Zimmerman went to the police station voluntarily on the night of the shooting. I remember reading that it was the “policy” of the the Sanford P.D. to solicit the opinion of the DA before making an arrest for murder in such a case. I can’t find a cite; perhaps someone can back me up. It may very well have been legal for Serino to make an arrest at that point, but if he valued his job, it would seem to be an unwise move if that action went counter to official policy.
I already said that. But this whole row is about what I said which was that it wasn’t up to the officer to rule on the legal aspect of it. The key word here is RULE. In the absence of obvious evidence an officer has a duty to the community, himself, and his office to seek council. It’s not his job to RULE on legal matters.
Now if you want to get into the gray area between seeing someone commit the crime and various levels of evidence directly related to the crime, that’s not just a new thread, that’s the entire legal system. There aren’t enough days in the week to argue it on a message board.
Good, then.
How is that different? He could have arrested Zimmerman if he, alone, found probable cause. How is that not “ruling” on it?
There is no gray area to this statement: “It wasn’t up to him to rule on it in the first place.” That is wrong. It was up to him, until he bucked the decision to the prosecutor, after which point it wasn’t up to him.
It’s the difference between an EMT and a doctor making a decision as to what needs to be done to a patient at the time of the event. An EMT is certified to do the obvious work needed but defers to a doctor otherwise.
I used the term “ruling” specifically to express this view. If you can express it better than that I welcome the help. I used “ruling” versus “decision” because it expresses the concept of ultimate decision over legal matters. The officer should defer any legal questions to counsel.
OK, let’s consider the EMT vice the doctor.
In the field, the EMT makes basic treatment decisions. of course he would defer tro a doctor if one were present. In certain cases, he might specifically contact a doctor to ask what to do. Once he did, then he cannot substitute his own medical judgement; he must follow the doctor’s advice (as a general principle, and understanding some intervening event may invalidate this).
But before he consults the doctor, it’s up to him to decide on treatment.
I think you’re focusing on the fact that once the higher authority is consulted, that’s the ruling. What you didn’t capture, in my opinion, was the autonomy that exists for the officer (or EMT) before consulting the higher authority.
We don’t even know the nature of the consult. Did the prosecutor express their view to Serino as though it was mandate? Or was it more like “nah, I wouldn’t proceed just yet, but it could go either way…I recommend waiting for more evidence but it’s ultimately your call.”
Serino claims he was “overruled”, as though it was more like the first. Not a recommendation but a mandate. But that could have been an untruth or exaggeration.
The State Attorney’s statement to the press strikes me as odd, if prosecutors have as much power that some of us laymen keep insisting they do. Instead of standing by their recommendation/ruling to delay arresting Zimmerman, isn’t it weird that they foisted all the responsibility to the police by insisting they could have made an arrest if they’d wanted to? To use the EMT/physician example, that’s like a doctor insisting that a paramedic can always refer a patient with left-arm pain to the ER to be evaluated for a heart attack, even if the doctor tells them from their podium of expertise that it’s not indicated. But we all know that this if this patient ended up dying from a heart attack later, the doctor would be liable for dropping the ball. The paramedic would be in the clear, unless they neglected to tell the MD something crucial about the patient that would have altered the doctor’s advice.
If prosecutors are tasked with dictating what cops can and can’t do when they are consulted, it’s certainly poor form not to acknowledge their role in the decision not to press charges against Zimmerman. Furthermore, if it truly is crystal clear that there was insufficient basis for arresting Zimmerman based on the available evidence and the SYG law (as Magiver and others seem to believe), I’m seriously wondering why Wolfinger et al. wouldn’t have defended themselves with a legal argument instead of shifting blame to the police department. Rightly or wrongly, their failure to do that creates the picture that there *isn’t *a legal argument adequate enough to support the state’s non-action towards Zimmerman. I creates the perception that politics and backroom dealing were in play long before Corey got a hold of this case.
I have an opinion on this question.
It’s just an opinion. Nothing more. Pure speculation.
I think that when national attention on this blew up, prosecutors were leery of trying to explain the concept of probable cause, and specifically probable cause to believe that the force used was unlawful, the requirement of 776.032.
I reach that conclusion in large part because of my experience in this thread’s predecessor and cousins in GD. I explained it many times, and in my opinion, very few people seemed to get it. Perhaps this was my failing as a persuasive and informative writer, but I have always felt (perhaps conceitedly) that I was good at explaining legal concepts to lay people.
So my speculative opinion is he decided to throw the police department under the bus rather than try to explain the probable cause requirements to a generally hostile audience.
Again. no real evidence, just a guess.
There sure is a lot of stuff that strikes you as odd, ywtf.
“There wasn’t enough evidence to justify charges against Zimmerman at the time we were consulted on this issue”.
This took me all of two seconds to cook this up. Not a very complex or politically sticky statement, and it would have sufficiently covered all bases for everyone involved (assuming that it’s true). No need for them to delve into the hornet’s nest of probable cause at all.
