GZ’s defense was not based on SYG laws. O’Mara based GZ’s defense on good, old fashioned, self-defense. The right of self-defense has existed for eons. The reference to SYG law’s are a red herring. Everyone is entitled to defend themselves against imminent danger. GZ problem was that he was in fear for his life. No good Samaritans came to his aid. No police officers were there. It was just TM and GZ, and TM was kicking GZ ass. Was GZ in fear for his life? Most likely.
What is IMMINENT DANGER?
In relation to homicide in self-defense, this term means immediate danger, such as must be Instantly met, such as cannot be guarded against It call for the assistance of others or the protection of the law.
Who decides if you are in imminent danger? You do. However, a jury might not agree with you. In GZ’s case, the jury decided to let GZ walk away a free man. The lynch mob-types still demand that GZ be hunted down and murdered.
Another view of the immediate nature of imminent danger was explained by the SCOTUS:
Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.
-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
If you’re being beaten, you don’t have time to decide if you should, or shouldn’t, resort to lethal force.
Why should I retreat if I’m walking around my own neighborhood? Thugs should not be allowed to threaten, rob, injure, or kill people. Demanding that honest citizens run away from villains doesn’t reduce crime, it encourages it.
You can do anything you wish You could refer to GZ as Peruvian-American. That might explain the brown skin tone? Do you think TM would have referred to a white guy as a “nigga”? Maybe TM thought GZ was Puerto Rican or Cuban? I guess we’ll never know.
Mark O’Mara, an actual trial lawyer and GZ’s attorney, said GZ’s trial was “straight self-defense”. Decisions, decisions. Who should I believe? Mark O’Mara, or somebody else? I chose O’Mara. YMMV.
…*The Zimmerman case is widely considered to be a test of Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law but O’Mara says it’s simpler than that: It’s just straight self-defense.
“Stand your ground” became law in 2005, and 16 other states have adopted similar statutes. It differs from the traditional standard of self-defense in significant ways. People have always had the right to defend themselves if they have a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm to themselves or others. But traditionally, they were required to try to avoid such a confrontation by negotiating or retreating, if necessary.
The “stand your ground” law eliminated the requirement for people outside their homes to back off in the face of potential danger. Proponents argue that the law gives people the right to protect themselves. Critics have called it a license to murder.
O’Mara says Zimmerman and Martin’s encounter quickly moved beyond standing one’s ground. According to O’Mara, Martin smashed Zimmerman’s nose and was smacking his head on the concrete sidewalk when Zimmerman fired his gun. The identity of the person screaming for help on the 911 tape for 40 seconds before Martin was shot has been hotly debated; O’Mara says it was his client. Forensics show that Zimmerman was on the ground shooting up, O’Mara says, and thus had no opportunity to negotiate or get away.
A hearing that potentially could have cleared Zimmerman under the “stand your ground” law was set for April, but O’Mara surprised many by waiving the hearing, saying there was time to focus on only one hearing—the trial—and that he wanted Zimmerman to have his day in court, before a jury*.
“My concern with even calling it a `stand your ground’ hearing is we need to be more realistic,” O’Mara said. “I’ve said from Day 1 we need to wait until all the evidence comes out.”
O’Mara said he thinks people have a perception about the law that isn’t accurate. “People look at `stand your ground’ and immediately think somebody’s standing there with deadly force – be it a gun or a weapon – and having the opportunity to back up but not having the need to under the statute,” he said. "I think the evidence in this case suggests that my client was reacting to having his nose broken and reacted to that by screaming out for help. “He wasn’t in position where I think there was any suggestion where he could retreat, which he is allowed to do under the statute.”*
*Self-Defense Still in Effect -
“Mr. Zimmerman has a clear self-defense case, and a self-defense immunity hearing would be one valid venue for proving George’s case,” O’Mara tells Lawyers dot com. “Last year we indicated that we expected to conduct a self-defense immunity hearing, but since then, we have identified some important strategic advantages to not having a pre-trial hearing.”
…In a traditional self-defense claim, Zimmerman would want to put his opportunity to retreat into the mix. O’Mara has said many times in the past that Zimmerman did not have that opportunity – it is a cornerstone of his version of events. “George is very comfortable with his decision to have a jury of citizens decide his self-defense assertion,” O’Mara tells Lawyers dot com.*
While it’s absolutely true that in Zimmerman’s version of events, there was no opportunity to retreat – and thus “traditional” self-defense was necessary to exonerate him – that doesn’t mean that the jury necessarily believed his version.
The judge correctly instructed the jury on the elements of self-defense law in Florida, which do not contain a duty to retreat.
So we don’t know if the jury believed Zimmerman, or believed THAT Zimmerman might have been able to retreat. They were never asked to make that finding of fact, because Florida law did not require it.
I really wonder what makes all these girls want to get back with him after violent/angry outbreaks serious enough to involve cops and restraining orders. Does his dick taste like crispy bacon or something ?
As a respected SDMB lawyer with practical and hands-on experience in the real world, perhaps you could solve, or clarify, the recent dispute between Really Not All That Bright and myself. Was GZ’s defense based on SYG law, or not? I’m under the impression that O’Mara argued simple/basic self-defense law and not SYG law. (Answer not needed fast. )
But the judge instructed the jury on “no duty to retreat” Florida law.
So while it’s true to say, in a sense, that his defense was “based on” classic self-defense law and not SYG, it’s not true to say that the verdict was necessarily based on classic self-defense law.
One more question (in your spare time). How much influence, if any, do defense attorneys have as to which jury instructions a judge gives to a jury? Attorneys always have the option of objecting to the judge’s instructions, but that’s after the fact. Could O’Mara have requested/suggested/demanded that the judge include (insert relative crime/criminal statute related jury instruction here)?
Both sides typically get to review the proposed instructions before the judge charges the jury.
If either side objects to a particular choice of phrasing, they get to argue their point, out of hearing of the jury, and ultimately the judge will decide whose argument is more compelling and modify, or not, the instructions accordingly.
So O’Mara could have asked that such-and-so instruction be given, but ultimately the judge decides.
In this particular instance, though, the instructions the judge gave are better for Zimmerman than a ‘classic’ self-defense instruction would have been.
In ‘classic’ mode, the judge would have said something like:
If George Zimmerman was attacked, and you find he had no reasonable way to retreat, then he had the right to meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself.
See the difference? Under the instructions the jury was given, they could acquit Zimmerman if he were not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be; he had no duty to retreat. But under ‘classic’ self-defense, he can only use deadly force if he can’t retreat.
O’Mara argued that he had no way to reasonably retreat anyway. But the jury didn’t have to believe that portion of O’Mara’s story. They could have decided that there was a way for Zimmerman to retreat, and yet still acquitted him, because he had no duty to retreat under Florida law.
Given Martin’s history of school suspensions (3), vandalism, fighting, possession of expensive jewelry that he admitted didn’t belong to him, illegal possession of marijuana (residue?), it could also be reasonable to assume TM started beating GZ simply because TM didn’t approve of a Peruvian following him. Or not.
OTOH, only those with a lynch mob mentality would believe it’s reasonable to shoot someone on sight. The law would consider that 1st degree, premeditated murder.
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