In 2010 Carl England found Pernell Jefferson, who by that time already had a respectable rap sheet, trying to break into a neighbor’s apartment. England hit Jefferson with a stick. Jefferson pulled a gun and shot England in the chest. Oklahoma had and still has an ALEC and NRA-approved ‘stand your ground’ law so prosecutors let him walk.
This year England’s 19-year-old son and a 32-year-old friend went on a tear on twitter about that incident. Then they fetched their guns and shot five black people. Carl England was white and Pernell Jefferson is black.
It seems likely that George Zimmerman will walk for shooting an unarmed teenager. The special prosecutor has more or less thrown up her hands and I can hardly blame her, caught between that stupid law and the absolute hash that Sanford PD made of their initial response. That, at least, might go punished. I have some hope that the Federal investigation into their department will at least shame the Sanford PD into doing a better job next time.
Almost everyone affected by these ‘stand your ground’ laws grits their teeth and accepts that sometimes the law is an ass. I have no doubt that Martin’s family will as well. However, the more often successful defenses fail to pass the justice smell test the harder it will get for some people to resist evening the scales by hand. It has already started.
jnc
You do understand that the only thing the special prosecutor’s decision not to present the case to a grand jury means is that she can’t seek 1st degree murder, right? That was never really on the table anyway, so it’s hardly like she’s throwing up her hands.
He could still be charged with a number of crimes that would put him in jail for a very long time, if convicted.
El Cid
There are a lot worse things in the world than being shot to death. Like having to pay a few percent more taxes on some marginal portion of one’s income.
But there are few better things in the world than getting to shoot someone dead. Someone has to do it, and I think there’s just a problem with a society grown used to not being shot all the time.
Jennifer
As I just posted on the Zimmerman blegsite thread, now we can look forward to the Tulsa Cletuses putting up their own donations site. If Zimmerman can raise big bucks from bigots for shooting one black kid, I’m sure the Cletuses will figure they can make 5 times as much.
James Gary
Lawmaking by successive approximation is no way to go through life, son.
Punchy
Waaaaaait a sec. I know the law is the fuxxors and all, but Jefferson skated using SYG while committing a crime? Did I read that right? How is that possible?
Surely something about the story is wrong……right?
Face
No WAY a Black man shot a white guy in fucking Oklahoma and didnt do time. Absolutely unpossible.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
ALEC and NRA wanted a war. I fear they will get their wish.
El Cid
The Tulsa residents they shot — were they armed? If not, clearly this is the problem, they either weren’t armed, or weren’t armed, trained, and ready enough.
Felanius Kootea
And the sad part is that the lawmakers who signed these laws into being will go to their deathbeds confident that their fucked up laws have made things better, not worse.
The guy who shot his neighbor in Florida over an argument about trash cans & garbage collection and avoided arrest using the Stand Your Ground law said in an interview following the Trayvon case that he’d do it all over again (his neighbor didn’t die, even though he was shot several times). Interestingly, both he and his neighbor have left Florida for states that do not have those laws.
Linda Featheringill
The 19-year-old and his 32-year-old friend? What the hey?
eldorado
don’t despair fellow juicers. mr. jefferson is in year four of a six year sentence.
sgrAstar
Tim, Pernell Jefferson is doing time right now for the shooting of Carl England….I think.
JoyfulA
Go to the AP story, which has a lot more detail, sort of a downscale soap opera.
The 19-year-old’s sister’s boyfriend hit the black man with a baseball bat. When he came to their apartment and tried to break in, she called her father and brother, who chased him. When the father hit him with a stick, he shot him. Being outnumbered and hit, and the stand your ground, got him off, but he’s standing trial for burglary (I guess that’s trying to break into a dwelling) and displaying a gun in front of a minor (the 19yo, 17 at the time).
So the 19yo has a child, and his girlfriend, the child’s mother, committed suicide in January. No mention of what happened to the child.
The two accused live in what looks like a tiny shack with boarded-up windows, and describe themselves as self-employed laborers.
Aghh, what a mess, the lives people live. I wish I could wave a magic wand and give everyone decent childhoods—
Citizen_X
@Punchy: Go read the link: it’s a bit more complicated.
Jefferson was caught trying to break in to one Damien Neal’s apartment, then left “to go get a gun.” Neal called his girlfriend’s father, Carl England. Jefferson came back, England hit him with a stick, and Jefferson shot England. Jefferson was charged with attempted burglary and possession of a firearm after a felony conviction. The DA found the shooting justified under OK’s “stand your ground” law.
