He knows the name of the street on the other side of the cut-through. It’s the street he lives on. Giving the address on that street gives the police an equidistant location to the center of the T as it would from his truck.
Zimmerman never mentioned seeing a gun. That’s your speculation. If he suspected Martin might have a gun then he is safer outside the car if the gun is pulled out. He can use the car as a shield and move around it instead of being trapped inside. Now if you change the scenario to "car running and in gear then it’s a crap shoot that the driver could duck down and drive away without getting hit.
For the reasons he stated, to follow Martin and then to get an address. There’s no doubt he originally got out to follow Martin. There is also no discrepancy to his story(s) or is there any significance to his travel across the top of the T. It makes perfect sense to keep Martin in sight until the police arrive.
I doubt that. The state does not have to prove she (or Zimmerman) was not truly afraid. The state only has to prove that the fear, though truly felt, was not reasonable.
And how do you think that’s going to sound to a jury when they see the face and head wounds. He doesn’t just have a broken nose, black eyes, and lacerations, the whole back of his head is banged up and not just the lacerated areas. Couple this with his account that his shirt rode up and a struggle ensued for the gun. This is the whole case.
Of course, as Bricker has shown when quoting from the law above, in several posts. Try to explain to the jury how it is not reasonable to fear for your life when you’re lying on the ground after being punched in the face, with a broken nose (as his doctor will testify), blood on 45% of your face (as the EMTs will testify), and someone sitting on you and pinning you down.
And that is a matter of opinion, based on incomplete evidence. The legal standard is whether the defendant’s fear was reasonable, not whether his fear was truly felt.
But doesn’t an “unlawful” killing assume that there was no legitimate self-defense involved? If legitimate self-defense is not disproven, then by definition, the killing was lawful.
IOW, a killing is not enough. The state must prove it was “unlawful.” Most killings are unlawful except in cases of self-defense or accident. Isn’t part of proving unlawfulness that the state disprove anything that would make the killing lawful?
While it’s true that the state must prove the killing was unlawful, they can ordinarily do so simply by showing that the accused killed and offered no justification. That alone is sufficient for a jury to infer the killing was unlawful. They don’t have to address justifications that the accused does not offer. Even in self-defense, the accused must first introduce what is called “prima facie” self-defense evidence – a bare minimum showing of evidence that supports his claim of self-defense.
Without that prima facie showing, the state does not need to disprove self-defense.
Yes. Correct. When I said “truly” afraid,I did not mean merely subjective fear; I meant to imply that the fear was “true” in the sense of being reasonable.
Your clarification is welcome – the state must show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that either he did not fear death or serious bodily harm, or that his fear (if he had it) was not objectively reasonable.
That point is very clear in the original list of elements I gave.
Finally pinned you down to a story. Sadly, but not surprisingly, your story is completely, utterly, undeniably wrong. Because in the re-enactment video, George is very clear about when and where he calls the dispatch.
The only way your story had even the remotest of chances of being semi-accurate, the dispatch call had to start with GZ parked on Twin Trees. Ooops.
George says he first spots Martin walking through the short cut from Oregon Road at the curve on Retreat View Circle where road starts to turn east. He says that Martin is in front of one of the houses, on the grass, and he has stopped and is looking around. George says that he drives past Martin, who is now behind him. He dials the non-emergency line, and when he gets through, he parks at the Clubhouse.
Martin is still behind George. George is parked at the Clubhouse, and he’s now on the phone with the dispatcher. George says that the dispatcher asked where he was, so he gave the clubhouse address. We hear George give the address for the Clubhouse - based on George’s re-enactment video, George was NOT trying to direct the police to where Martin was, he says he was asked specifically where he was, so he gave them the Clubhouse address.
While on the phone with the dispatcher, Martin walks past George, looking at his car, etc.
It’s obvious what happened: At 00:25 of the call, he finishes telling the dispatcher why he’s calling, and he gives the address of the Clubhouse, because that’s where he is. He starts out in the past tense because he’s driven past Martin and doesn’t see him, but switches to the present tense when he realizes that Martin has continued walking east on Retreat View Circle. While on the phone with dispatch, Martin’s path has now reached the Clubhouse and he’s walking past George’s car, looking at it, etc. (Perhaps Martin thought it odd that a car would be parked in front of the closed Clubhouse parking spot, engine running etc).
It’s approx. 250 feet or so from the curve in the road where George sees Martin to the front corner of the Clubhouse.
The average person walks about 220-250 feet an hour. Let’s assume 250 feet an hour for Martin since he’s fairly tall.
George tells dispatch the Clubhouse address at 00:25 of the call.
At 01:20 of the call, Martin is ‘coming to check me out’. That is about one minute - almost exactly how long we’d expect it to take Martin to go from where George spotted him to the Clubhouse.
In other words: This -exactly- matches both the dispatch call, and it matches the timeline, and Magiver, your story is completely bogus. At least the first minute or so of the phone call, according to George, took place at the Clubhouse on Retreat View Circle, NOT on Twin Trees.
