White people who kill black people in 'Stand Your Ground' states are 354% more likely to be cleared
By any measure, the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman was a tragedy. As has been widely reported, George Zimmerman was monitoring his community in an unofficial neighborhood watch role and spotted the teenaged Martin walking through the Sanford, Florida streets. Zimmerman found Martin to be suspicious and the altercation that ensued left Martin dead.
From this incident, important questions have been raised about “Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws in place in Florida and 28 other states. In all states, private citizens have the right to use lethal force in their homes in self-defense. SYG laws extend that right to public places, such as the Sanford streets. And, these laws transfer the fact finding about whether the homicide was justifiable from a jury to law enforcement. That is, in most states without these laws, a jury must determine that the homicide was a justifiable use of lethal force in self-defense. In SYG states—including Florida—the shooter cannot be arrested unless law enforcement finds probable cause the shooting was unlawful.
That moves this crucial decision from the courtroom to the street and tilts the odds in favor of the shooter. Thus, the Trayvon Martin case provides ample evidence that SYG laws weaken justice.
While we cannot know for certain what happened in Sanford, we can look at years of homicide data to determine where the burden of proof should lie in these types of homicide cases. If there are types of homicide where shootings are often justified, SYG laws are reasonable. However, if there are few circumstances where shootings are justified, those laws will impede justice.
We turned to the Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR) maintained by the FBI, which includes all reported homicides in the US, including justifiable homicides, to determine what types of cases—and how often—civilian use of deadly force was justified.
http://blog.metrotrends.org/2012/03/stand-ground-laws-miscarriages-justice/
= new reply since forum marked as read
But not unexpected. I'm glad the race issue in this country is a thing of the past! 
