So apparently I engage in something that is defined only by “urban dictionary”.
Splendid.
By the way, my “race swim” went well.
I would love to hear Bricker’s response to this…
The first two points are prefaced with “if” and then “when the inadvisability of following Martin was brought to his attention, he stopped following”–like this etched in stone and beyond dispute.
THIS IS ONE OF THE CORE THINGS THAT’S IN DISPUTE.
Gonna be great.
If, if, if, if…
But I was talking about legal sufficiency of the evidence. The jury is entitled to believe the evidence that suggests Zimmerman was following Martin intending to catch him and disbelieve the evidence that suggests a less inculpatory motive.
They don’t have to. But they can. It’s part of the record.
The jury is, again, entitled to disbelieve the evidence that he stopped following. Remember: to judge legal sufficiency, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, drawing all reasonable inferences in the state’s favor.
No. But I have a two-fer: a cite that says Florida courts regard civil recklessness and criminal recklessness with the same standard, and a cite showing civil liability for injury with a gun based on reckless conduct.
Make careful note of the bolded statements…this is important, and something I and others have been saying for weeks.
The jury does not have to drink the koolaid that you and some other posters are writing about.
It’s funny…they claim I know nothing about the court system…I asked them this question: have they ever served on a jury? I got no answer. But they want to continue to spew this hypothetical, theoretical bullshit as if it’s fact.
Meanwhile I bring up these very points, and they have nothing but insults and bullshit to follow.
Thank you **Bricker **for the added weight.
Again, in case you missed it; the jury does not have to buy the bullshit…that’s what juries are for. They are not these automatons programmed to acquit Zimmerman because you feel they should.
What evidence is there that Zimmerman was following with the intent to catch Martin? If you have this, you have the grounds to charge him with manslaughter, although I still doubt a conviction would happen, but I don’t see any evidence for it.
I see plenty of speculation, though.
Ok, I think we’re back to your distinction earlier, between what is legally sufficient to charge him, and what you believe actually happened.
So, IF he stopped following him, and IF he never had the intention of catching him, was it, in your opinion, manslaughter?
So, the simple act of carrying a loaded gun (legally) can make an otherwise acceptable act criminally reckless? That seems counter-intuitive to me, to be honest, and it also seems like something a jury in Florida would be unlikely to accept.
But then, plenty of people here think Zimmerman will only be free because of some counter-intuitive laws, so its not impossible that the converse will be true.
It’s also something I’ve agreed with you on for weeks… But, just because they disregard the evidence, doesn’t mean they can substitute baseless speculation for it, and convict on that basis.
Well, technically they can, but it would be overturned quickly.
They do, however, have to acquit if there’s any reasonable scenario which fits the evidence they accept in which Zimmerman is not guilty.
No, I spew facts as though they’re facts, and clearly label any speculations as such. You constantly ask leading, irrelevant questions, ignore the answers when you don’t like them, and refuse to answer relevant questions asked of you.
But, to answer your question in the only way that’s relevant, I never have, and never will, serve on a Florida jury, and I have never had any direct experience of the Florida justice system.
Have you?
I’ve refuted every point of yours I’ve chosen to address. That you see such refutation as an insult shows that you are too emotionally invested in this, and are unable to rationally analyse it.
He is not supporting your point as much as you may think. Why is it that you are fine with his “if” statements - that is Zimmerman could be convicted IF the jury dismiss much of the evidence - and indeed take them to be certainties, but when anyone else so much as types that word you claim they are full of shit?
Actually, I know why. It’s because you care nothing for the facts of this case, and only want to see Zimmerman suffer for your amusement.
Juries must act within certain rules, or their judgement isn’t valid. If they convict despite the evidence, it will be overturned.
Now, that doesn’t mean that he cannot be convicted of manslaughter. If it’s deemed reasonable to think that following someone with a loaded weapon, even with no intention of confronting them, and stopping following them before getting near them, to be so reckless as to be criminal, he may be convicted.
I consider that to be so unreasonable as to be laughable, and I strongly believe that a Florida jury will feel the same. Of course, this case should no more be decided on my feelings than yours.
Well certainly plenty of time for another installment of the dimmy derko fantasy hour. Did Osterman also check to see if anybody in the neighborhood owned a cell phone in your fantasy? Because most phones have video capability.
Zimmerman’s own words:
The jury can conclude his words show he was interested in assholes NOT getting away.
No, if those predicates are true, then it’s not.
Of course. Merely because an act is legal does not make it automatically not reckless. It’s perfectly legal to drive down the highway at 55 mph; it’s criminally reckless to do so in the middle of an ice storm when you can see a bus load of stranded children ahead.
Clapping emoticon.
We have evidence that he stopped following Martin (via the change in sound on the phone call) and we have evidence that both lost sight of each other. Zimmerman claims he was walking along the sidewalk heading back toward his car which coincides with the location of the flashlight. There is no indication that he pursued Martin beyond this point. Martin places himself next to his house. The exact location cannot be established but it’s not within eyesight of Zimmerman. Minutes pass and Martin is now where Zimmerman is walking in plain sight.