If you look at the SA office’s statement to the press, they did talk about probable cause, and explained that cops have the ability to act on it when they find it. So this contradicts your idea that they were somehow leery of this subject.
This isn’t what they did, though. They threw the police department under the bus specifically by explaining how probable cause works.
See, I disagree with your follow through. The EMT in this example ISN’T there to decide on treatment. He’s there to stabilize the patient on a cursory level. That doesn’t mean it can’t involve a serious level of involvement but that involvement has to be clear cut. The same applies to a police officer. They can arrest someone when it’s clear cut but so can citizens under certain circumstances. Just like the EMT, a police officer isn’t there to engage in treatment of the person involved. They are there as a first step in the process of delivering people into the system designed to deal with it.
An officer can arrest but not prosecute so any questions at all regarding the legitimacy of prosecution falls on those who are qualified to make a determination.
That’s why I said pretty close to an assault. It would take some evidence to determine that Zimmerman went further than just approaching Martin in some harmless manner.
The problem I have with the Zimmerman defense so far (and it’s all limited by a lack of knowledge of the actual evidence) is that we are expected to believe that Zimmerman after making a determination that Martin was acting in some criminal manner, a determination which was not reasonable, then approached Martin in some non-threatening way with no criminal intent of his own, and then Martin just decided to attack him for no reason. It doesn’t pass the smell test for me. But the state will have prove that something else happened. I’m waiting to hear the evidence.
[QUOTE=TriPolar;14983109
The problem I have with the Zimmerman defense so far (and it’s all limited by a lack of knowledge of the actual evidence) is that we are expected to believe that Zimmerman after making a determination that Martin was acting in some criminal manner, a determination which was not reasonable, then approached Martin in some non-threatening way with no criminal intent of his own, and then Martin just decided to attack him for no reason. It doesn’t pass the smell test for me. But the state will have prove that something else happened. I’m waiting to hear the evidence.[/QUOTE]
If we accept Zimmerman’s statement, he didn’t approach Martin at all. I’ve stated before that I regard their meeting as an unhappy accident. It is easy to infer that Zimmerman might have said something that angered Martin or based on DeeDee statement, Martin was already pissed off about Zimmerman following him.
We are left with a lot of speculation until we see the forensic evidence and even that might not settle it.
I’m not accepting anything because I don’t trust the sources. I can at least make a judgement about the credibility of any evidence when it’s aired in court. But I don’t see how Martin could be pissed off at Zimmerman for following him if Zimmerman didn’t approach him.
I listened to the audio of Zimmerman’s 911 call, and came away with the impression that he was almost certainly the antagonist of the encounter with Martin. The damning bits in my opinion are when he says “damn it, they always get away!” and the operator responds by saying “are you following him?” in sort of an incredulous tone. He says “yeah,” and not too much later you hear someone that doesn’t sound like Zimmerman shouting “help!” I can’t imagine a scenario in which Zimmerman’s actions wouldn’t have caused a reasonable person to fear for their safety.
I think the Trevor Dooley case will be very interesting to observe because it’s going to be resolved prior to this case and can give us some degree of a preview as to how Zimmerman’s case will go down.
Obviously the specific facts are different, but the general events are on the whole very similar.
That’s why it is fairly interesting to me that Angela Corey charged Second Degree Murder; the prosecutor of Dooley charged manslaughter specifically because proving the “ill intent” aspects of second degree murder would be extremely difficult. That wasn’t apparently a concern of Coreys, but if we ultimately see Zimmerman acquitted I think a lot of people will rightfully question why she charged so high. Based on discussions in the prior thread, her high charge does not preclude the jury convicting on a lesser included offense. But, if they issue an outright acquittal it would mean the case against Zimmerman was extremely weak, not even enough to get a conviction on manslaughter or unjustified homicide. That would to me make the decision to charge for second degree murder at least seem political.
Dooley has been out on bail since Sept. 2010, so I would be very surprised if Zimmerman is not given bail. Dooley was given $50,000 bail, in many states you can post with 10% cash down, I don’t know the specifics in Florida or the specifics in Dooley’s case. One wrinkle for Zimmerman is he will be required to fund the expenses of any home-confinement. With his bail potentially being in the range from $10,000-$100,000, and the home confinement costs probably running him $20-30,000 over the projected 2-3 years this trial could take there is a very real chance he just plain won’t have the money to be released on bond.
We don’t know how much money is in Zimmerman’s paypal account yet. Talking about the trial is a bit premature. The case has to survive the self-defense hearing first.
I see.
The problem I have with this is that essentially identical information was offered at the beginning of the now-closed thread; the following exchange took place at posts 28 and 30:
And in post 30:
So far as I can determine, you were not satisfied with this explanation. For this reason, I’m skeptical of your idea that the general public would have been satisfied with the response you now propose the SA could have given.
How do you know what Zimmerman’s voice sounds like?
OK, I’m with you. I agree.
Me, too.
I assume you mean what he sounds like when he’s shouting?