The testimony of John Good is supportive of George Zimmerman’s self-defense case so it is noteworthy that he was called as a witness by the prosecution. I guess they figured it was better to call him than to try to hide from his testimony, but I don’t know that they are doing a very good job of raising reasonable doubt about his testimony.
This case is tough because there isn’t any question that Zimmerman caused a confrontation that resulted in the death of a person who was just minding their own business. In that sense, he ought to be somehow held responsible. But to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman wasn’t on the losing end of a fight in which he legitimately feared for his life may prove impossible, especially in light of Mr. Good’s testimony.
In any case, I think today’s testimony will decide the verdict.
he stalked and hunted an unarmed boy for no reason other than he was a Black male.
that someone who has been stalked and hunted would fight back in a fight for their life with the muthafucka who was hunting them…
really?
It’s true that merely losing a fight doesn’t give you the right to shoot your gun. Except maybe in Florida with their stupid Stand Your Ground law.
But, if Zimmerman’s lawyers can convince the jury that he was the one crying for help and getting beat up, then he will probably be acquitted. In fact, all they really need to do is raise doubt that he might have been the one getting beat up.
Their big advantage is that Zimmerman was the one with injuries while Trayvon was pretty much unblemished other than the bullet wound.
As fucked up as it is, even if Zimmerman had no business confronting Trayvon and even if he initiated the fight, he can still win acquittal if he can convince the jury he legitimately feared for his life. That’s just the law.
That’s the bottom line: ‘if he legitimately feared for his life.’
The question the jury faces is, ‘is blackness sufficient to justify legitimate fear for your life?’
In the history of our country, the answer has often been ‘yes.’ It makes me physically ill, and I’m exactly the kind of white guy who can get away with flagging down cops to ask direction.
I don’t think you have it right.
It’s not his argument that he was afraid because the boy beating him up was black but that he was getting his head pounded into the concrete and was in a defenseless position.
In other words, he thought he wasn’t just losing a fight but that Trayvon was trying to kill him or at least cause grievous bodily harm.
There will be medical testimony about his injuries and in the opening statement the defense said that injuries to the back of his head were consistent with having his head bounced on concrete. We’ll see how that testimony stands up.
But, in any case, his fear for his life doesn’t rise or fall on the race of Trayvon.
I think the jury will decide who they think was crying for help, and they’ll decide accordingly. If they don’t agree on that, the jury will hang.
that allowed Trevon Martin to defend himself when attacked.
Trayvon Martin isn’t charged with a crime. The law you’re talking about creates an affirmative defense for defendants.
The argument in this case is not about whether or not Trayvon Martin had the right to defend himself or to win a fight that he may not have started. The argument is whether or not it is true that Zimmerman was getting his head pounded on the sidewalk, because if he was getting his head pounded on the sidewalk then he had a reasonable belief that his life was in danger. No matter how much of an asshole you are, you don’t lose the right to try to save your life.
but by allegedly pounding Zimmerman’s head into the concrete, Trayvon was simply exercising his right to stand his own ground.
Unfortunately, he allegedly brought a sidewalk to a gunfight.
Under stand your ground, if you react with lethal force to some provocation, I gather you have safe harbor from prosecution (I don’t know the details, and they aren’t actually relevant to the case, since this defense is not being invoked). But does that mean that someone defending themselves from your lethal assault is legally liable as though they were the aggressor? If so, the law is much worse than I thought. That would effectively mean not only that you could kill anyone who threatened “your ground”, but that they but not you could be prosecuted for murder or other damage if a conflict ensued. I sure hope it doesn’t work that way, and I kind of doubt it.
I think that’s deeply naive, Boo.
Of course it’s not Zimmerman’s argument that he’s racist. No lawyer in the world would allow that argument.
Still, it’s why he felt what he felt, if his version of events is correct.
That is, if he’d chased down an unarmed white teen with his gun (!) and gotten into an altercation, he wouldn’t have thought that the white kid was going to kill him. He was afraid for his life because Blacks Are Scary. Blacks are so scary that even unarmed black kids moving in the opposite direction are terrifying, and certainly unarmed blacks bouncing your gun-toting head off the ground WILL KILL YOU BECAUSE THEY’RE SAVAGES.
You’re a rationalist, Boo. It’s one reason I love your blog. But this isn’t about that. This is about emotion. If Zimmerman’s account is anything close to the truth, then the reason he genuinely (wrongly, but genuinely; racist feelings, of course, are still genuine) feared for his life (leaving aside the reason he stalked Martin) is because Martin is black.
If he is not held to account, the message is extremely clear. If you are sufficiently afraid of blacks, you may shoot them.
I understand what you are saying, but to play devil’s advocate, if the screaming voice on the 911 recording is Zimmerman, then he was legitimately terrified and I don’t think you can argue that it was because Trayvon was black.
To be clear, I don’t think the voice is Zimmerman’s. But that’s his argument.
I haven’t heard the recording. I don’t see why it matters.
I don’t doubt for a moment that many, many people in this country find blacks terrifying. They’re not kidding. They really do. I don’t doubt that those are exactly the people who will hunt blacks down with guns.
Basically, if this guy gets off, I can grab my gun, go to a black neighborhood, find the biggest, scariest black man and follow him threateningly until he freaks out at me–then, legitimately fearing for my life, I can shoot him to death.
