You say political ploy, I say a well needed time-out. In a month or so, they will quietly announce that there was no there there. By then it’ll be mid-August and hot as fuck outside (where protests happen). There’ll be a little stir, but nothing big. Case closed and move on to the Lifetime movie about Jodie Arrias.
I for one was happy when they did it in the Rodney King case.
That’s a distinction without a difference. What you described is nothing more or less than “a political ploy”.
George Zimmerman is unlikely to face federal charges for killing black teenager Trayvon Martin because it would be difficult to prove he acted out of racial bias, Justice Department officials said Tuesday.
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But a successful federal prosecution of Zimmerman would require clear evidence that he set out to attack the unarmed Martin because he was black.
Although that is exactly what many Americans see in the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old, it can be very hard to prove in court, legal experts said. So far, prosecutors have not shown evidence that Zimmerman acted out of racial bias.
“I’d be very, very surprised if we took it,” said one federal civil rights prosecutor, speaking anonymously because no decision had been made. “It’s a very tough, tough case to sell” because of the lack of witnesses.
“The difficult element would be proving racial motivation beyond a reasonable doubt,” said University of Michigan law professor Samuel Bagenstos, a former civil rights attorney in the Obama administration. “In most of these [hate crime] cases, you have someone who had made racial statements or you have a group who goes looking to attack a person based on their race.”
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Some advocates also have called for charging Zimmerman with violating Martin’s civil rights. But a civil rights count is limited to defendants who act “under color of law” — that is, wielding government authority.
Duh.
Well Terr I’m sure the NAACP is basing their claims on some part of civil rights law all those current and former federal prosecutors don’t know about. Because deltasigma has obviously made the strong argument that if the NAACP asserts something they should be accorded the standing of experts-at-law over and above both cited case law and direct quotes from former federal prosecutors.
FWIW I genuinely do not think Zimmerman killed Martin out of racial animus. I think he engaged in “some level” of profiling, in that I imagine if it had been a white kid walking around the neighborhood slowly while talking on a cell phone he would have been much less likely to even think twice about it. But that’s how it all started, that isn’t the same as saying he killed Martin because he hates black people and wanted to kill one of them.
I think Zimmerman was a wannabe cop who put himself in a situation he shouldn’t have, and then through a combination of stupidity and fear he ended up killing a kid. I don’t know who threw the first punch and never will, but at the end of the day Zimmerman made a series of very poor decisions (starting with carrying a gun while doing neighborhood watch duties, up through getting out of his car and then most likely everything during and before the confrontation with Martin) and that resulted in someone being killed. That’s usually the basis for certain classes of manslaughter or wrongful death or reckless endangerment leading to death. But the specific law in Florida really didn’t leave the way open to charges like that. It certainly wasn’t murder as Florida defines it nor was it regular manslaughter as Florida defines it.
So aggressive creeps with guns can stalk kids who are not white, get into confrontations with them, and shoot them when things go south, and get away with it. That’s my takeaway from the Zimmerman trial. I really wish I didn’t know this thing about America.
Blame Florida law, not America.
deltasigma, of course, won’t take our word for it notwithstanding the numerous citations provided in this thread. It’s as if s/he thinks federal statutes can be conjured out of thin air. Bizarre for someone who claims to be a former appellate lawyer. When I draft appellate briefs, I have to cite the statute(s) in a table of authorities. Must be different where deltasigma is from.
This is almost word for word what John Oliver said on the Daily Show the other night.
It’s amazing how you both just gloss right over Martin attacking Zimmerman and smashing his head into the concrete. That’s just “when things go south” as if it’s the natural result of walking up to someone and talking to them.
Yes, to a point, but it doesn’t matter what color either person is.
Define what you mean by that. Sometimes the that’s going to be OK and sometimes not.
No, they can’t. It depends on the details of what “go south” means.
See above.
That’s because you are trying to reduce this complex situation to a soundbite. That’s a very poor way of trying to understand the law.
Tsk. Reporter should have stuck to asking other people for legal analysis.
This is incorrect, but as a side note, there is even case law as to whether an off duty police officer acting as a security guard and makes an arrest is doing so under color of law.
Generally stalking is a crime, but is not defined as following someone. We don’t actually know if Zimmerman was following Martin or not when the physical confrontation started. It must be repeatedly emphasized we have no unambiguous evidence on what happened immediately prior to the confrontation.
Following someone in a threatening manner might be “menacing” in some States, but menacing would be difficult to demonstrate here.
