emeraldia should throw a few more gratuitous nicknames and vague Ad Hominem insults at Frederick Leatherman. That’ll convince me of Zimmerman’s innocence.
That said, I consider the conspiracy theory that Zimmerman had some sort of unseen partner to be even less credible than the lunatic-fringe Zimmerman supporter theory that Martin’s convenience store purchase were the makings of a previously unknown variant of lean/purple drank. But Leatherman does admit that he’s only kicking ideas around.
While I consider the tapes claiming to highlight the voices of unknown third-parties (which, by the way, are creepy as hell) to be on the lines of alleged paranormal ghost voices (i.e., crap and pareidolia), I really think the video of Zimmerman extending his arm when he reenacts the gunshot is telling. No, I don’t think it’s like legal evidence against him, but it’s telling because we’ve all known those chronic liars who nod their heads slightly while they are telling you no, or shake when they are telling you yes.
I just can’t figure out the physical logistics of Zimmerman’s story, and anyone who says his story is consistent with the physical evidence is wrong, because it’s seriously skewed. Sure, everyone misremembers, and everyone misspeaks, but Zimmerman’s whole story is implausible, start to finish. For one thing, what kind of jacked-up angle was Zimmerman’s shooting arm and Trayvon’s torso for that bullet to take the path it did? Especially if Zimmerman’s elbow was, as he recounts, on the ground.
Sure, Zimmerman has injuries to the back of his head, but these injuries are not consistent with having his head pounded, multiple times, on cement. Sure, Zimmerman has facial injuries, but they are not consistent with Trayvon punching Zimmerman, in Zimmerman’s words, over a dozen times. Even though the two men were in different weight classes, with Zimmerman not resisting, Martin should have really damaged his face. Was Trayvon a 158 pounds of delicacy and light, with marshmellows for fists?
And of course, the whole thing about Zimmerman not resisting. It’s a primal, brain stem, unconscious human instinct to cover your face if it’s being hurt. Zimmerman does claim that for part of the assault, Martin used his legs to restrain Zimmerman’s arms as the younger man straddled him. Well, if that’s the case, why no mention of bruising to Zimmerman’s arms?
That last sentence there just sums up exactly what’s wrong with SYG. Yep, suspects are far more likely to not get away with it when there was somebody else there to tell what really happened. Zimmerman got really really lucky here, didn’t he?
Absolutely amazing. He can’t figure out how Zimmerman could possibly have hunted down Trayvon, without Martin getting away, since he could have been long gone before the obviously guilty Zimmerman got out of the vehicle, unless, flash of brilliance, another person helped Zimmerman. Who is this mystery man, hiding in shadows, evil spells, and no one tells?
Unless you want to discard the innocent until proven guilty standard, then every self-defense case before SYG was like that also. No witnesses, no physical evidence, no conviction. SYG doesn’t apply here, because Zimmerman claims that Martin didn’t give him an opportunity to retreat, so the prosecution still would have to prove the same facts.
I read a pre SYG case where a woman claimed she shot her husband 7 times in self defense, 4 times in the groin and the jury still acquitted her.
It will be interesting to see how Lester rules on the SYG hearing last week that he heard.
The sidewalk he was on took him directly to the street he knew the name of. Had he directed the police to that address it would have been closer to the area where he last saw Martin than his truck.
It’s not an Ad Hominem because I am not debating Leatherman.
I wasn’t trying to convince you of Zimmerman’s innocence, but of Leatherman’s madness. The latter assertion is much easier to prove.
Yeah, but it seems to be a little more than just that. Posting videos and making comments that suggest or outright accuse Zimmerman’s friends, family, and even the witnesses of being somehow involved in a murder is kind of beyond the pale. (He directly called witness 6 a liar.) The guy is nuts and an embarrassment to attorneys and professors both.
I’ve known people who do all sorts of things when they are lying and/or telling the truth. Myself, I would be very anxious in his situation and would probably be squirming all over the place, and wetting my pants. If you consider that in the least bit telling, then you might as well give him credit for passing the voice-stress test. Personally, I put the “voice experts”, the “voice-stress test”, “body language”, etc. as pseudo-scientific and I generally dismiss them all.
