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At the end of the day, the fact remains that:

1) It wasn't his responsibility
2) If he assumes the responsibility, he also assumes responsibility for the consequences of any mistakes he makes
3) He was instructed not to pursue by a dispatcher

I don't think Zimmerman is a bad man who intended to kill someone, but regardless, that is what happened. Whatever Martin's past crimes or negative behaviors may be, they are irrelevant. You have to apply the law based on the law, not based on 'well he was a punk anyway so he deserved it'. I'm not saying you believe this, but this attitude is all too prevalent.

Brawlsack

Taking an extended hiatus from gaming

To avoid getting lost at the bottom of page 1, here we go again.



That's never stopped prosecutors in the past. Unless the Sanford Prosecutor's Office is staffed by a bunch of pussies (seems obvious, considering how much pressure it took for them to act), they'd have had Zimmerman taking a plea bargain for manslaughter with 15 years within days of the incident. The delay can also be attributed to the "bungling" by the police who initially stopped Zimmerman.




Two things. First off, it's impossible for him to get a fair trial. Everyone knows the background of this case. He can't get an impartial jury. It will be packed with angry people who want whitey's blood, and with angry people think that uppity nigger got what was coming to him. Not a one of them will reach a decision based on the facts presented. With any luck, the jury selection process will screen enough of the people who are really bad at pretending to be impartial, so at least it won't look like a farce.

The Zimmerman defense team can apply the Stand Your Ground law all it wants. I'd certainly use it if I were his lawyer. Problem is, it's not nearly as airtight as you seem to think. You're allowed to use deadly force when:

776.013
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and
(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

(2) The presumption set forth in subsection (1) does not apply if:
(a) The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner, lessee, or titleholder, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person

That's the first hitch. Martin had a right to be in the area, so the presumption of imminent peril is lost. The statute does not mention state of mind; that Zimmerman thought Martin was there illegally is irrelevant. Martin was legally on the premises, so Zimmerman is precluded from asserting imminent peril. Additionally, but perhaps however:

776.032
(1) A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless [etc etc, not relevant to this particular section of discussion].

776.041
The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

If Martin did in fact assault Zimmerman (I don't try the facts, a jury does that), Zimmerman provoked the use of force against him. I am not a doctor, and I've never been in a fight. I'd venture, however, that a broken nose isn't "imminent danger of death or great bodily harm" and that Zimmerman did not pursue any other reasonable means of breaking off the contact. The reasonable person standard (despite how it sounds) is objective, not subjective. Getting your ass kicked sucks, I'd wager, but it's not enough to make the "reasonable person" think I need to shoot this kid right now or I'm a dead man.




Like I said above, he'll hide behind the Stand Your Ground, but it won't be enough. And the family can, of course, pursue him in civil court. The outcome of the criminal case, whatever it may be, will not affect a wrongful death suit. Just look at Hattori v. Peairs. Guy was acquitted (wrongfully, as much of the lawyering world likes to point out) in criminal court, but lost in civil court because no matter how "innocent" he was per the criminal code, the kid he shot was still dead.

If destruction exists, we must destroy everything.
Shuruppak Yuratuhl
Slaad Shrpk Breizh

Dispatchers aren't sworn law enforcement so you dont have to follow their orders.

EDIT: I THINK they're not. If they're not you don't have to follow.

I'm not ignoring it. I said:



Ironically, that same law could be used to argue that Martin had a right to shoot Zimmerman cold dead, because Martin had a right to be where he was and he had good reason to fear Zimmerman. As facts demonstrated.

So you see the problem with laws amounting to legalized vigilantism. With the most impartial interpretation, they slide into a free-for-all. Thus to be practical, such laws cannot help but be racist.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

1) Do you think Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder only because of the media shit-storm surrounding this incident... or do you believe this is a legitimate charge?

Both. The charge is legitimate. I don't believe it was premeditated murder, but an unarmed kid is dead by the hand of a neighborhood watch who was told to stay away from him. The media shitstorm here is that there should have been an investigation. I do not know all the details, nobody except Zimmerman does, but that is why I felt there should be an investigation. I didn't necessarily think they should have charged him, but they didn't even investigate it as anything other than self defense for weeks.

