Miranda before Miranda: The real reason for the acquittal of Lizzie Borden

Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her father 40 whacks

When she saw what she had done, gave her mother 41.

--Popular jump rope rhyme

‘Dammit, sir’ Judge Stevens said, ‘Will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?’

--Town fathers declining to investigate the stench of decaying flesh coming from Miss Emily Grierson’s house, William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”

I became interested in the story of accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden when I was a child. We girls sang the above rhyme while jumping rope, and the story came to life for us as we watched the 1975 ABC television movie “The Legend of Lizzie Borden.” I recently re-watched a portion of the movie and was surprised at its overall quality and faithful adherence to the facts—rare attributes for a 1970s-era made-for-TV movie. (My sister and I were attracted to it for a different reason: It starred our favorite actress, Elizabeth Montgomery, who was better-known as Samantha from “Bewitched.”)

There was a small flurry of media articles about the case recently when Lifetime premiered its TV docudrama, “Lizzie Borden Took an Ax.” This renewed interest also renewed my own interest in the case, and so I’ve been re-reading David Kent’s excellent The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook (Branden Books, Boston, 1992). Mr. Kent has reproduced newspaper clippings, the transcript of the inquest, and other key documents from the Borden case, and it’s one of the best resources I’ve read on any trial. It’s quite powerful to have all of this key information compiled into one volume with no commentary. One can absorb all of the information and make up one’s own mind. I wish I had such a book for every notorious legal action in history, because it frustrates me that one or two talking heads will advance a theory of the case—and then that theory will become the prevailing one even though it is wholly unsupported by the facts. For example, I had bought into the theory that Lizzie Borden was acquitted largely due to her sex, but in reading the case materials, I have discovered that I was wrong.

Facts of the case and procedural history

Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother, Andrew and Abby Borden, were murdered in their home in Fall River, Mass., on the morning of August 4, 1892, by repeated crushing blows to the head from an axe, hatchet, or similar tool.

Also living in the home were Mr. Borden’s adult daughters Lizzie, who was home at the time, and Emma, who was visiting friends in a nearby town, and the family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan, who was also home at the time. John Morse, the brother of Abby’s and Emma’s dead mother, was an overnight guest and had gone into town all morning on business. John, Emma, and Bridget were not suspected. John and Emma had solid alibis, and Bridget had no motive.

Lizzie Borden was arrested on August 11, 1892. After a sensational trial, a jury found her “not guilty” on June 20, 1893. Even though Lizzie was acquitted of murder, public opinion has not been kind to her. Many people assume that she was guilty and got away with it. Indeed, when I mentioned that I was writing about the case, many people were surprised when I reminded them that she was found not guilty and in fact lived as a free woman until her death at age 67.

Motive for murder

By many accounts, relations were tense at the Borden home in the months leading up to the murder. Andrew was a frugal patriarch, which frustrated Lizzie and Emma, who wished to keep up with the other young ladies in town with new dresses, a more fashionable address, and vacations. Further, Lizzie and Emma did not have a warm relationship with their stepmother, taking their meals separately and referring to her as “Mrs. Borden” and not “mother” or “Abby.”

Further, Andrew recently had grown impatient with Lizzie’s pet pigeons that she kept in the barn and had hacked them to death with a hatchet, and there was ongoing tension over whether Andrew would leave his daughters a large share of his estate in his will, or whether the bulk of it would go to stepmother Abby. Andrew’s former brother-in-law John was there to talk business with Andrew, too, which may have added to the family tensions.

Outside the home, Mr. Borden was a shrewd and unyielding businessman. While he appears to have been respected in town, he is reported to have been frustratingly tight-fisted as a landlord and loan officer.

In other words, while Lizzie had some motive for killing her father, it’s equally likely that other people did, as well.

Opportunity

To me, this is where the case gets tricky.

Both Lizzie and Bridget were cleaning windows and doing other chores both inside and outside the three-story house that morning. Andrew Borden was napping on the couch in a parlor on the first floor of the house, while Mrs. Borden was upstairs tidying a guest bedroom. Bridget the maid went upstairs to lie down in her bedroom on the third floor of the house. (The entire family had fallen ill to apparent food poisoning, because cheapskate Andrew had insisted that the family gamely continue to eat a mutton stew that had languished in the kitchen for days.)

At some point during the morning, the killer attacked Mrs. Borden in the upstairs guest bedroom, disabling her with a blow above the ear and then finishing the job with 19 hacks to the back of the head as she lay on the floor. Later, the killer stood over Mr. Borden as he slept on the sofa and delivered 11 blows. (Everyone who comments on this case wryly notes at this point that it wasn’t 40 and 41 whacks, so I will, too.)

Because the family religiously kept the doors locked and because the house sat on a busy street where a man fleeing the scene and covered in blood would be noticed, most of the suspicion focused on Lizzie, who was the only person in that part of the house and who had a motive, however tenuous. Nothing was missing from the home, although cash and other valuables were at hand. Further, Lizzie gave several contradictory statements to the police and generally acted suspicious, for example burning a dress that she said was ruined because she had accidentally brushed up against wet paint while wearing it.

Did Lizzie do it?

I think it’s impossible to say. While her disdain of the elder Bordens, unique access to the murder scene, and suspicious behavior make her the likely culprit, it seems equally unlikely that a relatively sane woman who wasn’t violent before or since hacked to death her parents in cold blood for no good reason. Further, it’s not easy to use an axe. If you’ve ever tried to chop wood for the first time, you know how much practice and upper body strength it requires. It’s hard to imagine that a woman who had never or rarely used hand tools and who wasn’t very large or strong could carry out these murders. Also, Lizzie wouldn’t have had time to leave the house or change clothes, so why wasn’t she covered in blood, and where did she stash the murder weapon?

While it seems hard to believe that an outside party could have committed these crimes, it’s equally hard to make the facts of the case fit Lizzie, too. This ambiguity, coupled with the lack of forensic technology of the day, means that we’ll never know.

Just because I’m a woman

Without fail, whenever I bring up this case, someone will remark: “She was clearly guilty, but I think she was acquitted simply because the jury couldn’t fathom that an upper class lady of the day could commit such a crime.” I used to agree, but now I’m not so sure.