Having said that, I’ve always said that he may very well have embellished, exaggerated, omitted, or even lied to make his story more compelling. Not knowing whether one will be believed or 2nd-guessed might motivate even innocent people to do the same.
It is, by and large, consistent. If it were seriously skewed then Serino would have likely made that point in his report/capias request.
I’ve always said that there is not a single witness in this case that hasn’t contradicted themselves and/or said things that are completely inaccurate. And they only had to account for a small piece of the event, and only had to talk about it for about 45 minutes. Zimmerman, on the other hand, spent a LOT of time talking about the entire event. So, of course there is stuff to make hey over.
This is why you shouldn’t talk with the police for too long without an attorney. Zimmerman was extremely stupid in talking to them for as long as he did. Not only that, he was trying to call Corey to talk to him without an attorney, too! (Who had already decided she was going to charge him.)
A lot of stuff can be explained by the preceding paragraph- his sense of time and distance being messed up. He clearly gave inaccurate accounts of times and locations. Does this mean he’s trying to cover up a cold-blooded murder? Not at all. The biggest problem is that Zimmerman sometimes came across as seemingly confident in what he was saying, even when he obviously didn’t know what he was talking about.
Just like not mentioning the money they had doesn’t mean that Zimmerman planned to flee the country. It might very well have been so he could benefit from indigent status (as O’Mara poorly advised him to do, against Z’s better judgement.) Not everything has a sinister explanation.
There are some problems that I have with his account, some of which I haven’t even seen mentioned, and I am curious as to how O’Mara/Zimmerman will explain it.
Leatherman loves to form fanciful “conclusions” about minutiae in the forensic reports. He is convinced there can only be a sinister explanation for the path of the bullet. I don’t know if this is the thing you’re talking about.
The minutiae of audio, forensics, and a lot of this stuff is a Rorschach test. You can interpret it a number of different ways, as there are a number of plausible explanations. Just like 9/11 conspiracy theorists have played with the angles and all of the facts and forensics to come up with all sorts of holes. There are always going to be holes and unexplainables. Personally, I can imagine a bullet path going in at a variety of angles with one’s elbow on the ground and I don’t know that it went in at an angle that is necessarily unusual. Regardless, when you look at the big picture, you have someone that was shot a single time in his frontinches away. That’s consistent with self-defense and with his account. If he were shot in the back, ten feet away? That would be a serious inconsistency. But this isn’t the case.
I am inclined to agree with you. I would describe it like Serino did- as the injuries were only marginally consistent with what would be expected in an attack like Zimmerman described. But what does that mean? There can be physical explanations for some of this, such as his sleeves. And there can be psychological ones that caused him to perceive, recall, or describe the attack in an inaccurate, exaggerated way. But even without his exaggerations- intentional and unintentional- he still may well have a legitimate claim for self-defense.
Serino said it might be because Zimmerman was wearing a shirt. I don’t know. What I do know is that these physical inconsistencies are to be expected. There is always shit that happens that just doesn’t make sense.
Well then, we can agree that it’s a toss up. But you didn’t answer my question. Jeralyn says Trayvon is the aggressor because he spoke first. Zimmerman’s injuries are only evidence that he lost. This same point has been argued on these boards. As to SYG defendants being more successful if they are the only witness, no shit.
I can’t actually figure out what question you are asking. I don’t see a question mark in your post.
Also Jeralyn said:
She never says that Martin was the aggressor. She only says that she doesn’t think Zimmerman is the aggressor. You are putting words in her mouth and attacking things she didn’t say. If you are going to attack what she says, then you should al least have the decency to quote her accurately.
After reading what Jeralyn actually said, I don’t think it is unreasonable to suspect that the person who spoke first is more likely the person who was not surprised by the meeting. That isn’t iron clad, but you are quoting it like it is whole of her argument, rather than a single point in it.
