In 2012, Marissa Alexander went to trial for firing a warning shot against her abusive boyfriend. A year later, George Zimmerman went to trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin. Both Alexander and Zimmerman violated the “Stand Your Ground” law and they both were prosecuted by Angela Corey. Although Alexander did not kill anyone, she was found guilty and served three of her sixty-year sentence, while Zimmerman walked free. Was there racial discrimination in the ruling of these cases? It can be determined that race played a role in the ruling of these cases. In 2010 Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old African American woman, fired a warning shot against her abusive husband who threatened to kill her. Alexander just got out of the hospital, days …show more content…
On the night of the murder, Zimmerman, who was then part of the neighborhood watch committee, called the police at 7:09 pm to report a “suspicious teenager” walking through the neighborhood. When the police told him not to approach the teen and wait for them to get there, Zimmerman replied, “[t]hese assholes, these fucking punks, they always get away with it.” Not listening to the police, Zimmerman followed Martin and was once again told to stop his pursuit by the 911 operator. After arguing on the phone, Zimmerman said that he will stop following Martin. Martin, who was on the phone with his friend, Rachel Jeantel, was unarmed and was carrying a bag of skittles and an Arizona tea. Zimmerman said that he confronted Martin and then Martin tackled him to the ground and repeatedly punched him and smashed his head into the concrete. Through all the chaos, Zimmerman somehow was able to reach for his gun and shot Martin in the chest. A few minuted later, neighbors called the police and Martin was pronounced dead. Zimmerman was not arrested at the scene and it was not until April 11, 2012, after many protests that Zimmerman was arrested. He was charged with second degree murder and pleaded not guilty due to the “Stand Your Ground” law. Zimmerman’s jury was made up of five white women and one mixed woman who identified as Hispanic. Rachel Jeantel was the star witness of the case …show more content…
It is clear that Angela Corey overcharged Alexander in a case of institutional racism. 67 percent of the women in prison are survivors of domestic abuse and the majority of those women are black. If Alexander was a white female then her sentence and ruling would have been different. George Zimmerman, a Hispanic male was able to use the “Stand Your Ground” law in his defense and it worked. Although Zimmerman was recorded saying racist comments and defying the police’s orders, he was able to walk free. If Martin was a white teenager and Zimmerman was a black man, the jury would’ve made sure Zimmerman was behind bars. Unfortunately, people do not think like that and it is evident in history. African American lives have not mattered for centuries and the decisions in these cases prove that they still do not
Trayvon Benjamin Martin was a 17 year old African American from Miami Gardens, Florida. He was badly shot by George Zimmerman; a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman called 911 to report that there was “suspicious person” walking through the neighborhood. He was told to not do anything, but he did anyway. As he approached Martin, he attacked him and shot him straight to the heart. According to CNN, “Zimmerman acknowledges that he shot Martin, claiming it was in self-defense.” (“Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts”). When the case was taken to court George Zimmerman was found not guilty even after he
On the night of his death, February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin was in Sanford, Florida on a visit to his father's fiancee and her son at The Retreat at Twin Lakes. As Zimmerman noticed him he called the police non-emergency number to report a suspicious person in community, describing Martin as a very suspicious guy reporting that he had his hand in waistband and was walking around looking at homes. Also, Zimmerman is quoted saying that “he is just walking around looking about in the rain”, and “This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something”(Wikipedia). Although the way he described him led to think of what view Zimmerman had of innocent, unarmed Trayvon who seemed like any other teenager walking about on the way
Marissa Alexander a thirty three year old African American woman in Jacksonville, Florida was involved in a domestic dispute with her abusive husband in their home. The dispute stemmed from allegations of their recently born child being fathered by another man. During the course of the altercation Ms. Alexander retreated to the garage. Claims state that the garage was locked ant that she could retreat any further. She then retrieved a hand gun from her car which she had a permit to own as well as a permit to carry and reentered the home where warning shot was fired into the ceiling of the home. Ms. Alexander was arrested and charged with attempted murder and she received a twenty year sentence. She has since requested a retrial and her supporters are afraid that she could receive an even harsher sentence since her husband’s two minor children were present in the home during the shooting. Ms. Alexander could possibly face three counts of aggravated assault with a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years each.
In the past years we have seen many riots and debates over the racism and inequalities in our criminal justice system. We have heard story after story, and watched video after video of police brutality and racism in America. We saw the unfair outcome of the Zimmerman and Treyvon Martin case. When George Zimmerman followed Treyvon Martin, a seventeen year old African American boy who was walking around the neighborhood, just because he looked suspicious to him. Even after notifying the police, Zimmerman followed Martin and ended up shooting him, after Zimmerman had hung up with the dispatcher who told him they did not need him
Martin, while staying with his father and stepmother, walked to the local 7-11 for snacks, famously depicted in social media as Skittles and Arizona Ice Tea. On his journey back, Zimmerman spotted Martin, whose hoodie was up; Zimmerman then called the police to consult law enforcement officers on how to approach the “suspicious” character. The Sanford Police advised against confrontation, but Zimmerman took matters into his own hands, and proceeded to pursue Martin, fire his weapon, and kill the seventeen-year-old (“Trayvon Martin”). Martin was declared dead when the police arrived at the scene, where Zimmerman stood with the act as self-defense (“The Trayvon Martin Case”). This case was very controversial in that Martin was fired upon without any real threat towards Zimmerman, leading to accusations of racial profiling of black youths. To make matters worse, Zimmerman was found not guilty, due to lack of sufficient evidence, and acquitted of the second-degree murder charges (“Trayvon Martin”). This caused major unrest throughout the nation, sparking outrage and protests among many African Americans and equal rights advocates, alike. Critics of Zimmerman not only call foul on
Imagine if someone was able to change others perceptions on the American criminal justice system? Michelle Alexander was able to accomplish that by altering some people 's entire perception on the American criminal justice system by focusing on our most pressing civil right issues of our time for some of those who did read her book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness." Michelle Alexander stated that "The most despised in America is not gays, transgenders, nor even illegal immigrants - it is criminals." That was an important quote since the stereotypical criminal in our racially divided America in most cases are those of color also known as blacks. This is why the criminal justice system in the United States promotes the mass incarceration of blacks that can be seen through high number of African-Americans going to jail for drugs compared to any other race, the high percentage rates of African-American that are incarcerated, the amount of time that is given to African-Americans compared to any other race in the United States.
