Of course there should be compelling evidence before someone is arrested and charged. Who the fuck is arguing otherwise? Do you think that people think police are so special that the law needs to treat them differently? People are arguing the exact opposite.
There was plenty of compelling evidence that indicated George Zimmerman should have been arrested immediately. If he did what he did in another jurisdiction he most likely would have been arrested, charged and convicted. If he did what he did here in NZ he’d be in jail. And if you don’t live in Florida and did what George Zimmerman did where you live you’d be rotting in jail right now as well. Trayvon Martin would have loved to have invoked “self defense” in this case. Unfortunately he can’t, because he’s fucking dead.
So here’s a friendly tip for you. If you live somewhere that doesn’t have “stand your ground” laws: don’t stalk your neighbours, continue stalking them when the police tell you to stop, chase your neighbour when he runs away from you then shoot him dead when he understandably tries to defend himself. Because it won’t end as well for you as it did for Zimmerman.
No its not, a reasonable fear is the exact opposite of paranoia. Paranoia is by definition an unreasonable fear, and therefore cannot be the basis for self defence.
That you don’t understand that people can sometimes make mistakes, especially in situations where there is no time for calm reflection, is your failing, not that of the law, or of those who make those mistakes.
Making a mistake that any reasonable person could have made is not a failing.
They do if the perceived threat is one that a reasonable person would have perceived, and the cops actions leading up to that point were not illegal.
Someone acting in a way you disapprove of, but that isn’t illegal, doesn’t remove their rights. It’s horrific that you think it could.
There’s no requirement to prove he didn’t fear for his life. You don’t get to shoot someone just because you fear them. I’ve been making this point repeatedly, probably hundreds of times by now.
Please, for fucks sake, Google the word “reasonable”.
I suppose there is no reason to rehash the Martin/Zimmerman case, but you are remembering it differently than I do. Getting your head bashed against a sidewalk again and again provides more than a little reason to defend yourself.
Unfortunately we don’t always know which cops are truly doing their job and doing it well. There are too many dirty, lazy, and aggressive cops that cause us to be in fear and danger.
Yes, of course they can. And anyone, even the instigator, is entitled to the full protection of the law, and the presumption of innocence. If someone claims to have killed in self defence, there should be evidence otherwise before charging or arresting them is even considered. Just like with anyone else who claims to be the victim of a crime.
The police aren’t in the position to make “presumptions of truth-telling.” Their job is to find out what happened. They shouldn’t be presuming guilt nor innocence based on a statement. If a suspect claims he wasn’t at the crime scene the police shouldn’t presume he’s telling the truth. If a suspect claims he is the King of England they should presume he is telling the truth. If a suspect claims self defense they shouldn’t presume he’s telling the truth. That’s not how policing works.
…getting chased by a stalker with a gun provides more than “a little reason to defend yourself”. Is shooting someone “acceptable self defense” but “bashing them against the sidewalk” somehow not acceptable?
And that is where we are in disagreement. I do not believe that it is reasonable to shoot someone who is laying on his back, begging not to be shot, I don’t believe that it is reasonable to shoot someone for informing you that they are a legally registered gun owner. No, I think that those are things that a paranoid person does.
Unfortunately, we are training our police to be paranoid, not reasonable, then asking juries to consider it from the point of view of a paranoid person.
Juries are not asked to determine if a reasonable person would have reacted that way, they are asked to consider if a cop, with training that tells them to shoot at anything that the perceived as the slightest threat, would have reacted that way.
You have been making the exact opposite point. That if you fear them, then you are entitled to self defense.
We have different definitions of the word “reasonable” if you think that shooting someone in the back who is running away and planting a weapon on them is “reasonable”.
I think mine is the more “reasonable” of the two.
What evidence would you use? I shoot someone dead in an alley. I say that I thought that they were reaching for a weapon. How do you prove that I didn’t think that they were reaching for a weapon?
Yeah, except that’s not what happened. Martin came back to find Zimmerman after Zimmerman had lost sight of him, and attacked him. Zimmerman then defended himself.
I have no idea where you get the idea that Zimmerman was stalking Martin from. No one that I’ve ever heard has claimed that they met before that day. It’s possible you mean “harassing”, but the actual facts of the case, as revealed at trial, rather than the biased and incomplete story in the media, show that that is also false.
More and more places are getting stand your ground laws. Protecting people like Zimmerman ships why they’re necessary, and hopefully everywhere will eventually have them. You shouldn’t have to fear attack for trying to keep yourself and your neighbours safe, and you certainly shouldn’t have to fear jail if you kill someone in self defence.
Zimmerman was absolutely, provably the victim in this case. You are absolutely, provably victim blaming if you say he should be in jail.
I’m not going to rehash it. Let’s just say we disagree on the facts, the media portrayals, and our conclusions. I don’t agree with your Zimmerman shorthand.
You don’t think the police should start from the assumption that someone who claims to be the victim of a crime is actually one? That, obviously, should be how policing works. Someone who had to kill in self defence deserves sympathy and support, not suspicion and attacks.
You don’t consider leaving your vehicle with your gun, and following a teenager behind and between buildings to be stalking? If Martin had shot Zimmerman, then that would have been self defense, as it was zimmerman that was following martin.
Zimmerman following Martin, while armed, ended with the teenager shot to death. Zimmerman was not the victim, he was the instigator, he was the escalator, and he was the one who fired the gun that ended a teenager’s life.
You have some fucked up notions of the definition of victim.
And we have evidence with body cam videos, innocent by-standers cell phone videos, and testimony which still doesnt cause the vast majority of killer cops to face any punishment. Your last man standing claim of self defense doesn’t work when it isn’t applied evenly to all parties. Cops get away with “self defense” murder and civilians deal with full trials and civil litigation.
If that is the full description of what happens, you’d be right. Investigators, and possibly juries, who have access to all the information can make that decision.
Really? Where? I’m not aware of anywhere that has jury instructions that say those things, but I’d be grateful for a cite. If this is happening, I’d obviously be opposed to it.
Why keep saying that when I’ve said something different in shitloads of posts of mine that you’ve read? You are entitled to shoot someone if you are in reasonable fear of them. That is a fundamentally different claim.
I’m not sure I’ve claimed outright that that is reasonable, so much as observed that a case, of which that is a partial and simplistic description of, was determined to be reasonable behaviour by those who fully investigated it. Or perhaps it was the opposite and that’s one of the ones where the killer was convicted, I honestly can’t remember, and as I didn’t follow the trial I can’t say whether it was reasonable or not as I don’t know what happened.
At least you are finally acknowledging that whether or not the fear is reasonable is relevant. Perhaps we do have different standards for that, but I think the actual difference is that I’m not willing to call someone a murderer based on a few seconds of video evidence and an incomplete media report, especially if those who’ve seen all the evidence say otherwise.
I wouldn’t need to prove any of those things to get a conviction, as being in fear is not enough to justify self defence. I would need to prove that no reasonable person would be in fear in that circumstance.
However, you are right about one thing that you implying. It is very hard to prove. That is a good thing - it should always be difficult to convince a jury of guilt, and someone should only be convicted if there’s no other way, that a reasonable person could believe, that things could have happened.
Does this mean that some people could get away with murdering someone in a dark alley, with no witnesses? Yes, obviously. So what? The protection of the falsely accused is far more important.