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14 FIU L. Rev. 149 (2020-2021)
The Distraction That Is Stand Your Ground

handle is hein.journals/fiulawr14 and id is 152 raw text is: THE DISTRACTION THAT IS STAND YOUR GROUND Katryna Santa Cruz* ABSTRACT Many critics of stand your ground law are motivated by the inaccurate belief that it gives Floridians a license to kill and a get-out-of-jail-free card before trial ever begins. This is a severe misinterpretation of Florida law. Stand your ground does not allow a person to kill anyone who makes him feel threatened, and it certainly does not grant defendants immunity from criminal prosecution based solely on their subjective fear of the victim. However, there still exists an aspect of stand your ground that is in obvious need of critical review and reform: self-defense jury instructions. This comment proposes that to function effectively and justly, Florida jurors acting as decision-makers in criminal trials must be reminded that they inadvertently operate with subconscious bias, and more importantly, that those biases have no place in the courtroom or in their verdict. Accordingly, in self-defense cases where race is at the heart of the issue, courts should refrain from using a color-blind approach-by banning discussions of race from the courtroom-and, instead, should adopt model jury instructions that explicitly prohibit race from being a part of the factual determination that the use of deadly force in self-defense was or was not reasonable. I. In tro d u ctio n .....................................................................................15 0 II. B ack g ro u n d .....................................................................................15 3 A. The Law of Self-Defense.........................................................154 B. Stand Your Ground: The Substantive Facet ............................156 1. The Rationales Underlying Stand Your Ground................157 2. The Non-Existent Role of Stand Your Ground in State v. Zimmerman............................................................159 C. Stand Your Ground: The Procedural Facet..............................162 D. Much Ado About Nothing .......................................................165 III. Analysis...........................................................................................165 A. Subconscious Bias ...................................................................167 B. The Failure of the Color-Blind Approach................................171 IV. Recommendation.............................................................................175 . J.D. candidate, 2020, Florida International University (FIU) College of Law. I express special gratitude towards Professor Eric Carpenter for helping me work through the issues presented in this comment and the FIULaw Review Executive Board and Staff Members for their hard work and attention to detail. I also wish to thank Michael Ellis for patiently reading countless drafts and providing thoughtful feedback. My favorite parts of this comment are entirely a product of our conversations and Michael's effortless ability to transform legal advocacy into an art form.

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