Why George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s killer, hasn’t been prosecuted. By Emily Bazelon SLATE

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Why Trayvon Martin’s Killer Remains Free

Florida’s self-defense laws have left Florida safe for no one—except those who shoot first.

The story of Trayvon Martin’s death is heartbreaking. If you have missed the facts: The 17-year-old, who is black, was walking to a friend’s home in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., when a neighborhood-watch volunteer*, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, spotted him. Zimmerman, whose father says identifies as Hispanic, called the cops to report a suspicious person. They told him not to follow. “They always get away,” Zimmerman told dispatch in a 911 call released Friday, and he kept tracking Martin. Zimmerman had a gun. Martin was carrying only an ice tea and the Skittles he’d just bought at the store. The two had a struggle that no one saw. Hearing shots, neighbors called 911. In one call that’s hard to listen to, a woman anxiously says she can hear someone calling for help while in the background, a terrified, wailing voice pleads, "No! No!"

Zimmerman shot and killed Martin, but he said he did so in self-defense. The shocker of this case so far is that the Sanford police say they don’t have enough evidence to dispute Zimmerman’s claim and arrest him. Martin’s mother told the Today show Monday morning that her son was killed “because of the color of his skin,” and his parents want the FBI to investigate. With these facts, you can see why. UPDATE, March 20, 2012: On Monday evening, the Justice Department announced it will investigate Martin's killing.

How did we get to a place where Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, which seems barely plausible, could prevent his arrest? The answer starts with the “Stand Your Ground” law that Florida passed in 2005. The idea was to give people who think they are being threatened the right to use force: They can protect themselves without first trying to retreat. The history behind that controversial idea is actually about gender, not race. It involves the intersection between the fight against domestic violence and the agenda of the National Rifle Association.

Let’s back up, with the help of Jeannie Suk, a Harvard law professor who wrote an article in 2008 that I’ll rely on for the next few paragraphs. In the 17^th century, English common law held that people whose lives were threatened in a public place could use deadly force to defend themselves only after retreating as far as possible. It was up to the king and his men to keep the peace, and everyone else was supposed to stand aside. There was only one exception: If someone broke into your house, you could kill him without retreating.

This is called the Castle Doctrine, after the old saying that a man’s house is his castle. It makes intuitive sense—a limited exception to the duty to retreat that leaves the rule in place. But when the Castle Doctrine made its way to America, Suk says, some courts expanded it. Now someone under attack could "repel force by force" if he was attacked "in a place where he has a right to be." That’s how the Supreme Court put it in 1895. This is amazingly called the “true man” doctrine, from a line in an 1876 case: “A true man, who is without fault, is not obliged to fly from an assailant, who by violence or surprise, maliciously seeks to take his life or do him enormous bodily harm.”

Not all the states adopted the true man doctrine. And 100 years later, courts and legislatures faced a new problem: What to do with women who said they were victims of domestic violence and had killed their husbands to save themselves? Did you have a right not to retreat if the person coming after you lived under the same roof? At first, the answer was no, to the fury of feminists. Then in 1999, the Florida Supreme Court said a woman who shot and killed her husband during a violent fight at home could successfully call on the Castle Doctrine to argue self-defense. “It is now widely recognized that domestic violence attacks are often repeated over time, and escape from the home is rarely possible without the threat of great personal violence or death,” the court wrote.

Suk calls this revision of the true-man rule to encompass domestic violence transformative, and you can see why. The new rules made for more shooting and less retreating. And they set the stage for Florida to ditch the duty to retreat entirely, which the legislature did in passing the nation’s first Stand Your Ground law in 2005.

Florida’s new law did three things: It further loosened the restrictions on using deadly force at home. It scrapped the duty to retreat in public places. And it gave people who use self-defense civil and criminal immunity. Pushing for these changes, NRA President Marion Hammer focused on women and their need to protect themselves. “You can’t expect a victim to wait and ask, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Criminal, are you going to rape me and kill me, or are you just going to beat me up and steal my television?” she said.

