Only marginally been following this court case, but it seems like a badly constructed prosecution and there's little chance in hell that Zimmerman will be convicted as a result. Far too many doubts for any kind of unanimous decision by the jury. It doesn't matter that Zimmerman was stalking Martin, there are just way too many questions about what happened during the fight/death.
Yeah the issue is the law itself. To Confroller7's question, it's not at all clear to me that in Florida you can't stalk a person, start a fight, and then shoot when you're losing. That's the ridiculous state of our/Florida's system. Predicated mostly on a belief that black people are scary and stuff.
I wish they would've gone straight for manslaughter, seems easier to prove.
Harvey, or any of the gun supporters, how do you rationalize guns in a case like this? If this dude didn't have one, it may have been a fight, but that's probably it. I highly doubt Zimmerman would have been beaten to death.
Are you asking how are guns justified in a one off of a one off of a one off situation? That seems like what you're seeking an answer to and I don't think anyone can give you that.
Even if it's self defense, shouldn't you still be responsible for provoking the altercation? You shouldnt be able to pick a fight you cant win and kill someone because you were losing.
There's different levels of provocation. If I confront someone who is clearly without a doubt in the middle of committing a crime and the end result is something like this, am I to blame?
He could have taken a non lethal shot too, like in the leg. No guarantee that would stop a scared person who has been stalked, and now shot, from continuing to fight, but it would most likely put a break in the altercation.
Pretty sure dude and many others with guns around the country are not marksmen. If you don't want to use lethal force, you don't use a gun. Shit ain't some action movie where dude is all getting charged at with a knife and dude shoots him in the arm. Come on...
It's easy to say "shoulda done this", but I just don't understand how you can get away with something like this when the whole incident results from something you didn't need to do and the police said not to do.
Soulstrut all of a sudden trusting police? Unfortunately there are many situations where the individual at hand may have a better grasp of the situation and also not exactly trust police advice or response time. Not saying that was the case here but it's definitely applicable in many other situations.
Not saying that you're pushing for this but one thing I absolutely hate is people using cases like this to deprieve people of their rights and push for further gun control instead of tightening up existing laws.
The facts of this case are completely different. I mean, for starters, the victim was white.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Controller_7 said:
Harvey, or any of the gun supporters, how do you rationalize guns in a case like this? If this dude didn't have one, it may have been a fight, but that's probably it. I highly doubt Zimmerman would have been beaten to death.
Not trying to bait up some nasty discussion. Just looking for some honest thoughts on that.
I don't rationalize guns. Guns already exist without me needing to rationalize them. And if they exist in the hands of criminals, including our "government", then every one of us should also have the "right" to have them in order to protect ourselves. I don't trust just the crooked military and the crooked police to be the only ones in our society to have guns. So yeah, at times shit happens. But in this case, it's more about Zimmerman being a racist psychopath than it is about him having a gun. Without a gun, I'm fully confident that he woulda found some other way to kill a young black man.
But I do agree that Martin never said "tonight you're going to die." I think Zimmerman added that because he knows that if the jury believes that then there is no question that the use of deadly force is reasonable. I don't think he needed to make that up, but he has said it consisentely, so I think it shows that he was aware of the law. Whether it turns out to be an over-reach, I don't know. Most of the rest of his story seems to be coroborated by the witnesses so far.
Remember, Bernie Goezs got off and he was clearly out trolling for someone to shoot. It's a crummy case for the prosecution, but maybe they had to at least try to bring it. Maybe if they had brought it right away, it would have been better as far as appearances, but I don't think its going to change the outcome.
If we are going to engage in "what ifs", how about this one. What if ...
Q: Who are you, what are you doing here?
A. I'm not doing anything, I'm staying with my father at a friends house around the corner.
Or would answering the question have stripped him of his human dignity?
Except he was never asked that question, or any question... so if we're going to ask that, we might as well ask: why didn't GZ ask him what he was doing, or identify himself? When asked that by the police, he said it was because he was scared and it didn't occur to him to do that.
The question the police didn't ask, that I would have asked is: If you were too scared to even speak to the guy, why did you confront him in the first place? The police had already been called, why not let them handle it?
