The Zimmerman verdict

[Van Canna]

So what do y'all think, did Martin also have the right to "stand his ground" against Zimmerman? What would y'all have done if in Martin's position in this incident?

Good question Glenn.

But I think that standing your ground had to do with response to physical attack.


Granted Z did not act prudently in following Martin after being told by 911 not to.

But...following someone is not an attack. And Fear of being followed is not a physical attack.

The question would be...who threw the first punch?

From what we know Martin launched an attack ... punched Z and then slammed his head into the concrete.

Why did he attack? Was he pre-empting some attack by Z?
I think this is the crux of the matter.

Not clear cut but let us place ourselves in the Z shoes.
You get punched ...and your head is slammed in the concrete...and your attacker is now on top of you to finish his work.

Even if you want to run away from the fight, now you can't.

Did Z really stand his ground? Or was he pinned to the ground unable to get away?

[Glenn]

The question would be...who threw the first punch?

From what we know Martin launched an attack ... punched Z and then slammed his head into the concrete.

Why did he attack? Was he pre-empting some attack by Z?
I think this is the crux of the matter.

Maybe Martin threw the first punch maybe Zimmerman did, and if Martin did maybe he was trying to pre-empt...also did Martin approach Zimmerman as Zimmerman claims or did Zimmerman approach Martin as the lady Martin was talking to on the cell phone claims? We will never know all of the details of what happened. Particularly given only one person survived and there were no visual witnesses. It seems clear however that the jury believed Martin was the aggressor and Zimmerman was defending his life.

Not clear cut but let us place ourselves in the Z shoes.
You get punched ...and your head is slammed in the concrete...and your attacker is now on top of you to finish his work.

Even if you want to run away from the fight, now you can't.

Did Z really stand his ground? Or was he pinned to the ground unable to get away?

By this point in the incident though Zimmerman's response seems clear and he did what he felt he had to do to survive. I am more curious about what options Martin had before this. Could he have just walked away? Did he feel threatened and felt like he had to attack first? Was Zimmerman trying to detain him with his gun drawn as the prosecution claims? If so and you were walking alone at night and an armed stranger tries to detain you, what would you do?

By the way, I am not trying to debate the verdict, I am merely trying to get some dialogue going about what would have been Martin's best strategy under certain scenarios that may have actually occurred before the situation reached the end game.

[Van Canna]

If so and you were walking alone at night and an armed stranger tries to detain you, what would you do?

Good points Glenn.

As to your question...tough decision...it would mean charging a firearm.

This is what our Clarence did, years back, when held up on the way up the stairs of his house.

The gunman had Clarence get in the house at gun point, and when in the kitchen, Clarence fearing he was about to be shot, charged the gunman from six feet away and took a number of bullets in his body.

George,

Agreed. A nightmare notwithstanding Florida laws.

[Van Canna]

Of interest

The section is titled, "Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force."

Indeed, the section provides the opportunity for just that: a path to pretrial immunity for potential defendants who can prove in a hearing before a judge that a "preponderance of evidence" shows that their deadly or potentially deadly actions fell into the category of reasonable self-defense.

Zimmerman did not ask for an immunity hearing before his criminal trial, but that does not preclude him from requesting one if he faces a civil trial, says associate law professor Tamara Rice Lave of the University of Miami's School of Law.

At a pretrial immunity hearing, Lave says, Zimmerman would have to show a preponderance of evidence, quantified as a 51 percent burden, that he acted lawfully under the state's stand your ground statute.

[Van Canna]

Zimmerman likely didn't ask for an immunity hearing before his criminal case, she said, because he would have had the burden to prove he acted lawfully.

"When he went to trial, it was the prosecutor's burden to prove he didn't act in lawful self-defense," she said, adding: The prosecutor also had to prove to a jury Zimmerman's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt," a far higher bar to clear than proving a "preponderance of evidence."

[Van Canna]

The Constitutional Challenge

Little, the University of Florida law professor, argues that the immunity section of Florida law is ripe for a constitutional challenge — and that Trayvon Martin's family could mount that challenge in a civil proceeding.

The Legislature, he argues, in establishing the immunity hearing, has taken from the courts power invested in them since the state's 1968 constitution was written.

"The Legislature did not prove an overpowering public necessity for what it did, which the constitution requires," he said. "I think there's an argument to be made in a civil setting that this immunity should be rendered unconstitutional."

[Van Canna]

For now, all eyes remain on Florida, where stand your ground is still standing, but where we may get a glimpse of how such laws there, and nationally, hold up under intensifying scrutiny — legal and otherwise.

[Bill Glasheen]

Seems to me there are some facts that need to be addressed.

There is no evidence that Zimmerman drew his firearm on Martin before Martin attacked him. A number of witnesses reported the sequence of events from their viewpoint.

Per Zimmerman's testimony, Martin also tried to reach for his gun. But of course by the time you are on top of a man, have broken his nose, and have shoved his head into the concrete, I'm thinking that's just insult to injury.

And finally... no charges were going to be filed until federal officials put pressure on the prosecutors. Now all the news outlets are talking about the DOJ contemplating filing federal charges. At the end of the day, this is political. Zimmerman is arguably victim of a ploy to win votes for the party in power. They probably don't even care if they win. As long as the race baiting keeps on, Florida gun laws are put on trial and a minority group's passions are whipped up into a fury.

I don't care if the minority group is purple Martians; the whole thing is unseemly. And again... I think Zimmerman needs to get a lawyer and start by suing NBC for damages. An 9-figure lawsuit should get their attention. Fight fire with fire.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

George Zimmerman's legal team didn't ultimately use a defense based on Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law, but Zimmerman's killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin brought the controversial statute to the forefront of national news.

Though Florida already has laws on the books for cases of self-defense, Stand Your Ground went further to remove a person's duty to retreat from an assailant and reaffirmed the use of deadly force in any place the person has a right to be. It was the first law to extend the right to self-defense to firing weapons in public places, according to Mother Jones.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/1 ... 00017.html

[Van Canna]

Good post, Bill. What a can of worms

[jorvik]

Do you think that Obama may have spoken out about this to distract people away from Snowden?. There have been rumours on the net that Snowden has stuff that could bring down the US Government. It is unusual that the US should bring down and search the President of Venezuelas plane for Snowden, risking public outcry especially in south America, an international incident by all accounts, they must want him bad.........because all this stuff that he has said has been known of at least a year in the public domain.

[Van Canna]

“Are you following him?” the dispatcher asked Zimmerman, after telling him that police were on the way.

“Yeah,” Zimmerman responded.



“OK, we don’t need you to do that,” the dispatcher said.

we don’t need you to do that

What does this mean in the English language?

[Van Canna]

“He went above and beyond what he really should have done,” the juror said Monday. “. . . I think he’s guilty of not using good judgment. When he was in the car and he called 911, he shouldn’t have gotten out of that car.”

[Van Canna]

The Florida law concerning guns gave him cover to shoot the suspicious person if he felt threatened. The situation did not need to happen. Zimmerman could have made different decisions, but, misled by what the laws allow him to do with a gun, he killed someone.

There are too many easily available guns, and they cannot always protect and solve problems. They often cause more disastrous problems, which the Martin family has experienced by loss and the Zimmerman family will continue to suffer, as this will always hang over his head.

Susan Rothstein

[Van Canna]

I don’t blame the justice system in the outcome of the Trayvon Martin case. I look to the Second Amendment as the fundamental problem when addressing this tragic loss of life.

The logic as to why it is in the best interest of all of us to allow a person to walk around with a loaded gun in the middle of the night truly escapes me.

Richard Conron

Bourne