The flashlight was found on the ground away from the fight. and if it wasn’t it would have been a lovely weapon to strike Martin with.
His nose was bleeding from the punch and the back of his head was bleeding from strikes on the pavement. All of it is consistent with his account of what happened which will be entered in court.
He ended up there by being punched and the grass stains confirm he was the one on the ground being struck as do his injuries. All of this was witnessed by multiple people.
you keep repeating a story with virtually no evidence to support it and then manage to gloss over the fact that Martin moved from his stated location next to his house to the place he ran from.
Imho, the problem with so many people in this thread is that they want to talk about the problems with so many people in this thread instead of the subject at hand.
ymmv
Fourth one actually, or are warnings not cross applied by moderators?
This is why I have nothing really to input about the police questioning and canvasing - what could they have missed that would provide grounds for illegal killing?
No one has shown anything so seems a moot point.
First off, if they only took 3 witness statements on the night, how could they know for sure that another witness further away from the scene hadn’t seen more than the witnesses chosen to be interviewed had?
How could you possibly be happy with a potential murderer being released after 10 minutes of interviews with witnesses and a casual chat with a real homicide detective, especially when he’s already said in an earlier interview he was jumped on out of bushes and punched straight to the floor, over 40ft away from the dead body he admits responsibility for, and his injuries just don’t match up with the ferocious assault he has described?
Ok…so they take fifty witness statements. Are you suggesting that IF it was CLEAR that Zimmerman (we’ll say murdered) murdered Martin, that the more witnesses means there’s a higher probability they saw it? Of course the answer is yes. Does it mean there’s a higher probability he actually did it.. no…
I said before, there is no arbitrary time that police must spend during a detainment and canvasing. With neither Zimmerman or any of the witnesses being a flight risk, why the urge to interrogate them like a US prisoner in Afghanistan?
It’s like there’s this sentiment that any and ALL investigation must be done RIGHT there and anything after that is useless.
Big fucking deal, Bricker. It doesn’t change the fact that it would not have been illegal to test Zimmerman for drugs that night. You were wrong about that assertion just like you’ve been wrong about plenty other legal issues in this thread.
The words of a law must be understood according to their usual signification, unless it is certain that the legislator intended them to be taken in another sense.
You seem surprised (or not) at Bricker’s distinctions when in fact they do matter and are a “big fucking deal.”
I never said it would be illegal to test him, you with the face. Here are my posts – read them again. Where did I say that?
I said: “It’s not even true to say, ‘He could be tested unless he said no.’ In fact, he can’t be tested unless he says ‘Yes.’ He has to affirmatively consent.” That’s absolutely true – as you admit when you say “Big fucking deal.”
So where did I say it was illegal?
I will now say, unambiguously: It would have been illegal to test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol that night without his express consent.
It would not be illegal for you to get yourself tested right now. So yes in this regard it wasn’t illegal for Zimmerman to get tested. But the police had no basis in which to make the request based on the observation of Zimmerman. There was no probable cause. It was clear at the time that he had been assaulted.
For context, here is monstro’s line that started this latest discussion:
My answer to that observation is: It would have been illegal to test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol that night without his express consent.
So it may not be that no one thought to test him, but rather that no one thought he would give his express consent, or that asking him for his express consent would cause him to terminate whatever cooperation he was giving.
Do we know which it was?
Also worth a response: Zimmerman and Martin were treated differently because they were different. Martin was dead, the victim of a homicide. As such, his body was autopsied as required by law. No consent of anyone was needed to test Martin’s body for drugs or alcohol.
Zimmerman was alive, and the suspect in a homicide. Lacking any law which permitted the police to test Zimmerman’s body for alcohol or drugs, the test could not be done without Zimmerman’s express consent.
These are the reasons Zimmerman and Martin were treated differently with respect to testing for drugs and/or alcohol.
Why are you so concerned whether Zimmerman had drugs or alcohol in his system? The only thing about this case that could possibly change if he did would be that they could charge him with drunk driving…
Either the killing was legitimate self defence, or it wasn’t. Zimmerman being on drugs wouldn’t change that.
And I also don’t know if the police decided not to ask him because they thought a request would be refused and would also terminate his desire to cooperate, or if they just thought it was obviously unnecessary, or if they forgot, or if they were racists who thought killing Martin was essentially a public service.
But since I don’t know those things, I don’t reach any conclusion about the lack of testing.
No, I disagree. The objective trustworthiness of his belief that he was in danger of serious bodily injury is lessened if we learned that he was intoxicated.
So you have no basis to say testing him would have been illegal. For all you know, Zimmerman volunteered to be tested and the cops are the ones that declined to do so.