Bullshit.
This is a trial that has jury instructions.
If Zimmerman’s attorneys can create at least a reasonable suspicion that Zimmerman acted to save himself from a life-threatening situation, he should be acquitted, regardless of whether or not the whole situation was his fault.
He should not be convicted if there is any doubt that he acted unreasonably under the circumstances when the shot was fired.
He should not be convicted to prove a point or to keep things calm or for any other reason than that the prosecution met their burden. Period.
That’s how our criminal justice is supposed to work and that is how I want it to work.
You’re adorable.
As an attorney, I tend to agree (that Booman’s playing Pollyanna). Regardless of what the law says, if you pick a fight with someone because he scares you, no matter how sincerely scared you were, and you then, out of this sincere fear, shoot him, you deserve whatever you get.
Juries nullify law all the time. I see no reason why this time should be different. If Zimmerman gets off, a lot of black folks are going to legitimately fear for their safety. Latinos too, though this imbecile Zimmerman appears to be one himself. Why he approaches the world as if he were not a minority I don’t understand. I say this as an Ashkanazi Jew who feels on some level black (which I think is pretty typical of liberals from my background).
If someone is pounding your head on the sidewalk, and we have physical evidence that Zimmerman’s head was so pounded, you are in immanent danger of concussion, brain damage, and perhaps death. We have had medical testimony from the doctor who examined Zimmerman stating that his life may have been endangered by the battery to his head. That has nothing to do with race. You can, in fact, kill someone by slamming their head against concrete. And no, it doesn’t matter that the actual lacerations were small as the damage is internal.
Jury nullification is the fact that juries have a right to acquit despite the law, not to convict despite it. If you start letting juries convict despite the law, there is no limit to what people could be convicted of.
Why don’t you think the voice is Zimmerman’s? Experts differ. Associates of the men differ. But it is clear that Zimmerman was getting whooped. Who typically cries for help in a fight – the guy winning or the guy getting whooped? Perhaps this isn’t conclusive that the voice belonged to Zimmerman, but what evidence is there pointing the other way? Martin’s family? Zimmmerman’s family disagrees. Sounds like a wash evidentially.
The only scenario I could see Martin crying out for help is if Zimmerman were brandishing the gun. But then it would not be credible that Martin was hitting him or smashing his head. And even yelling for help is foolhardy if someone is pointing a gun at you. Martin would be running or submitting.
The voice sounds young to me.
A lot of the earwitnesses heard grunting and scuffling which suggests that the fight became a wrestling match, which would favor the much bigger and stronger Zimmerman. I think that Trayvon punched him in the face and then was tackled and pinned, and used his fingernails to claw at the back of Zimmerman’s head. When the gun was produced, he screamed in terror prior to being executed.
But it’s completely possible that I am totally wrong.
The doctor said Zimmerman’s injuries seemed to be impact injuries. The swelling shown in the photograph would not be consistent with scratches unless there was infection, and there was little time for that, and no indication of it in the medical reports. The doctor did say some of the apparent swelling could be irregularities in the shape of the head, but if that actually becomes an argument I suppose Zimmerman’s head could be measured now, as swelling will have dissipated, but irregularities would remain. Also, if Martin had scratched Zimmerman that severely, it seems very likely there would have been skin or at least DNA under his fingernails and none was found. The police did, contrary to procedure, leave his hands unbagged, so the rain probably did wash away a lot of blood and DNA evidence, but washing skin out from under the nails? Every bit of it? Farfetched. The police have also testified that Zimmerman’s clothing was wet in back, suggesting he was back down in the grass. One might suppose the police are biased, but I think it has be regarded as stronger evidence than some supposition that Zimmerman would win a wrestling match based on no familiarity with either person’s fighting abilities, nor knowledge of who struck first, who may have slipped in the mud etc.
As for the voice, experts differ. Witnesses all say what you would expect given their logical sympathies. It has been legally determined that the identity cannot be determined. So I am not going to pretend that I, being non-expert and not knowing either person, have any idea based on the recording itself. But I have never seen a fistfight where it was the winner crying for help.
One white guy says he was on top, two women says differently. The kid may have been trying to pin George down, so he wouldn’t be shot. Did you know that none of Georgie’s DNA was found on Trayvons hands, under finger nails? On on speck, that was mixed with George and Trayvon.
Sorry Boo. Your daughter shouldn’t be questioned if she fights off her attacker, why are you not giving the black 17 year old male the same benefit of the doubt.
If you, as a progressive, would have researched this case, you would know that Georgies DNA was not found on Trayvon, only a tiny speck mixed with his and Georgies blood. Trayvon never touched George, and I am disappointed that a progressive, didn’t research the facts of this case.
live blogging of the Zimmerman trial
http://3chicspolitico.com/2013/06/28/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-day-5/
Booman, John Good just testified that he never saw a single punch being thrown, and merely assumed it was the guy on top screaming for help.
But again, he never saw a single punch being thrown. Never heard or saw head slamming on concrete, and never heard or saw any hitting at all. He only saw wrestling and arm movement.
And he was Zimmerman’s best witness, or so we thought.
This means that:
No witnesses saw any punches thrown.
No witnesses heard “you’re gonna die tonight motherfucker”.
