The sentence of life in prison without parole for Michael Dunn, an armed white man who killed unarmed black teenager Jordan Davis during an argument over loud hip-hop music in Jacksonville, Fl., “demonstrates that our justice system works,” said Judge Russell Healey, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The shooting fueled a debate over a new breed of self-defense laws, adopted in nearly half the states, which make it easier for armed individuals to kill in self-defense in public places. The judge said stand your ground has been misunderstood and suggested that Dunn's actions “exemplifies that our society seems to have lost its way. … We should remember that there's nothing wrong with retreating and deescalating the situation.”
Law Prof. Donald Jones of the University of Miami says the case fits into a broader cultural debate about the worth of young black men, an issue that has exploded into rowdy protests in Ferguson, Mo., after the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 9. “I think, had Michael Dunn been acquitted, it would have sent a signal to other people that it's hunting season, that society will not take seriously and will not value the lives of certain kinds of blacks,” says Jones