Prosecutors opposed the Stand Your Ground law, and they still complain about it. "It is an abomination," former Broward County Prosecutor David Frankel told the Sun Sentinel in January. "The ultimate intent might be good, but in practice, people take the opportunity to shoot first and say later they had a justification. It almost gives them a free pass to shoot." The quote comes from a story about a former sheriff’s deputy, Maury Hernandez, who killed an unarmed homeless man in a Haagen-Dazs shop on a Saturday afternoon. Hernandez, who was with his children, said the man aggressively asked for money and then tried to assault him. Witnesses said Hernandez warned the man several times before taking out his gun and firing multiple times. The police said they wouldn’t charge Hernandez for the shooting because he claimed he was under attack.

It’s that decision not to press charges that makes Stand Your Ground laws, which a bunch of other states have adopted, a crazy departure from the past. It’s one thing to raise self-defense at trial. It’s another to have what the Florida Supreme Court calls “true immunity.” True immunity, the court said, means a trial judge can dismiss a prosecution, based on a Stand Your Ground assertion, before trial begins.

At least there’s supposed to be a hearing before that happens, at which the defendant has the burden of proof. And yet as the Hernandez and Martin’s case shows, Stand Your Ground laws often lead prosecutors to decide against so much as bringing charges. According to the Sun Sentinel, “In case after case during the past six years, Floridians who shot and killed unarmed opponents have not been prosecuted.”

Now the death of Trayvon Martin is the latest in that line. Maybe this is the kind of case that is so sad and so tinged with racism that Florida will think hard about the very scary place where their self-defense laws have taken them. Maybe.

*Correction, March 20, 2012: This article originally stated that George Zimmerman is white, but his father says he identifies as Hispanic.

U.S. Department of Justice, FBI and FDLE to probe Trayvon Martin killing

By Frances Robles Miami Herald

Courtesy Martin family / Family photo

Trayvon Martin, 17, of Miami Gardens, shot and killed by a neighborhood watch voluntter Feb. 26 in Sanford, an Orlando suburb.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the FBI will investigate the killing of Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer, the department announced late Monday.

The announcement coincided with a statement from Florida Gov. Rick Scott asking the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to offer “appropriate resources” in the case.

The federal and state agencies are intervening in what attorneys call a botched investigation into the killing of the Michael Krop Senior High School student, who was killed Feb. 26 in Sanford, a town of 55,000 just north of Orlando. Trayvon, 17, on suspension from school, was staying at his father’s girlfriend’s house when he walked to a nearby a 7-Eleven store to buy candy and iced tea.

George Zimmerman, 28, a neighborhood watch volunteer with a long history of calling in everything from open garage doors to “suspicious characters,” called police to say he had spotted someone who looked drugged, was walking too slowly in the rain, and appeared to be looking at people’s houses. Zimmerman sounded alarmed because the stranger had his hand in his waistband and held something in his other hand.

The unarmed teen was carrying Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea.

Zimmerman said he had stepped out of his truck to check the name of the street he was on when Trayvon attacked him from behind as he walked back to his truck, police said. He said he feared for his life and fired the semiautomatic handgun he was licensed to carry because he feared for his life.

“The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “The department also is providing assistance to and cooperating with the state officials in their investigation into the incident. With all federal civil rights crimes, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person acted intentionally and with the specific intent to do something which the law forbids — the highest level of intent in criminal law.

“Negligence, recklessness, mistakes and accidents are not prosecutable under the federal criminal civil rights laws.”

From the start, Trayvon’s family accused Sanford police of molding the investigation to fit Zimmerman’s account. Several witnesses said they heard cries that sounded like a boy wailing — howling silenced by the crack of gunfire — and were shocked to hear police later portray the cries as Zimmerman’s. One witness said police ignored her repeated phone calls.

The police chief was accused of telling lies big and small in ways that shielded Zimmerman. The family hired attorneys who helped devise a national campaign to demand a federal investigation.