No witnesses saw any head smashing on concrete.
Witnesses DID see the “guy who was on top is the guy who got up” after the shot.
Witnesses DID hear Zimmerman approach Martin.
I don’t know that this was any kind of win for the defense today. The fact that he wasn’t willing to back up Zimmerman’s story means that no one will.
Piece I saw had testimony that Martin was on top and that the witness assumed Zimmerman was the one screaming because he was on the bottom, but when pressed he couldn’t be certain about who screamed.
Since the defense dropped the Stand Your Ground, there’s discussion by one commentator that in CA it’s recognized that you can have the perception that your life is in danger even when it is not. The witness who was first on the scene commented that Zimmerman did not seem rattled when he stood up from the grass, not a good indicator that Zimmerman was shaking in fear.
Perhaps a civil suit.
Could be a beaut, too.
Remember OJ – who was actually guilty, btw?
But it looks like it will emerge the local cops were right to let him go, in the first place.
Or maybe not.
Ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.
I don’t think they were right to let him go. I think the proper thing to do is to determine whether you think he acted in legitimate self-defense, and that requires a more thorough investigation than the police initially conducted. And if you think the evidence tends to show that he didn’t act in legitimate self-defense but you are not sure you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, you take it to the grand jury and see what they say about it. If they indict, you do the best you can.
This.
Even if Zimmerman’s account is true and fits the criteria for a self-defense claim, it’s still an affirmative defense on a set of facts that warranted a homicide investigation.
Philo, read the autopsies of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Simpson’s throat was cut after she’d bled out and was dead. Likewise, the stab wound in Goldman’s back was inflicted after he was bled out and dead. Try to rewrite the double homicide with one guy standing around waiting for two victims to bleed out before committing the final wounds to both of them.
I’ll skip the reading assignment but I will take your word for that about the wounds.
Lawsuit said he did it. Confession too.
The result is completely unpredictable. Juries are insane and one never knows where they’ll come down.
This, of course, is the biggest crime of all.
The American jury system was set up at the time of the country’s founding based on the English system, with a few provisions to counter some of its worst abuses. Double Jeopardy, for example, was there because of the past practice of reaching verdicts of “not proven” and then retrying until you get the result you want.
For 1787 it was probably the best they could do. But for 2013 using this system to determine guilt is as bad as practicing medicine using 1787 medical techniques.
First, average citizens are horrible at weighing evidence and coming to judgments on anything – and this is doubly true of when it comes to assessing the credibility of a witness under scrutinty on the stand. For example, “everyone knows” that liars can’t hold eye contact when they lie. Of course, this isn’t true – practiced sociopaths hold eye contact very well. But people on the deep end of the autism spectrum, who generally have great difficulty lying, almost always fail to hold eye contact at any time.
Second, the system requires that all evidence be introduced by a witness-in-a-box, which means that the quality any physical evidence carries a lot less weight than what the jury judges to the be the credibility of the presenter. Which is why there is a market for professional lying “experts” who sell themselves as witnesses counter actual evidence. This is made worse by local court rules which often make it very difficult for the jury to view the evidence directly – limiting, for example, examination of exhibits that are complex documents to only a certain amount of time, or only under special circumstances, or only one document at a time.
Third, the system emphasizes eye witness testimony, which has been proven many times to be the least reliable of all evidence – not due to lying, although that is a factor, but just the problems with human memory recall.
Fourth, when the system does bring in scientific evidence it often – even usually – is used incorrectly. Fingerprints, for example, are far less reliable as ID than are portrayed on TV. Given enough funds and a skilled lawyer you can contradict assertions of evidential infallibility – most people in court don’t have those. But most critically, the legal system does not have any mechanism to arrive at a logical conclusion about the value of any physical evidence – it’s up to the opinion of the jurors and the ability of the court entertainers to sway that opinion.
Finally, critical evidence is often kept from the jury. Now, there was good motivation for creating these rules – because jury’s opinions are so malleble by pretty much anything it’s really not fair to bring up certain things. But applying these rules is difficult. Consider an accusation of teacher-child abuse. The first thing an investigator looks at is the record of the teacher as it is very very rare for only a single abuse case to occur over a teacher’s career. But evidence rules prevent introducing evidence of other abuse in most circumstances. Thus a defense can try to create the impression that this was the only accusation that occurred, out of the blue, and the prosecution cannot counter it.
The end result is a system that has an accuracy rate – in terms of whether the verdict is correct, at a truly pathetic rate. It may be 50%, 60%, 70% – we can’t really know for sure. But even 70% accuracy is horrible. We can and should be doing much better.
The main reason the systerm persists? Yes, inertia is a key factor, but is mostly that the many bugs in the system are easily manipulated by the wealthy to their advantage.
great critique of the system, is there another system practiced and proven that is better? If not, is it possible to get one that is fair to the state, defendant, and victims of the crimes?
Sorry – it’s been a long time since I studied competing systems. I recall Germany had the concept of expert juries that provided more consistent results, and I recall that some of the Nordic countries have better rules for presenting of evidence, but I can’t remember the details.
I also remember that most countries are not much better and are often worse. The English system – which is still practiced with few local adjustments in most of the commonwealth, has even more flaws, especially in that the judge has far more leeway to attempt to influence the jury in one direction or the other. And in recent years we’ve seen what a joke the Italian system is.