2) Do you think Zimmerman is going to get a fair trial with all the information (wrong and right) that has been put forward?

They did well enough with Casey Anthony. The bitch killed the kid, but there wasn't enough proof. The prosecution just didn't have the evidence to back their story up, so there was reasonable doubt and she was acquitted. They won't have anyone from Central Florida in the jury (same as with Casey), there were enough people living under rocks who didn't even know about the CA story, so I'd assume the same to be true about this.

3) What do you think will happen if Zimmerman isn't convicted of second-degree murder?

Same thing as what happened with Casey. And a civil suit will surely follow for wrongful death, and they'll probably win.

4) Did you make a rush to judgement when the media first started covering this story as White man killed unarmed black kid because the black kid was innocently walking home one night?

No, like I said before, I thought they were way too quick to just drop it the way they did and should have done a full investigation of the incident.

5) How did you feel about the Media's character building of Zimmerman and Martin, in the sense that the images and reporting often used were many years old and didn't accurately depict either party accurately?

Media bullshit, same as always. This will never change. I try to ignore those stories. Nothing these guys did in the past really matters now.

6) Do you think Zimmerman followed and killed Martin because Martin was black?

I think he followed him because he was, yes. Killed? No. I'm not sure why exactly he killed him. From the 911 tapes, Zimmerman was *explicitly* told not to follow him. Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend while he was walking, they've dumped the phone records and proven this. The girlfriend has made statements regarding this call, and that Martin knew he was being followed and was scared, but didn't run because he wasn't doing anything wrong. He was wearing a hoodie, because it still gets cold enough here for that.

7) Do you think the media tried to make this a racial issue by always pointing out race in nearly every report?

They always will.

That said, like Tuhl said, the Stand Your Ground law is not cut and dry the way people think it was. It doesn't matter if Martin initiated with a punch to this guy's face. The same punch that probably knocked him on his ass and gave him the head wound, if we're getting technical. He nullified the Stand Your Ground law when he not only followed Martin, but then got out of his car and confronted him. The men who wrote Stand Your Ground even say this does not constitute self defense under their law. This will be the prosecution's driving point. Anyway, here's an actual transcript and a link to the call. At about 1:40 is when it sounds like he gets out of his car.



And this is the 911 call of the neighbor.

s^ | Kay

it comes from a famous book entitled, "Idiotic Pussies Who Think They're Hot Shit With Guns and How They Act"

Because of the reason that we don't know enough about what actually happened, we like to think the horse is still alive. Far from it, the horse has been beaten and dead for a long time now.

The only facts that matter are as clear as can be. The police told him to stop pursuing the person, there was confrontation, the person is dead. Because of Florida's insanely twisted law, it was speculated by many as justifiable self defense. It doesn't matter what sort of intent Zimmerman had, he killed somebody and deserves to be in prison.

If he had, Martin would (likely) still be alive today.

It's entirely possible things could have played out differently. They didn't. Now Zimmerman needs to answer for it.

Brawlsack

Taking an extended hiatus from gaming

We know Zimmerman was following Martin and, based on Zimmerman's story, that Martin started running away. Shortly after Martin started running away, the dispatcher said, "Are you following him? ... We don’t need you to do that." Not exactly an order, but that's not the point. Zimmerman said that he stopped following Martin and started walking back to his truck because he couldn't find Martin, dispatch said he didn't have to follow and because the police were going to meet him at his truck.



Based on the 9-11 call, Zimmerman wasn't able to maintain view of Martin and, at some point, Martin had successfully fled the scene and he was in no danger. Zimmerman, on the other hand, said (in the police report, I believe it was) that he was returning to he vehicle to meet with the cops when Martin attacked him. Sucker-punched to the head, knocked to the ground. Zimmerman said he was mounted by Martin and was having his head slammed against the sidewalk. An eye witness said they saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, throwing punches "MMA Style." I listened to the audio of the fight last night and I wanna say the fight lasted for over 45 seconds... because that's about the point you hear the gun shot, and you figure it had to start sometime before the call was even connected to dispatch. We've all seen an MMA fight where a defenseless person lay on the ground taking fists to the face and it's very possible someone could die from it... and you can't slam someones head into the ground in an MMA fight.