The problem, apparently, is that those laws suck.
ETA: Ah, the comment above me has more sordid details.
Steve
Let’s grant Tim’s premise that the Tulsa shooter was trying to “even the scales” because his dad got shot by a black man who escaped prosecution thanks to a SYG law. I know Tim isn’t trying to excuse what happened, but regardless, on what planet is it even worth citing the excuse that “I shot all those random black people because I was angry about what some other black guy did.”
If the dude’s dad had been shot by a white guy, does anyone on earth think he would have gone on a shooting rampage against random white people? The story here is about a racist killing spree, not about the injustice of the SYG law that apparently helped some other dude get off.
Roy G.
It’s ok because all blacks are alike. Just ask ‘Derb.’
FlipYrWhig
Here’s something I haven’t heard the answer to yet re: Martin/Zimmerman. Did Zimmerman at any time declare that he had something to do with the neighborhood watch? Because it he didn’t, all Martin knows is that there’s a guy following him aggressively, and, at some point, that this guy following him has a gun. From Martin’s perspective, why isn’t his thought process something like, “oh, shit, this really is a dangerous neighborhood, there’s a dude with a gun who’s been stalking me!”. I feel like every version of the story I’ve heard puts Zimmerman in the cop role, but, the way I see it, wouldn’t Martin have been justified in thinking that Zimmerman was a random thug picking fights in the middle of the night? Isn’t it possible that Martin died thinking he had just been mugged?
Citizen_X
Actually, I’d probably shoot a motherfucker if two people were chasing me with a stick, and I’d probably chase someone with a stick if I saw them trying to break into my apartment. But I don’t try to break into people’s apartments, so there’s that.
gex
@FlipYrWhig: If I had to guess, he knew he wasn’t getting mugged based on the names Zimmerman would have been calling him. I think odds are he knew he was being killed for being black.
As painful as that is to consider.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen_X:
If that’s the case, then that’s one fucked-up law.
FlipYrWhig
@gex: @gex: Fair enough, but I still think there hasn’t been enough of an attempt to think through how it was that Martin was supposed to be able to tell that Zimmerman was anything other than a stranger starting shit in the night.
KG
If he was charged with burgerly, they should have been able to get felony murder. Knowing enough prosecutors, my guess is there was probably something in the facts that isn’t quite so clear from the stories. I’m guessing maybe the time between the two incidents had something to do with it
gex
@FlipYrWhig: I can’t see how there was any way for him to know. Neighborhood watch isn’t really a thing that carries any powers or uniform.
There’s a reason for uniforms. Law enforcement, private security, military, etc. Absent that you have to assume there’s just a yahoo with a gun chasing you as you say.
eldorado
jfc, can you guys not read? jefferson didn’t get off, he is serving a six year term for this.
eldorado
(mind you this seems to be manslaughter to me, at least and he should have gotten 10-15)
Michael G
So if I understand this, “Stand Your Ground” laws mean that if you get into a fight, the one who shoots and kills first is in the right.
r€nato
@gex: An armed neighborhood watch captain? That seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility. You hire a trained, bonded, fully insured security guard if you need an armed patrol.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@KG: My reading of the linked piece is that Jefferson was found trying to break into Neal’s apartment and then fled. Neal called Carl England and once he showed up, they went to find Jefferson. In the meantime, Jefferson had picked up a gun. That’s when the physical altercation began. So Jefferson was not in the process of committing a crime when the fight began. They were, really, two separate incidents.
r€nato
@eldorado: he is serving a six year term for burglary etc, not for shooting England.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@r€nato: Zimmerman wasn’t a part of any organized neighborhood watch program. He was mostly self-appointed.
r€nato
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): yes, this.
So really, I have significantly less sympathy for Carl England than I did when I understood it was all part of one single incident. You call the cops when you chase off a guy trying to break into your place. You don’t go hunt him down yourself, or you could end up as Carl England did.
Regardless of what the local gun laws are. Dead right is still dead.
Cluttered Mind
@Michael G: That does seem to be the case, unfortunately. It’s a law designed to protect people from the consequences of shooting anyone who they’re fighting with.
jnc
Wow – you really crammed a whole bunch of wrong into just a few sentences.
jnc
You might want to google around and find the interview with the Sanford Police Community Liaison person who conducted the neighborhood watch training at Zimmerman’s invitation.
trollhattan
If Zimmerman walks, I can’t help but think of Rodney King and the first verdict. And King lived.
r€nato
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): What I understand is this:
the blockwatch was organized by neighbors in the HOA. Zimmerman was the only volunteer and was elected by his neighbors. So that’s not an official Board action; however, the community HOA newsletter did refer residents to him as the blockwatch captain.