First, Lizzie was arrested and tried for the crime—and was judged guilty in the court of public opinion—so it was apparently easy for Lizzie’s community to imagine that a lady could hack her parents to death in cold blood. Also, while it was somewhat rare, women were of course convicted of crimes in the 19th century. Notably, in 1865 Mary Surratt was convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth and others to assassinate President Lincoln, and she became the first woman to be executed by the federal government.

While it’s likely that the jury were uncomfortable with the idea that one of the town’s daughters was guilty of these gruesome crimes, I think the real problem here was one of evidence.

Body of evidence

First, police were unable to find a murder weapon. They found two hatchets in the home’s basement, but neither tool could be definitively shown to be connected to the murder. (With today’s forensic science, the crime lab would test for traces of blood and tissue and would determine whether the cutting edge of either hatchet matched the victims’ wounds, but this level of analysis wasn’t available at the time.) Secondly, while police tested stomach contents and attempted to determine the time of death based on the date at which the victims’ blood congealed, they were unable to pinpoint the time of death with any certainty as they might be today. This perhaps would have been helpful in establishing Lizzie’s degree of opportunity to commit the crimes. Further crime scene analysis might have inquired into whether Lizzie possessed the necessary height and weight to deliver the blows at that angle.

The most damning evidentiary deficiency, however, was one of admissible testimony, and it’s fascinating to me that the misstep here can and does happen today.

Under arrest

Thanks to TV cop shows, we’re all familiar with “you have the right to remain silent… anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law… you have the right to talk to a lawyer.” This is a restatement of your Fifth Amendment right to not testify against yourself when you’re a criminal defendant and Sixth Amendment right to be represented by a lawyer. The 1966 case Miranda v. Arizona prescribed the familiar words that we know today, but the underlying requirement has always been the same: When a person is under arrest, he or she cannot be compelled to answer questions and must be given the opportunity to have the assistance of counsel.

Between the date of the murders (Aug. 4) and Lizzie’s being locked up (Aug. 11), police questioned Lizzie at length, and the state held a three-day inquest at which Lizzie was called to testify. She made plenty of damning and contradictory statements during this period. Even though she wasn’t in jail, she was not “free to leave” and was therefore technically under arrest. The State of Massachusetts, in the form of the police questioning and the inquest, violated Lizzie Borden’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights by compelling her to answer questions against her own self-interest even though she was to become a criminal defendant, and they did it while denying her the right to an attorney.

When the prosecution tried to admit this testimony at her trial, the defense objected, and the judge sustained. The prosecution was left with its case of flimsy circumstantial evidence and no murder weapon, and I argue that this is the primary reason that the jury (correctly) acquitted Lizzie Borden.

Crime, no punishment

Lizzie Borden inherited her portion of her father’s estate and bought a better house in the nicer section of town. She lived a quiet life and died at age 67. After her acquittal, the State didn’t seriously pursue another suspect. Lizzie left a large portion of her estate to the local animal rescue league—to prevent cruelty to living creatures.

A Simple Plan: How to Stay out of Trouble

“Never fly in any airplane unless I say it’s an airplane, and only then if I’m the one flying it.”

--My father, Capt. Robert P. Littlefield, Jr., Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, World War II, upon seeing an “ultra-light” experimental aircraft flying over our house

“And he’s long gone/When he’s next to me/And I realize/The blame is on me/’Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in”

--Taylor Swift, “Trouble”

Because I’m 43, I’m always amused to get emails from the local bar association inviting me to their Young Lawyers Division events. It would be more accurate to say that I’m a lawyer with a young legal career. Although I’ve only been in practice for five years, I’ve noticed a certain trend. I hope I can describe this trend, because I believe my theory can save all of us a lot of heartache.

In addition to my full-time “real” law job and my law practice that I do on the side, I have donated legal services to more than one organization. Plus, I’ve taken notice of my own mistakes and those of my family and friends. This small amount of legal and life experience leaves me with this observation: Most legal problems don’t start out as legal problems—they are life management problems, and I believe they result from not one lapse in judgment but from a series of smaller errors.

Airplane crash investigators will tell you that airplane crashes are never the result of one catastrophic mistake. Instead, they are a series of small mistakes that lead the pilot down the wrong path until it’s no longer possible to pull the airplane out of the death spiral.

For example, when John F. Kennedy, Jr., crashed his Piper Saratoga off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in 1999 (killing himself, his wife, and her sister), the official cause of the crash was “pilot error.” That’s true, but it’s more accurate to say that the crash result from this series of errors: 1) The three passengers were running late, and 2) Kennedy chose to take off after sunset anyway, even though he was 3) tired, 4) stressed and distracted, 5) inexperienced with night flying, and 6) was not instrument-rated and therefore should not have been flying so close to dusk. Further, it was 7) hazy, 8) he had recently injured his foot, and 9) he failed to file a flight plan and ask for advice, and 10) he had selected incorrect radio frequencies. It’s easy to see how these smaller errors set him up to make the one large fatal error: He became disoriented while flying over the featureless, darkening Atlantic Ocean, which in turn caused him to crash the airplane into the ocean as he prepared to land.

Fine, but unless we’re pilots, what has that got to do with any of us?

Most of the legal problems that I’ve untangled during my brief career have followed the same path. It’s never one large mistake; it’s a series of lapses in judgment, growing ever larger until the person (now known as "the Defendant") is in serious (and expensive) trouble. Sometimes, this path resembles a rabbit hole, and we find ourselves making bigger and dumber mistakes to try to correct our course while we tumble ever-faster toward our fate.

The smart way to avoid this tumble, of course, is to avoid making the very first mistake. I made a list of the “first mistakes” I’ve observed (and made in one or two cases here), and I welcome additions to this list:

How to stay out of trouble:

1) Don’t do hard drugs or prescription drugs, go easy on the weed, and limit yourself to one or two drinks per outing. Don’t drive even then. (Helpful side note: You may also want to put your phone away during late-night party time.)

2) Stay away from criminals. Similarly, if you notice that a person no longer speaks to his close family members, former military colleagues, past business associates, or church members, proceed with extreme caution. No, in fact, do not proceed at all. Stay away.