Fingerprints are reliable to RULE OUT a connection, but the CONFIRMATORY aspect is less clear.
Excellent clarification. Thanks.
Damn, one thing I certainly do not look forward to is all the smug satisfaction that will be on the faces of all the bigots I know, should he be acquitted. There is this consensus among a lot of my fellow white people around here that this is just another case of a black thug getting exactly what he deserved. They will all be happy and satisfied in a few of their own sick minds that an acquittal will somehow give credence and validation to their own racist sentiments.
I will very quickly tire of hearing about it.
Is it possible for the jury to at least come back with a verdict for manslaughter?
It may not carry life imprisonment, but at the very least it would be something.
I think he is facing only one charge, which is 2nd Degree Murder.
I did some additional research. According to http://www.legalinsurrection.com:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/06/getting-to-murder-2-finding-george-zimmermans-depraved-mind/
So, it looks like if the Prosecution cannot convince the jury that Zimmerman was acting out of hatred/ill will/spite, then they can at least go for manslaughter.
Thanks. I was wondering why they didn’t charge both.
barring any new evidence, my prediction is that the jury will find Zimmerman not guilty of Murder 2 but will find him guilty of manslaughter.
Although he may not have killed Trayvon out of hatred or ill will, he still took another person’s life and for that he should be accountable.
Its the most reasonable outcome that will have the least amount of impact on either side.
Is that what manslaughter is, legally? Killing a person, perhaps not intentionally at all?
Manslaughter means that your actions resulted in the wrongful death of someone and that you acted recklessly. For example, maybe you got drunk and then drove your car. Or you handed a five-year old a loaded handgun. Or you instructed an employee to climb on a structure you knew to be unstable.
The charge holds you accountable for the death without arguing that you intended the death to occur. A better example is that you might shoot someone to keep them from approaching you without actually wanting to kill them. Let’s say that you aim for the legs but you sever an artery and they bleed out before the ambulance arrives. That’s manslaughter unless you can argue self-defense.
The whole thing makes me sick.
Martin would be alive if he’d been white. That’s not exactly the same as ‘he was killed because he’s black,’ but it’s too fucking close.
And the defense is basically, ‘Well, if an agitated adult man grabs a gun and stalks an unarmed black teen through the night, and the black teen ends up shot to death with the man’s gun, is the fact that blackness is scary enough to justify self-defense?’
Given the position of law enforcement in this case, I’m not sure that the prosecution is trying its hardest to win this case. It wouldn’t be the first time in a Southern state (and some non-Southern states as well) that the victim’s race became a “mitigating circumstance”.
In other words, there are a bunch of folks in Florida who think that the Stand Your Ground law did exactly what it was supposed to do — declare open season. Compare with the cases in which African-Americans have “stood their ground”.
What is it you think the prosecution should be doing differently?
Amazing! I expect within a week or so I will be seeing progressive Democrats splitting hairs over whether Emmet Till stole more chain than he could swim with.
How rationality about the law winds up defeating justice. On most cases when juries are given the straight up facts and fair judicial instructions they can sort things out fairly well. The jury system does work. When there is overreach or underperformance by any of the three providers of information to the jury or when there is prejudiced jury, justice comes completely unhinged.
The implication of a Zimmerman acquittal will be more situations like the killing of Trayvon Martin. That is, in fact, what the Stand Your Ground law intended to set up. As I said upthread, “open season”. And like the good liberals who tolerated the Klan marches of the 1920s and were reluctant to pass a anti-lynch law because it would fracture the Democratic Party, we see the same reasonableness making excuses just hoping that Zimmerman gets off because who knows who was on the ground and was in danger of his life.
It is exactly this sort of reasonableness that allows the neo-Confederacy to continue. The return of the South to being the South that the rest of the country loves to hate has to do with this co-dependent attitude of reasonableness. For folks who have to live in Florida, this is not an abstract theoretical legal exercise, it is a political struggle.
You’re arguing against reasonableness in jury trials?
You are in favor of a political verdict?
Okay. Good to know where you stand. But I seem to remember you being the victim of a political arrest that could have led to a political trial and a political verdict. So I am surprised to see you arguing that the law should be ignored in favor of your preferred political outcome.
I’d like to see the prosecution prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt because I’d like justice for the Martin family. But I don’t a conviction if the case isn’t proved. And, after the last two days of testimony, the prosecution is in real trouble. It looked most of the time like they were presenting the defense.
Reasonableness in a jury trial allows the truth to come out. That was exactly what prosecutors did not do in the pre-civil rights South and when they did, the jurors already knew how to vote.
And it is also what prosecutors are not doing in Chicago.
In the Florida case, it is in the prosecutor’s interest for future advancement to lose and let the Stand Your Ground law go forward. In Chicago it is in the prosecutor’s interest for future advancement to be “tough of terrorism”.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers very regularly put their fingers on the scales of justice when it comes to that “reasonable doubt” point. Or if they fail to, the judge’s instructions make the point.
All verdicts in politically controversial trials are political verdicts regardless of the result.
Maybe the prosecution intends to be in real trouble. That certainly was the case in a lot of prosecutions for lynching.
Also remember that the law enforcement officers didn’t want to arrest Zimmerman.