Anyways, I guess if that story is true, that I don't see how Zimmerman following Martin is even relevant since Martin allegedly attacked Zimmerman after dispatch said there was no need to follow.

Tuhl, if you remove yourself from a situation (by running away, which Martin did) and later come back to that same situation and escalate the situation it to violence, how is that treated? Is that Martin defending himself from a follower or is it Zimmerman defending himself from an attack?

Fair enough. The law itself is flawed, I'll agree. Tuhl provided some good insight as to why the defense may not be able to hide behind the law. Nonetheless, they will try, and might succeed.



I'm curious though Aestu, you didn't respond to the "media bias" examples I posed after you challenged me to produce some. Do you agree now that there was clear evidence of media bias against Zimmerman when major news outlets were "reporting" on the story?

I just had another thought about this.

Everyone is dogging on Zimmerman for being some vigilante with a gun, suggesting that Zimmerman should've just let the cops handle this and that Zimmerman shouldn't have followed. If that's true, wouldn't the same be true for Martin? Did Martin call the cops and say that someone was following him? We know he was on the phone with his girlfriend and, if Zimmerman's story is true, that Martin engaged (or followed) Zimmerman...

Martin didn't walk up to some random person then murder him in cold blood. Point is void.

The only reason that you make an argument so ludicrously hypocritical on so many counts (as if only white people have the right to solve their own problems through violence) is racism.

Hence my point above about how the SYG and similar laws only are practical when viewed through the lens of racism.



Point conceded. The facts are what they are, however, and as Kay pointed out, good came of it that wouldn't otherwise.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

"In your face" and "harassing"? I'm not sure that parallels what happened.

Trayvon Martin fled the scene and escaped George Zimmerman. Remember, George Zimmerman said he didn't know where the kid was to the 911 dispatch. The girlfriend of Trayvon, who was apparently on the phone at the time, said...



So, Trayvon's girlfriend said he wasn't going to run, but Zimmerman said the kid was running. Either way, he was escaping the scene... but then, the girlfriend says that Trayvon initiated contact with Zimmerman before the fight broke out. This is where I don't get it. If Trayvon escaped the scene and was out of danger, why did he go back and confront Zimmerman? Truthfully, as Tuhl pointed out, it is a public area and both people have a right to be there.

It's almost like Trayvon is the one who got in Georges face. The problem is we don't know who attacked first, right?

Bullshit and moot. Zimmerman harassed someone then shot him.

He had no right and no basis to accost someone in public. He walked up to this kid with the intent to confront. As Xeoni pointed out, what happened, his motivation, his state of mind, are moot. He confronted a passerby who had committed no crime. That is the definition of harassment.

As I pointed out, Martin ironically would have been within his rights based on that stupid law to whip out a gun and shoot Zimmerman cold dead.

You talk about a "scene". There was no "scene". There was a guy minding his own business who had a right to be where he was, doing his own thing. "Fleeing the scene" in this context establishes that the legitimate application of the law would have been for Trayyon to "stand his ground" and kill Zimmerman on the spot.

You didn't address my question though. Are you saying that for you, personally, you have no threshold for violence when harassed in public?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

We don't even know if that happened, Aestu. Zimmerman called the cops and asked that they come out and make sure things are ok. That's fine. Zimmerman is allowed to do that, you know. There is nothing (other than the girlfriends statements) that say the two of them had any conversation (and what was said wasn't initiated by Zimmerman), nor is there any evidence that suggests Zimmerman had an intent to confront (or get physical), nor is there any evidence to suggest Zimmerman was impeding on Martin's privacy.

Martin escaped the scene/area/alley/FOV of Zimmerman/apparent danger/etc. and later returned to confront Zimmerman, thus escalating the situation. If Martin would've stayed hiding and called the cops this could've ended differently. Isn't that what you're supposed to do if you're being followed, threatened or harassed?