Even before watching the video, “Race on Trial” I believed that there was racial bias in the justice system and all this video did was reaffirm that. The fact that these two cases were so similar it is no surprise that the judge jumped to race as the only factor that separated their sentences. Even though there are federal sentencing guidelines put in place to prevent/reduce sentencing disparities it still occurs and many have done in depth research on it. In “The Relationship between Race, Ethnicity, and Sentencing Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Sentencing Research” they compared sentencing outcomes of African Americans to whites and saw that 66% of the sentencing outcomes that they studied showed that African Americans had a higher sentencing
Just for wearing a hoodie, carrying an Arizona Tea and for being black he was shot and killed. In the book “Deadly Injustice: Travyon Martin, Race, and the Criminal Justice System“ the authors go on to discuss what happened that night and in the trial that preceded. It also helped me deliberate with how certain deaths are portrayed online. This being one of the biggest cases to hit the news and was brought to almost everyone in the United States attention, even the President at the time made a statement about what had happened to this young man. Social media spreaded this article like a wildfire and soon everyone knew what had happened that night in Florida. One of the main reasons why it was difficult to convict Zimmerman of this crime was because of the “Stand your ground” law After this the tension between black males and police officers rose to an even higher extent. African Americans often feel as if they are treated by police unfairly and with situations like this happening it help supported how they felt. Additionally with cases like in Ferguson and what happened in Lousivelle when four innocent teens were accused of robbing a woman with a weapon where they were later found not guilty of the
The shooting of Trayvon Martin is one of the most controversial incidents of the decade. Trayvon Martin was a young African American teen fallen victim to the evil of racial discrimination. One evening while walking home Trayvon was shot by a hispanic man named George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was on neighborhood patrol on a rainy day in Florida, and he noticed a black male walking through the neighborhood. He immediately jumped to conclusions and called the police who told him to leave the man walking alone because there was no need to follow him anyway, but Zimmerman did not listen. He confronted the young black male and after a little altercation Zimmerman shot the boy in an act of “self defense”. Zimmerman killed someone because of a profile created based on the color of someone's skin. Now besides the fact that a young boy was killed due to racial profiling, what’s even worse is the
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch leader, was driving to Target to run a errand on the night of February 26, 2012 when he observed a suspicious person, leisurely walking in the rain, looking at all the houses, wearing a grey hoodie as he would tell dispatch in his 911 call made at 7:09 p.m. Moments later an altercation occurred between Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, which left Trayvon dead from a single gunshot wound to his chest and Zimmerman with a bloody nose and a cut to the back of his head. Zimmerman asserted that the shooting was done in self-defense because he thought Trayvon was reaching for his ( Zimmerman’s ) concealed gun and he feared for his life. Eye witness accounts of the event backed his claim that Trayvon was hitting him, but Rachel Jeantel, who had been on the phone with Trayvon,
Trayvon Martin’s killing was a racial hate crime because of Zimmerman’s actions before, during and after the killing, the 911 call, and the police report all indicating Trayvon’s killing was racially provoked since then I have been teaching my child about the possibilities of being racially targeted due to his ethnicity and exactly what racial profiling is.
In today’s hot topic news there is constant issues with the Stand Your Ground Law. The headlines, television, and social media are overflowing with cases about shootings all around the country. The Stand Your Ground Law creates immunity for an individual who uses deadly force under the belief that he or she is threatened by another person. This law is also called the Castle Rule. Most of the states in the U.S. have adopted some type of form of this law to protect its residents who may feel the need to use self defense in situations where they may feel threatened. This has mainly became a race issue between white police officers and African American citizens. A solution that we can use to help solve a lot of the crimes that associates with the
Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Sean Bell and unfortunately so much more were senselessly murder because of the color their skin. “Garner, an asthmatic father of six, was seen yelling, “I can’t breathe!” 11 times before losing consciousness and No one have been charged criminally” (Citation). In this quote from Eric Garner, he is fatally choked to death by a police officer , he yelled that he couldn't beneath and officer continued to applying pressure to his neck. George Zimmerman, had been found not guilty of shooting dead an unarmed black 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin (Citation). In this quote from cnn a unarmd teenage was walking home and George shot him dead and George Zimmer was acquitted from all criminal charges. The destruction of black lives needs to stop immediately. African Americans are being hunted down and they are using the color of their skin as a way of avoiding responsibility of their actions. African Americans should not worry about being killed when they walk down the street to buy some
In the Trayvon Martin case, many people suspect George Zimmerman racially profiled(NeJame). Zimmerman,a neighborhood watch volunteer, had shot
The State of Florida v. George Zimmerman was a criminal prosecution of George Zimmerman on the charge of second-degree murder stemming from the shooting of Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012. This case has been regarded as one of the most controversial in a long time, sparking riots and new movements along with an opening of greater conversations about this country’s gun laws, legal system and racial profiling.