3) Don’t date, befriend, hire, or work for people whose values are markedly different than yours. Avoid people who blame their problems on other people. If anyone describes himself as "misunderstood," run!

4) Don’t marry someone whose financial philosophy varies from yours. If you marry them anyway, keep your finances as separate as possible and try not to have children with that person.

5) Don’t marry someone with children unless the children’s other parent is out of the picture permanently OR has a Swiss-like diplomatic relationship with the person you’re dating.

6) Never buy anything or invest in anything when the person who is selling it cold-called you (over the phone, via email, through direct mail, etc.) Likewise, don’t rent-to-own anything at all. In fact, if a real bank or similar institution won’t give you a loan for it, it’s a bad investment and you should not buy it.

7) It’s often a bad idea to go into business with another person, but if you must, make sure everything’s in writing and everyone has equal exposure to loss. Never agree to anything called a “handshake deal” or a “gentlemen’s agreement.”

8) Surround yourself with honest, blunt people who have your best interests at heart and will tell you when you’re about to do something stupid.

9) Do not enter into a contract of any kind without walking away, thinking about it, and probably talking to an attorney. If you find yourself explaining to other people (often in an excited, rapid tone of voice) why it’s such a good idea, this is a sure sign that you’re trying to convince yourself.

10) Let go of the idea that you’re special. I mean, we’re all special in a “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” way, but don’t let someone tell you that you can make a lot of money without hard work, sacrifice, and probably some education. I’m thinking here of multi-level marketing and similar scams.

11) Don’t enroll in any college that advertises on TV. Seriously, avoid any college that is not accredited or can be described as “College, Inc.” You’ll know these by their locations in charmless office parks near interstate exits. Your college should have at least one quad.

12) Don’t do anything “under the table.” This includes hiding money from the government in order to qualify for Medicaid or Food Stamps or to avoid paying taxes. These strategies rarely work and always end up costing more money than they save. Happily, the price of honesty is very small.

13) Get your affairs in order, and make sure your close family members have their affairs in order, too. This includes—but is not limited to—making a valid will. Avoid schemes that include transferring property or money into family members’ names unless you intend to make a gift outright.

14) If it matters to you, put it in writing.

Can anyone add to this list?

Adjust the facts, ma'am: Why are we constantly lying to ourselves?

Truth? I don’t know what that means. Just give me the facts.”

--My journalism professor, Conrad Fink

The problem with Internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy”

--Abraham Lincoln, 1864

Throughout the ages, all the great philosophers have asked, “What is truth?”

The past few weeks, the not-so-great philosophers (my friends and I) have been discussing truth, as well.

For some reason, we’ve found ourselves discussing the topic of honesty again and again. While this post is not directly related to a specific area of law, a lawyer’s life’s work is applying the facts of a case to the law. When you think about it, these fact-based judgments are a non-lawyer’s life’s work, too: Will this person be a good marriage partner? Is it safe for me to walk down this street? For which candidate should I vote? Am I saving enough for retirement? Etc.

To do this life’s work, then, and to make the best judgments, we need to start by finding as many facts as we reasonably can. I’ve been surprised by the repeated failures of myself and others to do just that. We’ve got access to more information than any other people in history, and we’re still ingesting a fact-free diet, both personally and globally. Why?

Liar, liar, pants… are really tight

In one of my recent discussions about honesty, I confessed to my closest friend that I have been dishonest for much of my life and plan to work hard to improve this personality flaw. While I am quite honest in the traditional way (I give back the change when the cashier gives me too much, report all income on my taxes, etc.), I tend to lie to myself in two key ways (and, as Shakespeare could tell you, it means I’m not being honest with others):

1) I have befriended and even dated people who did not share my values. I told myself that I was being accepting and forgiving, when in fact I was making an unholy bargain—I’ll turn a blind eye to your immoral or just plain mean behaviors that don’t square with my values of hard work and integrity, and you will reward me by loving me. (Yes, I’m aware of how pathetic this sounds and I’m uncomfortable writing it in a blog that is intertwined with my professional life, but… you know, honesty....) Predictably, I am devastated later when they turn their bad behavior on me, thereby failing to hold up their end of the flimsy bargain. Then, I’m angry and that “you knew I was a rattlesnake when you picked me up” fable is ringing in my head—but who was the more dishonest person here? 2) I tell myself that I’m doing everything I can to solve a problem (for example: running every day and eating right—ignoring the many days I didn’t run and the chocolate bar I just ate) and then—yep!—being frustrated when I discover that my jeans have magically become jeggings while folded up in my drawer overnight.

While these examples sound humorous, this self-deception has serious consequences and erodes my ability to control my own life and to take care of myself.

Truth is beauty?

In another honesty-related discussion, I was wondering with another friend (who is a professional actor) what makes a good performance. He noted that a good “performance” is not a performance at all. While the actor has never been in that character’s precise situation, he or she has felt those precise emotions, and the actor must convey that to the audience. It’s not “acting”—it’s honest communication. I added that I had read an article in which a philosopher (OK, so it was a post by a self-help guru on Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP blog) argued that bad acting performances are so painful to watch because they are so clearly untrue. In other words, humans are so hungry for truth that they instinctively reject anything that is false.

This is a wonderful comment on human nature, but I wonder if THIS can be true. If we humans desire truth so much, how do you explain, for example, the nonsense that people post on Facebook? How come well-educated, reasonable people are unable to spot an obvious falsehood and even defend it when someone else refutes it using several credible, fact-based sources?

Bad news

I think we’re being fooled by Internet sources that are not as trustworthy as they appear to be.

Just twenty years ago, it took a lot of time and money to print a newspaper or to produce and air a television show.

Now, one need only have an available internet connection. It’s cheap and easy to write a blog or to post a video to YouTube. Even though we know it’s just that easy, we still trust these homemade efforts as if they were the fact-checked and edited newspapers and magazines of the past.

Further, the quality of the content of newspapers, magazines, and newscasts used to be guarded by a gatekeeper—an editor or producer—who ideally ensured that the limited space or airtime was used for its highest good. Now, countless bloggers can write whatever they want and no one questions it. Then, these blog posts are picked up by legitimate-looking aggregator sites such as salon.com, slate.com, or huffingtonpost.com, and the “articles” start to look like news.

