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Post by
Heckler
Yes, I got that. And like I said several times, the way Zimmerman handled it was wrong.
He should have stayed in his car, keeping watch from a distance until the police showed up.
But he didn't, so shouldn't he be held responsible for the tragedy that occurred because of his wrong actions? And I'm not asking if he should have been found guilty in this trial. I'm asking if we as a society of laws agree that when you act wrongly, and a human death occurs due to your actions, you should be held responsible.
Post by
Nathanyal
Yes, I got that. And like I said several times, the way Zimmerman handled it was wrong.
He should have stayed in his car, keeping watch from a distance until the police showed up.
But he didn't, so shouldn't he be held responsible for the tragedy that occurred because of his wrong actions? And I'm not asking if he should have been found guilty in this trial. I'm asking if we as a society of laws agree that when you act wrongly, and a human death occurs due to your actions, you should be held responsible.
Something should have happened. And if this Civil Rights charges go through, something most likely will happen.
Post by
Magician22773
Yes, I got that. And like I said several times, the way Zimmerman handled it was wrong.
He should have stayed in his car, keeping watch from a distance until the police showed up.
But he didn't, so shouldn't he be held responsible for the tragedy that occurred because of his wrong actions? And I'm not asking if he should have been found guilty in this trial. I'm asking if we as a society of laws agree that when you act wrongly, and a human death occurs due to your actions, you should be held responsible.
Something should have happened. And if this Civil Rights charges go through, something most likely will happen.
The civil rights charges should not go through. Zimmerman was not law enforcement, or a representative of government. He was not involved in any form of commerce with Martin. If he is charged with violation of civil rights, it will be nearly unprecedented for a private citizen to be charged with a civil rights violation of another private citizen.
What I do see happening is an "O.J. Simpson" style civil suit, that he will likely lose. The burden of proof in a civil case is only "by a preponderance of evidence", not "beyond a reasonable doubt". In other words, a civil trial jury CAN use common sense.
If it was the middle of the day, sure it would be fine. But late at night, dressed in a hoodie with it up over your head can be seen as suspicious. Yeah, I always wore a hoodie in high school, and sometimes I still do. But I don't go walking around the neighborhood in the middle of the night dressed like that. If did, I'm sure people would ask questions.
It was 7PM. Not exactly "middle of the night". It was also February, and raining. So a hoodie would not be a "suspicious" garment considering the weather.
I heard he was staying at his father's fiancee's house, I never heard where that was at. If it was in-fact in that community, he should have just told him so.
Yes, he was killed 70 yds away from where his father was.
Now, lets consider the "facts" of the case, that we know here. Zimmerman's conversation with 911 has him on record as saying "
This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something
.". He also is on record as saying "
these $%^&*!@s, they always get away
."
At 7:15PM, Zimmerman tells the 911 operator "He's running". The 911 operator tells Zimmerman not to chase him, to which he replies "Okay", and asks the operator to have police contact him when they arrive.
Two minutes later
, police arrive on scene, and Martin is dead.
Two minutes
.
Now, thats it for the "facts". From there, you have to apply some common sense.
First off.....
two minutes
ago, Martin was "running". He was shot 200 ft from where his dad was. Do you think he was running to safety, or do you think he would have ran, only to try to "ambush" Zimmerman?
If I were going to ambush someone, I would not run toward the house where my dad was, I would have run away from it.
So lets assume that it took Zimmerman 1 minute to get in his truck, catch up to Martin, get out, and then "someone" starts the confrontation.
We now have
one minute
that Zimmerman had to decide that he was in imminent fear of his life, and decided to kill Martin. Actually, a little less than that, because when the police arrived two minutes after the 911 call ended, Martin was already dead or dying, and Zimmerman was standing. If you believe Zimmerman's story, he had just been on the ground, having his head pounded into the sidewalk, and he also had just shot and killed another person. I would say it is safe to assume he took, oh, 15 seconds to pick himself up.
So now, if you do the math on the time, there is only a matter if maybe 30 seconds there for the actual "fight". I have been in a bunch of fights. And never, have I felt like, in 30 seconds, that I was going to die. Never have I felt like, in 30 seconds, that I was about to kill anyone. I have been jumped by a Mexican prison gang, and did not feel like they could have killed me in 30 seconds.
So, you want my conclusion of what I think happened?
I think Martin saw Zimmerman following him, and he started to run back "home". Zimmerman chased him down in his truck, got out, and probably said something confrontational. "HEY! What the ^$# do think you are doing here?"...or, possibly worse, may have dropped a racial slur. (It is reported, but never confirmed that Zimmerman was over heard saying "^&*!ing coon" during the fight). Martin landed a solid punch, and knocked Zimmerman to the ground. Martin "mounted" him, to use a MMA term, and at that time, Zimmerman shot him.
It is very likely that Zimmerman pulled his gun before Martin mounted him, as removing a weapon from a waistband CCW holster with someone on top of you would be very difficult.
Remember, he had 30 seconds here, give or take a few. I am very proficient with a pistol, but even I could not get a gun out of a holster, off safety (assuming is was on safety...and if not....WHY?), and shoot with someone sitting on top of me.
