Beyond Stand Your Ground: A Comparison of Justifiable Homicide in California and Michigan

• In Event: The Politics of Stand Your Ground: Origins and Implications

Abstract

In No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society, historian Richard Maxwell Brown argued that the “No Duty to Retreat” doctrine had become a distinguishing mark of the “American Mind” by the late 1800s. Twenty years after the publication of this seminal book, his argument is more relevant than ever: each year in the US, around 300 to 400 civilians commit justifiable homicide, and many states have expanded citizens’ legal ability to commit justifiable homicide through so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws. While much public attention has been paid to the impact of Stand Your Ground laws on justifiable homicide rates, this obscures the occurrence of justifiable homicide even in states without Stand Your Ground laws. This paper examines the incidence of justifiable homicide in two states with similar rates of justifiable homicide but very different gun/sociolegal cultures: California (which has no Stand Your Ground law, no shall-issue concealed carry law, and relatively strict gun control) and Michigan (which passed Stand Your Ground in 2005, shall-issue concealed carry legislation in 2001, and has relatively unrestricted gun laws). This paper (1) establishes the distinct socio-legal trajectories that led to this divergence in justifiable homicide laws; (2) examines the geographic distribution of justifiable homicide cases across California and Michigan; and (3) provides a preliminary analysis of the impact of California’s and Michigan’s divergent socio-legal systems on justifiable homicide with regard to race, class and gender. In doing so, it highlights the dangers of reducing the American “No Duty to Retreat” doctrine to Stand Your Ground laws.

Author

• Jennifer Carlson, University of Toronto