Members of Congress and prominent black clergy members joined the chorus for a federal probe. At a rally outside the Sanford courthouse Monday, students called for Zimmerman’s arrest.

Police Chief Bill Lee told The Miami Herald that he was comfortable that his investigators were fair and thorough.

“I can say very confidently we would welcome any outside entity that wants to come look at what we did,” Lee said last week. “They are welcome to come here and look at it. We have not done anything but conduct a fair and complete investigation.”

He dismissed accusations of irregularities and insisted that investigators found no probable cause to arrest Zimmerman because there was no evidence to disprove his version of events.

The U.S. Community Relations Service will be in Sanford this week to meet with civil rights leaders, community leaders and local law enforcement officials to address tension in the community, the Justice Department announcement said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/19/v-print/2703029/us-department-of-justice-fbi-and.html#storylink=cpy

Analysis: From Israel, urgings of caution on Iran

By DAN PERRY, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces significant pressure at home to coordinate with the United States in any attack against Iran's nuclear program, despite his public insistence on Israel's right to act alone.

With the clock ticking toward a monumental decision by Netanyahu, it largely could come down to whether he trusts President Barack Obama — a man with whom Netanyahu, often jokingly referred to as an "Israeli Republican," seems markedly ill at ease.

The signs from this week's summit at the White House are not particularly good. The two allies agree that Iran is on a path that could eventually lead to the production of a nuclear weapon, but part ways over urgency: Netanyahu seems impatient with Obama's statements that tough new economic sanctions imposed by the West be given time to work.

But if he decides to strike alone, Netanyahu would be courting an astounding array of consequences.

An Israeli attack would likely unleash retaliation, in the form of Iranian missiles as well as rocket attacks by Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas on its northern and southern borders. Especially daunting is the prospect of sustained missile strikes on Tel Aviv, a bustling business and entertainment capital whose populace is psychologically ill-prepared for a homefront war.

It also would likely cause oil prices to skyrocket at a time when the global economy is already struggling — risking a new recession for which Israel would absorb much if not most of the blame.

Iran is widely expected to attack American targets in response to any Israeli strike — a scenario that could directly influence the outcome of this fall's U.S. presidential election. Israel can hardly contemplate a genuine rift with its closest ally; without U.S. diplomatic, military and financial support the Jewish state would be dangerously exposed on multiple fronts.

Few here would dispute that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat, mindful of Iranian calls for Israel's destruction, support for anti-Israel militant groups, and development of sophisticated missiles capable of striking Israel. Concerns were only heightened by a recent report by the U.N. nuclear agency that found Iran continues to enrich uranium — a key step toward developing a bomb — and by Iran's movement of enrichment facilities deep underground.

But after months of strikingly open debate about an Israeli military strike, awareness of the colossal risks involved appears to be sinking in. A growing number of senior figures have raised concerns that Israel should not act alone.

Two former Israeli military chiefs on Tuesday lambasted Netanyahu's heated rhetoric about Iran's nuclear ambitions, saying the threats of an imminent military strike are actually weakening Israel.

"This is not a Jewish problem," Shaul Mofaz, who headed the military from 1998 to 2002 and later served as defense minister, told Israel Radio. "It is a strategic problem facing the whole world."

Mofaz, who was born in Iran and moved to Israel as a child, said Israel "is not a ghetto" and that despite its military might must fully coordinate with the U.S. on any plan to strike Iran.

Both Mofaz, who is now an opposition lawmaker, and Dan Halutz, the military chief from 2005 to 2007, criticized Netanyahu for invoking Holocaust imagery in describing the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Halutz said the Holocaust references diminished the actual genocide of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis and blew the Iranian threat out of proportion.

"We are not kings of the world," Halutz said. "We should remember who we are."

Both echoed a similar warning issued recently by Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

A recent poll suggested the public, normally hawkish on security matters, agrees. The survey, conducted by the Israeli Dahaf agency for the University of Maryland, said 81 percent of Israelis oppose a solo attack on Iran. At the same time, it said two-thirds of Israelis would support military action if coordinated with Washington.

