Vigilante Justice: How The GOP Is Putting The Law In The Hands Of Extremists

Laws now encourage civilians to turn in their neighbors and handle their own disputes with deadly force.

Angry mob. Photo by John Lund Photography Inc/Getty Images.

Vigilantes and bounty hunters. They’re like bogeymen who really ought to exist only in our history books, from a time long ago. 

But in recent years, we’ve seen them back in the news, with citizens taking the law into their own hands, bolstered by laws that grant them terrifying power. 

Because they are also often heavily armed, the consequences of their actions are often tragic and fatal. Witness Kyle Rittenhouse, who crossed state lines armed with an AR-15 to “protect” businesses in Kenosha but wound up killing two people. Or Greg and Travis McMichael who hunted and killed Ahmaud Arbery in cold blood.

But it’s not just violent “citizen actions” that are being encouraged. In a number of states, new laws are on the books giving frightening power for private citizens to enforce extremist policing of our private lives and our schools.

In today’s piece, we look back at the disturbing history of vigilante laws, some even built into the text of our Constitution. We’ll then examine modern examples to see how red-state governments have empowered vigilantes and bounty hunters to do even more of their dirty work today.

— George

Vigilante justice and the farming out of state power to private extremist groups is nothing new. From its birth, the United States has openly enlisted the aid of “citizen justice” to help enforce social hierarchy and order. 

In fact, the requirement that escaped slaves be returned was carved right into our Constitution, in Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3:

"No person held to service or labour in one state under the laws thereof escaping into another shall, in consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from service or labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 specifically authorized slave owners and their “agents” (i.e. bounty hunters) to search for escaped slaves inside the free states. There was also a $500 penalty on anyone who aided and abetted the escapee—quite a sum at that time. Congress, under pressure from the southern states, renewed and updated the act with harsher penalties in 1850.

The Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante terrorist groups operated with varying degrees of state blessing. Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 people were lynched in the United States, according to Tuskegee University. 

Such actions were often carried out with the encouragement or participation of law enforcement.

In the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, some vigilantes were actually deputized. Many lynchings across the South in the ensuing decades were carried out with the knowing participation of sheriffs who were also members of the KKK.

Blacks weren’t the only ones affected by acts of “citizen justice.” 

Under the 19th-century doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which insisted the U.S. was divinely authorized to spread throughout the continent, claims of “self defense” permitted White settlers to justify the wholesale slaughter of Indigenous people as well as war with Mexico.

Laws Encouraging Vigilantism Produce Violent Results

George Zimmerman stalked and hunted Trayvon Martin through a neighborhood then successfully argued the state’s “stand your ground” laws exonerated his actions. 

More recently, Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines armed with an AR-15 with a clear intent to act as a vigilante defender of a community to which he didn’t even belong. But after killing two men and wounding another, Rittenhouse successfully argued “self defense” and is a free man today.

Greg and Travis McMichael in Georgia sought unsuccessfully to make similar arguments justifying their “citizens’ arrest” of Ahmaud Arbery, which ultimately led to Travis McMichael shooting Arbery fatally while claiming “self defense”—against a man jogging peaceably and without a weapon.

Whether it’s “citizen’s arrest,” “stand your ground,” or “constitutional or open carry” laws, several states keep vigilante-friendly laws on the books making it hard for defendants, who are often racial minorities, to achieve justice. 

Robert Tsai, a law professor at Boston University said:

"[Citizen] enforcement of different or related social norms [is] the legacy ... that descends down to us today—and what you see in these trials.” 

They raise the thorny but important question of the extent to which we should allow regular citizens to legally take on the duties of armed agents of the state.

Harvard history professor Caroline Light noted:

"[The law] has been carefully crafted to ensure that it looks neutral." 

“But in its actual application it excuses violence under the guise of self-defense for powerful social actors.”

Ira Robbins, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law, agrees and is opposed to “citizens’ arrest” laws. 

Robbins noted:

“We are in a period of vigilante justice. And frankly, when you have vigilante justice, what it ends up being is vigilante injustice.”

The notion of “self-defense” is expanding as well. It now includes, in the minds of many extremists, the defense of the state and of “liberties” in general. 

We saw this with the foiled plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had put in place statewide lock-downs during Covid-19. Some of those defendants had attended a rally at the Capitol rotunda, armed to the teeth with assault weapons, before being arrested for plotting to kidnap the governor. 

