By Thom Hartmann

Trayvon Martin shooting protest (Photo credit: david_shankbone)

Why were Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman judged by different standards?

Ever since a Seminole County, Florida jury found George Zimmerman not guilty on Saturday night of murdering Trayvon Martin, many commentators in the mainstream media have made a special effort to point out that Florida’s “Stand Your Ground and Shoot First” law played no role whatsoever in Zimmerman’s acquittal.

Here, for example, is a clip – cut courtesy of Media Matters – of CNN’s Chris Cuomo dismissing Stand Your Ground’s impact on the case during a Sunday broadcast, less than a day after the jury announced its verdict.

Chris is just wrong. “Stand Your Ground” isn’t some stand-alone law, it’s a complete modification of Florida’s rules governing the use of deadly force for self-defense. As a result, it played an essential role in the Zimmerman trial. In fact, it created two different standards by which the six jurors judged both George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.

As former Florida Secretary of State Dan Gelber has pointed out, pre-Jeb Bush, pre- Koch Brothers, and pre-ALEC Florida law would have required the following instructions to be read to a jury in a self-defense murder trial:

“The defendant [George Zimmerman] cannot justify the use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm unless he used every reasonable means within his power and consistent with his own safety to avoid the danger before resorting to that force. The fact that the defendant [George Zimmerman] was wrongfully attacked cannot justify his use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm if by retreating he could have avoided the need to use that force.”

Read More The Evil New ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law That Made the Killing of Trayvon Martin Permissible | Alternet.