Trayvon Martin: Lawyer Still Talking Stand Your Ground Law Even If It Didn’t Matter

The death of Trayvon Martin is still being used by the family lawyer, Benjamin Crump, to denounce Florida’s stand your ground law… even though George Zimmerman chose not to use it in his defense.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, George Zimmerman says he doesn’t have any regrets from shooting Trayvon Martin. The rapper Rick Ross also made some controversial lyrics about the situation.

The stand your ground law continues to be controversial after all this time. In fact, some media reports claimed the trial of Michael Dunn would invoke stand your ground, but instead his defense referred to “Justifiable Use of Deadly Force as an affirmative defense.” Despite any controversy, Florida chose to not repeal Stand Your Ground this past fall.

Benjamin Crump has been talking publicly about the Trayvon Martin case for quite a while now, but he was recently asked about stand your ground in relation to recent cases:

“When you think about these verdicts, when you kill an unarmed black child, you don’t go to jail. But when you shoot and you miss — attempted murder on the other occupants on the car — you get held accountable. Marissa Alexander, a black female in Jacksonville, Florida, she shot a warning shot on the ceiling. She says ‘Stand Your Ground,’ and she was convicted for 20 years. What message are we sending someone? Don’t miss? Is that what the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law means? Don’t miss? If you miss, you get off. If you kill a young black man, you go home. That’s just troubling.”

In fact, lawmakers are trying to rectify this problem with Florida’s gun laws, which had nothing to do with Stand Your Ground. Currently, “10-20-Life” law requires anyone showing a gun while committing a felony to face a minimum of 10 years in prison, although the NRA said the law was intended to stop plea deals for actual criminals using guns.

Because of the case of Marissa Alexander, Florida is considering passing a “warning shot” bill, which would allow people to display or discharge their weapon away from a person in self defense. Alexander is also being given a re-trial after an appeal so it’s possible she may get out of jail, as well.

Regardless, Crump insists that Stand Your Ground has a major issue remaining:

“The problem is this law that says as long as you can articulate some imaginary fear, that it’s justified to kill our children, it’s legalized murder, and we have to talk about that.”

Do you agree with the Trayvon Martin family lawyer that Florida’s Stand Your Ground law needs to go?