Forget the gatekeeper: The aggregator sites appear to be loosely edited if they’re edited at all. Not only is no one fact-checking the “articles”—no one is separating the wheat from the chaff. After all, now there’s unlimited space and therefore no limit to how many pieces can be published. We get everyone’s report on everything—some fact-based and some not, some based on credible sources and some not—and it all looks equally legitimate and relevant. (I mean, how many times can you deconstruct an episode of “Mad Men” or “Girls”?)

I recently became painfully aware of this process when I was arguing with two high school friends about whether a report of an African-American family (25 people in all) being refused service due to their race at a Wild Wings Café in North Charleston, S.C., was true. (I have little doubt that the party was asked to leave. I am arguing that it is almost certainly not as simple as: “We don’t like black people! Don’t serve them!” The restaurant is a chain restaurant in a populated, diverse community, and it apparently serves and employs people of all races on a daily basis without incident. This is not a 1960s Woolworth’s lunch counter, so I am highly skeptical of a claim of such blatant racism. Eventually, Wild Wings Café placed its manager on administrative leave and launched an investigation. They apologized to the party, asked them to come in and meet with management so they could apologize in person and discuss the incident, and offered a free meal to all 25 people.)

The first report of the incident came from one of the family’s members’ Facebook post. Someone blogged about it, and this was parroted by other blogs until it appeared on huffingtonpost.com. It then appeared in a London tabloid, in USA Today, and on a local TV news station. Incredibly, no one interviewed the man himself, any other member of the dining party, or any other restaurant patrons or staff. It was all single-source and unverified, and still they ran with it.

One of my two “opponents” in the debate said, “Well, we were right. It looks like it happened just as we thought!” When I asked how he knew this, I was directed to “all of the news reports”—blog after blog, simply reposting the original post word-for-word (or re-stating it with no new reporting and no new information), no questions asked.

Why are we so willing to believe such an awful tale before we know it’s true? Racism is a serious accusation, and now, because we’ve published this story far and wide, we’ve accused the wait staff and the restaurant manager of a terrible thing, and we’ve jeopardized their jobs. Plus, we’ve told African-Americans they still can’t eat at certain restaurants in the South, further damaging race relations in this country—all based on a story with very little basis in fact.

Why are we willing to take such a specious tale and accept it as fact? What makes the implausible plausible to us?

Confirmation bias

We don’t gather facts and then form our opinions based on them. Instead, we form our opinions, and then we select facts to support our beliefs. We give more weight to facts that support our beliefs and downplay those that don’t. This cherry-picking effort is called “confirmation bias.”

If we can’t accept that we’ve got an incurable disease, we’re likely to downplay the scientific opinions of trusted doctors and go to Mexico for nonsensical oxygen therapy. If we don’t support the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), those outlandish Facebook memes start to appear reasonable to us. We’ll start “sharing” preposterous stories that the federal government can now implant every man, woman, and child with electronic tracking chips or that death panels will now refuse treatment to costly senior citizens.

The harm here is clear. On a personal level, we waste money, endanger our health, stay in bad relationships, etc. With politics, we don’t debate the real strengths and weaknesses of our political candidates and their proposed legislation, instead squabbling about whether our new mandatory RFID chips will make it easier for us to be rounded up into FEMA camps. We miss every opportunity to effect real change.

What’s the answer?

Beats me! It seems we’ve been lying to ourselves and others since the dawn of humanity, so it looks like dishonesty is here to stay. As for me, I’ve joined a running club for accountability and I’m going to start speaking up when I’m not comfortable with someone else’s deception. At least I can be honest with myself, and then I can fit into my jeans.

Open season? A short explanation of self-defense in light of Stand Your Ground

Yesterday, I attempted to defend the George Zimmerman verdict, and I was surprised that I got few negative comments. Frankly, I expected to be raked over the coals (which I welcome) for my stance. Instead, we’ve got a good discussion going, which is even better.

It’s no surprise that the main point of contention (and confusion) is self-defense and the acceptable use of deadly force, particularly in light of “Stand Your Ground” laws.

It’s confusing for everyone, including lawyers sometimes. A few years ago, my lawyer friend Drew and I overheard yet another lawyer explain her understanding of deadly force. She argued passionately (and erroneously) that she could use deadly force if, for example, she caught someone breaking into her car in her driveway. (Naturally, this has become a running joke between Drew and me: “Note to self: Don’t show up at HER house unannounced!” etc.)

It’s not that funny, though, when you consider that we appear to be a heavily-armed and increasingly nervous nation. Add to that the Trayvon Martin case, with pundits lamenting that “it’s open season on black teenagers!” and “Stand Your Ground is a get-out-of-jail-free card!” and the waters are muddied further.

Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.” Brown v. U.S., 256 U.S. 335, 343 (1921). I’m sure, therefore, that no one will consult this blog post before shooting an assailant. Still, I thought I’d try to clear up some of the confusion about self-defense, deadly force, and Stand Your Ground.

Common-law self-defense

As you can imagine, sweating over whether it’s OK to defend yourself or your property is a fairly recent concept in human history. Nonetheless, the defense of “self-defense” evolved to justify what would have normally been considered a violent criminal act.

Self-defense is an Affirmative defense and a Justification defense (“Yes, I killed him, but I had no other choice.”)

Once the prosecution proves all elements of the underlying offense (murder, say) beyond a reasonable doubt, the defense has the burden of proof to prove all elements of the self-defense claim. In other words, to successfully defend himself of the crime by using self-defense as a justification, the defendant must show that the assailant presented an unlawful threat such that the defendant believes himself to be in imminent (not future) peril of death or serious bodily harm—and that self-defense is necessary to avert the threat. The peril need not be real, but the defendant’s fear that it is real must be both honest and reasonable under the circumstances. (So… even if the defendant was being “attacked” with a dummy knife as a Halloween prank, he could still theoretically be justified in defending himself.)

The standard is both objective and subjective: In other words, the jury considers both whether the defendant truly believed that he was in danger AND whether that belief was reasonable. See People v. Goetz, 73 N.Y 2d 751 (1988).