Maybe you should spend around five years living in South Georgia, Central Alabama, or North Florida to understand what I am saying.
Both cases seem to have the same property. The police and the prosecutor have predetermined the verdict. The difference is the verdict they are seeking.
The abstract looking at it from afar with sweet reasonableness and even-handedness confined to the evidence presented misses the corruption in the process.
So, you are arguing that the prosecution is deliberately undermining their own case in order to assure an acquittal, and that they are doing this because of Stand Your Ground?
Zimmerman’s attorneys waived that defense. It’s not even an issue in this trial.
I think some people need to come to grips with the fact that the case against Zimmerman is not that strong.
It doesn’t mean quite that, but close. It means that they must prove not only that he shot him but that he did so not in self-defense and with depraved indifference and ill will.
That’s the law, which is not synonymous with justice. Trayvon Martin was minding his own business and now he’s dead. But that doesn’t mandate a conviction. A conviction is only warranted if the prosecution proves their case, and they haven’t done so yet.
I want a conviction because I want justice, but the law and the facts may not allow for justice in this case. It is a very difficult thing to do to prove what happened and what was in Zimmerman’s mind.
Part of the reason that the case hasn’t been going well is because witnesses are saying things that are unhelpful to the prosecution. Sometimes, the truth is unhelpful to the prosecutors. It doesn’t mean that they are sabotaging their own case.
At any rate, an acquittal doesn’t mean that the jury thinks it’s okay to stalk black teenagers, engage them in fisticuffs, and then shoot and kill them. An acquittal will mean nothing more than that the jury wasn’t convinced that Zimmerman pulled the trigger without being in any serious danger and with malice and a depraved indifference to the value of Trayvon’s life.
In other words, the case turns on what the jury thinks was happening when the gun went off, not on what happened five or ten minutes before the gun went off.
If you are hoping that he is convicted for stalking or for profiling or for confronting, you are basically ignoring the law. Even if you start a fight, if someone is trying to kill you, you have the right to use deadly force to protect yourself.
So, why can’t we focus on the testimony rather than on making this into a team game?
If you want to root for something, root for the prosecutors to start doing a better job of building the case that Zimmerman wasn’t the one shrieking, that he wasn’t the one on the bottom getting pummeled. And see if they can provide more evidence that Zimmerman was acting with malice.
I, and likely you as well, have seen black men executed with less evidence that Zimmerman faces.
The political point of the trial, regardless of the defense’s not arguing a Stand Your Ground defense is ensuring the preservation of the the Stand Your Ground law. And the whole basis of that is exactly your argument: the case turns on what the jury thinks was happening when the gun went off, not on what happened five or ten minutes before the gun went off. The whole point is to set up the ambiguity so that one can kill minorities with impunity. That is the legislative intent. That is also the intent of the NRA as well. (Don’t believe it? Watch what happens when black folks exercise their right to Stand Your Ground or exercise their Second Amendment rights.)
If the prosecution delivers the goods on Zimmerman, I’ll revise my views on their role. But the State of Florida very much did not want this case to go anywhere. It took a lot of national attention to get them to do anything.
It’s more serious that an matter of rooting. As a Southerner, I don’t want to go back to the bad ole days and I fully expect non-Southerners to sell us out again because it is expedient and reasonable. Just like the toleration of the rest of the country for serial murderer Rick Perry. Or the overincarceration of American citizens.
First of all, I don’t dispute that Zimmerman was treated differently than a black man would have been, nor that Trayvon was treated differently than a white man would have been.
And obviously black men are in prison are the graveyard on less evidence than we have on Zimmerman. But two wrongs don’t make a right. We don’t convict Zimmerman to balance some injustice in the past.
Look, you’ve a got a bloodied guy who just got the shit kicked out of him who called in a suspicious character to 911 and is known as the neighborhood watch guy. And you’ve got a bunch of earwitnesses but the only real eyewitness says that he was getting the shit kicked out of him. Meanwhile, you don’t initially know anything about the victim. That’s where they started.
And now they are trying to prove that Zimmerman murdered him because he didn’t like the looks of him. He killed him because he had malice in his heart. He was never in any really serious danger, at least not to the degree that he was justified in using deadly force.
That’s not an easy case to make.
If you look at it like a person died and Zimmerman should be held responsible, then the case is easy. But he’s charged with second degree murder, and that has standards that must be met.
I want the prosecution to meet that standard, but I don’t want the jury to convict absent that standard being met. I want a just verdict more than I want a just result. I hope that they can get the second degree conviction, but I will accept the jury’s decision unless I think the case has been proven and they’ve ignored the facts. As of today, I think they’ve got enough for manslaughter but not enough for second degree.
But they’re not done.
And OJ Simpson walked.
Some cases are just too difficult and/or murky for successful prosecution when the defense team is competent. (A competent prosecution team in the OJ case probably couldn’t have done better than get a hung jury.)
Maybe more community focus on those wrongly charged or overcharged would be a better use of resources than the one-at-a-time intense efforts to convict one white guy that may be or not guilty of murder.
So I am accosted by a complete stranger carrying a concealed handgun and he starts beating on me. If I fight back and start winning it gives him the justification to pull out his gun and kill me in self-defence? This seems problematic to me.
