Even the barrage of « Stand Your Ground » laws passed over the past 15 years borders on vigilant justice and gives private citizens a lot of freedom in how to use force to protect themselves. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese « vigilante », meaning « guard » or « guard ») is a person who practices or participates in vigilant justice or performs public safety and retaliatory justice without a warrant. The crucial question of our time is whether responsible Republicans in Congress and across the country will step forward in the coming months to reject vigilant justice and insurrection, and instead defend the Constitution and the rule of law; whether the GOP returns to its roots or abandons its founding principles, thirsty to regain political power at all costs. The fate of our democracy depends on the answer to this question. There is a very fine line between serving the public and breaking the law. Whatever your intention, vigilant justice is illegal. Moreover, it is common knowledge that vigilant justice is committed in the name of revenge. Revenge means that the act has been aggravated and is therefore considered a worse offense than committing the act without cause. Obert and I note that the American tradition of vigilantes dates back to the early nineteenth century; It reached its peak in the years leading up to the Civil War. During this period, vigilant justice was most pronounced in the West and South, where groups formed with the express intention of protecting bourgeois values and white supremacy in a context where they claimed that crime and vice were widespread. These are people who usually break the law to protect others, and many people think of them when they hear « vigilant justice » or « vigilante justice. » The real definition is quite different and refers to someone who, in his own way, applies the law that already exists.

As Americans focus on how black people in particular have been monitored in this country, they should separate harmful forms of vigilant justice from a deeper notion that democracy could force ordinary citizens to rely at least partially on themselves to enforce the law. Most vigilantes are motivated by the feeling that vigilantes must intervene to obtain justice. Here are some other motivations: He went there to impose a kind of vigilant justice in a community that was sparked by an act of racist violence. And his vigilant justice now has the blessing of a jury of peers. The conviction of the three men responsible for Ahmaud Arbery`s death could be a wake-up call for some potential militiamen – that taking the law into one`s own hands is legally risky. On the other hand, it is likely to harden the resolve of those who believe it is acceptable to resort to vigilant justice to demonstrate their power over others. The punishment imposed on the justice of self-defense depends heavily on the actual act. For example, if a person believes that an alleged murderer is not being adequately punished, and they take matters into their own hands and murder the murderer, the vigilante himself will be charged with murder. In general, however, liability for retaliation or taking charge of the law is just as serious as any other illegal act. Michaels and Noll are right when they assert that « new private enforcement laws support a civilized form of vigilant justice. » Vigilant justice thrives when encouraged or tolerated by the dominant power structure. Lynchings committed by militiamen in postwar Confederate states were often approved by those in power to keep former slaves in place.

Kyle Rittenhouse has received at least tacit approval for his vigilant justice from law enforcement officials in Kenosha. Elements of the concept of vigilant justice are found in the biblical account in Genesis 34 of the abduction and rape (or, according to some interpretations, the seduction) of Dinah, Jacob`s daughter, in the Canaanite city of Shechem by the eponymous son of the ruler and the violent reaction of his brothers Simeon and Levi. who killed all the men in the city for revenge. saved his sister and plundered Shechem. When Jacob protested that their actions might cause problems for him and his family, the brothers replied, « Should he [i.e., Shechem] treat our sister like a sister? » As a vigilant justice scholar in U.S. history and a political scientist interested in how the state and law evolve over time, I, like others, have found that law and order have long been as much a private matter for many Americans as it is for the government. American self-defense justice is primarily associated with the horrific lynching campaigns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that targeted black Americans and other racial minorities. But that`s not all. Many vigilante groups have good intentions and believe they are improving their communities by protecting those vulnerable to legal exploitation.

However, this is not always the case. Some vigilante efforts include targeting the poor, minorities, and other disenfranchised groups who the vigilante believes should not exist in their ideal society. For this reason, any self-defense justice is generally considered dangerous. While it is not technically illegal to be a vigilante, almost every aspect of vigilante justice is. For example, community guards work with local police, but they do not have the power to make arrests or take action, as this is usually reserved for police officers. Thus, when a neighbourhood guard takes matters into his own hands instead of sharing information with local peace officers, it can be seen as a vigilant act of justice. The two jurists, who warned of the rise of vigilant justice through the Texas way of private law enforcement, pointed to recent examples such as Tennessee`s law empowering teachers to sue schools that allow transgender students to use restrooms that match their gender identity. Florida law allows students to continue schools that allow transgender girls to participate in girls` team sports.

And scientists have noted pending bills in several states that allow parents to sue schools or outside speakers who discuss critical racial theory. The most damaging, violent and longest period of vigilant justice in the country took place in the Confederate States after the Civil War. Nearly 5,000 lynchings (extrajudicial executions) took place between 1882 and 1968, the vast majority involving African-American victims. But the lynchings were not limited to South Americans or black Americans. Many Indians suffered the same fate. Chinese residents of Western states were victims of lynchings that led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Vigilant justice is often motivated by a thirst to gain or retain power over unpopular groups. So, as mentioned earlier, while vigilant justice itself is not illegal, almost everything that has to do with being a vigilante. If you find yourself in a situation where you have retaliated and taken legal matters into your own hands, you should immediately contact a competent and qualified criminal defense lawyer. The cases of Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery, which have attracted so much media attention in recent days, are just the tip of a dangerous iceberg that threatens the rule of law in the United States.

Both cases illustrate the growing tendency of misguided Americans to seek vigilant justice – to take the law into their own hands. In the Western literary and cultural tradition, the characteristics of vigilante justice were often conferred on folk heroes and outlaws (e.g., Robin Hood[3]). Although it has been most often used to establish racial and economic hierarchies, self-defense justice – including actual lynching – has also sometimes been used by disadvantaged communities in self-defense. Formally defined justice justice emerged in America during Spanish rule. Throughout U.S. history, the differences between vigilant justice and lawful arrest and punishment have always been obscure. Often, self-defense justice has not been used against police efforts, but against their active encouragement. In fact, this still seems to be the case with some recent protests. But what she and most other commentators fail to notice is the disturbing way SB8 and its imitators, as well as the Rittenhouse decision, reverse the traditional relationship between state legality and vigilant justice.

The vigilante traditionally operates outside and against the law – not as a tool of the law itself. Legal systems are designed to centralize the law enforcement apparatus to protect citizens from vigilant justice. Trump has used his presidency to promote self-defense justice by « indirectly threatening, encouraging, or advocating violence against individual political opponents and/or racial minorities. » Attorney General William Barr, on the other hand, has argued that this vigilante justice could be a premonition of the unrest to come, if funding for policing in communities across the country is effectively reduced. And like today`s brand, the first outbreaks of self-defense justice took root in times of social, cultural and political transition and in places of great cultural diversity and institutional instability. Vigilantes attack foreigners who they say don`t really belong to their community. What happened in the Rittenhouse case represents a dangerous legalization of self-defense justice, characteristic of political regimes dependent on paramilitary organizations rather than the traditional attitude of American law towards self-defense justice. Last spring`s passage of the notorious SB8, Texas` draconian anti-abortion legislation that allowed for the private enforcement of its prohibitions, is another example of the legalization of vigilant justice.