Martin likely would have been tackled by Z the minute he tried to run away. How do we know this? Because that’s exactly what happened after he was shot.
I think this has been repeatedly answered. Not sure how else it can be explained.
If my analysis is legally incorrect, please identify where I have erred.
It seems to me you’re saying that you feel the law permits an unjust result, which is a fair comment…but that I am a bad guy for mentioning this piece of factual information.
Please find evidence that he isn’t.
He isn’t. You’re misunderstanding, deliberately, what he is saying.
The evidence that did come out. Meaning NO evidence came out that disproves his client’s self-defense claim.
LOL. Fortunately for Zimmerman, your fantasies have nothing to do with reality.
You lead a great fantasy life, don’tcha?
You’re saying a person, after pursuing someone in the dark for several minutes, can not only get away with shooting them in response to a punch but also holding them against their will until the cops show up.
And you need me, a non-lawyer, to tell you why that is “legally incorrect”.
I don’t believe in teaching adults how to think critically. If you really believe this is legal, I will not invest bandwidth on convincing you otherwise. But I will add this exchange to the growing heap of evidence against your credibility as a lawyer and an intelligent poster.
Again, that’s why I said:
In the sequence of events you provide above, the conflict begins with Zimmerman assaulting Martin. In that case, of course, you’re right.
I don’t know why you’re yelling at me. My answer clearly was premised on the conflict beginning with Martin punching Zimmerman. If instead the conflict began with Zimmerman assaulting Martin, what I said is no longer valid.
Pursuing someone in the dark for several minutes is not a crime, much less a felony. Punching someone in the nose provides probable cause to believe that felony battery has been committed. A private citizen who sees a felony may effect a ciizen’s arrest.
What part of that do you believe is in error?
Martin didn’t try and run away when he was shot and Zimmerman didn’t tackle him.
More importantly Martin didn’t try and run away before he was shot. If he hadn’t been shot he would have likely continued beating Zimmerman. How do we know this? Because he didn’t stop when one of the residents yelled that he was calling the police.
I’m not the only lawyer here.
Pick another one. GFactor, BottleBlondeJeanie, Oakminster, pravnik are names that come to mind – there are others.
Pick one. Let’s invite your pick to comment on the accuracy of what I’ve said.
Or is there some “reason” that’s not acceptable?
O’Mara has been answering a lot of questions that would probably be best left unaswered until a jury has actually been seated but this case has become such a public case that maybe he’s attempting to negate all the BS spewed by the lynch mob leaders and media-types. I don’t know because I’m not O’Mara.
A SYG hearing will limit the defense’s options because arguments will be presented that will be applied to the case before a jury but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It still depends on if the SA can PROVE 2nd degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
I personally doubt that questions about how long TM could have lived after he was shot or if it was possible for a human being to talk after having both lungs punctured, will play a big part in the juries decision. Who started the fight and did GZ believe his live was in imminent danger “should be” the primary considerations. But I won’t be a jury member either.
There is credible evidence to support it was dark during their encounter. Beyond that, is unproven speculation.
No credible evidence Zimmerman initiated an assault on TM. No credible evidence that he ever attacked him at any point until he defended himself.
Credible evidence of punch- none for self-defense.
Based on your hypothetical set of events, Zimmerman would have only been able to shoot Trayvon if he first made an effort to retreat, and TM was using force that he reasonably believed could have caused further great bodily harm or death.
In Zimmerman’s version of events, Zimmerman had several legal justifications for attempting to restrain Trayvon after he shot him. He wanted to prevent him from doing any further harm or he was making a citizen’s arrest as Becker suggested.
The chances that him restraining Trayvon after he shot him having any significance at trial is close to zero.
His attorney is making the case under a provision created by the SYG legislation that grants a pre-trial immunity hearing. Also, all forms of self-defense, including what could be called “traditional self-defense” fall under the SYG umbrella. In this sense, O’Mara is absolutely making the case under Stand Your Ground.
However, the SYG legislation includes a provision that removed a previous requirement to retreat if possible. This is the most famous (or infamous) part of the SYG legislation, and the reason they called it Stand Your Ground. It’s what many people think of when they hear Stand Your Ground. This specific provision of SYG does not apply to this case, O’Mara argues, because the facts suggest that it was not possible for Zimmerman to retreat, anyway. So the “no duty to retreat” part of SYG- the most defining feature of SYG, does not apply.