Deadly force and the duty to retreat

In general, a defendant is justified in using only the amount of force necessary to repel the attack. If someone shoves a defendant, he is probably not justified in shooting back.

At common law, the defendant had a duty to retreat from the assault if he could do so. For example, if someone attacked the defendant on the street, the defendant was expected to run away if possible. The notable exception to this is known as the Castle Doctrine—as in, your home is your castle. The defendant had the duty to retreat only as far as his home (or, in some cases, his car or place of business), in part because, once you’ve run home (or you’re already at home), it’s not possible to retreat any farther than that.

All of the above was codified into each state’s criminal code, but some states have passed enhanced self-defense statutes that discard—in part or in total—the duty to retreat. These are the so-called Stand Your Ground laws.

Stand Your Ground

About thirty states (depending on how loosely you define “stand your ground”) now have some type of Stand Your Ground law with no duty to retreat or a limited duty to retreat from anywhere the defendant has a legal right to be. Most—if not all—of these laws place some restrictions on Stand Your Ground—the defendant can’t invoke this defense if he’s not lawfully carrying the gun he used, for example, or if he has “unclean hands”—is engaged in criminal activity at the time.

Florida’s Stand Your Ground law reads:

“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” § 776.013(3), Fla. Stat. (Supp. 2012).

Wasn’t Trayvon Martin standing his ground?

If, as Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel testified, he was afraid of George Zimmerman, why was he not allowed to defend himself—with his punch to Zimmerman’s nose, say?

If you re-read the statute, you’ll see that it requires the person to be “attacked” and to “meet force with force.” From all evidence, George Zimmerman was at most following Martin (and may not have been doing that). This does not rise to the level of an attack or of force on Zimmerman’s part.

What about that lady who got 20 years for firing a warning shot?

On July 31, 2010, Marissa Alexander returned to her husband’s home, where she had not lived in two months. (She had a restraining order against him, but she voluntarily returned, perhaps to get some possessions.) The couple argued, and she went to her car in the garage and returned with a gun. She fired a shot into the wall (she says it was a warning shot; reports call the bullet placement “adult level”) in the direction of her husband and his two children. A judge rejected her Stand Your Ground claim.

Based on these facts, it would be hard to make a case for a Stand Your Ground. When she went into the garage, she appears to have given up her ground. (You can’t retreat and then come back and stand your ground.) Also, by coming back into the house with a gun after walking away, she appears to be the aggressor in this situation and not the victim. Further, it is unclear whether she had a legal right to be at this house, as the two were separated and she had not lived there for two months.

She was convicted of three counts (one for the husband and one for each of the two children) of aggravated assault and was sentenced to 20 years in jail under a mandatory sentencing law after she rejected a plea deal that would have reduced her jail time to three years.

While I’m sure we can find some examples of the uneven application of Stand Your Ground laws, this case clearly isn’t one of them.

It’s not open season on anyone

If you’re attacked, you are justified in using as much force as you honestly and reasonably believe is necessary to repel the attack—but no more—including deadly force if that’s what it takes. If you’re in your home, you do not have the duty to retreat. In a Stand Your Ground state, you no longer have the duty to retreat even if you’re not in your home unless you fall under your state statute’s limitations—you’re the initial aggressor, say, or you’re engaged in some illegal activity.

Hopefully, you won’t find yourself in this position.

Race to the Bottom: Why the George Zimmerman Verdict Was the Right One

“Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts.”

Scout Finch in Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”

“It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth.”

Juror No. 8 in Reginald Rose’s “Twelve Angry Men”

“No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

U.S. Const. amend. V

As absolutely everybody knows, George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder (and manslaughter) of Trayvon Martin July 13, 2013.

And… that’s about the only thing on which we agree. After that, our opinions—and indeed the very facts on which we’re basing those opinions—diverge wildly and widely.

It’s funny: While I almost never get caught up in these heavily-covered trials and can’t, for example, tell you anything at all about Caylee Anthony, I believe that the George Zimmerman trial has changed the way I think.

I’ve been fascinated—and frustrated—with the epidemic misstatement of the facts and the misinterpretation of the law (including my own, until I look it up and find that I am often dead-wrong about what I think I know). Frankly, it makes me question whether I’ve based any of my deeply-held political opinions on fact—or on someone else’s (maybe shaky) interpretation of the facts.

As I’ve watched various friends and family members (and myself!) age, I’ve noticed that we either get more “sure” of ourselves or less so. For me, the more I learn, the less I know. That’s unsettling, but I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Otherwise, you end up rigid, bitter, and a caricature—“Kids today!” and “Get off my lawn!”

Due to both the intense media coverage and the incendiary subject matter, everyone has been discussing the case, which picks at two of our most divisive political topics (guns and race). Mix in the typically shameful way that we treat young black men in our criminal justice system, and add that a teenager is dead, it’s no wonder we’ve all felt a deeply personal reaction to the verdict.

Among my circle of Facebook and real-world friends, anyway, the divide is pretty wide, and I’m a little disturbed to find myself on the “wrong” side here—maybe for the first time. There’s no middle ground, apparently. What’s worse, your opinion says something about who you are as a person.

What my oversensitive ears are hearing is this: If you’re not willing to concede that George Zimmerman is a vigilante racist who stalked an innocent child and shot him through the heart for no other reason than because he was black, then you’re on the side of the racist-apologist gun-nuts. On the other hand, if you’re not ready to label George Zimmerman a blameless, holy creature, then you’re a likely Communist who goes for pedicures with Al Sharpton every other Saturday.

Much of this appears to come from our eagerness to make this case, this one single case, represent what is wrong—or right—with America. We’re trying to make this case fit our beliefs about whichever hot-button political issue we champion. As a result, I’ve heard that it’s now “open season on black teenagers in America!” and conversely “don’t act like a criminal and you won’t be treated like one!” Sigh.

How can this be? How can we all have the same facts but come up with opposite conclusions? The problem, I think, is that we don’t all have the same facts AND we’re not all correctly applying the law to the facts.

