Label
Council Members Komives and Harper
Title
Encouraging the Ohio General Assembly to drop their consideration of changes to personal protection laws known as "Stand Your Ground," as introduced in House Bill 228; and declaring an emergency.
Summary
WHEREAS, the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman has focused attention on "Stand Your Ground" law and similar laws across the country. Ohio's House of Representatives is considering House Bill 228 which would create similar "Stand Your Ground" laws in Ohio. In response, compassionate groups have opposed any efforts to create similar laws in Ohio; and
WHEREAS, our legal system has long recognized that a person has the right to defend himself and his home from invasion and attack. This is often called the Castle Doctrine; and
WHEREAS, expanding Castle Doctrine laws to increase to the extreme of Stand Your Ground Laws, creates a situation where the law presumes that the use of deadly force is reasonable, prevents prosecutors from conducting an investigation, eliminates the duty to retreat even if retreat can be accomplished safely and immunizes the shooter from criminal prosecution and civil liability; and
WHEREAS, research has shown that Stand Your Ground laws have a disproportionate impact on people of color. Researchers from the Institute for Public Health found that "there indeed is a quantifiable racial component in the impact of the Stand Your Ground law in Florida; namely, a suspect is twice as likely to be convicted of a crime if the victim is White, compared to when that victim is not White." Essentially, this finding invokes a similar finding from the era prior to the Civil Rights Era where it was determined that there was stricter enforcement for crimes when the victim was white and less rigorous enforcement when the victim was non-white; and
WHEREAS, it has been shown that there is not a decrease in crime in states that have enac...
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