At trial, attorneys for one defendant argued the plot was a high-level “citizen’s arrest” justified by the pandemic’s blow to civil liberties.

We witnessed a similar sentiment on January 6, 2021, when violent, armed insurrectionists attempted to take the “law” into their own hands and stop the congressional electoral ballot count on the false and mistaken belief the election had been stolen. 

Republican leaders who justify or excuse the attack are essentially arguing the grievances of the GOP might be resolved violently, a belief shared by a disturbing percentage of voters. A recent study that polled people in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Montana showed 20 percent believe “violence is justified” when “the government is not acting in the best interests of the people.”

New Laws Empower Abortion Bounty Hunters

Texas took a turn toward vigilantism in 2021 when it passed S.B. 8. The law prohibits abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. 

The Texas law was unusual, however, because it was not enforced by the government but instead authorized private citizens to bring civil suits and, importantly, to recover a bounty of $10,000 from any doctor who performs an abortion or any person who aids or abets an abortion.

That list is potentially quite long and could include neighbors, family members, even an Uber driver, at least the way the law is written. 

This passage of S.B. 8 was an attempt to immunize the state from lawsuits in federal court, because at the time abortion was still legal up to 24 weeks. Texas argued since the government plays no actual role in enforcing the law, it cannot be sued in federal court for an injunction against the law. 

The state, Texas insisted, could rely on vigilantes to enforce the law.

In a stunning 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court let the Texas law stay on the books, agreeing that if no state officials played a role in enforcing the law, none could be sued to stop it.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent was sharp. 

She wrote:

“By so doing, the Court leaves all manner of constitutional rights more vulnerable than ever before, to the great detriment of our Constitution and our Republic.” 

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the action as well, stating:

“This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans—whatever their politics or party—should fear. 

"If it prevails, it may become a model for action in other areas, by other states, and with respect to other constitutional rights and judicial precedents."

“Nor need one think long or hard to realize the damage that would be done to our society if states were allowed to implement laws that empower any private individual to infringe on another’s constitutionally protected rights in this way.”

Indeed, if the state could simply deputize private citizens to do things on its behalf—even things that are not constitutional at the time—then there is no limit to the mischief red-state legislatures, seeking to leverage the extremism of some of its most radical citizens, could inflict.

And that is precisely what is happening now.

Empowering Far-Right Citizen Watchdogs

In the wake of the success of the abortion bounty hunter law in Texas, states have rushed to enact copycat legislation over a host of other social issues, including:

• Tennessee authorizes teachers to sue schools that allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. 

• Florida allows students to sue schools that permit transgender girls to participate in girls’ team sports.  

• Pending bills in several states authorize parents to sue schools or outside speakers who discuss critical race theory.

The fear of lawsuits brought by parents or private citizen groups is having a deeply chilling effect on the policies and educational practices of teachers and administrators in these states.

It is no accident the groups most affected by these citizen private action laws are racial and sexual minorities whose civic participation and rights of speech and association are being intentionally targeted. 

Just as vigilante laws, from the Fugitive Slave Act to stand your ground laws, disproportionately and historically have affected Black and brown Americans, the new class of citizen enforcement laws are designed to impact the most vulnerable communities whose lives, behaviors and speech are being monitored and circumscribed by such laws.

Fighting Back

It is critical for ordinary citizens to understand laws that might seem facially neutral are actually specifically designed to maintain existing social hierarchies. The state is intentionally delegating its vast authority to private actors to maintain the status quo and then acting as if it has done nothing of the sort.

It is also important to recognize where such delegation leads. 

By washing its hands of responsibility, the state is signaling to bad and often violent actors that they are expected to take up where the state has left off. 

Where possible, those of us who do not wish to live in a vigilante-enforced, bounty hunter-incentivized system must insist the state crack down on vigilante justice. 

A concerted effort can pay off. 

In the wake of the hate-slaying of Ahmaud Arbury, and under pressure from an outraged public, the Georgia legislature agreed to change its law to allow citizen’s arrests only in the case of shopkeepers detaining suspected shoplifters. 

Gov. Brian Kemp said the old law could be “used to justify rogue vigilantism.” And then he signed the bill into law.

If a vigilante law can be stripped of its fangs, in a state where both the legislature and the governor’s mansion are controlled by the Republicans, then ordinary citizens have an opening to insist on and effect changes anywhere.