So, do you think the prosecution did enough to prove George Zimmerman guilty of Second Degree murder?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
46 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
unfortunately, no….
I have little doubt Zimmerman should at least be convisted of 2nd-degree manslaughter, but the prosecution did not present a case for 2nd degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt
It ain’t over until it’s over BooMan. And it ain’t over yet.
the prosecution’s case is over.
Yes, I think they proved their case. He admitted shooting him, and then told countless lies about it. His injuries were not life-threatening, witnesses saw Zimmerman on top after the shooting, and Zimmerman had MMA training and outweighed him by 50 lbs.
Will a jury agree? Not going to guess.
Sadly, almost none of that is even relevant to the eventual jury instructions. It all comes down to whether or not he could have plausibly feared grave bodily injury and whether or not he acted with spite and malice. On your list, the only thing that pertains to that is witnesses who saw him AFTER the shooting, not the one that saw him before it.
I disagree. The question of whether or not his fear was reasonable (or even if it existed at all) depends on whether or not he’s credible to the jury. If they look at the totality of the evidence and decide that a person who exaggerates his minor injuries, lies about his location and actions, and minimizes his personal fight training and education in self-defense law, could easily find him guilty based on the information presented so far.
My gripe is that the SA should have had a witness on to explain to the jury how all of this evidence fits together, but for some unknown reason the prosecution has decided to wait until cross examination to do this.
Either way, the judge just denied the defense’s motion for acquittal.
Sorry, meant to say “wait until closing arguments”.
Incompetent defense has rescued sandbagged prosecutions before.
It’s what the jury perceives, not what the prosecution presents.
Aside from swearing on the phone call, there really wasn’t any evidence that he acted out of ill will/spite/hatred.
So I don’t think the Prosecution was necessarily going after trying to prove M2, but instead it seems that they did as much as they could to poke enough holes in Zimmerman’s story that it would cast doubt onto his defense.
He clearly exaggerated about the beating, and his testimony does not jive with reality (“TM jumped out of bushes” that did not exist, “TM used dialogue straight from a movie”, etc…), and he likely knew the right things to say to keep himself from getting arrested. So, I hope that the jury will take that into account when they deliberate.
One thing that is clear; watching the Medical Examiner today and listening to the testimony from the police dept about how the evidence was collected, I think this comes down to just a very poor job all-around by the Police Department, and an indication that the self-defense laws really need to be changed.
Think about the circumstances. These two people did not know each other. It’s remarkable that we have a recording of Zimmerman expressing any opinion about Martin at all. But we know he thought he was an asshole and a criminal (“they always get away”) and a fucking punk (or coon).
I don’t know how much more malice you’d expect to find.
A general lack of remorse is further evidence.
I think the harder part of the case is that they didn’t rule out that Zimmerman was the one crying for help. And whoever was crying out sounded like they had a legitimate terror of grave bodily harm or death.
A general lack of remorse can be justified in a life-or-death situation; “it was either him or me”.
As for the malice, there could be a huge difference between when Mr. Toughguy Neighborhood Watchmen left his car and when TM allegedly attacked him. At that point, the malice could legitimately turn to fear.
However, the Prosecution made an interesting argument during the rebuttal to the Motion for Acquittal that said basically Zimmerman pulled the trigger with a hatred for him and the intent for TM to die. That is 2nd Degree Murder.
I still don’t understand how that was ever in doubt. That he could ignore the 911 operator, not wait for the police, leave his car, follow this kid, not ask a neighbor for help, not pull out his gun when at a distance, kill this kid, and THEN claim to have been scared for his life, is beyond the bounds of reason. To follow it up by lying is simply gravy. If he lived in a civilized society, there would be no doubt at all.
Because he only started to fear for his life when he was losing the fight; and unfortunately the law says that it’s perfectly acceptable.
You can provoke, antagonize, and do all sorts of mean and nasty things, and then when the other guy stands his ground and you feel your life is threatened, you can shoot them.
Do Florida juries have the right to refuse to accept a law? Kind of the opposite of a nullification case? Because I can’t think of a better use than this. If I was on that jury, I would say he was guilty and simply refuse to “understand” that law.
I’m guessing this law will change as soon as a bunch of women realize how easily they could use this to get rid of their ex-husbands.
Jurors do refuse to accept laws, but it isn’t a right.
I have known people who refused to convict petty drug dealers because the mandatory minimum penalty was too harsh.