It’s not clear that Zimmerman struck first. Martin had no injuries other than the gunshot wound. Jeantel’s testimony on the Get Off point is suggestive, but it’s something she never attested to before, and she has previously lied under oath in this case, not just to cover for personal embarrassment, but to defend Martin, papering over the racial epithet Martin used, for example.
Right. Of course it is problematic. But if I start a fight with you, it doesn’t give you the right to try to kill me.
People have trouble distinguishing the difference between determining who is at fault and what the law is.
Let’s say that for no reason I call your wife a bitch while you and she are walking down the street minding your own business. Are you then justified in shooting me?
No.
But is it my fault if I get shot? Pretty much, yes.
I instigated the conflict. I did it for no good reason. I was the asshole.
The exact same principle holds in this case. To convict for second degree murder, the jury needs more than just the fact that Zimmerman profiled Trayvon and followed him and confronted him. It needs to find that he killed him not in self-defense. And it needs to find that he killed him with malice.
Some people argue that this amounts to giving permission to people to do what Zimmerman did to any black kid on the street, but the difficulty in this case is really the lack of eyewitnesses. If it had been done in broad daylight in front of several eyewitnesses, we’d have a much clearer picture of what was going on at the moment that the trigger was pulled. If Zimmerman was really getting his head pounded on the sidewalk, then people would agree that his life was in danger and that Trayvon was taking the fight too far. If it was much less than that, and Zimmerman was merely taking a beating, then people would say that Zimmerman used excessive force. And if Zimmerman had taken control of the fight and had pinned Trayvon, then people would agree that he had executed Trayvon.
Instead, we are left to try to piece together which of those scenarios is the true one from the available evidence. And it isn’t clear.
Not to be an asshole about it, but trial-watching validates the idiom, “predictions are hard, especially about the future”. You might as well read tea leaves.
As a statistician and epidemiologist, I often think about “causation” and what “causes” what. What caused the death of Martin?
There is a helpful analysis of cause termed “component cause” analysis. A set of events that leads to an outcome is called a “sufficient cause.” Every chain of events can be broken down into a number of pieces, which may be independent or may not. In this case, the components are “Z follows M”, “Z accosts M”, “M fights Z”, etc. There are many scenarios.
A component is termed “necessary” if it shows up in EVERY different sufficient cause (chain of event). Such events are key to understanding culpability. In this case, the only NECESSARY component is “Z follows M”. Without that, we would have a live M today.
That event “Z follows M” against the advice of the 911 operator IS the key event, and means that Z is guilty.
So a woman sees someone in the bushes behind her house, calls the police, says she is going out to investigate, the dispatcher advises her not to, she does anyway and gets raped. Her going out contrary to the advice of the dispatcher was indeed a “necessary” condition to the event. By your logic, that means she is to blame for it and legally accountable. Really?
that analogy isn’t remotely equivalent to the Martin situation. Are you suggesting that Martin did something rising to the level of rape? And did your woman in the example shoot the guy in the bushes? This makes no sense.
dataguy’g argument is that the fact that Zimmerman followed Martin is the decisive fact on determination of guilt because it was a necessary condition of the event – no Zimmerman following, no event. This leaves aside any question of what happened after or who was responsible for the fight. That is the point. Dataguy wants to reduce the matter to this one fact. In my example, the fact that the woman walked out is a necessary condition of the rape – no walking out, no rape. It does not matter if the woman did anything wrong, since dataguys argument is specifically trying to leave such question aside and reduce the matter to what is the necessary condition (and there are several necessary conditions, but this is one that is undisputed). There are always differences between any two compared things, so the validity of any comparison has to be based on the claimed similarities.
Nope, still doesn’t make any sense at all.
Well, then you must have no mastery of logic whatsoever. Not my problem.
What Dataguy is saying, is that if the rapist wasn’t hiding in the bushes, there would be no rape. So, it doesn’t matter if the woman leaves the house. The woman had no intent of harm, as the rapist, so the responsibility of the rape is on the guy hiding in the buses. Trayvon Martin had no intent of harm, when he ran from Zimmerman. George was the aggressor, and is guilty.
No, what dataguy is trying to do is leave questions such as intent out of its by speaking only of what are necessary conditions. A necessary condition is anything that must occur for the event in question to occur. In itself, it says nothing about responsibility or blame, though dataguy is trying to read that into it. There are generally, and in the Martin and my hypothetical, many necesssary conditions, so dataguy was already off-base to speak of the necessary condition.
In my hypothetical, the guy hiding in the bushes is a necessary condition. The woman going outside is a necessary condition. The guy deciding to rape her is a necessary condition. Absent any of those, no rape. This shows another problem with assigning blame based on necessary conditions – there are many and they point in various directions. But necessary conditions are facts; they are not generally concerned with intent or blame at all, though there is a subset of necessary conditions concerning states of mind (such as the decision to rape). What dataguy is doing is crudely abusing the language of formal logic to leap to a conclusion he likes while setting aside virtually all the facts of the case.
Maybe it’s a woman thing, but if some creepy guy were following me, I wouldn’t take the dark pathway between the rear of the condos, but would use the street sidewalk to get home.
Just a thought, and perhaps I have missed the answer to this, but when Zimmerman got out of his pickup and approached Martin, did he identify himself as a Neighborhood Watch member?
I’m not sure anything legally hinges on this. Do you know otherwise?