So there you go...the facts, some logic, and an opinion. I believe the problem in this case was, the prosecutor ignored the facts, and instead tried to prove an opinion...and that doesn't work under the rules of a trial, and the jury saw that. If he had stayed on the facts, maybe the jury would have come to their own conclusion. But because he tried to present opinion as evidence, he lost.
Post by
Skreeran
I agree the prosecution was terrible, and I agree that Zimmerman probably instigated the fight. The reason he got the Not Guilty verdict was
because
the prosecution was terrible and there remained a "Reasonable Doubt" to whether or not he was acting in self-defense.
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
<overly long, rambly, non-proofread post incoming>
Regardless of what is right or wrong, there is simply not enough evidence to prove that his version of events is not the truth.
While I agree that it isn't possible to prove which one specific series of events occurred, I think there's more than enough factual evidence to support a manslaughter charge (at least as far as I understand the definition of manslaughter -- but I'm an engineer, not a lawyer) --
regardless
of the unknowable events that took place between the 911 call ending and Zimmerman firing. I will agree that without knowing the
actual
series of events, a murder charge end up being a jury coin-flip, but Zimmerman clearly committed manslaughter.
Even in the case of events where Martin hid in the bushes and ambushed Zimmerman, unprovoked, like a bloodthirsty savage (
which people seem all too willing to believe is the natural inclination of a young black male -- another topic
); the two pertinent facts of the case, as admitted by Zimmerman, are that he disregarded police instructions when told not to chase Martin, and pulled the trigger that ended Martin's life.
Self-defense does not (and should not) automatically grant you the authority to take a human life, even if your life is in factual, provable danger from the other person (especially in the case where you were the initiator of the situation, but as there's some argument to whether that's true in this case, let me say that I don't think it matters -- if you were mugged on the street by an armed criminal and ended up killing them with your concealed firearm, even if the whole thing was caught on security camera that left no doubt that you were being violently attacked, it's likely that you would face manslaughter charges of one form or another, if the evidence left the absolute necessity of lethal force in question. In your trial, the argument against you would be that you could have shot the person in the arm or leg, and that your failure to calculate the necessity of a lethal shot prior to taking it warrants some level of manslaughter charge).
Keep in mind that I'm not trying to argue legal minutiae, or lawyering strategy here; and I'm not saying that this jury's decision is somehow better or worse than any other. I'm trying to figure out if the laws that we have in place are in proper alignment with what we as a society agree is right and wrong. Zimmerman is free, whether that's due to bad prosecution, a good defense, the media, or Barack Obama (somehow that Fox News can explain I'm sure) doesn't matter.
What does matter is that we look at the situation and work to correct any shortcomings of the legal system that this verdict exposes (not to punish Zimmerman, but to save the next Trayvon Martin). Seems to me that one of those shortcomings is that the legal definitions of manslaughter and murder, and the way they may be applied by the state, are not precise enough to prevent a clear-cut case of one human taking another's life from being argued in trial the way it should have been (where the question was not whether Zimmerman was guilty of manslaughter, but whether or not the "level" of the manslaughter warranted prison time as punishment; this seems to be a common question in manslaughter cases -- it's possible, for example, to be convicted of manslaughter if you killed a pedestrian because you were texting while driving, and your charge may end up being community service).
In my mind, a properly defined and applied 'manslaughter' would mean that this case wouldn't be about whether or not GZ had committed manslaughter (as he admits to ending another human's life without malice or prior intent), but how severe of a punishment is warranted for what was an obvious crime. And yes, I am saying explicitly that the killing of Trayvon Martin was an obvious crime, even in the worst possible series of events (or at least, that I believe it should be). The discussion we as a society -- and therefore our legal system -- should have been having was about the level of punishment warranted for the crime that factually occurred. Is it time-served for a questionably-justifiable homicide, or perhaps 2-5 years for a miscalculated application of lethal force, or perhaps 15-20 years for a reckless application of lethal force?
A legal system that has facts like these in place and accepted as true by all parties, and leaves the punishment up to lawyering games -- ultimately letting a killer go free -- is broken. We should be having a discussion about how to fix it, not discussing courtroom strategy like its a football game (not accusing this thread of being that, but the national ongoing conversation which really seems to be missing the whole point -- for example, a reaction to my post which says 'well the prosecutors did a bad job' misses the point of what I'm trying to say; in a case like this, the legal definition of the crime should have left no room for a bad lawyer to have an impact on the outcome. The definition and application of the crime are to blame, meaning the law itself is to blame, and should be addressed if everyone accepts that as true).
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
And if Martin had killed Zimmerman by beating his head against the concrete path, would he have been guilty of manslaughter
Yes, it clearly would have been, at least as I think it should be defined (not sure where in my rambling you decided that I would say no to that question). The amateur-ish definition of manslaughter I'm working with is something like
The act of killing of a human being without deliberation, premeditation, or malice.
