The donations will continue to pour when word of his new bond gets around. I’ll wager his defense fund will be over $1 million by the time the trial starts.
I think they were lying to the court also, but the talking in code was probably necessary, due to the fact Zimmerman was in jail. You don’t want other cons to know how much money you have.
Not what Corey would want, but for now he’s destitute. The only way to prevent further donations is to provide somewhat conclusive evidence of guilt.
Zimmerman could confess to the crime tomorrow and folks still will donate.
If you think that’s a crazy thing for me to say, consider what happened when it was revealed he’d lied to the court about his finances. Donations increased, not decreased.
Why would that deter ardent Zimmerman supporters? It hasn’t worked in this thread.
Because they would beat him up and take the cash from him? Or what exactly?
I thought he was segregated from everyone else.
I think at least part of the problem that caused GZ to contradict some elements of his 911 call is that he was almost certainly embellishing the facts during the call in order to prompt a faster police response. And not only did he likely want to embellish for a faster response, but he needed to embellish in order to report something other than “Oh noes! There’s a black kid walking through my neighborhood and my spidey-sense is tingling!”
It’s a lot harder to remember and account for lies than it is for the truth. IOW: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
You think Zimmerman is going to confess in court? That’s really rather unlikely…
Zimmerman’s statement to the police could be proven to be a pack of lies from start to finish and, on the evidence we have, he still couldn’t be convicted of murder.
Why do you think he has to confess for the prosecution to crown him their star witness? He will likely get up there and flail all over the place as he trips on his lies, and that would be serve the prosecution just as well as a confession.
In the beginning, folks were confident he’d never be arrested either. Ooopsy daisy! They were wrong! What makes you think you won’t be wrong too?
Let me ask you this, Steophan, since you think the State’s case against Z is going to be difficult given the burden of proof necessary for a conviction.
The prosecution has to prove murder occurred; it’s not good enough that they disprove self-defense. Right? This is your position, correct? So in other words, the State has the same exact challenge it would have in any other 2nd degree murder case lacking the assertion of self-defense. You following me up to this point?
So here’s my question to you: If Zimmerman had remained silent at the scene (as is his constitutional right) and later pleaded innocent to killing Martin, do you think the State would have a difficult time proving he committed murder? Assume that everything else about this case stayed the same. The injuries, the witness statements, the 911 calls. The only difference is that Zimmerman denied shooting Martin. His story is that he didn’t know what happened but he knows he didn’t do it.
Still think the State has no case? Because it’s no different than the one they have now.
You’re wrong on at least two counts.
- If Zimmerman remained silent, then he didn’t deny shooting Martin. Even a plea of not guilty is not a specific specific denial that he shot Martin.
- If Zimmerman had remained silent, he would not have an opportunity to offer a “Stand Your Ground” defense. Whether or not you believe him, this defense requires that he DOES admit to shooting Martin (although claiming to do so lawfully), and requires testimony regarding his thoughts and fears at the time of the shooting. No one else can enter that testimony.
It’s interesting that in his ruling on the bond issue, Judge Lester explicitly wrote that “circumstances indicate that the defendant was preparing to flee to avoid prosecution, but such plans were thwarted.”
No flies on him.
I misstated my second point in my last post above. If Zimmerman remained silent, he wouldn’t be able to offer any credible self-defense claim, whether based on the SYG law or not. Because they would both require an admission that he did the shooting, and both require testimony that he was threatened, felt endangered, yadayadayada.
Completely incorrect. In an ordinary 2nd degree murder, they have to show that the accused committed an act, and did so with a certain mental state.
Here, the accused admits the act, but alleges the existence of other facts which would make that act legal; the state must disprove those other facts.
And yet again, none of GZ’s supporters even bother to make as much as a token refutation of my claims of inconsistencies in his claims.
I do say, it is such a bore being right all the time.
I’m not really a GZ supporter, but my interest would be anyone posting evidence which established the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
In other words, the jury may not find him guilty of second degree murder because of inconsistencies in his claims.
I agree. I think it’s going to be incredibly hard to get a guilty verdict of 2nd degree murder.
This doesn’t conflict with anything I said, so I don’t get your point. My hypothetical posits he remained silent at the scene of the shooting, but then later denies shooting Martin.
Yeah and? The State’s burden is still the same. It must prove he committed murder regardless of what the defense says happened or didn’t happened.
But they still have to prove murder otherwise there is still reasonable doubt for self defense. You have yet to explain how the mere assertion of self-defense would change the kind of evidence the prosecution needs to prove 2nd degree murder.
Are you saying that proving murder is NOT tantamount to disproving self-defense? To my eye, they latter is achieved simultaneous with the first.
In my hypothetical, Zimmerman denies shooting Martin. But the State has plenty of evidence to show he did that, so that won’t be a challenge to prove. The real question is what to charge him with. Is there evidence of 1st degree murder? 2nd degree murder? Manslaughter?
In my hypothetical, would probable cause for 2nd degree murder be any different than that in the present case? How so? The State still has to prove all the necessary elements for that crime regardless of what excuse the defense comes up with.
When did your hypothetical end? You threw in the denial part after you’d already started asking questions about whether the state’s case would be different.
IMO (non-lawyerly) opinion, the state would have a much easier case to prove had Zimmerman kept his mouth shut. There was plenty of evidence to tie to the shooting, including his 911 call, his gun, the witnesses and the police who arrived on the scene within moments? minutes? of the shooting. Without a claim of self defense he probably would have been arrested on the spot, and none of us would ever have even heard of this case.
It’s hard to wade through yet another conspiracy theory but his 911 narrative starts with his truck parked near the cut-through. He initially instructs the police to drive past the club house to meet him.
so starting at 00:42 Martin is already at the corner of the houses looking back at Zimmerman. In both the video and the 911 call Zimmerman says he comes to check him out. The distance is about 110 feet. at 4.4 feet per second Martin can move that distance in 25 seconds at a comfortable 3 miles per hour stride.
So at 01:03 he’s coming toward Zimmerman and at 2:14 he’s running away. He has plenty of time to walk the distance to Zimmerman’s car.