Well, if Zimmerman identified himself to Martin as Neighborhood Watch member then Martin’s response would have been resisting authority. If he didn’t id himself then he was a strange man in the dark stalking Martin with no expressed authority.
Since when is a neighborhood watch person “authority”? They’re just regular people who have a club, that’s all. And they do not have police powers.
Correct, but Zimmerman was holding himself out as a representative of the group on his call to 911 and calling out to Martin that that’s who he was would have gone a long way in calming down the confrontation.
“Hey kid, I’m part of the Neighborhood Watch and I’ve reported you hanging around here to the cops.” Oh, ok, sorry, I was just going home with my skittles and pop, have a nice evening.”
The worst part of the juror is (as reported by ABC) they had to find jurors who had never heard of Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman, IOW clueless mopes cut off from society. When Illinois Governor Dan Walker was tried in 1987 they had to find a jury who had never heard of the man who had recently been Governor of the state (in the ’70s).
What I don’t understand is why the lethal force in self defense argument doesn’t cut both ways. Yet Zimmerman could kill Martin in self-defense.
It seems clear that Zimmerman was “stalking” Martin. But I see no one raise the argument that even if Martin used the side-walk as a “lethal weapon” as defense purports, why is then NOT justified to resist an armed stranger at night who is following you for no discernible reason? Even if you need the sidewalk to do it.
Zimmerman followed Martin and assumed he was an “a-hole” or “punk”. That doesn’t prove he either did or intended to start a fight, much less a shooting. Martin called Zimmerman a “creepy [expletive] cracker”, also indicating a hostile attitude. However, if Zimmerman attacked Martin, why did Martin have no injuries at all but the gunshot wound? Zimmerman had some real injuries. It is possible that Zimmerman attacked but was very ineffective, but particularly if he got the first blow in, it seems unlikely that he left no trace at all. Not even DNA.
I also really doubt Martin knew Zimmerman was armed. He would have had to be really stupid to rush a man with a gun, and he wouldn’t have been able to administer a pounding had Zimmerman had it out. And if Zimmerman intended to use the gun, why would he start with a fistfight?
You are buying into the angry black man, who would suddenly rush a creepy white guy he ran from. Did you know that there is no DNA of George Zimmerman on Trayvon, just a a tiny speck mixed with both George and Trayvon? If you didn’t know that, just go back to the Stormfront web page, with the other uninformed right wingers.
What I don’t understand is why the lethal force in self defense argument doesn’t cut both ways here. Zimmerman could kill Martin in self-defense.
Yet it seems clear that it was Zimmerman who was “stalking” Martin.
Curiously, I see no one raise the argument that even if Martin used the side-walk as a “lethal weapon” as defense purports, why is it then NOT justified to resist an armed stranger at night who is following you for no discernible reason- even if you need to use the sidewalk to do it?
Because guns = FREEDOM.
What really worries me about this case is that, if Zimmerman is acquitted, as I think likely (don’t know about manslaughter charge. Would have to give that some thought), there may be a reaction akin to Rodney King, but more narrowly racial. That would be very destructive in its own right and is likely to fuel a backlash that will serve right-wing interests. If the blacks are going to riot over anything, it should be the VRA, but a Zimmerman acquittal would be more the sort of thing they have rioted over in the past.
OTOH, that was a more violent time. More lead in the air. I do have hope that things will stay calm, perhaps that Obama can calm them.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty much a lose-lose situation either way. The sides are so starkly drawn in this case, that there are very few outcomes that would not result in one side feeling as though they were slighted.
If Zimmerman is acquitted, then minorities will obviously feel as though they have no rights within the legal system. At best, you can expect that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will use this as an opportunity to mobilize their protesters. At worst, there will be rioting in the south and urban areas where people feel as though they are second class citizens.
Even if there are no riots, the mere fear of them would of course give gun owners even more reason to build up their reserves of ammo and guns to protect themselves from the “others”.
If Zimmerman is found guilty of Murder 2, then gun owners (and bigots in general) will feel that they are having their gun rights taken away; that they cannot defend themselves against “f’ing punks”….etc and they will likely continue to blame the MSM for trying to depict TM as a “saintly” teenager, and they’ll blame Obama for saying that Trayvon looked like him, etc…
For these people that only see in terms of black and white, good vs. evil, us vs. them, then they will find every excuse to focus their anger towards the wrong people. Although this group of people tends not to protest (unless their wearing tri-corner hats with misspelled signs) or riot, this will further flame their hatred toward people different from them, and likely make them feel even more powerfully that “their way of life” or “their country” is being taken away from them.
As I stated above, one solution would be to find GZ guilty of a lesser count of manslaughter. If the Prosecution cannot persuade the jury that GZ acted with ill will or hate, then they can at least find him guilty of killing another person.
What annoys me most of all is that it’s many of the same people who, for lack of a better expression, “cling to their guns and their religion” are the ones that are typically for the death penalty, but also want to see GZ acquitted of all charges.
However, the Old Testament would say “an eye for an eye”.
Mind you, I’m not a supporter of the death penalty, but if we’re using the Bible as the moral code then if GZ killed TM, then wouldn’t it only make sense that he is also executed (or at the very least put away in jail forever?).