Rather than add to all of the noise, I hope to clarify some things. Further, as you’ve probably guessed, I want to explain my (apparently) radical viewpoint that justice was served. I don’t meant this: “Well, given the evidence, the jury did the best it could, but they weren’t able to make it stick.” Instead, I mean: While it is a terrible shame that Trayvon Martin is dead, George Zimmerman should not have been held criminally responsible for his death.

Here’s why:

What are we trying to prove?

To discuss any case meaningfully, we’ve got to lay the foundation: burden of proof, statutory elements, and standard of proof.

In general, in any type of case, the party who brings the suit is required to provide sufficient evidence to convince the trier of fact to abandon the default position.

In a criminal case in the U.S., this means that the prosecution, the People, the state (the party bringing the suit) must provide sufficient evidence (must prove that the defendant committed every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt) to convince the jury to abandon the default position (that the defendant is innocent).

To ensure that we’re not depriving a criminal defendant of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to life and liberty without due process of law, we require ourselves, the People, to find him guilty of the crime to the highest standard (beyond a reasonable doubt, which means not to an absolute certainty, but that no reasonable person could come to a different conclusion given the evidence). Otherwise, we will not allow ourselves to send him to prison.

George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder, which in Florida is “the unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design….” § 782.04(2), Fla. Stat. (Supp. 2012).

Even though Zimmerman was not originally charged with manslaughter, the judge allowed the State to add manslaughter as an option for the jury. This is technically legal, but it gave the prosecution quite an advantage over the defense. For reasons that are too complicated to discuss here, Florida is less friendly than other states are to this “if you can’t prove murder, then try manslaughter” option. This move was controversial, and it should have been, as it put the defense at quite a disadvantage AND it was contrary to the prosecution’s theory of the case. Still, the judge allowed it over the defense’s vigorous objections, so it went to the jury.

In Florida, manslaughter is: “The killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification….” § 782.07(1), Fla. Stat. (Supp. 2012).

The defense of self-defense

Even if the State proves each element of the statute (and the defense doesn’t successfully refute this), the defense can raise a defense that means: “Even if I did it, I should be excused because….” These are known as “affirmative defenses” (“yes, I did it”), and self-defense is one of them.

Nearly everyone is confused about “Stand Your Ground” laws and whether they played a part in the defense. It’s no wonder people are confused, because it’s complicated.

It’s true that Florida has a “Stand Your Ground” law, and that the essence of this law was explained to the jury in the jury instructions—as it should have been, because it is the current self-defense law in Florida. It is also true that the question of whether George Zimmerman could use deadly force with no duty to retreat is a moot one: If the jury believed that Trayvon Martin was on top of George Zimmerman and was getting the better of him in the fight, then George Zimmerman had no duty to retreat because it was not possible for him to retreat.

This is crucial: For this reason, it does not matter whether George Zimmerman approached Trayvon Martin first. (This is not really disputed.) It also does not matter whether George Zimmerman is overly-suspicious of black teenagers. (The evidence does not show that he was. If you believe that he is a racist, I would ask for you to review the testimony and other evidence again. Also, read the non-emergency and 911 call logs from Zimmerman’s prior calls as a neighborhood watch coordinator. Listen to the non-emergency call that he made that night. Review Rachel Jeantel’s testimony, too. Question whether any evidence shows that Zimmerman “stalked” or even continued to follow Trayvon Martin after the dispatcher said, “We don’t need for you to do that, sir.” Despite what you’ve heard, I think you’ll be surprised.)

At any rate, this is why I chafe at the claims that Florida is somehow different and that this wouldn’t have happened in some other states or that it is “open season on black teenagers!” If someone has you pinned down and is punching you—and you fear death or great bodily harm (as any reasonable person would), you are allowed to use deadly force to defend yourself—in every state, at any time.

Like it or not, the evidence presented at trial supported George Zimmerman’s claim that this is what happened—the prosecution did not present much if any credible evidence to support any other version of events. In my opinion, the evidence that was withheld from the jury tended to be more favorable to George Zimmerman’s version.

The arguments I’ve heard against Zimmerman—that he was a racist vigilante who started the fight, pursued Trayvon Martin, and shot him for no good reason—do not stand up to (admittedly, scant) eyewitness testimony, call logs, the ballistics expert, and other evidence. There was no “getting off on legal technicalities,” and Zimmerman didn’t walk free because the prosecution was incompetent. There was not enough evidence to convict him—and it was probably because the prosecution’s theory of the case was not consistent with the facts.

So why does “Stand Your Ground” matter?

At common law, a person who was being attacked and feared death or great bodily harm could not use deadly force to defend himself if he was able to get away. In other words, before he could use deadly force, he had a “duty to retreat.” In general, a person didn’t have the same duty to retreat if he was in his home—because traditionally, your home is your castle AND if you’re already at home, you can’t very well retreat any further than that.

Several states (20 or more at last count) have expanded this in their self-defense statutes—the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws. Generally speaking, under these laws, a person who is attacked and fears death or great bodily harm can use deadly force to defend himself and has NO duty to retreat—not only in his home, but anywhere where he has a legal right to be.

In Florida, the law reads:

“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” § 776.013(3), Fla. Stat. (Supp. 2012).

Based on this statute and the case law that interprets it, Zimmerman’s claim that he acted in self-defense would be accepted unless the jury had a reasonable doubt that he did not act in self-defense. See Murray v. State, 937 So.2d 277, 279 (Fla. 4th Dist. 2006) and Montijo v. State, 61 So.3d 424 (Fla. 5th Dist. 2011).

Apparently, this holds true UNLESS, as another part of the Florida statute has it, you’re the initial aggressor, in which case you’ve still got a duty to retreat before you can use deadly force: “The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who… Initially provokes the use of force against himself… unless… he… has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger….” § 776.041(2)(a), Fla. Stat. (Supp. 2012).

Oh, well, there you go, right? Zimmerman was the initial aggressor, wasn’t he? Didn’t he approach Trayvon Martin first?

Well, “initial aggressor” takes more than that. The case law that I read (and I read a lot) suggests that it requires the “initial aggressor” to actually attack the other person or to otherwise have “dirty hands”—to be breaking some law. I have heard some arguments that Zimmerman was stalking Martin or otherwise frightened him, and therefore he was the aggressor. This does not appear to rise to the level of “initial aggressor,” though—certainly Zimmerman was not breaking any laws by asking Martin what he was doing there (if that is what he did).

