Family says fatal shooting case shows 'stand your ground' defense doesn't work for Black men

[sarisataka]

Family says fatal shooting case shows ‘stand your ground’ defense doesn’t work for Black men

William “Marc” Wilson was recently convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a shooting that he says was in self-defense against a racist attack on a Georgia highway, and his family and lawyers say the case reveals a racial double standard for “stand your ground” laws.

“If you put me in Marc’s shoes, there’s no way that I would've been prosecuted,” Wilson’s cousin, Chance Pridgen, who is white, told Yahoo News. “Odds are I would've been given a medal — probably gotten a parade in my name. It’s unreal how he was treated just because he’s a little bit more tan than I am.”

Wilson, a biracial Black man, 21 years old at the time of the shooting on June 14, 2020, fired his legal handgun at a pickup truck of white teens who he says were yelling racial slurs at him and trying to run him and his white girlfriend off the road near Statesboro, Ga. One of those bullets struck and killed 17-year-old Haley Hutcheson, who was in the back seat of the truck.

After an emotional seven-day trial late last month in Bulloch County Superior Court, a jury found Wilson guilty of felony-level involuntary manslaughter. Wilson was acquitted on the other charges, including felony murder, which carried with it a potential life prison sentence. He is set to be sentenced Tuesday.

https://news.yahoo.com/family-says-fatal-shooting-case-shows-stand-your-ground-georgia-marc-wilson-213221643.html

[JI7]

1. OF course not. Most of these laws are meant for White people to be able to kill minorities without

punishment.

[jimfields33]

6. Florida has a stand your ground law. Does Georgia?

The law could be different in Georgia. Just because one state has a law doesn’t mean all 50 do.

[live love laugh]

2. Duh 🙄

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Appeal. Violation of 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Two standards for applying same law to two different races.

[Biophilic]

4. Well that's surprising, isn't it.

[GenXer47]

5. self defense is such a crock

of shit because all it requires is the jury to buy the idea the shooter "reasonably believed their life was in danger". Is not "belief" the absence of reason?
Kyle Rittenhouse "reasonably believed" a guy throwing a plastic bag at him was a mortal threat? Yeah, sure. You should have to prove hell of a lot more than that for blowing a hole in some poor fool's abdomen.

[Dr. Strange]

7. Well, not really.

Kyle Rittenhouse "reasonably believed" a guy throwing a plastic bag at him was a mortal threat?

It wasn't the bag that made Rittenhouse "fear for his life", it was the combination of Rosenbaum chasing him, threatening to kill him, and finally trying to grab his gun.