Some people present SYG as a situation where someone violates your personal space and/or gives you the slightest reason to think that they might be a threat. And, while you could as easily just walked away, you decide to immediately draw your gun and blow them away, and claim you were just “standing your ground.” A “Wild-West”, “shoot first, ask questions later” type situation that isn’t really self-defense.
O’Mara’s point is that this isn’t anything like that. Zimmerman was not reacting to some vague idea that TM might attack him. He was reacting to having already sustained a significant injury, the broken nose, right off the bat. And his reaction was not to immediately blow Trayvon Martin away, but to scream for help. O’Mara’s point is that this was anything but a “shoot first, ask questions later”-type scenario. This was more of a traditional self-defense situation.
It is a very difficult, somewhat nuanced point to try to explain to the public. It makes sense that it would be misunderstood. Especially since 85% of the media has had a distorted understanding of what “SYG” is, and how it does or doesn’t apply.
But so what? Zimmerman also claimed he was screaming for help when his head was being pounded, and since that is much more dangerous form of violence and is more immediate to the shooting, you’d think is this where the emphasis would be placed. Not on a single punch.
No one has said this is a shoot first, ask questions later situation, so that’s a straw man.
Zimmerman wasn’t arrested because he is charged with acting rashly. He was charged with 2nd degree murder. If O’Mara’s goal is to eliminate public misconception of SYG, he did a marvelous job of botching that up. Drawing imaginary distinctions between “retreat is possible” and “retreat is not possible” self defense hurts Zimmerman.
There is nothing wrong with following someone and talking to them. There is nothing wrong with shooting someone in response to a sustained beating. There is nothing wrong with restraining someone you’ve just witnessed commit a crime.
Nothing wrong with any of these things, in a legal or moral sense. Nothing at all.
Now, if you want to claim that these are not the things that happened, you need to show actual evidence for it. Not fantasies, not twisting the facts and piling inference upon inference. Actual evidence that proves the point you want to make.
Then, you need to show that your narrative actually shows Zimmerman breaking the law, and many of the fictional narratives those of you who want to lynch Zimmerman have invented still don’t rise to that level.
You seem to think that Zimmerman should have ignored the rash of burglaries in his neighbourhood, and should have allowed himself to be beaten to a pulp, and you’ve given no good reason for thinking that way, despite being asked repeatedly.
So, I’ll ask again. Why do you want someone who’s been shown to have acted in accordance with the law convicted of murder, and why do you repeatedly claim that the guy who gave him a severe beating is a victim?
In fairness to you with the face – or more accurately in fairness to the general principles of legal analysis – there are two discussions in play here.
One is about the law as applied to a given set of facts. In these kinds of discussions, we can hypothetically tweak facts as explore how the change might affect the legal outcome.
“If Martin and Zimmerman were struggling with the gun, and a duck flew by and crashed into them causing the gun to discharge, how does the law treat the situation?”
That’s a perfectly valid question. No one is advancing the Lone Duck Theory, but discussing what the factual situation produces as a legal result is perfectly legitimate.
I have tried to treat these discussions in that way. Propose a set of facts, and I’ll tell you what I think their legal significance is. There’s also the more prosaic argument: “Here’s what the evidence means – these are the facts that actually happened, based on the evidence in play so far.” I have pretty well abandoned that line here in this thread.
I think at times the discussion in the thread fails to make clear which line is being followed.
If you can find me one lawyer who will say that it’s legal for a civilian to shoot someone who has only punched them because they were frightened by the shooter’s dogged pursuit of them, and that it’s also legal for the shooter to grab their victim so they can’t run away, I will fall out of my chair. Not because you’ve convinced me you’re right, but because I’ll be dismayed to see that there are not one but two lawyers incapable of interpreting the law in a smart, judicious, and intellectually honest manner.
Causing serious injury to someone else is one thing, but then standing in the way of them getting medical care by holding them and causing them more physical stress by blocking their freedom of movement from an unidentified vigilante ass is another thing.
But go scrouge up someone willing to disagree with me.
But if I do… it won’t change a thing?
It’ll change my assessment of the legal profession from bad to worse.