Anyway, for reasons stated above, this hardly matters. The evidence showed that Zimmerman had no duty to retreat—because it was impossible for him to retreat.

That’s why “Stand Your Ground” is important here—yet it did not determine the outcome of the case.

If you want to argue that “Stand Your Ground” laws encourage vigilantism or that George Zimmerman should have stayed in the car even though he had the right to decide otherwise, you can. I’m arguing that those points are irrelevant to the case.

Putting it all together

All of the above lengthy and complex legal analysis boils down to this:

The prosecution had the burden to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman either 1) Killed Trayvon Martin because he had a “depraved mind”—so full of ill will as to be evil, corrupt, outrageously inhuman (second-degree murder) AND that he was not acting in self-defense OR 2) Was so negligent and careless of human life that he killed Trayvon Martin with no justification or provocation.

To me, and to the jury, the prosecution failed to do this.

Racism and common sense

Maybe it’s human nature, some evolutionary suspicion of “otherness”, but I believe that almost everyone is to some degree a racist, or a sexist, an ageist, a classist, etc. President Obama says that every African-American man has had the experience of being mistaken for a waiter, say, or noticing a woman clutch her purse when he walks past—and I don’t doubt it. This is shameful and damaging, but that’s not nearly as bad as it gets, e.g. “driving while black.” Even though I’m a woman and was raised not-so-wealthy in Southern Appalachia, I’ve got no idea what it’s like to automatically fall under police suspicion because of what I look like. Several parents of African-American children have reported that they feel compelled to give their sons “the talk”—how to act, where to keep your hands during a police stop so that the police don’t assume you’re reaching for a gun. This is horrifying.

George Zimmerman saw Trayvon Martin and believed that he was a suspicious person. Is this racist? I’m not so sure. The neighborhood was troubled by burglaries, and Zimmerman saw a person walking at night and called the report in—as he had been asked to do in his capacity as a neighborhood watch coordinator. (According to Zimmerman, Martin was walking slowly in the rain and looking at the houses, but there is no evidence of this other than Zimmerman’s word.) This does not seem like racism to me. Are we really saying that Zimmerman would have decided NOT to call in the report had Martin been white and yet was walking in the same place at the same time of night and behaving in the same way? Surely not.

We’ve also heard that Zimmerman (who is Hispanic in Florida and should know what prejudice feels like) mentored African-American kids and dated an African-American girl. I’m not sure we need to go that far, but I haven’t heard any evidence that convinces me that Zimmerman was a rank racist who “profiled” Martin because of race.

In fact, when I've asked people why they believe this, I've been given "facts" that bear little to no resemblance to the facts of the case.

It's also disturbing that NBC news apparently edited Zimmerman's call to make it sound as if he said: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black.” In fact, the conversation went like this:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he's up to no good. Or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy - is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

Why are we trying so hard to make it sound as if Zimmerman profiled Martin based on face--particularly when Zimmerman didn't appear to know what Martin's race WAS until after the fact?

Further, if he had wanted to “stalk” Martin and shoot him vigilante-style, it doesn’t make sense that he would summon the police first, does it?

As far as the racism inherent in the criminal justice system, many were outraged when the local district attorney failed to charge Zimmerman with a crime at first. Again, I’m skeptical that race played a part. Instead, I think the prosecutors were correct when they said initially that there was not enough evidence to convict Zimmerman.

Then, Florida governor Rick Scott removed local prosecutors and appointed a special prosecutor, who charged Zimmerman. In my opinion, this was in response to public and other outside forces—and I’m not comfortable with that. At any rate, Zimmerman was charged with murder—even though there was little evidence to support that charge and even though he had a compelling claim of self-defense. No grand jury necessary, even though the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments call for one. Further, the “charge” of manslaughter was added later, even though that’s an odd move for a Florida judge—and it took away the defense’s ability to attack this in pretrial.

For these reasons, I don’t see how anyone can reasonably say that the system was biased in FAVOR of George Zimmerman.

While I won’t deny that the deck is often stacked against poor people or people of color, we appear to have bent over backwards to get George Zimmerman charged and tried.

Racism is a problem. Falsely accusing people of being a racist doesn’t solve the problem.

Justice was served

In a perfect world, and based on the ideals of our criminal justice system, the State cannot take away a person’s constitutional right to life, liberty, or property without due process of law. We ensure this by requiring the State to prove—beyond a reasonable doubt—that the defendant has violated every element of a criminal statute. Further, we require the trier of fact to weigh any defenses that the defendant may offer, and to apply the appropriate standard of proof to those claims. Then and only then, do we have the right to imprison a defendant.

We require this of ourselves even if we don’t like the defendant, or if we’re horrified that a teenager is dead, or if we are ashamed of our society’s racist past or of the racist and classist tendencies of our criminal justice system. We can’t right other wrongs on the back of THIS criminal defendant.

Is it sad that Trayvon Martin died? Horribly sad. Is our criminal justice system always fair? No! Is George Zimmerman a prudent man who used the very best judgment? Almost certainly not.

In this case, however, despite intense media coverage and pressure from the public and perhaps from the federal government, a properly-seated jury weighed the evidence and decided that the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that George Zimmerman committed murder or manslaughter.

We’ve got plenty of examples of cases in every state of the flaws in our criminal justice system.

This case is not one of them.

A logical conclusion: the slippery slope of logical fallacies

My dorky friends and I love to talk about what makes a good argument and the pitfalls of logical fallacies. This is one of my all-time favorite topics of discussion, which is no doubt why I’m widely regarded to be so hip and cool. (Note: Anyone who calls herself “hip and cool”… is not.)

Anyway, I’ve wanted to write a blog post for some time on logical fallacies, but I didn’t think I had any original thought to add to the subject. I needed a good, solid example with a common thread running through it—and boy, have I found it.