I don’t know that there is anything particularly wrong with the self-defense statute in Florida once you remove the Stand Your Ground element.
Second degree murder means that you deliberately killed someone, but you didn’t plan to do it in advance. It’s like a heat of passion crime. You catch your wife in bed with a man and you shoot and kill them. You meant to do it. You did it because you wanted to do it. You had the choice not to do it.
Manslaughter just means that you took actions that you reasonably should have expected could lead to the death of someone, even though that was not your intention. Blindly firing your gun at someone who is beating you up would fit that description. So would driving drunk. So would handing a loaded weapon to a toddler. So would cutting corners in workplace safety.
The difficulty in this case is proving that Zimmerman had no plausible fear of grave bodily harm, and that he shot to kill, and that his intent was to kill, and that he didn’t kill out of fear, but purely out of spite or malice or hatred.
That is a very hard case to prove beyond a reasonable doubt when you don’t have good witnesses and the forensic evidence doesn’t tell a clear story.
However, manslaughter is a lesser included charge. To get that conviction, they don’t have to prove malice, or that he shot to kill. They only have to prove that he discharged his weapon when he didn’t have to.
All that other stuff about ignoring the police, following on foot, etc., really has no bearing on the manslaughter charge. All that matters for that is whether he reasonably feared grave bodily harm. And proving he didn’t is still very hard.
I can’t buy it. This big man wants us to believe that he was terrified of the skinny kid he stalked, traumatized, and killed. I have plenty of doubt about that.
So do I.
But not if that is Zimmerman’s voice on tape screaming for help.
The problem is that the prosecution couldn’t prove that it wasn’t Zimmerman’s voice.
I think it was Trayvon’s voice. But I don’t know it.
All logic says it was Trayvon’s voice. Zimmerman has lied about so many things, why should we believe him on this?
But moreover, I think the deeper problem is that we shouldn’t care whose voice it was. If the law says that you should be forgiven for hunting a human being because it turned out at the end that your prey was tougher than you thought, then the law is wrong and should be ignored by the jury and overturned by the state. But, of course, what should be and what will be and frequently not the same.
In logic, we call that begging the question.
Rather than address the law, you insist that he’s guilty under the law, when that is exactly the question we were trying to answer.
Rather than address whose voice it was, you say that it doesn’t matter even though it is the most pertinent fact in the case.
The facts in the case support that Zimmerman pursued Trayvon Martin in order to keep an eye on him so he could tell the police where to look for him when they arrived. The facts do not support the idea that he was “hunting” him with the intent to shoot and kill him.
I think the facts support the idea that Zimmerman had an aggressive state of mind and a prejudiced view of Trayvon Martin, assuming him to be a criminal, but not a dangerous one.
He followed him with ill-will and malice, but not necessarily with the intent to physically confront him, let alone kill him.
The facts support the idea that Zimmerman had a verbal altercation that preceded the physical one, and he failed to communicate any benign intent.
The facts support the idea that Zimmerman’s testimony is unreliable and that his story cannot be taken at face value.
The facts are mixed about who was on top during the fight and about whose voice was crying out for help.
From what I have seen, the preponderance of the evidence (eyewitness, gunshot forensics, blood analysis) supports the idea that Martin was on top when he was shot, but it is hardly conclusive.
I would not bet money on a 2nd Degree Murder conviction, especially since the defense hasn’t even put on the vast majority of their case, yet.
Exactly. But preponderance is enough for a civil suit.
When you get twelve angry men (or, in this case, six angry women) in the jury room, such legal niceties may not apply. If I were in there. I’d vote guilty. That’s the way I feel, and I’m betting that’s the way they feel right now.
Well, I don’t agree with all of your assessments, but if we accept your take, then yes, the question of whether he is guilty under the law is undecided. My point is that the law is wrong. He should be found guilty because that is what is required for justice to be done. If the law says otherwise, it should be overturned.
Do you think that justice and the law are or should be synonymous?
What about the idea that 100 guilty people should go free to avoid one innocent man going to jail? Or does that only apply to capital cases?
Look, at a minimum, Zimmerman caused the death of an innocent person who was minding his own business and posing no threat to anyone. Justice requires that Zimmerman pay a price for that. The question is, what is that price?
And I can’t think of a better way to decide that than a jury trial. That’s why I pushed for a prosecution.
I don’t agree with the Stand Your Ground law, but that defense has been waived in this case.