That certainly leaves some room for interpretation as whether he was ‘official’; but I assure you that won’t stop the HOA from getting its butt sued off for some sort of negligence claim, at the very least. If I were on an HOA Board that knew that its ‘unofficial’ BW captain was going around armed, we’d be alarmed to say the least and do all we could to disassociate ourselves from such activity.
ruemara
I just wonder, are we establishing a Hatfield/McCoys system of justice? Will it just be last man standing is right?
FlipYrWhig
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): So, my question is, how was Martin supposed to know that Zimmerman was something other than an armed thug? Isn’t that hugely important, or am I out in left field again?
Mitch Guthman
@Tim F.,
Are you sure of your facts? Your description of the prosecutor’s decision not to charge Pernell Jefferson doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve been researching Florida’s homicide laws for a couple of weeks now and if the version of “stand you ground” adopted by Oklahoma is similar then “stand you ground” wouldn’t apply to Jefferson since he was presumably engaged in a violent felony at the time you say he murdered Carl England. I can’t think of any barrier to prosecuting him. If he wasn’t prosecuted then either the Oklahoma version of “stand your ground” allows people engaged in violent felonies to kill with impunity (which seems unlikely) or there is more to this story. Do you have any links, etc?
dollared
I just read the whole thread, and the linked articles. I live 100 miles from Vancouver, and am near the end of my working years, with two elementary age children.
Can someone tell me why it would be a bad idea to move to Canada?
Mark S.
That’s hardly worth the trouble. I’d just concentrate on the six fucking counts of murder.
Aren’t hate crime laws usually for enhancing penalties? I’ve never heard of one being called a misdemeanor.
Joseph Nobles
@trollhattan: Sanford is two hours away from Tampa. What’s happening in Tampa, oh, say, Septemberish?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@r€nato: Ah. I was going by the fact that someone with the actual Neighborhood Watch organization said that Zimmerman had nothing to do with them.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@FlipYrWhig: Based on the law, I don’t think it’s important at all from a legal perspective. It only matters that Zimmerman was there legally.
Mark S.
@Mitch Guthman:
From the article:
I don’t know how Neal knew Jefferson left to get a gun unless Jefferson announced it, but let’s move on.
So they went after him after his attempted burglary failed. That’s why they didn’t charge Jefferson with felony murder.
Mitch Guthman
@Tim F.,
I’m looking at the AP story and it’s a lot different from what I understood you to be saying. http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20120407/US.Oklahoma.Shooting.Spree/?cid=hero_media
These people seem all to be connected in some way and there was an altercation with between Jefferson and England’s daughter and her boyfriend in which Jefferson tried to break into the daughter’s apartment but was thwarted. Some time later, England and the boyfriend went to Jefferson’s residence to confront him (apparently invoking some kind of “self-help” instead of calling the police). So it would appear that at the time of the shooting, the original crime(s) involving England’s daughter had concluded and England and the boyfriend weren’t in hot pursuit of Jefferson, they simply wanted to inflict some extrajudicial punishment.
Under those circumstances, when England attacked Jefferson, in his home, with a stick and knocked him to the ground, it might well have been that case that Jefferson would have been entitled to use deadly force in his own defense. Depending on details not in the AP article, this result could easily have been reached under the traditional law of self-defense.
gwangung
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Which is why it’s a bad law. It only focusses on the shooter, not the shooter. It makes no sense from a legal POV, IMAO, that two people could legally in a place, one shoots the other and doesn’t face any legal sanctions.
(I mean, I SUSPECT Zimmerman either threatened or tried to restrain Martin, which would be an unlawful act. But I can’t prove it legally).
PeakVT
@dollared: Cost, and the emotional cost of the disruption. Also, northwest WA isn’t FL or OK. The crazies aren’t going to show up in your neighborhood anytime soon.
Cassidy
@ruemara: Essentially, yes. The purpose of these laws is to allow armed citizens to “defend” themselves without worrying about prosecution. Sound judgement isn’t part of the equation.
