Commentary: How self-defense laws can allow violent racism to go unpunished
Under standard self-defense doctrine, hair-trigger assumptions about Black boys and men that may have caused Andrew Lester to shoot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl for merely ringing his doorbell could shield Lester from criminal liability. That reflex, even if rooted in racism, might well be deemed reasonable in the eyes of the law.
This deeply disturbing legal reality highlights the limited capacity of our legal system to adequately address such incidents even if we repealed “stand your ground” laws for civilians and abolished qualified immunity for law enforcement. Even without those unjust laws, the