For me to convict Zimmerman of second degree murder, I’d have to be convinced that it is not his voice calling for help on that tape, because that’s the law. I haven’t sat in that courtroom or heard all the evidence, but I am not sure that it isn’t Zimmerman’s voice. I don’t think it is, but I am not positive.
I wish there were more proof that Zimmerman didn’t fear for his life. And it’s not because I want to pre-judge the case, but because I want Zimmerman to pay a heavy price for what he did. But wanting that isn’t enough to disregard the law, the evidence, and the instructions of the judge. I don’t think the prosecution was incompetent. I think they had some reluctant witnesses, including in the Sanford Police Department.
In any case, it was a hard case to prove, and I hope they’ve done enough to at least get a conviction of manslaughter.
What about the fact that there seems to be enough evidence that Zimmerman wasn’t actually getting his ass kicked? That his injuries were very minor, and Trayvon had none of Zimmerman’s DNA on his hands? (Both those points were made by forensic experts who handled the case).
In other words, what exactly did Zimmerman have to fear? That maybe at some point the kid might get rough?
“All logic says” doesn’t clear the bar for “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
And yet I have no doubt. Guess we’ll have to see if the jury agrees.
the important fact about the screaming voice is that it stopped yelling immediately after the shooting.
I tend to think that if the person screaming for help also was the person on the bottom, then the screams for help would continue beyond the shooting.
It’s just common sense since the person who pulls the trigger doesn’t know that the person on top is dead until they slump forward and stop attacking. Even if they stopped fighting long enough to say, “Oh, you got me” or some other ridiculous nonsensical thing (more likely would be, “You shot me!”) the screams for help would not necessarily cease.
Not to mention that the 9-1-1 call had continuous screams for help, whereas Zimmerman’s testimony said that Martin was covering Z’s mouth and nose. Yet there was no muffling on the audio.
Furthermore, the majority of witnesses say that it was the person on top that got up after the scrum. Ergo, the person winning the fight pulled the trigger.
I’ve thought about all that.
I think it’s kind of weak to assume that the screaming wouldn’t end either way.
The evidence can cut both ways.
He died face-down with his arms under him, which is not consistent with being pinned to the ground on his back.
He suffered no injuries other than the gunshot, which is inconsistent with being on the losing end of the fight.
He didn’t have any Zimmerman DNA under his fingernails, which is inconsistent with him causing Zimmerman’s head lacerations with his hands, perhaps in a defensive position on the ground.
The only witness who saw any part of the fight said that Trayvon was on top.
The bullet forensics indicated contact with the sweatshirt and not the skin, which is consistent with Trayvon being on top.
All of these things raise doubt about whether Zimmerman executed him.
You raise good questions, but we know Zimmerman lied or embellished.
We still have to look at the totality of the evidence.
Actually that’s not true. You do not have the right to self-defense if you started the fight. But moreso, you only regain the right to self-defense if you submit that you want to stop the fight, cannot escape and are in danger of death.
The state proved beyond a doubt (and the defense just conceded) that Zimmerman exaggerated his injuries and had no reasonable fear of death or great harm.
Therefore, he never regained his right to self-defense since he started the entire thing by chasing Trayvon and attempting to detain him.
“Get off, get off” and his missing minutes are proof that he continued the chase.
You are wrong about this.
World history has plenty of examples of Darwin Award recipients who started a fight and lost their life.
Example: I flip you off. You shoot me.
Example: I push you. You beat me to death.
Example: I punch you. You stick a knife in my heart.
Starting a fight, at whatever threshold you want to use, never takes away your right to self-defense.
In this case, both men had the right to self-defense. Had Trayvon killed Zimmerman, he could have argued that Zimmerman was armed.
What matters for this case is not who started the fight, either through provocation or through throwing the first punch. All that matters is whether not, at the point the gun was fired, that Zimmerman legitimately feared grave bodily harm or death.
That is what the jury will be instructed to decide.
Whether these standards are applied equitably and equally to white, blacks and half-Peruvians is a point worth debating, but there is an objective law out there that the jurors are supposed to follow.
You may be right that the events preceding the fight are irrelevant to the second degree murder charge, but when we get to the manslaughter charge, they become very important
I see it differently.
Proving malice is harder than proving irresponsible behavior.
It doesn’t matter the provocation of the fight, what matters is that if you feel your life is being threatened then you have a right to defend your life.
Now, if you approach someone with your gun drawn and they in turn pull a gun on you, do you get to shoot first?
