Deadly Force and Public Reason

Abstract

The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black youth, by a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, George Martin, raises serious questions about the legitimacy of Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws, the state statute providing immunity to persons who use deadly force to defend themselves and to stop property theft. The weakness of the statute’s “reasonable person” standard is examined at length. A parallel is drawn between Patricia J. Williams’ analysis of the killing and the real-world philosophy arguments used by John Rawls and Tommie Shelby to explore the limits of justifiable obligations and duties that obtain in imperfect societies. A comparative statutory analysis, framed by Rousseauvian remarks about the tension between private property ownership and the adoption of a public good perspective, demonstrates the continuities between the Stand Your Ground law and New York’s immunization of the homeowner who uses deadly force to prevent an unarmed burglary at his residence. Florida’s failure to respect and promote Martin’s right to life and right to protection against assault is demonstrated with reference to the first stage of the police investigation and the state’s lax gun control laws. On a more speculative note, the article comments on the temporal coincidence of Zimmerman’s vigilante violence and the contemporary imposition of neoliberal austerity budget cuts to public goods provision, including community policing. While the United States belongs at a relatively moderate point on the neoliberalism scale, Guatemala is situated at the extreme end of the continuum. Considering the extreme case of Guatemala permits the United States’ reader to grasp the ways in which neoliberal austerity budgeting and elite tolerance of vigilantism make the breakdown in social cooperation, reciprocity, and civility a likely outcome.

Keywords: Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, Stand Your Ground laws, John Rawls, Tommie Shelby, critical race theory, vigilante violence, racism, United States, criminal law, United States, self-dense justification and affirmative defense, United States, Patricia J. Williams, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Mil