Mitch Guthman
@Mark S.: I agree. What’s more, my impression is that there was some kind of history between Jefferson and these people beyond simply a random attempted burglary. I don’t think this is an example of “stand your ground” gone crazy. There’s some complexity to this case.
Steve
Two guys apparently just went on a shooting rampage and killed several black people. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why it is mildly relevant to figure out who was in the right in a confrontation that occurred years ago between the father if one of the shooters and some black guy completely unrelated to the victims.
David Koch
@dollared:
um, cuz there’s no blacks you can shoot in Canada.
Brachiator
@r€nato:
But neighborhood watch is not the same thing as neighborhood pursue and engage. What I find insane about this incident, and stand your ground laws, is that idiotic, medieval trial by combat to the death is encouraged and made legal. I don’t see that Zimmerman had any right to approach and question Martin for any reason. And I don’t see that Martin had any duty to submit to any questioning by Zimmerman. And how was Martin supposed to know that Zimmerman was neighborhood watch and not some freak? We don’t know much about how Zimmerman approached Martin, or what was said, or anyone’s tone.
Wingnuts want to believe that somehow Martin started a fight, and attacked Zimmerman. They don’t see that Martin had a right to stand his ground. And this is where the law is absolutely absurd. No matter how things started, once a fight began, both could reasonably feel threatened, and whoever was left alive at the end could invoke the law as a defense. Zimmerman had the gun, so he had the advantage.
This law does nothing less than legalize assault.
Nathanael
@dollared: If they’ll let you in, move now.
Canada’s been taken over by a criminal gang run by Prime Minister Harper, but their right-wing lunatics are still saner than ours….
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Brachiator: I’m amazed at the number of people who seem to think that “neighborhood watch” means “deputized almost-cop”.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@dollared:
what makes you think they’d accept you?
dollared
@PeakVT: The cost of moving is trivial. and the cost of health care in Canada is $10,000/year less for a family of four. And the crazies are here, too. We have the same trashy people and an endless supply of guns.
portlander
Does anyone know of betting pools on how long it takes before Zimmerman is gunned down by someone who is feeling threatened by him? I’d really like to get in on that action.
PeakVT
@dollared: The murder rate in WA is half that of FL and OK. Other violent crime is lower, except for rape, which is likely due to reporting issues. But if you want to panic, knock yourself out. I lived ten miles from Anacostia in the early 1990s and managed not to do so.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@portlander: You’re a sick person.
JoyfulA
@Mitch Guthman: There’s more history among all these people than that:
“Jefferson tried to kick in the door of the apartment England’s daughter shared with her boyfriend after the boyfriend hit him with a baseball bat during an earlier confrontation at the couple’s home” (from the AP story).
And then I suppose there’s some prior history that accounts for why the boyfriend hit Jefferson with a baseball bat. All this interpersonal “history” may or may not have anything to do with why nobody involved ever called 911.
Yutsano
@Nathanael:
This is an arguable point, although Harper can’t seem to keep his nose clean to save his life. Damn watchdog agencies acting all responsible and stuff.
opie jeanne
@dollared:
I live in Woodinville. Someone here has a cannon and there are people shooting at things in the woods after dark. Probably shooting at coyotes but illegal, especially that close to houses.
Also, there was the shooting death a few years ago of a prominent advocate of gun control. I think it happened in Seattle but I’m not sure because I lived in California when it happened, but it was quite shocking. The crazies are definitely here too.
opie jeanne
Oh. The gun control advocate who was murdered in Seattle was Thomas C. Wales and he was a Federal Prosecuter. It was in October of 2001:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Wales
Amir Khalid
I suppose that if anything good comes out of cases like this and Trayvon Martin’s death, it would be the start of a movement to repeal crazy ALEC-drafted laws like Stand Your Ground. Are there any sign of action on that front?
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Most likely too fresh for that just yet. I don’t think there’s been enough trauma experienced for that movement, although there are some gun control advocates starting to move here. This topic might get revisited in a few months, especially if Zimmerman never gets charged.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
Not before November, there won’t be. I know it’s hard for a sane foreigner to fully grasp the dynamic, but there’s a certain percentage of American voters for whom “my gun(s)” really serves as a religious icon, far more so than the Christian bible. Telling one of these devout Second Amendment believers that (for instance) storing a loaded handgun in the nightstand, where their young child might find it and/or they might mistake their coming-home-from-the-late-shift spouse for an intruder, might potentially just possibly not be the very best-practice method of ensuring household security… well, it’s like telling a member of the Taliban that burning a no-longer-usable Koran with the kitchen trash is just energy efficiency. It won’t change their minds, but it will make you a new enemy. No politician is going to risk agitating this group of voters just before an important election — the NRA famously can’t always protect those politicians they “like”, but they’ve got an enviable record at punishing anyone who dares to disagree with their theological fatwas.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
You do realize you are dealing with a subset of folks, who aren’t grounded in reality?