I honestly don’t know, but from my understanding the intent is that if you get into an altercation with someone and it escalates to the point where you legitimately fear for your life, then you have the right to fight back and use lethal force if needed.
Accept this is not a stand your ground case. The defense is not claiming stand your ground immunity they are simply claiming self defense. I believe the reason that they’re not claiming stand your ground is because GZ clearly approached Martin first. It’s hard to claim SYG if you appear to be the one that initiated the confrontation. I was disappointed that the prosecution did not seem prepared for the answers of their own witnesses.
I know that the defense is not using SYG and are instead using self-defense.
The point I was making is that in this case if it was TM that was standing his ground, and if he had accidentally killed GZ in the process then it would be within his legal rights.
However based on GZ’s story, its also legal for GZ to defend himself against an attacker even if he was the provocateur.
Either way it’s a stupid law because it doesn’t matter who started it, it only matters at what point one person feels their life is in jeopardy. And in this case, we only have one-side of the story; which happens to have been told by a person who is familiar with this type of defense and coincidentally knew all of the right things to say.
At this point, I don’t think they did. IMO, they could have, but they missed too many opportunities to illuminate important points for their side.
But they have yet to have an opportunity to cross examine defense witnesses and evidence, which will gave them the same opportunity the defense has already had with the prosecution’s case. Only then will we be able to answer the ultimate question of which side made its case.
That is an important question. If he doesn’t take the stand and tell the jury he was afraid and didn’t have a choice, it would be hard for an impartial jury to believe that claim. If he does take the stand, a prosecutor that really wanted a conviction (I don’t think this one does) would rip him to shreds.
In any case, I think at least one of those Florida women will decide that the skinny black kid was scary and should have been shot on general principles (breathing while black). Then we will have a hung jury. For an acquittal, the black woman must be convinced that Zimmerman had a legitimate right to shoot Trayvon. But who knows? She may be a Clarence Thomas.
Maybe. There’s also the possibility that they will respond to this case as mothers who sympathize with a mother who lost her son.
Jury prediction is difficult.
We will find out soon enough what the jury thinks – their opinion s the only one that ultimately matters – but as long as we supposing let us suppose, and why not, that George Zimmerman was Black and Travon Martin was White. Would there be any question about the verdict?
Defense’s move for dismissal brought about the most interesting connecting of the dots yet by the prosecution.
Listening to Zimmerman’s mom declare that it was George screaming and then the uncle, who is a wee bit self righteous law officer, declare that it was indeed George screaming; with the same straight face that George used to say he wasn’t aware of Stand Your Ground didn’t work for me.
The Prosecutor doesn’t have a very persuasive demeanor even if he does have a good grasp of the facts. If he can channel Ted Kennedy for his final summation he’s got a good chance.
I think, and hope, that the all women jury will work against Zimmerman. From a female perspective, it’s hard to accept his story of being afraid just because he acted like a predator at every step. Even the conservative women I know don’t believe him.
Or maybe it’s not entirely that we don’t believe him, so much as that we just don’t give a damn. The bastard killed a kid. Take him down.
I won’t say the jury is wrong if they come back guilty on M2, but a manslaughter charge seems stronger.
I also have a serious question as to the credibility of Jose Meza’s testimony (George Zimmerman’s Uncle). He stated that he was in another room, working on his computer, when he heard the audio of the 9-1-1 call being played on the TV and knew instantly that it was his nephew.
He also claimed to know no details of the case, in the event that he would have to later testify about the voice recognition.
This is where, in my opinion, the Prosecution really dropped the ball. My guess is that the optics of grilling a relative, let alone a deputy sheriff, in the final moments before a weekend are pretty bad. However, I hope that if they get the chance the defense will get to cross the Uncle again.
Personally, I find it near impossible to believe that he didn’t commit perjury in some way. He claimed that he had no knowledge of the details of the case, and yet he’s close enough to his family to blindly recognize the anguished screams of his nephew from another room?
That’s total bullshit.
There is no doubt in my mind that Jose was familiar with the case, not only because it was blasted all over the TV for two weeks before Zimmerman was finally charged, but because if one of my relatives was in a rough spot in my profession, I’m confident that they would call me first. Regardless of whether I would later need to testify.
In fact, I call double-bullshit because of the gap in time between the shooting and when the charges were filed. I’m sure that during that time the details of the case were leaked to the family members, in particular a law enforcement office.
No doubt that the jury will have similar sentiments about that testimony. The definition of self-serving.