I can understand being scared, but when a person gets killed just because another panicked and caused an incident that didn't need to happen, how valid is that as an excuse?
If I confront someone who is clearly without a doubt in the middle of committing a crime and the end result is something like this, am I to blame?
Fair enough, but we're talking about a situation where the individual being confronted was clearly not in the middle of a crime, so that notion doesn't really apply.
sabadabada said:
Remember, Bernie Goetz got off and he was clearly out trolling for someone to shoot.
But in this case, it's more about Zimmerman being a racist psychopath than it is about him having a gun. Without a gun, I'm fully confident that he woulda found some other way to kill a young black man.
If we are going to engage in "what ifs", how about this one. What if ...
Q: Who are you, what are you doing here?
A. I'm not doing anything, I'm staying with my father at a friends house around the corner.
Or would answering the question have stripped him of his human dignity?
Except he was never asked that question, or any question... so if we're going to ask that, we might as well ask: why didn't GZ ask him what he was doing, or identify himself? When asked that by the police, he said it was because he was scared and it didn't occur to him to do that.
The question the police didn't ask, that I would have asked is: If you were too scared to even speak to the guy, why did you confront him in the first place? The police had already been called, why not let them handle it?
I can understand being scared, but when a person gets killed just because another panicked and caused an incident that didn't need to happen, how valid is that as an excuse?
I think you are right. I thought in the recording of his interview with police he had. I think that changes things a lot. That he failed to identify himself as a block watcher or whatever he was. Definitely makes it a closer call.
If I confront someone who is clearly without a doubt in the middle of committing a crime and the end result is something like this, am I to blame?
Fair enough, but we're talking about a situation where the individual being confronted was clearly not in the middle of a crime, so that notion doesn't really apply.
I prefaced my entire post with that it's pointless to look at this situation and go HOW CAN YOU JUSTIFY GUNZ when such a situation is clearly a rare occurance. I'm just saying that HIDE AND SIT AND WAIT FOR THE POLICE is absolutely not an option in quite a few parts of the country.
If I confront someone who is clearly without a doubt in the middle of committing a crime and the end result is something like this, am I to blame?
Fair enough, but we're talking about a situation where the individual being confronted was clearly not in the middle of a crime, so that notion doesn't really apply.
I prefaced my entire post with that it's pointless to look at this situation and go HOW CAN YOU JUSTIFY GUNZ when such a situation is clearly a rare occurrence. I'm just saying that HIDE AND SIT AND WAIT FOR THE POLICE is absolutely not an option in quite a few parts of the country.
It is always an option when the 'suspect' in question is not actually doing anything worthy of suspicion... Plus, it's not like the only two choices are "hide and wait for the police" or "pursue them in a threatening manner and be ready to use your gun". There is middle ground there.
I actually don't think the gun was the problem in this case, it was the incredibly poor judgment of the person carrying it. That is probably the case for a great many gun-related incidents, and contrary to popular belief, it's the primary concern for a lot of gun control advocates.
It is always an option when the 'suspect' in question is not actually doing anything worthy of suspicion....
I don't think I said anything contrary to that.
Plus, it's not like the only two choices are "hide and wait for the police" or "pursue them in a threatening manner and be ready to use your gun". There is middle ground there.
Sure, of course there's always going to be something else you can do. However, depending on the situation, I'd imagine fight or flight kicks in pretty quickly. I don't think most people have the training or experience to act in a calm and collected manner in a potentially dangerous situation. Given that, I really don't think a one-off case like this should be used as an excuse to neuter or repeal laws (like many are calling for) that are designed to allow people to protect themselves (amazing that a law is needed for this) during potentially dangerous moments.
I actually don't think the gun was the problem in this case, it was the incredibly poor judgment of the person carrying it. That is probably the case for a great many gun-related incidents, and contrary to popular belief, it's the primary concern for a lot of gun control advocates
These Stand Your Ground laws have no place in a civilized country.
Co-sign. Civilized countries have zero crime and innocent civilians' lives are never put in danger.
Or did you mean that a civilized country wouldn't have a need for such laws because people would have enough freedom to protect themselves from potentially deadly harm without approval from the government.
