Statement of Commissioner Gail Heriot in Examining the Race Effects of Stand Your Ground Laws and Related Issues, a report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
This report should not have been published in this form. When the results of an empirical study don’t come out the way Commission members hoped and expected that they would, the right thing to do is usually to publish those results anyway. Why hide useful information?
Instead, the Commission sat on the report for years. Then it decided to discard the draft written by our staff and publish instead a transcript of the witness testimony received at our briefing that took place on October 17, 2014 in Orlando, Florida (along with Commissioner Statements like this one). In that way, the staff’s empirical findings could be buried forever.
No one would claim that the results of the staff’s empirical study conclusively resolve all the controversy over “Stand Your Ground” laws or even over Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in particular. But they are useful for what they don’t show. The most passionate opponents of “Stand Your Ground” laws appear to have believed that the empirical evidence would show clearly that African Americans are harmed by these laws. But it turns out things are not so clear; the evidence of discrimination against African Americans or even real disparate impact is absent. Yes, it is true that a disproportionate number of those killed in Florida in cases in which, correctly or incorrectly, the “Stand Your Ground” law has been invoked were African American. But it is also true that a similarly disproportionate number of those for whom that law has been invoked were African American.
African Americans are disproportionately on both sides of the issue.
Race Effects of Stand Your Ground Laws <—download the report
If you guys don’t mind, I am taking a victory lap on this one. Lord knows I’ve been banging that drum a long time.