The smoking gun in this case literally occurs well into the fight and not before. His interest in assuring that this asshole doesn’t get away lacks the evidence he continued the follow martin or used the gun to detain him. His actions prior to the confrontation are consistent with his original plan to meet up with the police.
so basically what it comes down to is that every law abiding citizen on the planet hates to see assholes get away but it takes more evidence than stating the obvious to prove intent.
But manslaughter is a general intent crime. His recklessness started when he started to follow Martin. That’s all the prosecution needs the jury to believe. Sure, they could conclude that he did something else, but that evidence is enough for them to conclude recklessness. They don’t have to, but they can.
what is your reasoning behind the idea of reckless? What makes Zimmerman’s actions reckless?
I understand your legal point about reckless behavior, I’m just questioning the behavior itself. I’ve called the police a fair number of times for crimes and potential crimes near my house. I’ve gone outside to keep the person in view. What I haven’t done is place myself in close proximity of the person and I think this is key to your argument.
If I may…
I may well be wrong, about what Bricker’s intent and point are.
But I think Bricker may have answered that question already.
No, I am considering manslaughter by negligence.
Florida’s law concerning culpable negligence is obviously older than Stand Your Ground. I believe in cases like this, jurors would lean towards SYG as long as they understand it properly. Furthering that, this particular case lacks evidence for the jury to consider a reduction to manslaughter.
I would however be open to a swayed jury IF the state can prove Zimmerman had violent intent both by deductive reasoning and witness account - which it seems we have nothing to support that.
To circle back to your comment : “The jury could reasonably find that Zimmerman knew, or should have known, that carrying a loaded pistol at night, while following someone he believed to be an armed criminal, was likely to result in someone’s death or great bodily injury.”
Switch a few words around and you have Trevor Dooley - armed with intent maybe not to kill, but to brandish a weapon as a method of intimidation. To me that could be considered violent intent. It was also extremely foolish and subsequently ended in someone’s death.
SYG is very specific and very strong. Even in lieu of evidence, I am not surprised that a pro SYG jury would acquit someone like Dooley. However I find it more conceivable that they would equally convict him, because of his over the top negligence of violent intent.
Which again, we can’t prove or disprove about Zimmerman.
You consider it possible that the defense can lean on the jury to find a distinction in the two, and use the state’s attempt at to illicit an emotional response against them?
And, I imagine if one of the neighbours had used such facilities on their phone to record the exact moment when Z shot Trayvon, and it didn’t match the scenario he described, but showed quite clearly that he shot TM while holding onto his hoody to prevent him getting away, THEN you’d totally change your tune?
As I said, Z didn’t know whether that happened, but knowing his inability to accept fault for anything, I’m sure he’d have still claimed self-defence and that we were all missing how the fight started and what Trayvon had whispered in his ear about killing Z and his entire family, or some such shit, and you’d be buying it by the barrowload.
They can, and should. If he was happy for them to get away, he’d not have called the police in the first place.
I believe that the first of my predicates is provably true, as Magiver has also said, and I believe that one would have to prove he did have the intention of catching Martin to get a manslaughter conviction, and that there is no evidence for that.
A more appropriate, although somewhat tortured, analogy to the current case would be this.
Someone is driving on the highway at 55 in bad weather, sees an accident ahead, and reports it. When reporting it, the caller declares their intention to drive past it in a reckless fashion, but when informed that said act was inadvisable, doesn’t do it. Somewhat later, the bus full of schoolchildren inexplicably drives towards the car at speed, and whilst trying to avoid it, the car driver fails (due to bad weather) and kills them.
In that scenario, which as closely as I can make it matches the Zimmerman/Martin case, was the driver of the car reckless?
Just to say, Bricker, I do understand your points, and I’m inclined to agree that a manslaughter charge would be reasonable. Predicting whether or not he would be guilty is harder, as it’s based much more on opinion - of whether or not a particular act was reckless - than the murder case would be, as that’s shown by the facts not to be valid.
In an entirely different situation, with entirely different evidence, I might well have an entirely different view on the matter. However, your baseless speculation doesn’t affect my view of this case.
What you’re missing is that, in such a situation, if such a claim were made, the burden of proof would be on those claiming it was murder to show that such threats were not made, or were not credible.
Now, you may think that’s a problem with the law. That’s absolutely fine, that’s your right. Indeed, questioning whether laws are fit for the purpose is a good thing generally, although not during a trial.
What you can’t do is say that Zimmerman should be judged by anything other than the laws that applied when he acted, however flawed they may have been.
It’s not baseless. It’s clearly indicated to anyone prepared to look in the right places that Z was motivated enough to want to actually get his hands on one of the people he believed were plaguing his neighbourhood, be it for the good of the hood or his own ego. Speculating that Z might have been the aggressor throughout their encounter, and looking for information that indicates Z hasn’t been completely truthful, is something any neutral should be doing before accepting that person’s presumed innocence.
I’ll leave Trayvon’s parents and other concerned US citizens to the business of questioning Florida’s self-defence laws.
There’s no evidence whatsoever that he wanted to get his hands on anyone. None at all. Speculation based on the evidence is fine. Baseless speculation is emphatically not, it’s immoral, unjust, and frankly just fucking disgusting to call someone a murderer simply because you don’t find them trustworthy.
I’m sure you meant concerned Florida citizens there, otherwise you have just as much interest in questioning them.
It doesn’t surprise me that you want to ignore the detail of the law, though.