It is generally illegal to get into physical confrontations. Getting into verbal confrontations is not illegal, nor could it be under our constitution. But there is often times a “mutual combat” “agreement” in that if two people fight one another the police or prosecutors will often decline to arrest or charge (respectively) if it was true mutual combat. I think historically mutual combat was actually a legal thing, but I don’t know if you have a real legal right to engage in “mutual combat” anymore–but it’s commonly not prosecuted if no serious injuries occurred.
We do not know how the confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin began. We do not know who first struck whom, or what words were said prior. Without knowing the specifics it’s impossible to say if Martin or Zimmerman deserve blame for the confrontation becoming physical.
Generally in most States if you start a fight and lose, and then kill someone, you’re going to be in big trouble. But we don’t know who started the fight. If Zimmerman was actually walking down the sidewalk and jumped and attacked, as he claims, then he’d have a self defense claim in most of the English common law world because his story suggests a common person would believe he was in danger of death or grievous injury and he had no means to escape.
As for “get away with it”, posit everything you think about the case is true. Zimmerman “stalked” Martin, and started a fist fight with him, then killed him because he was losing. If he did all of those things but not enough evidence could be found to prove he did those things, beyond a reasonable doubt, would you rather live in an America where he gets acquitted or convicted?
Unless your legal writing skills include instructions for building a time machine, as well as a draft of a new federal law that would reach Zimmerman’s conduct (because, see, then you could go back in time, get the law passed, and then return to the present and prosecute Zimmerman) then no matter how advocacious you want to be, the spot on your brief in the “Points and Authorities” table where you identify an actual federal law still has to contain SOMETHING.
If i were you, I’d go back to the housing one. Maybe you can get someone to say that Martin was actually trying to rent a condo and Zimmerman was trying to stop him.
Deltasigma has FEELINGS. How dare you disparage his FEELINGS? FEELINGS are more important than some shady lawyer’s tricks and traps, what with your actual printed so-called “laws” and such.
If I had to pick one sentence that has been written, in some manner or form, more times than any other about this case, it would be this one.
People who insist Zimmerman should have been convicted are almost universally asked some variant of this question, and almost universally have been unable to do so with specificity. They fall back on a series of connected statements: Zimmerman stalked an unarmed kid, Zimmerman provoked an encounter, Zimmerman killed the kid. And they seem to be genuinely puzzled that this isn’t enough to describe a crime.
But it’s not. Criminal law must be specific. It must clearly and unambiguously tell a reader what conduct is prohibited. Take “stalking” – of course there are laws prohibiting stalking. But I know of no law that simply announces that stalking is a crime. The criminal law takes pains to define precisely what is meant by stalking.
And when that precise and specific definition is compared to Zimmerman’s conduct, we see that the available evidence does not support the charge.
If you want to say that Zimmerman is guilty of a crime, then you should be able to list the specific elements of the crime, and for each element supply the evidence that proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I’d be interested in whether Zimmerman would have been convicted in any common law jurisdiction that has a self defense doctrine. I think in the strictest such jurisdictions, basically you can only use lethal force if you have “reasonable fear of imminent death or grievous bodily harm” and “no reasonable means to escape the situation.” That’s probably how the law is in many countries around the world that have their legal systems rooted in the common law, and any U.S. states that are “duty to flee” states. I think most U.S. states have the duty to flee outside of your home, whereas most do not have a duty to flee from your residence (“castle doctrine.”) I’m not sure on the total numbers with such laws, only that castle doctrine is common in U.S. states but not so universal in other English common law countries.
Obviously in other countries, Zimmerman would be guilty of serious firearms violations as other countries would not allow someone to carry a concealed pistol like he could here, but ignore that aspect of it and look only at the self defense assertion he made.
Based on Zimmerman’s story, can you identify any point at which a duty to flee would have attached and he could have reasonably escaped? If not, then you have to look at the claim that he feared imminent death or grievous bodily harm. His story is that he was having his face beat in and his head bashed into concrete, that is a reasonable situation to fear death or grievous bodily harm.
It is all based on Zimmerman’s “side” of the story, but we know now that the Florida prosecutors were never able to convince a jury that his story was completely inaccurate. It seems the jurors had mixed opinions on it, but were left with enough feeling that his side of events was at least “reasonably possible” and thus were lead to acquit. I’m not convinced even in duty to flee jurisdictions Zimmerman would have been convicted.
