Bolding mine. That statement is untrue. Crump hasn’t sealed any school records. School records are sealed by default…everyone’s. You can’t look at mine, and I can’t look at yours. School records are confidential and can only be released in special circumstances (such as when the student or the parents of a minor student sign a release so that the transcript can be sent to the admissions office of a college).
Bolding mine. Again with the scrap on the knuckle. The knuckle is a specific part of a finger, and the scrap on Trayvon’s finger is not located on the knuckle.
If the evidence supporting Zimmerman’s innocence is so strong, why do his supporters feel compelled to keep playing with the truth, moving a scratch a few millimeters to a knuckle and imagining a reality where school records are just there for public looking unless a lawyer does something?
Hm, touched a nerve there, did I? Well, I will go on to pick a nit: his nose was probably, not definitely, broken. And Zimmerman’s eyes do not look black to me in the reenactment video.
And to paraphrase another poster, if it’s fine and dandy for Zimmerman to punch a girlfriend who (Zimmerman said) punched him first, maybe when Trayvon punched Zimmerman, Zimmerman had grabbed him or swung and missed or reached for his gun.
My understanding here is that if the defendant is pleading self-defense, it’s just like any other trial and the defendant is not obligated to testify. But in a SYG hearing, the defendant must testify. Is that true?
If so, it sounds like O’Mara is looking for a way to keep Zimmerman off the stand, which I understand, because he seems to be a talkative loose cannon.
Frankly, it would not. We shall have to wait for the decision of the jury; if they conclude (in the absence of new evidence), that his fear was reasonable, I will gladly retract my assertion. Will you do the same if they find otherwise?
He still plans to have an SYG hearing, so this theory is unlikely.
What it sounds like to me is that O’Mara is preemptively conceding the prosecution’s theory that Zimmerman was the aggressor. Provoking an attack disqualifies one from claiming SYG, but you can still argue self defense if you had no means to flee or defend yourself with non-lethal means.
No. Remember I’m talking about what’s required as a matter of law. If the jury hears no evidence and finds him guilty, AND on appeal the appellate court court upholds that verdict, THEN I will retract my assertion.
In other words, the jury may decide something even without support in the record. That happens. The cure for that is a judge setting aside the verdict.
or put another way, the Jury is not allowed to arbitrarily make that decision. It must be based on fact and not opinion. It’s the difference between a vigilante group that “just knows” the defendant is guilty and a proper trial.
Yes, it does. If you provoked an attack, you are not allowed to stand your ground. You have a duty to retreat. This is some basic kindergarten shit, seriously.
Dude, this part of the story is ridiculous. Get a buddy to help you stage a reinactment. Straddle him so that you can get a good hold on his head for banging purposes and get his arms held tight with your legs. Okay? Now, can you actually see his hips? His waist? Forget the darkness–first, figure out what kind of jacked-up positioning you must arrange in order to get a sight line on his holster-area. Straddling him about mid-thigh? Twisted around with one leg raised?
And, if you are now in a position where you can actually see this gun-holding area, your grip and center of gravity are in a position where the man on the bottom can more easily throw you off. In fact, in these circumstances, he’d probably find throwing you off easier than getting a grip on his gun.
Of course, it’s far more likely that a man straddling another man in the dark would feel a hip-holstered gun than that he would see a hip-holstered gun. That’s a much more plausible story and I’d offer it to Zimmerman’s defense team for free, except that it ignores the far more ridiculous idea that a man who routinely carries a gun to the point where he wears it when he goes to Target would up and forget it on maybe the first time in his life when it would actually come in handy.
Duuuude. It was assuredly on ongoing struggle where Zimmerman was doing everything in his power to squirm out from under. The sight line is Zimmerman on his side as he’s twisting back and forth.