Remember, Bernie Goezs got off and he was clearly out trolling for someone to shoot. It's a crummy case for the prosecution, but maybe they had to at least try to bring it. Maybe if they had brought it right away, it would have been better as far as appearances, but I don't think its going to change the outcome.
Completely surprised by this acquittal, I thought for sure he would do some time for this avoidable tragedy. But I'm pleased that the jurors didn't convict him out of outrage or vengeance but instead did their duty and followed the law and the instructions of the court. I thought they would convict on the lesser charge of manslaughter to appease everyone, sort of meet somewhere in the middle.
There was reasonable doubt here no question, there were no eye witnesses. Therefore unfortunately we must follow the law and the jurors did. And no matter which side you back it was the right thing to do by the jurors. No one should ever be convicted by public sentiment but by the law. No matter who they are or what they are accused of doing. I feel in my heart that he should do some time for taking another life but I followed the trial and if I were a juror I would abide by the law and dismiss the case because the state had not met the burden of proving its charges beyond reasonable doubt. You can hate the law but I invite you to come up with a better way for courts to find justice.
The whole idea behind reasonable doubt and the structure of our justice system is that it's far worse for an innocent man to be imprisoned than for a guilty man to go free. And because rarely is any crime videotaped from beginning to end with microphones there to pick up everything said, the only thing we can go on is evidence and sometimes eye witnesses, which have been shown to be very unreliable, so all we are left with is proof beyond doubt. And whenever there is any doubt about what happened no matter how small and crucially the doubt is reasonable then the defendant must be acquitted. That is smart and understandable and fair. I would rather the perpetrator of a crime against me go free than for an innocent man to do time for a crime he didn't commit. What's a better way, I challenge anyone to think a better system than the one that's been built up over millennia in jurisprudential thought.
Now back to the case, this isn't about who started it. Though we all can agree that inside we feel that it should be. It's not in the law who started a confrontation. The jury can't consider that. If you have siblings, remember being a kid and fighting and then mom comes along angry at you both. Immediately fingers start pointing and accusations fly about who started it. No matter who got the worst of it, the culpability lies with the instigator. However I don't think this can be codified into law but it is often used as an aggravating factor in charges or sentencing.
To convict on second degree murder the law says he must kill out of ill will, hatred, spite or from a depraved mind. For manslaughter he must have no legal justification for the killing, ie not done in self defense. You don't have any of that here, at least not proven beyond doubt. So you cannot hate on the jury here.
Here's what probably happened: Zimmerman initiated the confrontation by profiling a young man in his crime-occurring neighborhood. The young man, being a young teenage man filled with rebellion against authority and testosterone at its peak and not liking himself being wrongly accused of being up to no good (I was all these things too at that age) said who the hell do you think you are to ask me that. Words were exchanged, things got heated and Trayvon swung and started an ass whooping on Zimmerman. Not liking being under someone pummeling them with fists and with no real way to stop it because out of inadaquency or skill, he reached for the only thing he had that could stop the beating. Unfortunately this was a gun and sadly Trayvon died.
Had Zimmerman stayed home instead of patrolling his hood none of this would happen. I can fault him there. That is what police are for. Think for a minute how you would think of this if you replaced the self-appointed watchman Zimmerman with a uniformed police officer and the same events transpired. Of course you may say that Trayvon would have respected the officer more and things wouldn't have gotten out of hand. And I agree. But I've been in my share of fist fights and I can tell you and many on here know that in the heat of the moment you instinctively do anything you can to prevail, especially a street fight where there are no rules.
Zimmerman although a free man now, this will forever haunt him as long as the public's memory lasts. He will be instantly recognizable on the street, he will have trouble finding employment, and he will probably be subjected to vigilante justice. And although that's wrong, he won't get any sympathy from me nor should he from anyone.
What can be learned from this case? I'm struggling with this. It's such an awful series of events to glean any knowledge from. Well for one any future Zimmerman types should be warned that they also putting themselves in real jeopardy by taking the law into their own hands. Don't confront suspected criminals. That's what police are for. And for young men and really anyone in general it's not wise to fight at all nowadays because you never know who has a gun on them.
