FIU Law Review Volume 14 Number 1 Symposium: Eleventh Annual Remedies Discussion Forum—Université Paris Article 12 Dauphine PSL Research University (Paris, France, 2019) 2020 The Distraction that Is Stand Your Ground Katryna Santa Cruz Florida International University (FIU) College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/lawreview Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the State and Local Government Law Commons Online ISSN: 2643-7759 Recommended Citation Katryna Santa Cruz, The Distraction that Is Stand Your Ground, 14 FIU L. Rev. 149 (2020). DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.25148/lawrev.14.1.12 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by eCollections. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Law Review by an authorized editor of eCollections. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 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.