The Hill reports the following:
Rep.
Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said Wednesday that
she would soon introduce legislation that would cut federal funding to any state
that doesn’t require neighborhood watch programs to register with police.
Jackson
Lee said her Justice Exists for All Act
is a response to the trial of George Zimmerman, who was found not guilty of
murder and manslaughter charges after shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman was the neighborhood watch coordinator in the Florida neighborhood
where the shooting took place.
“We
will … decrease the incidence of gun violence resulting from vigilantes by reducing by 20 percent the funds that would otherwise be
allocated … to any state that does not require local neighborhood watch
programs to be registered with a local [law] enforcement agency,”
Jackson Lee said on the House floor.
She
said her bill would also use the threat of
less federal money to entice states to change their “stand your ground” laws.
Jackson Lee said her bill would only allow states to avoid a cut if their laws
are amended to include a “duty to retreat.”
“For states that do not require a duty to retreat, we will
question their federal funding and assess their Justice Department funding and
reduce it by 20 percent,”
she said. She was not specific about what the change might mean for state laws.
Florida
has a “stand your ground” law, which allows people to use deadly force against
others when they think their lives are in danger in certain cases.
In
his trial, Zimmerman did not rely on Florida’s “stand your ground” law, and
instead used a traditional self-defense argument. Leaning on “stand your
ground” could have allowed the court to decide early on in the case that
Zimmerman’s actions were protected, which would have ended the prosecution’s
option of pursuing criminal or civil charges.
Jackson
Lee said her bill would also require the U.S. attorney general to study state-level
“stand your ground” laws.
“Let’s
speak to the pain of the American people,” she said. “Let’s look at ways of
fixing the law.”
Beard v United States, 158 U.S. 550 (1895): The Supreme Court upheld what is now referred to as the Castle Doctrine. The Court wrote 'that a man who was on his premises when he comes under attack and does not provoke the assault, and has at the time reasonable grounds to believe, and in good faith believes,' that the deceased 'intended to take his life, or do him great bodily harm is not obliged to retreat, nor to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to 'stand his ground.'
Brown v United States, 256 U.S. 335 (1921): The maxim of 'no duty to retreat' was upheld with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writing 'detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.'
South Dakota v Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987): Congress may attach reasonable conditions to funds disbursed to the states without running afoul of the Tenth Amendment, but neither the Federal government nor the state can infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens.
Dora the Explorer has a better chance of getting such a bill signed into law on Mars, where Neil Armstrong, according to Mensa Member Jackson-Lee, planted the American flag in 1969.
2 comments:
Once again a politician falls back on the “I must appear to be doing something” meme and introduces another law that would have not changed the outcome of the event that purportedly inspired the law.
Dumbass
1. He was not on Neighborhood Watch patrol at the time of the incident but was on the way to a store. He being part of NW had nothing to do with the incident.
2. Stand Your Ground never came into the trial. If there had a been a “duty to retreat” law in Florida, the outcome would have been the same as retreating while someone sits on your chest and bashes hour head against the sidewalk is not possible.
The saddest thing of all to me, by far, is the impression being imposed on us that somehow the states "work for" or have to "beg from" the feds as a matter of course......
10th amendment, What 10th amendment?
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