And whenever there is any doubt about what happened no matter how small and crucially the doubt is reasonable then the defendant must be acquitted. That is smart and understandable and fair. I would rather the perpetrator of a crime against me go free than for an innocent man to do time for a crime he didn't commit.
.
Oh well done. The exact opposite of your Gitmo reasoning, inside a week. Glad to hear you're back onside.
And whenever there is any doubt about what happened no matter how small and crucially the doubt is reasonable then the defendant must be acquitted. That is smart and understandable and fair. I would rather the perpetrator of a crime against me go free than for an innocent man to do time for a crime he didn't commit.
.
Oh well done. The exact opposite of your Gitmo reasoning, inside a week. Glad to hear you're back onside.
Cheers, you might have a point if we were talking apples and oranges. American law for its citizens for crimes committed versus enemy combatants in a war. Hmm, how many British soldiers were tried in a court for murder of German soldiers in the '40's? Oh yes maybe your saying that it was only a crime to attack a state by its symbols of wealth (trade center), military power and leadership (the pentagon), or government (the failed attack on the White House). No act of war there, right? Just some hoodlums. Better send the cops not the military. Easy to assert such nonsense from your vantage point on the other side of the pond. How dare you compare the two. But the real breaking point is that I never said gitmo is right it's just understandable from a reactionary government and a paranoid people. Let's be done with it, but lets do it right. It's a quagmire of legal and ethical morass and nobody seems keen on tackling the issue. But you are keen on tripping me up but you are doing it very badly.
Until Gitmo dudes are given trials, your screed is just one empty word after another.
So you say, glad to hear your solidarity with Mohammed al Kaboom and the others. The sadists and misogynists. The guys who wouldn't think twice about stabbing an off duty British soldier in broad daylight after ramming him with their car then calmly regurgitating their anti-Semitic hate rhetoric and anti-Zionist dogma to be recorded and replayed from a witness' iPhone in abject horror to the unfolding event. All the while minutes tick off till your special reserve police department, the blue vests, the ones that carry guns show up and add a little needed aggressive response and retribution to the situation. Bet you felt sorry for the perps. Stockholm syndrome
zimmerman seems to be a big guy. how come he used a gun to shoot down a kid? even if trayvon was a criminal, why kill him? if they had a fight why pull out a gun? when is it exactly legal to shoot someone down in a sissy fight?
didn't he go outside with a plan? he took his gun with only one intention and he ended up using it. seems like a pretty easy plan and it should be considered in this case. i think it's that simple. he started a fight and killed someone. he should be guilty?! no?
Comments
I wish they would've gone straight for manslaughter, seems easier to prove.
Are you asking how are guns justified in a one off of a one off of a one off situation? That seems like what you're seeking an answer to and I don't think anyone can give you that.
There's different levels of provocation. If I confront someone who is clearly without a doubt in the middle of committing a crime and the end result is something like this, am I to blame?
Pretty sure dude and many others with guns around the country are not marksmen. If you don't want to use lethal force, you don't use a gun. Shit ain't some action movie where dude is all getting charged at with a knife and dude shoots him in the arm. Come on...
Soulstrut all of a sudden trusting police? Unfortunately there are many situations where the individual at hand may have a better grasp of the situation and also not exactly trust police advice or response time. Not saying that was the case here but it's definitely applicable in many other situations.
Not saying that you're pushing for this but one thing I absolutely hate is people using cases like this to deprieve people of their rights and push for further gun control instead of tightening up existing laws.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/defense-murder-drove-man-kill-neighbor/story?id=17226874#.UdQLeR03uSo
The facts of this case are completely different. I mean, for starters, the victim was white.
I don't rationalize guns. Guns already exist without me needing to rationalize them. And if they exist in the hands of criminals, including our "government", then every one of us should also have the "right" to have them in order to protect ourselves. I don't trust just the crooked military and the crooked police to be the only ones in our society to have guns. So yeah, at times shit happens. But in this case, it's more about Zimmerman being a racist psychopath than it is about him having a gun. Without a gun, I'm fully confident that he woulda found some other way to kill a young black man.