For example, candidate Obama, in 2008 stated he would do nothing to alter the existing gun laws, therefore people, who own guns decided a yet to be sworn in President Obama and his “Democrat” Congress were going to “grab their guns” and restrict gun owner ship.
They went on a gun and ammo buying spree immediately after the election that basically wiped gun stores out of ammunition, i.e. if you weren’t going to hoard ammo and were a rational gun owner, you were shit out of luck because no one had any ammo left to sell.
asiangrrlMN
@FlipYrWhig: This is how I see it as well. If I were Trayvon Martin, I would have done what I could to stand MY ground with a big, threatening man following me at night. I don’t care WHAT Zimmerman said to Trayvon as he (Zimmerman) pursued. I wouldn’t have believed a damn word he said. And, a lawyer buddy explained that if someone makes a citizen’s arrest and the ‘suspect’ in question isn’t actually breaking the law, then the one making the arrest IS breaking the law.
Of course, I have no idea how that squares with the insane Stand Your Ground laws, but from Trayvon’s point of view, he had every reason to believe he was under attack.
I hate hate hate that I’m starting to think minorities locked and loaded at all times is one answer to this madness.
Schlemizel
So, using these pea-wits method of ‘thinking’ we should expect 10 black men to randomly shoot 25 white people on the streets of Tulsa in a couple of years.
Yes SYG will certainly reduce crime – after 12-16 years of this math there should be a lot less of everything in Tulsa.
Schlemizel
@Anne Laurie:
Yes, exactly like a religious icon. That is a perfect metaphor as these whack-a-doodles really do worship their guns.
@gene108:
How the hell can we explain the current state of American politics to anyone? It would be simple if we were being run by a mafia like don (say like Russia) or some band of cleric dictators. But we the people voted for this shit and have done so repeatedly and in ever increasing quantities. We are a nation gone insane.
Ron
@gene108: Well, Wayne Lapierre claimed that Obama saying he didn’t want to alter gun laws and in fact NOT ALTERING them was proof a conspiracy that he was just trying to get reelected and was going to take away your guns in 2012.
Lojasmo
@Steve:
Hereafter to be called “the wyldepirate defense”
Lojasmo
@dollared:
Because you live in Bellingham?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Should we be look forward to the return of vigilantism and family feuds that span generations that the modern justice system intended to eliminate?
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@Steve: absolutely right you are. The only way in which the shooting of random black people is “evening the scales themselves” is if you see black people as interchangeable – i.e. you feel you can kill any one of them for the crimes of another.
Perhapse, had those guys gone after Pernell Jefferson and killed him, it could be considered taking justice into your own hands. Killing a bunch of people not involved in the crime is in no way shape or form justice. I mean, if Pernell Jefferson were white, would these guys have cruised through a neighborhood of people of their own color randomly shooting folks? I think not. Because white people don’t get blamed for crimes other white people commit. For blacks, it’s a different story. I can see this and I’m as white as they come.
McJulie
@Ron: The US badly needs a liberal or politically neutral gun enthusiast organization. The NRA is nuts and getting nuttier all the time.
It has a horrible runaway selection affect. When the face of gun ownership in this country is nuts, only nutty people want to join, and it keeps getting nuttier. Even people who join for other reasons get contaminated by the nuttines.
It’s like the evangelical church, with firearms.
liberal
@Brachiator:
Completely agree. IMHO (despite the few commenters recent Martin threads around here) the evidence to date makes it completely clear that Zimmerman assaulted Martin by following him in a threatening manner.
liberal
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
The modern justice system? Are you f*cking kidding me? Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy discussed this whole issue. That was ancient Greece.
I guess now we have something even more awesomer than the usual cracks about the Rethugli-nuts taking us back before the Enlightenment.
matryoshka
I keep thinking back to when Jan Brewer said she felt “threatened” by Obama on the tarmac. I’m really glad AZ didn’t have SYG lawlessness at the time.
Paul in KY
@David Koch: Maybe he/she can shoot Quebecois, ay?
(snark)