Yale Law School professor Adam Cohen, advocating the repeal of the Stand Your Ground law that permitted George Zimmerman to claim he killed Trayvon Martin in self defense, wrote in Time Magazine last week that:
If Zimmerman does go to trial, there will no doubt be enormous debates over his guilt or innocence. It is difficult to sort out motives and right and wrong in cases of this sort — especially when one of the critical witnesses, young Mr. Martin, cannot testify about what happened.
There is a direct link between Stand Your Ground laws, which permit those with access to deadly force to use it if they feel threatened, and Martin’s inability to tell his story.
- Spirit of Justice
It is a truism when talking about narrative and public life to assert that some stories are sanctioned, and others silenced. Sometimes it is difficult to identify the mechanism through which such sanction takes place, because it lies in community tradition or social discourse. Stand Your Ground laws press into relief how law can shape which accounts will be viewed as legitimate before they are evaluated by judges and juries. Under the Stand your Ground premise, might makes right. Your ability to lethally harm someone is converted into the credible motivation for doing so, while the victim of a killing is doubly silenced, in court and in life.
When I consider the reported details of the case in the press-the accounts of Zimmerman and his father, the 911 call transcripts, the reports of the neighbors and Martin’s girlfriend, who overheard the encounter by cell phone, I hear a story of two young men who each experienced sensations of threat and fear in the presence of the other. Continue reading