Maybe that's a wrongheaded definition, but that's actually what I want to hear what people think. People are arguing about whether Zimmerman should have been found guilty by arguing about precise legal definitions, and burdens of proof, etc. But the larger more important question should be, do the facts which everyone accepts as true warrant a punishment, all on their own, without the need to prove any of the unknowable things? If so, what is wrong with our laws that we can't find one to successfully apply to Zimmerman's actions? If not, then my previous "black box" question applies.
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gone
Murder, is the act of killing someone, with the intent to kill them. Manslaughter, is the act of killing someone, without the intent. Killing someone by accident.
Actually that's not true for several reasons. Two I can think of off the top of my head; all that's required for a murder 2 conviction is to show that the killer acted recklessly, intent isn't necessary. Also you can kill somebody in self defense, and have it not be murder, even if you had every intent of killing them dead in your action.
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
I will try to keep this shorter than my prior postings by leaving out a long-winded hypothetical that I just wrote up. Let me instead just re-ask this question:
Do the facts which everyone accepts as true warrant a punishment, all on their own, without the need to prove any of the unknowable things?
Honestly, does anyone believe Zimmerman acted
properly
in this situation? There seems to be a consensus, even among those "on Zimmerman's side," that agree he acted wrongly somewhere in the chain of events... why should he not be held responsible for that? The argument that "Trayvon acted wrongly too" doesn't work, because (1) that's a childish/meaningless justification for acting wrongly, and (2) Trayvon already got the ultimate punishment at the end of Zimmerman's firearm.
Maybe he will be in a civil lawsuit... but I've heard Florida provides some level of legal protection from civil lawsuit when a criminal trial has already occurred (unsourced and probably false).
On a curiosity note, maybe someone with legal knowledge can answer this for me:
I'm wondering if the fact that Zimmerman himself was admittedly responsible for the death of the only other witnesses to the case, if this should invalidate his own testimony as well. If the jury only had the hard factual evidence to decide on, and was instructed to ignore any account of the altercation by Zimmerman himself, I wonder what they would have decided.
Seems to me if the decision would have been different than the one they came up with allowing Zimmerman to testify, then something is odd in that situation. It would indicate that Zimmerman's own testimony saved himself from a verdict, in which he admitted to killing the only other source of testimony; and therefore needed only to construct a plausible explanation within the boundaries of the limited evidence available that made the killing seem justifiable in order to go free.
Although it does seem like I'm suggesting that Zimmerman should not be allowed to speak in his own defense, which also seems strange/wrong.
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Nathanyal
You do know Zimmerman didn't testify in the trial, right?
Post by
Heckler
I was under the impression that Zimmerman didn't testify?
I actually don't know, but his accounts given to the investigators are what the defense used to form a case, correct? Maybe that's not the same question -- I'm just saying, the series of events presented to the jury by the defense were provided by Zimmerman's own account of what happened, in some way.
Edit:
You do know Zimmerman didn't testify in the trial, right?
No -- apologies, I've tried to make it really clear in previous postings that I know almost nothing about the actual trial, and I'm trying to avoid discussion about the details of the trial because I do believe it was fair and proper and within the confines of Florida law (none of my questions are intended to say "shouldn't there be a do-over?" but more "what is wrong with the definition of our laws?"). I don't think Zimmerman was guilty of 2nd degree murder, and I don't think the prosecutors did what needed to done to convict him of that crime. The "option" to convict on manslaughter seemed weird to me from the start, but I don't believe the prosecution was aiming at a manslaughter conviction anyways, so they were presenting a (probably unwinnable) 2nd degree murder case. I sort of stopped paying attention when I heard this months ago, because I could already guess he would be found not guilty.
This question just popped into my head when I was thinking about what you said:
Regardless of what case and theories the prosecution presented, the investigators have said from the start that there is simply NO evidence to suggest that anything Zimmerman said is not true.
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
If you want my "legal football" opinion (which again, I think is useless -- but then again this is a Video Game forum; and this does provide the answers I would give to my own questions, in a way):
Zimmerman is free because of an overzealous prosecution and a poorly chosen jury for such zeal. A stronger, smarter prosecution team; and a "luckier" jury selection could have seen Zimmerman in jail for life.
They went for the Hail Mary, and failed (rightly so I would think, there was not a strong case that Zimmerman committed murder). I think I've made my opinion on Zimmerman clear, and even I think a reasonable penalty would have been 10-20 years in prison -- based only on the flimsiness of the evidence backing his justification for the necessity of lethal force, and the fact that Zimmerman made the conscious decision to instigate the face-to-face conflict, against the instruction of the dispatcher (as well as the fact that Trayvon Martin was 17, not a legal adult, so nearly all of the legal responsibility should have fallen on Zimmerman).
I think if the case were presented like this (pulling all importance off of the actual series of events), he would have been found guilty of some degree of manslaughter or aggravated assault, and would have received a comparatively light penalty (maybe 5 years, of which he would only have served 2 or 3).
But it wasn't, so he's free. Hopefully those who are interested in providing Justice are paying attention, so that the same mistakes won't be made next time.
Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
240140
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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