This still doesn’t change the facts that GZ was in a very small neighborhood where he not only lived, but he “patrolled”, GZ told us he got out of his vehicle to find a street sign where there was no intersection.
Your new version puts the far side of the block closer to where TM was seen last. That’s a new twist.
If TM had gone down the middle of the block where the sidewalk runs, then each side of the block would have been equidistant more or less.
But if the far side was closer to where TM was seen last, that means that in walking across the block that GZ was still going in the direction in which TM had just gone. Which brings us back to whether or not “following” is PC enough of a verb to be used here.
Or, we could go back to TM going down the middle of the block, in which case, it doesn’t seem that one side was particularly closer to the middle than the other.
Can’t say I know what the point of that distinction about the closeness to where TM was last seen is. GZ still didn’t give the address he went to get. When GZ reached the other side of the block, when GZ was where he could have seen the address he sought, GZ took action which were noit in accord with going to get an address to give to the PD–GZ gave directions to his truck AGAIN.
That part of the story line starts off in hinkiness–that he would think there would be a street sign where there was no intersection–and ends in demonstrating that he had the intention of meeting the PD at his truck as he crossed the block–giving the directions to his truck a second time.
You can repeat his assertions again if you like, but they really don’t change the lameness of the story he seems to have invented .
Something which I have not seen brought up here, [my apologies if I have overlooked it], is that if we try to match TM phone log to DD’s account in as much as she reports being disconnected and calling him back and what occurred in between each time…
She puts TM under the mailboxes’ roof @ just after 7:54 and TM’s awareness of GZ “keeping him under surveillance” [is that PC enough for everyone who cares?] coming shortly after that.
This in no way squares with GZ’s version of events subsequent to seeing TM.
If TM made it to the mailboxes just after the 7:54 call, then either GZ didn’t see TM where he says he did, OR the activities and time gap between GZ seeing TM and calling the NEN are much different than GZ has led us to believe.
Or we could just say that DD is mistaken about when TM told her he was trying to get out of the rain, the disconnection and call back etc. Or that she was mistaken about which period between disconnections TM took note of GZ.
Or that she is cunningly crafting a counter narrative through these small detail either of her own volition or at the behest of corrupt actors elsewhere.
imho, I find it credible that she could remember the general outline of a phone conversation at least as much as to remember how many times she was cut off after TM said he was going to run to the mailbox “shed.”
If you needed to drive somewhere, and you did not have your car keys, and so you started checking everywhere you might have left them, if someone asked you what you are doing, would you say “I am following my car keys”?
You seem to ignore Zimmerman’s injuries and postulate that Zimmerman must have attacked or threatened Martin without any evidence. You can speculate anything you want, but the prosecution needs proof.
I haven’t ignored any of Zimmerman’s injures. I stated that those are evidence of a fight. I have not postulated that Zimmerman assaulted Trayvon. I stated that we have no evidence either way beyond Zimmerman’s accounts.
The location he should have given the police would have been closer than his truck which was parked perpendicular to the row of houses due to the layout of the street it was on. More importantly, it would have given them a GPS directed location to navigate to. His directions were horrible because he referred to a bend in the road as a left hand turn. Knowing he made that mistake he then goes on to correct it.
It’s a pointless semantic argument to make. There’s no doubt that he got out of his car to see where Martin went. Call it following or keeping him in sight. It’s not illegal and doesn’t change anything. The phone call shows that he stopped following him when asked and there is no indication that he saw Martin during the remaining call let alone confront him.
It doesn’t matter whether you or I believe him or not. He wasn’t doing anything illegal either way. What you’re doing is trying to disprove background narrative that has little to do with the assault that took place. You might as well argue whether it was sprinkling or raining out.
not really. He clearly got out of the car to follow Martin. there’s no disputing that. His run/jog puts him behind the houses. It’s logical while he’s on the phone to continue to walk to the end of the sidewalk to get a proper location for the police to navigate to considering how he botched his original directions. No evidence exists to contradict he was anywhere other than the sidewalk that goes from street to street. there is no evidential credibility gap to his story at this point.