In the re-enactment, he says that Martin walked past him and turned right on Twin Trees (He says the street name in the video). This is also where George claims that the dispatcher asked which way Martin went, but that request is nowhere in the call transcript. I mean, it just doesn’t exist.
Anyway: George says that after Martin walked past him and turned right on Twin Trees, he pulls out, follows Martin down Twin Trees, where he sees Martin near the curve in the road where it turns south, walking up towards the cut-through.
From the corner of Twin Trees and Retreat View Circle, to a spot between the cut-through and where GZ parked his car, is about 300 feet. It should take a little over a minute or so to walk that distance, again assuming a walking speed of 250 ft/mn. Going from 01:20 (he’s coming to check me out, which must be at the Clubhouse) to ‘he’s running’ (which has to be from near the cut-through) is only 48 seconds - doesn’t seem to be enough time, but I suppose there’s enough uncertainty that we can allow it.
Based on the timeline of the transcript and George’s testimony of when and where he called, and when and where he saw Martin, I think one could argue that it coincides reasonably well to the initial dispatch call. Not perfect, but close.
It does NOT, however, match the re-enactment video at all, because -clearly- there is not enough time for the additional action to happen: We just saw that there isn’t even really enough time just to get from the Clubhouse to the cut-through in the time allowed. That’s a problem, because the re-enactment video includes an additional 300 feet of distance covered by Martin - an additional minute (returning to the truck, circling it, etc). that simply does not exist in the transcript.
Bricker, would you mind answering the questions asked below. The back-and-forth between you and you doesn’t clear anything up for me.
I am sitting in a jail cell. Someone is dead and I’m the one everyone is looking at for the crime:
These are the pieces of evidence against me:
Someone saw me following the victim moments before he was found dead. The police found my sneaker tracks intermingled with the victim’s in the mud, suggesting that I had been following close behind. Someone who happened to see me told the police that I looked very angry. She also told them that I was running, though she never saw anyone being chased.
The victim flagged down a passerby and said, “There’s a crazy woman chasing me. I’m scared!” This also happened moments before he was found dead.
The body was found right next to a weapon registered in my name, with my fingerprints. When the police brought me in for questioning, I wrote down on a slip of paper, “I refuse to answer any questions. Please call my lawyer.” Because I watch enough TV to know I don’t have to answer their stupid questions. But they put me in the slammer anyway. Punk-ass bitches.
They just interviewed my friends, who said that I had seen someone fitting the victim’s description vandalizing my car. Apparently, I had been very angry about it. I was blowing off steam and said I would kill whoever had done it.
Questions for the law-inclined:
What am I likely to be charged with, given the facts in the case?
If I tell my lawyer that it was self-defense, how does that change things? They can’t PROVE it wasn’t self-defense, right? No one actually saw the fight go down. So can I expect to go free?
Actually, it’s both. If he felt no fear, then the state wins the point, even if it would have been reasonable for him to feel fear. He must actually, subjectively, feel fear, AND his fear must be objectively reasonable.
If the state proved she murdered her husband, then it doesn’t matter if she was afraid of being killed by her husband. It could very well be she was afraid (if she botched up killing him, then her husband might very well kill her…not unreasonable at all to be afraid of that), but who the fuck cares? The state only needs to show that she killed her husband for unlawful reasons, in an unlawful fashion.
Why focus on fear anyway? This is why I think you’re spewing bullshit. If the State can prove the accused was the aggressor, regardless of whether or not they feared imminent harm, they forfeit the claim of self defense if they had the ability to withdraw and did not. If they brandished a gun, again no self defense. There is no need to prove anything specific about the accused’s emotional state just to disprove self defense.
You’re the only lawyer I see saying this, though. I’ve seen not one commentary on the Zimmerman case that says the prosecution is obligated to do anything except disprove self defense by proving 2nd degree murder.
How would the State prove he didn’t feel fear? By taking his vitals to see if he had tachycardia? Well, I guess Zimmerman didn’t feel fear then. Case closed.
Assuming you’re in Florida, you are likely to be charged with first degree murder. That’s the answer to question 1.
Why? Because as a prosecutor, I can show the elements of first-degree murder:
[ul]
[li]the victim is dead[/li][li]the victim died because you committed a criminal act that killed him[/li][li]that act was planned in advance of the killing[/li][li]venue [/li][/ul]
Now, the question becomes whether or not you can make a prima facie case for self-defense. This involves more than just saying, “It was self-defense.” In order to make self-defense an issue, then before trial, you must proffer the specifics of what you will offer as evidence to establish self-defense.
If you do, then I have to disprove what you’ve said. The specific elements I would have to disprove would depend entirely on what you proffered.
So that’s the answer to question 2: if you merely said the words, “Self-defense!” then nothing changes. But if you laid out a prima facie case for self-defense, then something would change: the prosecution would have to disprove your specific claim.
You may want to note for later that the 45% blood thing wasn’t until the EMT got there and saw it. The EMT wasn’t making a statement about what happened before he arrived.
You may want to make that distinction if you consider that TM is said have none GZ’s blood on him. The bloodier GZ was at the time, the unlikelier that seems.
But if you say that the bleeding may not have covered the whole 45% during the attack, then it’s a little easier to follow.