Aljazeeera America has the story Florida amendment aims to restrict Stand Your Ground court records.
Had the provision been in effect two years ago, for example, the Tampa Bay Times would not have been able to conduct its award-winning investigation on how Stand Your Ground has been applied unevenly across the state.
“We relied heavily on these records to examine the key details behind each case and track how defense lawyers were using the law and how judges, prosecutors and police were interpreting it,” said Chris Davis, the Times’ investigations editor, in an email to The Stream.
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Florida State Attorney Angela Corey has come under fire from civil rights groups expressing concern over what they consider to be an uneven record in several high-profile cases. Under Corey’s tenure, George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, and Michael Dunn received a partial verdict which stopped short of convicting him for the killing of another unarmed black teenager, Jordan Davis. Meanwhile, Marissa Alexander, a 34-year-old African-American woman, was sentenced to twenty years after firing warning shots at her estranged husband.
I wonder if these laws could be held unconstitutional violation of the Interstate Commerce clause. I would like to visit Florida in the winter, but I am afraid to go there because of these laws.