Q: Who are you, what are you doing here?
A. I'm not doing anything, I'm staying with my father at a friends house around the corner.
Or would answering the question have stripped him of his human dignity?
Remember, Bernie Goezs got off and he was clearly out trolling for someone to shoot. It's a crummy case for the prosecution, but maybe they had to at least try to bring it. Maybe if they had brought it right away, it would have been better as far as appearances, but I don't think its going to change the outcome.
Except he was never asked that question, or any question... so if we're going to ask that, we might as well ask: why didn't GZ ask him what he was doing, or identify himself? When asked that by the police, he said it was because he was scared and it didn't occur to him to do that.
The question the police didn't ask, that I would have asked is: If you were too scared to even speak to the guy, why did you confront him in the first place? The police had already been called, why not let them handle it?
I can understand being scared, but when a person gets killed just because another panicked and caused an incident that didn't need to happen, how valid is that as an excuse?
Excellent point.
b/w
If you don't want to kill someone, don't own a gun for protection.
I think you are right. I thought in the recording of his interview with police he had. I think that changes things a lot. That he failed to identify himself as a block watcher or whatever he was. Definitely makes it a closer call.
I prefaced my entire post with that it's pointless to look at this situation and go HOW CAN YOU JUSTIFY GUNZ when such a situation is clearly a rare occurance. I'm just saying that HIDE AND SIT AND WAIT FOR THE POLICE is absolutely not an option in quite a few parts of the country.
I don't either, but he'll be found guilty in a civil trial.
It is always an option when the 'suspect' in question is not actually doing anything worthy of suspicion... Plus, it's not like the only two choices are "hide and wait for the police" or "pursue them in a threatening manner and be ready to use your gun". There is middle ground there.
I actually don't think the gun was the problem in this case, it was the incredibly poor judgment of the person carrying it. That is probably the case for a great many gun-related incidents, and contrary to popular belief, it's the primary concern for a lot of gun control advocates.
I don't think I said anything contrary to that.
Sure, of course there's always going to be something else you can do. However, depending on the situation, I'd imagine fight or flight kicks in pretty quickly. I don't think most people have the training or experience to act in a calm and collected manner in a potentially dangerous situation. Given that, I really don't think a one-off case like this should be used as an excuse to neuter or repeal laws (like many are calling for) that are designed to allow people to protect themselves (amazing that a law is needed for this) during potentially dangerous moments.
Agreed 100%.
Or did you mean that a civilized country wouldn't have a need for such laws because people would have enough freedom to protect themselves from potentially deadly harm without approval from the government.
Did Zimmerman take the safety off the gun before he approached Martin, or did he do it during the struggle?
If it's off before he approached, that's bad. If it's during, maybe the struggle wasn't as bad as he wants people to believe.
Bernie Goetz was also 30 years ago.
Unbelievable.
There was reasonable doubt here no question, there were no eye witnesses. Therefore unfortunately we must follow the law and the jurors did. And no matter which side you back it was the right thing to do by the jurors. No one should ever be convicted by public sentiment but by the law. No matter who they are or what they are accused of doing. I feel in my heart that he should do some time for taking another life but I followed the trial and if I were a juror I would abide by the law and dismiss the case because the state had not met the burden of proving its charges beyond reasonable doubt. You can hate the law but I invite you to come up with a better way for courts to find justice.
The whole idea behind reasonable doubt and the structure of our justice system is that it's far worse for an innocent man to be imprisoned than for a guilty man to go free. And because rarely is any crime videotaped from beginning to end with microphones there to pick up everything said, the only thing we can go on is evidence and sometimes eye witnesses, which have been shown to be very unreliable, so all we are left with is proof beyond doubt. And whenever there is any doubt about what happened no matter how small and crucially the doubt is reasonable then the defendant must be acquitted. That is smart and understandable and fair. I would rather the perpetrator of a crime against me go free than for an innocent man to do time for a crime he didn't commit. What's a better way, I challenge anyone to think a better system than the one that's been built up over millennia in jurisprudential thought.