The poll, released last week, questioned 500 Israelis and had a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.

At their high-stakes White House meeting on Monday, Obama appeared to make little headway with Netanyahu. In public comments both before and after the meeting, the Israeli leader repeatedly stressed his country's right to act alone.

"Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat," he declared to raucous applause in a speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC — the same forum that heard Obama, a day before, decry "too much loose talk of war."

At a news conference Tuesday, Obama implied that Israeli pressure for urgent action was not supported by the facts, saying that a decision was not necessary within the next weeks or months.

Efforts to find a diplomatic solution appeared to get a boost Tuesday when world powers agreed to a new round of talks with Tehran, and Iran gave permission for inspectors to visit a site suspected of secret atomic work.

While stressing his preference for a diplomatic solution, Obama said Monday that the U.S. would strike Iran if necessary and pointedly rejected suggestions that "containment" of a nuclear-armed Iran would be acceptable. The tough talk was clearly aimed at convincing Netanyahu that the United States accepts that the problem is global and truly "has Israel's back," as Obama insisted.

The U.S., which has large forces stationed near Iran in the Persian Gulf and far more powerful weapons at its disposal, is in a much better position to strike.

A recently retired senior security official said Tuesday that Israel's military — armed with sophisticated American warplanes, missiles and unmanned drones — has sufficient military capability to damage Iran's program in coming months. But afterward, key installations will be hidden underground and out of reach of Israeli capabilities.

At that point, the United States with its superior firepower — B-1 and B-2 bombers, powerful bunker-busting bombs, aircraft carriers — would still be able to act even if Israel could not, the former official said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue, he added that Iran is not pushing its program forward at full speed, preferring to inch ahead just enough to make progress while not providing a clear pretext for attack.

The official said it was in Israel's interest not to attack but receive real assurances that the United States would do so if sanctions had conclusively failed.

The official said Iran is capable of being persuaded to drop its nuclear ambitions — but that this required a more determined and airtight sanctions regime than currently in place.

Israel sees two critical deficiencies in the current sanctions, despite their escalation to include oil exports and the Iranian central bank: First, the U.S. oil sanctions have been delayed until summer — pushing their beginning, and certainly any effect — past Israel's perceived window of opportunity; second, China, Russia and India have not been compelled to join in — making the measures less than truly crippling.

If Israel loses faith, Israeli defense officials and external military analysts say its threats are far from empty.

Israel has been warning of an Iranian nuclear threat for nearly two decades, and the military has been systematically planning ways to stop the Iranians for years.

Scott Johnson, an analyst at the IHS Jane's military research firm, said Israel's air force is now believed to possess some 300 U.S.-made F-15 and F-16 warplanes, along with at least eight aircraft capable of refueling warplanes during a mission to Iran. He said Israel is also believed to have about 100 "bunker-busting" GBU28 bombs. The U.S.-made bombs pack 5,000 pounds (2,200 kilograms) of explosives and can go through six (yards) meters of concrete and penetrate up to 30 yards (meter) of dirt.

Israeli defense officials say the air force has practiced a number of long-distance exercises that could serve as models for striking Iran, where targets are believed to be some 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from Israel.

In 2008, 100 air force jets participated in a drill in Greece that simulated similar distances. Israel has carried out similar drills more recently in Greece and Italy, the officials say. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified military information.

Backing up any Israeli air attack, foreign analysts say that Israel could use its arsenal of Jericho ballistic missiles, which are reportedly capable of reaching Iran. Israel is also believed to possess German-made Dolphin submarines that could fire missiles at Iran.

As part of its preparations, Israel has developed a series of missile-defense systems. Last year, it activated its "Iron Dome" rocket defense system, meant to defend against short-range rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. It also has activated its "Arrow" missile defense system, meant to stop missiles from longer distances. The third generation of the Arrow is currently in development.

Dan Perry is the Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian areas, and Josef Federman is Jerusalem news editor.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved