I take no position on what’s “only right.”
But under the rules of evidence, there is no exception that allows prior bad acts to be admitted against the accused simply because the accused claims that his victim was an irrational thug with murderous intent, no.
Why are you so sure Z was where he said he was when he was talking to the dispatcher? Have YOU seen any conclusive evidence that Z even parked his vehicle where he said he did? If you have, I’d appreciate a link to said information.
You click a flashlight, if it sounds the same as what's on the dispatcher call, it's likely the same. If you bang a flashlight on the dog potty, and it sounds the same, it's likely the same. You hear Zimmerman closing the truck door, and then moving for about twelve seconds, before his breathing returns to normal. In the reenactment video, it took about fifteen seconds to walk from where Zimmerman allegedly parked his vehicle to where the T was. (there should be witnesses that saw where it was parked)
So, if A and B are involved in a violent scuffle that is broken up by the arrival of the police and A says B started it for no good reason, B has no recourse to pointing to his own exemplarary background to suggest the unlikelihood of such an accusation? Not only that, they can’t even ask what kind of reputation the person making the allegations has? That sounds like a recipe for injustice.
If that’s what they did, I’d at least hope they tried different spots to repeat the experiment.
Can’t say I’ve seen any such witness reports myself. Do you think the SPD were negligent in not photographing it in situ before allowing Shellie Zimmerman to drive it away, if that is what happened?
I think it depends on who is on trial. If B is the defendant, he can point to his own exemplary background as reason why he’s innocent, and call character witnesses who testify that B is a saint among men who would never hurt a fly. That kind of testimony is relevant to the accusations in this trial. The prosecution would not be able to bring up that B was convicted of tax evasion in 1999, because it is not relevant.
It is a bit one-sided, but in our system that is intentional - the defendant is presumed innocent.
Plus the charge that Zimmerman resisted a police officer was dropped - he was never convicted. Therefore, legally, he was not guilty, and the prosecution may not try to argue that he was really guilty of resisting a police officer - that would be double jeopardy. As far as the law is concerned, Zimmerman did not resist any police officer, ever.
If Martin had killed Zimmerman, same same - the prosecution would not be able to bring up his record of school suspensions and drug use.
I suspect (IANAL) that Zimmerman’s attorney is not going to be able to mention Martin’s school problems either - they are irrelevant, and more inflammatory than probative.
Regards,
Shodan
They may be more inflammatory than probatory, but they are certainly not irrelevant.
One key question at hand is how likely it is that TM attacked GZ versus GZ attacking TM. It’s hard to imagine how anyone can believe that the odds that TM attacked GZ are not changed by the knowledge that he was a person who had or didn’t have a disciplinary problem.
And the same goes for GZ’s history.
Note that this is not to say that legally these items are or should be found to be admissable. But they are certainly relevant.
If both A and B claim that the other started the fight, how is it decided which one becomes the defendant? In my example I’m assuming A is the one who has been chosen as being more believable, by dint of him having a scratch on his head and B having no visible marks.
With that incident, it’s not the resisting arrest aspect that is interesting, it’s Z’s readiness to lay hands on another person who he felt was in the wrong. He’s also alleged to have shown that same willingness to get physical in his short career as a nightclub doorman.
I can’t imagine they’d want to, as it wouldn’t exactly corroborate any insistence that TM was a violent person, whereas Z’s past is highly indicative that he’d stick his oar in any chance he could get, and therefore, him trying a citizen’s arrest on a suspected burglar is exactly the kind of behaviour you could expect from him, if he ever got the opportunity.
I agree, they are pretty irrelevant - unless they contain clear evidence that he was the kind of teen who’d take on an adult without having a crew with him to show off to. If that sort of information came to light, I’d readily accept that he was likely to attack Z for little reason other than his hurt pride or something, but thus far I’ve seen no such evidence.
I was speaking only of what a court would consider relevant. The details are certainly relevant in this forum, but, as I said earlier, it seems to be pretty much a tie between Zimmerman and Martin as to whose background makes it more likely that they were the attacker.
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If both A and B claim that the other started the fight, how is it decided which one becomes the defendant?
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In this case, Zimmerman is the defendant because he shot Martin. If he hadn’t, and the police showed up and pulled Martin off of Zimmerman, then we would have had a chance to hear Martin’s account of what happened. And check how closely it matches what can be established from the other evidence.
If there isn’t enough evidence to tell, I would expect the police to charge it up to mutual combat.
Maybe, if Zimmerman hadn’t shot Martin, and the police showed up and Zimmerman was not dead or seriously injured, Zimmerman would have insisted on trying to get Martin charged with assault. But then everybody would know that Zimmerman was not really in danger of death, which we don’t know now, and so it would hard to sustain a charge of attempted murder against Martin.
AFAICT there isn’t enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt who was the first to attack. The balance of probability IMO is that Martin threw the first punch. It is possible that Zimmerman grabbed Martin first, and Martin punched and tackled Zimmerman in response to that. Possible, but there is no evidence of it.
I think it unlikely that Zimmerman grabbed Martin first. Dee Dee’s testimony is not very reliable (IMO) but she claims that what was said was, not “let go of me” but “get off me”. If Zimmerman had grabbed Martin, I would expect him to say “let go” rather than “get off”, and, since we can establish from eyewitness accounts that Martin was on top of Zimmerman at one point, it appears that it was Zimmerman speaking.
And given the damage to the back of Zimmerman’s head, I think it more likely that it was Zimmerman screaming “get off me” because Martin was sitting on his chest bashing his head rather than Martin screaming “get off me” because Zimmerman had hold of him.
As mentioned, it does not seem to me to be able to tell who was the greater hothead from examination of their respective backgrounds. But the balance of probability seems to me that Martin was the attacker. This is based on the nature and extent of the injuries to both men, as well as to the fact that Zimmerman had been neighborhood watch guy for some time, and had possibly prevented an earlier burglary, without attacking anybody.
If Martin were trying to get away from Zimmerman, all he had to do was continue on home. But he didn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
You are welcome to your opinions, but it would seem your probability scales heavily favour Zimmerman’s account.
And there are a number of valid reasons why a panicked teen might not do what seems so obvious to the person sat in the comfort of their home, eg, he didn’t know exactly where Z was and didn’t want to run right into him; he thought Z had an accomplice waiting up ahead between his destination and himself, or he didn’t want to lead a dodgy-looking stranger back to his dad’s when he knew his dad was out.
cite that Zimmerman’s past is highly indicative that he’d “stick his oar in” any chance he got. Keep in mind that he stopped a burglary in progress a month prior to this using the same MO. He called the police.
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It would be prudent to have a working flashlight given there is a suspicious person literally running around the neighborhood. He might just come out of nowhere and surprise you.
Actually Zimmerman did see Martin commit a crime. He saw him trespassing (in the rain and at night) at a house that had recently been burglarized which made him suspicious enough to call the police.
It’s not a function of believing Zimmerman’s account. It’s a matter of comparing known evidence to his account as well as comparing multiple accounts against each other. The State has to prove him wrong using evidence.
Prudence directs a person to call the police to report suspicious activity. They both (presumably) thought the other was supicions. They both had phones. Which person called the police?
Well, you’ve leapt from the courtroom to a streetside police encounter. Not surprisingly, the police are not bound by the Rules of Evidence when they question bystanders to see who started a fight. For that matter, the bystanders who talk to the police are not sworn in, they are not subject to cross-examination by a defense lawyer, and their words are not noted by a transcriptionist for the record. All of these are ways in which a streetside encounter differs from trial testimony.
So the police may well decide to charge A based on his reputation, but at trial, they cannot bring it up in order to suggest to the jury that he acted in conformity with his reputation.
Okay, I was indulging in a little hyperbole there, but weighing TM’s rumoured assault on a bus driver and his alleged involvement with mma-style fighting against Z’s definite hostility towards a larger undercover LEO and his rumoured attack on a women punter at an event he was providing security on, I’d say indicates that of the 2, Z is the more likely to be confrontational.
He called the police about something. Didn’t he see a suspicious-looking black guy smoking a cig at the side of his buddy’s house, or something equally innocuous and unsuspicious? His attention was first drawn to TM by TM’s use of a well known shortcut, something that only a person with a bee in his bonnet about threats, dangers and a wave of rampant black burglars would have found “suspicious.”
It’s lucky for Z that TM had the decency to give him a head’s up before attacking him. While Z was banging away with his torch and not walking back to his vehicle, had TM been as violent as Z is suggesting, he could have just walked up behind him and caved his skull with a can of watermelon lean.
No, he didn’t. TM wasn’t trespassing anywhere when Z first spotted him, he was taking a recognised short cut.
You mean known evidence like the lack of significant cuts or obvious swelling after having his head smashed repeatedly against a concrete surface? Either TM was a very inept murderous attacker, or Z is exaggerating a little regarding the intensity of the struggle.
The guy who phoned the police when he saw 7 yr olds playing in the street, people smoking cigarettes alongside houses with an open window, or even those taking a known short cut onto the housing estate.
I’m not sure what you mean by having a bee in your bonnet, but as Magiver mentions, Zimmerman stopped what may have been a burglary in progress, and there had been eight burglaries in the fourteen months previous to the incident. I don’t know about your neighborhood, but that is a good bit above the average for mine.
The parts that are backed up by evidence, yes.
There might be, but there isn’t any evidence for any of them.
But you are correct - it seems pretty obvious that a “panicked teen” isn’t going to react by going out and wandering the neighborhood looking for whatever he is afraid of. If he’s so scared, why did he dial his girl friend instead of 911?
Regards,
Shodan
well lets look at that. A bouncer dealing with an unruly customer versus a kid starting fights. One is doing a functional job. The other is not.
Where are you getting this narrative? There’s no reference to anyone smoking, the side of the house, a well known shortcut, or rampant black burglars. Zimmerman states there was a person standing in the front lawn of the property of a recently burglarized house, in the rain, looking around. It was suspicious activity and he did exactly what he should have done and that’s to call the police. The worst thing he did was try to keep Martin in sight. This is how burglars are caught, by people calling the police and watching them. I’ve caught 2 burglars (single robbery) and stopped another 2 robberies by doing exactly what he did. The first thing the police ask for when they arrive is a description of what was seen and where the suspicious person is or what direction did they go. If all they have to go on when they arrive is the Dispatcher’s recap then it’s down to “suspicious person wandering about”. They might as well have not wasted the gas.
A sucker punch isn’t much better.
He was trespassing. There is no such thing as a “recognized short cut” in the eye’s of the law. I don’t begin to know what orifice you pulled that from.
there is clear evidence that Zimmerman was attacked and that the back of his head sustained injuries consistent with his account.
Zimmerman didn’t report a “short cut”. He said Martin was standing in the rain, on the property, looking around. A property that was recently broken into.
Less than one burglary a month doesn’t sound like much of a crime wave to me.
You seem to consider Z’s testimony as evidence, whereas I suggest it is the disembling of a man with everything to lose if he admits the truth.
There might be, but there isn’t any evidence for any of them.
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There’s no conclusive evidence that Z was attacked the way he says he was, but that doesn’t seem to concern you.
Hasn’t it been established that he was already on the phone to DD when Z first encountered him? If you are going to put all his actions in a suspicious light, we may as well imagine that he’d just scored some weed and phoning the police was the last thing on his mind.
In a gated community consisting of 2 streets I would say it represents a problem.
The evidence is consistent with his story. The State has to prove otherwise.
It’s not a function of suspicion. He wasn’t caught with weed.
Martin’s actions indicate that he wasn’t in fear of Zimmerman. His presence at the sidewalk T appears to be by his own initiative. There is no other logical way it could occur given the narrative of the phone calls. We know where the fight began. We know where Zimmerman came from and was ostensibly heading back toward. The 2 are the same location which matches his story. Martin said he was next to his house. If Martin was at or near his house then he backtracked toward Zimmerman and this is consistent with Zimmerman’s account of Martin coming diagonally toward him from that direction (Martin’s house).