The SYG law had very little to do with it. Zimmerman was apparently able to convince the jury that he reasonably feared great bodily harm based on some superficial lacerations. That’s not a legal issue; it’s one of credibility.
And I think that’s a judgement call, and honestly one that we in fact give to jurors. It’s easy to feel one way or another about something, and I’ve never served on a juror but I’d take the whole reasonable doubt burden very seriously if I ever did. This is someone’s life we’re talking about here, the jury seemed really pretty aware of the consequences of their job. They apparently cried afterward because they felt terrible that a young kid was killed and nothing was being done about it, but they didn’t feel the State had proven their case. That’s the ultimate responsibility of jurors in our system.
Reasonable people can disbelieve Zimmerman’s story, for example the investigator, Serino, did not believe Zimmerman’s story. He wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter, but was told I believe through the Police Chief that after consultation with the State’s Attorney they didn’t feel they had enough evidence to obtain a conviction for manslaughter and so they were not charging him.
I think parts of Zimmerman’s story are true. For example I don’t think he felt he was in hot pursuit of Martin or anything, I think he was probably just trying to keep an eye on him. I don’t think he ever once considered that him following Martin might scare or upset Martin. He viewed Martin as a bad guy, and never thought about how Martin would view him. I don’t believe Martin jumped him, I believe Martin turned and confronted Zimmerman and t hen I honestly don’t know what I believe after that. Someone made it into a fist fight, Zimmerman lost and pulled his gun. If Zimmerman provoked Martin verbally or started the fist fight then I think he’s guilty of some form of manslaughter (but not Murder 2, I don’t believe morally or legally he was ever really guilty of that.) But I look at the evidence and I’m just spouting off unsupported opinions here, based on “feelings” I have about the way some guy’s story sounds. I’m glad this jury didn’t vote based on that, but instead based on the fact that prosecution had to prove some things, and by and large they didn’t.
Since we don’t know all the details, and never will, I will say of the things we do know Zimmerman did several I have deep unambiguous disagreements with:
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He viewed his role as neighborhood watchman as a sort of police role. It is not, the neighborhood watch is there to observe and report. Period. It is dangerous for him, dangerous for others to make it anything other than that.
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He carried a firearm with him while performing his neighborhood watch duties. I own guns, I worked in a job that required familiarity with guns for over twenty years. I enjoy shooting, I even am legally allowed to carry. I pretty much never do, because I personally don’t feel guns are appropriate things to just carry around in public. However, I believe in the right to do so, I believe Zimmerman has that right. But I believe if he wants to exercise that, he shouldn’t have done it as a neighborhood watchman. I think it creates in his mind the idea that he’s a police officer or someone who might need to use that gun, but he lacks the professional training and experience needed to use it appropriately.
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Zimmerman appears to be a general sleaze. He has prior convictions including violent crimes and domestic violence. He also lied to the court about his assets during the whole bail fiasco.
All that combined means I think Zimmerman is dumb and we won’t be having a beer together. But I go back to the evidence and while I don’t personally believe his story I don’t want to live in a country where a plausible self defense claim that is not remotely disproven by the prosecution gets thrown out just because the jury “feels” it isn’t true. They need to base that on some evidence, or at least something more than a hunch.
I also think that regardless of who started the fight, I have probably the “least” problem with Zimmerman actually pulling the trigger. Even if Zimmerman had provoked Martin or straight up started the fight by attacking him, I don’t really know that I’d expect anyone to let their head get bashed in on the ground–and it seems likely to me that was happening. Now, appropriately if you’re the one who starts the fight you get no self defense claim and should be guilty of manslaughter. Even if you didn’t start the fight I think Zimmerman created the situation in total, which in many jurisdictions would be involuntary manslaughter or some similar crime. However, again, that’s all based on stuff that can’t be proven. Zimmerman’s story is he never looked for a fight at all, and was jumped by Martin by surprise and never had a chance to escape. I don’t believe that story, but I also don’t believe you can say it was disproven by the prosecution and it’s plausible–so needed to be addressed sufficiently by evidence, and never was.
The DOJ’s Zimmerman tip hotline will attract every hater out there. People will say anything to get Zimmerman in prison.
Trying to sort through all those tips and connect the person to Zimmerman won’t be easy. What about the Pizza Hut waiter that claims Zimmerman uttered something under his breath? Do they have a case if the DOJ can show Zimmerman occasionally ate at that place? How can Zimmerman defend himself against someone he doesn’t even know?