Yeah, it’s going to be ugly either way, and maybe manslaughter would be the best outcome for keeping temperatures down. This is one reason I really wish liberals would stop fanning the flames by insisting that Zimmerman is guilty, guilty, guilty, and that this is a racial murder, and basing the argument not on the particulars of this case, but on generalities about racism in America. Presumptive innocence applies to possibly racially-charged crimes too.
If Zimmerman gets off and the blacks riot, I expect many liberals will hedge, decrying the riots themselves, while holding them to be “understandable”. This is about the only thing I could see right now that would actually strengthen the hand of the Repub party, by angering people at liberal anti-racism.
Yes, liberals should be focusing their efforts not on the black/white aspects of the case, but onto the bizzaro world stand your ground laws that allow an armed person to pursue someone else, and then when the pursuer feels their life is threatened, they can pull the trigger to defend themselves.
Had Zimmerman left the gun in his car, or if he himself had just stayed in the car completely, then it’s highly unlikely that TM would have been murdered that night.
Ultimately I suspect that will be a key part of the Defense’s closing arguments. It will be a victory for the judicial system if justice is served and a murderer is held accountable. But it will be a victory for everyone if they can create a precedent against this kind of Stand Your Ground nonsense.
The defense is not making a Stand your ground defense. They are arguing plain old self-defense. Since SYG is not an issue in the trial, I don’t see that the trial will have any consequences for it. And they could argue that, had Zimmerman left his gun in the car, he probably would have gotten his brains beaten out on the sidewalk, since it is highly unlikely Martin tried that knowing he had a gun, and I think the physical evidence supports the notion that Martin did so beat him.
If he had his brain beaten out, some of that brain matter would have been on Trayvon. Trayon only had one speck of blood on him from Zimmerman. Fancy that?
What I said was “the defense could argue that, if he had left his gun in the car, he would have gotten his brain beaten out” Obviously, he did not leave his gun in the car. This is called a counterfactual. It speaks of some hypothetical situation, not of what actually occurred. I was responding to VinnieSaltine’s supposition of a counterfactual the defense could bring up (she meant prosecution, but I didn’t know that when I was writing) – what would have happened had Zimmerman not brought his gun? Trying to refute this on the basis of what actually did happen given that Zimmerman is enormously stupid.
I don’t know why I said “she” for VinnieSaltine. No one in this medium really knows the gender of anyone else, but the name does not necessarily identify Vinnie as female. In any case, I did not mean anything by it.
No worries. For the record, I am a guy, and in hindsight I should have spell my name “Vinny” but its too late now.
You are correct, I meant to say, “Ultimately I suspect that will be a key part of the
Defense’sProsecution’s closing arguments.”If you believe the physical evidence supports that theory, then you are clueless about the facts of this case, and really not qualified to comment.
As for the Bible, it says eye for an eye; it says Thou Shalt Not Kill, with no caveats I recall for execution by the state; it says all kinds of things. It’s a wildly inconsistent document.
You’re absolutely correct; it is a very inconsistent document and one that is too often used out of context to only support a singular point of view.
I like to believe that if Jesus were alive today, he’d absolutely be liberal hippy; he’d probably have done LSD at Woodstock, protested against Vietnam, been part of Million Man March on Washington, held candle vigils against the Iraq war, protested for Obamacare, Occupied Wall Street, attend the Moral Mondays in Raleigh, NC, and would be standing with Wendy to support Women’s Rights.
But, that’s just me.
Sorry Boo, love your page, but I am disappointed that someone who calls himself liberal is so uniformed.
You took Zimmerman’s side of the story, in which, Dee Dee did an excellent job of discounting his story, and that he did indeed approach Trayvon.
What you are trying to convince others, if a rapist approached your daughter, and she fought him, the rapist is justified, if he thinks his life is in danger.
Those of us who have been following this case, knows theses facts:
There was no Zimmerman’s DNA under Trayvons fingernails.
There was no blood of Zimmerman on Trayon’s hands, making the pounding of the the head unlikely.
Johns testimony saw no punches, so the poor kid may have been trying to stop Zimmerman from shooting him, while he was on top.
Trayvon had no bruising on his hands, only a 1/4 inch scratch on his forth finger, which was healing.
There was no blood of Zimmerman on Trayvon. Only a speck, that was mixed with his and Zimmerman.
You believed the narrative of the killer of a black kid who went to a 7/11 and never came back. You may have to re-evaluate has to the reasons why.
As I mentioned above, the police, contrary to standard procedure, left Martin’s hands unbagged in the rain, allowing blood and other material to possibly be washed off. You are correct, though, that it would be almost impossible for skin under the fingernails to be washed off by rain. This shows that the wounds to the back of Zimmerman’s head were not scratches from Martin. So what were they? Your assertion that Martin would have blood on his hands from pounding Zimmerman’s head on the concrete in false. The wounds and blood would come from Zimmerman’s contact with the concrete, not with Martin’s hands, so there is no reason to suppose there would be blood on them. There may have been some from the nose injury that got washed off in the rain, but not necessarily. If Martin was assaulted, why does Zimmerman have all the injuries except the gunshot wound? It’s not enough – not even meaningful – to keep repeating that Martin did not have Zimmerman’s blood or DNA on him. That is very consistent with a scenario where Martin was not struck. If you want to say Zimmerman also was not struck, then you have to explain his injuries.