General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Duty to retreat vs stand your ground and castle laws: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater [View all]caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Mark my words, and there's a good chance he won't even be arrested. The facts won't come out. We're not going to find out what happened. All due to the SYG law. Due to police not finding probable cause at the scene, Zimmerman is now immune to arrest, prosecution and civil action.
You don't believe me? Just watch.
I'll give you evidence so far: a governor doesn't assign a task force to investigating a homicide if it can be tried by normal means. The Seminole County Prosecutor took one look at this case and ran away in terror. Or that's how it looked. His reasons for removing himself looked very dodgy.
Want more evidence? When the law was being debated in 2005, prosecutors and police chiefs warned that things like this would happen if the law were passed.
There is no doubt it's a bad law. I can see giving self-defense cases more leeway in court, but to declare that the shooters are immune to arrest, prosecution or civil action? (That's what the law says.) Our legal system becomes unworkable if lawmakers proceed from the assumption that going to court itself is an injustice. (Though it might be literally true, that has to be approached with general reform.) If they do, the entire system of jurisprudence becomes unworkable.
Plus, it pretty much declares that in some situations, a homicide is no big thing. Whether justifiable or not, a homicide is a big thing. It's one thing to see to it that people who defend themselves be treated justly. It goes too far when it declares they shouldn't even be inconvenienced over a small matter of homicide.
SYG is an example of ideology undercutting good intentions. Now you're in denial that such good intentions could have terrible, unforeseen consequences. Unforeseen, only by those blinded by the gun rights ideology.