Now back to the case, this isn't about who started it. Though we all can agree that inside we feel that it should be. It's not in the law who started a confrontation. The jury can't consider that. If you have siblings, remember being a kid and fighting and then mom comes along angry at you both. Immediately fingers start pointing and accusations fly about who started it. No matter who got the worst of it, the culpability lies with the instigator. However I don't think this can be codified into law but it is often used as an aggravating factor in charges or sentencing.
To convict on second degree murder the law says he must kill out of ill will, hatred, spite or from a depraved mind. For manslaughter he must have no legal justification for the killing, ie not done in self defense. You don't have any of that here, at least not proven beyond doubt. So you cannot hate on the jury here.
Here's what probably happened: Zimmerman initiated the confrontation by profiling a young man in his crime-occurring neighborhood. The young man, being a young teenage man filled with rebellion against authority and testosterone at its peak and not liking himself being wrongly accused of being up to no good (I was all these things too at that age) said who the hell do you think you are to ask me that. Words were exchanged, things got heated and Trayvon swung and started an ass whooping on Zimmerman. Not liking being under someone pummeling them with fists and with no real way to stop it because out of inadaquency or skill, he reached for the only thing he had that could stop the beating. Unfortunately this was a gun and sadly Trayvon died.
Had Zimmerman stayed home instead of patrolling his hood none of this would happen. I can fault him there. That is what police are for. Think for a minute how you would think of this if you replaced the self-appointed watchman Zimmerman with a uniformed police officer and the same events transpired. Of course you may say that Trayvon would have respected the officer more and things wouldn't have gotten out of hand. And I agree. But I've been in my share of fist fights and I can tell you and many on here know that in the heat of the moment you instinctively do anything you can to prevail, especially a street fight where there are no rules.
Zimmerman although a free man now, this will forever haunt him as long as the public's memory lasts. He will be instantly recognizable on the street, he will have trouble finding employment, and he will probably be subjected to vigilante justice. And although that's wrong, he won't get any sympathy from me nor should he from anyone.
What can be learned from this case? I'm struggling with this. It's such an awful series of events to glean any knowledge from. Well for one any future Zimmerman types should be warned that they also putting themselves in real jeopardy by taking the law into their own hands. Don't confront suspected criminals. That's what police are for. And for young men and really anyone in general it's not wise to fight at all nowadays because you never know who has a gun on them.
Oh well done. The exact opposite of your Gitmo reasoning, inside a week. Glad to hear you're back onside.
Cheers, you might have a point if we were talking apples and oranges. American law for its citizens for crimes committed versus enemy combatants in a war. Hmm, how many British soldiers were tried in a court for murder of German soldiers in the '40's? Oh yes maybe your saying that it was only a crime to attack a state by its symbols of wealth (trade center), military power and leadership (the pentagon), or government (the failed attack on the White House). No act of war there, right? Just some hoodlums. Better send the cops not the military. Easy to assert such nonsense from your vantage point on the other side of the pond. How dare you compare the two. But the real breaking point is that I never said gitmo is right it's just understandable from a reactionary government and a paranoid people. Let's be done with it, but lets do it right. It's a quagmire of legal and ethical morass and nobody seems keen on tackling the issue. But you are keen on tripping me up but you are doing it very badly.
So you say, glad to hear your solidarity with Mohammed al Kaboom and the others. The sadists and misogynists. The guys who wouldn't think twice about stabbing an off duty British soldier in broad daylight after ramming him with their car then calmly regurgitating their anti-Semitic hate rhetoric and anti-Zionist dogma to be recorded and replayed from a witness' iPhone in abject horror to the unfolding event. All the while minutes tick off till your special reserve police department, the blue vests, the ones that carry guns show up and add a little needed aggressive response and retribution to the situation. Bet you felt sorry for the perps. Stockholm syndrome
zimmerman seems to be a big guy. how come he used a gun to shoot down a kid? even if trayvon was a criminal, why kill him? if they had a fight why pull out a gun? when is it exactly legal to shoot someone down in a sissy fight?
didn't he go outside with a plan? he took his gun with only one intention and he ended up using it. seems like a pretty easy plan and it should be considered in this case. i think it's that simple. he started a fight and killed someone. he should be guilty?! no?