin had every right to be there, Zimmerman reported him as a suspicious person.
Police told Zimmerman that they would send a car out to investigate and to leave Martin alone. Zimmerman ignored the order and continued following the teen. He got out of his vehicle, and had an altercation with Martin.
Residents around the scene heard a shot and as quickly as the trigger was pulled, the 17-year-old was dead.
Zimmerman claimed the slaying was in self-defense, and since he had a bloody nose the police let him go.
Martin's family is calling for Zimmerman to be arrested immediately, and it's amazing that the man has been allowed to walk free for three weeks after he killed an unarmed teen. Considering the evidence that contradicts the self-defense story, calls of racism are not unfounded.
Multiple people heard Martin crying for help before he was shot. A telephone call between Martin and his girlfriend indicates that Zimmerman was the one who was instigating the scuffle that occurred, but to the Sanford police that's not enough to indicate it wasn't self-defense.
Sanford's police department has been accused of racial bias before. It was accused of giving favorable treatment to relatives of officers involved in violence against blacks. It waited seven weeks to arrest a lieutenant's son who attacked a black man when completely unprovoked.
This is where the "stand your ground" law goes horribly wrong. What Florida and others states have created is a Wild West attitude, where you can jump out of your vehicle, instigate a fight with someone, and then shoot them when they fight back.
Martin's family should be extremely proud of themselves for bringing this issue to national media attention. Sadly, we're not living in a post-racial U.S. yet, and had the family not made this a national issue, it was apparent that Zimmerman would have been let off.
Now that the Department of Justice is involved, we can only hope that Martin's family can receive some peace knowing that Zimmerman is punished for violent vigilantism.