In response to a controversy that is brewing in my hometown of Dahlonega, Ga., regarding teacher-led prayer in school, I started a new Facebook page called LC True. The “yes to teacher-led prayer in school” crowd has plenty of support (including that of the principal and school board), so I wanted to provide a place for students, teachers, parents, community members, and anyone else to come together and discuss the issues. I hoped, among other things, to provide high school students with support and to let them know that someone out there is listening to them. As a side-effect, I hoped to deflect some wrath away from 15-year-olds and onto myself, ‘cause I can take it. (Mission accomplished!)

In all of the arguing back and forth, I’ve been fascinated by the logical fallacies that have hit the table. I think it’s an interesting illustration, so I wanted to share some of them. (I’m not saying that I’m immune to logical fallacies. My friend Tim had diagnosed me with a Straw Man problem at one time, and he was right!)

How do you know?

One of my Criminal Justice professors used to challenge us like this: “How do you KNOW what you know?” This was a life-changing question for me, because until that point, I could get away with bad argument. At that moment, I became fascinated with what makes a good argument—in other words, are we weighing the facts and truly proving or disproving a premise to get closer to the truth? When people utter that obnoxious phrase “education teaches you how to think!,” this is what they mean, I believe.

A sound argument is based on a fact which supports a premise, which leads in turn to a conclusion. If the facts are sound and the premise is sound, the conclusion will be true. For example: All humans are mammals. If Robin is a human, then Robin must also be a mammal.

This example is so simple as to be silly, but what if we say this:

It is a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause for public school teachers to lead students in school prayer.

The teachers at LCHS led students in a Christian prayer at LCHS on Wednesday, May 1, 2013.

The teachers therefore violated the First Amendment.

(Now, of course, there are many mini-arguments to be made here. The first statement is not really valid unless you first show that the Supreme Court has held that public schoolteachers are agents of the state, and that as such, if they lead students in religious activities, it’s the same as the state sponsoring a religion. Also, you’d need to show that teachers were present and led or aided in the prayer. Plus, you’ll want to discuss the Establishment Clause and cite Supreme Court cases holding that the Establishment Clause says what you think it says.)

Fighting fair

In a previous blog post and on the LC True page, I’m making the above argument. A lot of people have disagreed with me, as I hoped they would. It can be frustrating, though, that we’re not arguing about the same thing. In fact, we appear to agree on some key points, and yet disagreement persists in spite of that. Why is this? How can we agree and disagree at the same time?

Religion is the most emotional subject around, and by definition we have deeply-held beliefs about it. I suspect our arguments often fail because not only are we not playing by the same rules, we’re not even playing the same game. For example, I once heard a brilliant scientist discuss evolution. She carefully laid out her premises, which included key points from the fossil record. An audience member said, “That stuff is not true. Satan put those fossils there to fool you!” She responded: “I can’t argue with that logic,” and the man left, satisfied that he had won the argument. The audience were outraged! How could this brilliant woman fail to put this clown in his place? She explained: He’s using a different system of logic. If he’s allowed to punt in favor of the supernatural, we’re not arguing about the same thing at all. There’s no use arguing.

With that in mind, here are some examples of a few logical fallacies from the LC True movement. (Fair is fair: I’ve tried to find examples from all sides of the issue.)

Ad hominem

Latin for “to the man,” this method attempts to refute a person’s premise by attacking the person herself and not the premise.

Example: “You’re wrong. You can’t see the truth because you’re not a Christian. You are arrogant; you think you’re so smart, etc.” and from the other side: “(A certain teacher) once made a racist, sexist, etc., comment to me when I was in school there, so you can see he doesn’t care about children.”

I will note here that I’ve been tempted to make one of these arguments myself. When more than one person demanded that I declare my religion, prayer habits, and plans for the afterlife in public, I had to refrain from comparing this tactic to Nazism. Also, it’s easy (but wrong) to make someone look stupid by attacking poor spelling and grammar.

Ad ignorantium

Because we don’t know it’s NOT true, it must be true.

Example: “You weren’t there, so you can’t say that God wasn’t moving at that school. You can’t prove that God didn’t command this.” Also, I would add this: “Some things are true but can’t be proven with logic and reason.”

No True Scotsman

This occurs when your opponent tries to disprove your premise by offering examples of why it’s not true. If I argue that all Scotsmen wear kilts all the time, and you show me pictures of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly in pants, I could erroneously say, “Well, then, they’re not TRUE Scotsmen.”

Example: One person argued that the county is majority Christian and that all Christians support teacher-led prayer in school. Another person countered: “I’m a Christian, and I think what happened was wrong.” The response: Well, then, you’re not a TRUE Christian.

Post-hoc ergo propter hoc

Latin: “After this therefore because of this”—because an event happened after another event, the first event caused the second.

Example: “The Supreme Court took prayer out of school. Then, you had all these school shootings.” From another viewpoint: “I wonder if this recent prayer-in-school movement is responsible for the drop in the LCHS graduation rate.”

Straw Man

Rather than refuting the original premise, you make up a new premise and refute THAT “straw man” premise.

Example: “You’re wrong! It’s not illegal for people to pray in public” (when the issue is whether it’s a violation of the Establishment Clause for teachers to lead prayer, etc.).

Hey, nobody is saying it should be illegal to pray in public, but that’s not what the controversy’s about.

Moving the goalpost

When your opponent successfully refutes your premise, you change your premise.

Example: “Big deal. It was before school and only last a few minutes into first period.” Counter: “No, it lasted until nearly 2 p.m.” “Well, so what. It was student-led.” “No, up to 12 teachers participated.” “Yeah, but it was voluntary.” “Not really, because…” Etc.

Slippery slope

This fallacy warns us that, if we accept a premise, it will inevitably lead to the extreme of that premise.
Example: “If you don’t let teachers follow their convictions, the next thing you know, you’ll be saying that they can’t pray at their desks in private—or even at home.” OR “If you let these kids pray, you’ll have to set up special foot-washing stations for Muslim prayer at taxpayer expense. Then, we’ll be forced to serve kosher meals in the lunchroom.”

A logical conclusion

It’s easy for any of us to become flustered when arguing—particularly when we’re arguing about a touch subject like religion—and to seek refuge in a logical fallacy. This is a complex problem, though, so we’ve got to stick to the real issues. If we don’t we’ve got no hopes of finding common ground, and we owe it to those high school kids to try. You can’t argue with that logic.