Martin/Zimmerman: humble opinions and speculation thread

In My Humble Opinion
9983

He did shoot to kill. Martin is dead, remember? That was by design, not by chance. He admitted to aiming at the kid’s chest.

It is against the law to restrain someone who has ceased to fight you and has made it clear that they’ve “given up”. Pinning someone serves no purpose at that point except to escalate the conflict by holding them against the will. It instantly becomes an act of aggression, not self-defense.

Think about it, seriously. If two men are brawling on the street, and one of them suddenly realizes he’s out of his league and signals defeat, should the other guy be allowed to hold him in a head lock for however long he wants? No he should not be allowed to do that. Unless he wants to be go to jail. Because that just about guarrantees the fight will continue until someone is seriously hurt or dead. Guy in a head lock now has a valid reason to fear for his life and plunge a knife in the other guy’s neck.

Yes. His actions after killing Martin tell us what his state of mind was before he shot Martin. They reveal that his objective had nothing to do with protecting himself. If that had been his goal, he would have run away as soon as Martin rolled away from. No, his goal had been to restrain Martin and keep him in one spot so the cops could nab him.

Zimmerman never gave Martin the opportunity to walk away from him at any point during the conflict. We can infer this from the fact that he restrained Martin even after Martin supposedly revealed himself to be murdering monster equipped with the uncanny ability to overpower a much bigger opponent in one fell swoop of an ectomorphic fist. If Zimmerman wasn’t in much of hurry to run away to safety at that point, why should we think he was ever in a hurry? There is zero evidence that the guy ever was afraid of Martin.

Let’s say a lion suddenly ambushed and attacked you, gnawed off one of your arms, maybe ripped off some flesh on your face. Would your fear of this animal suddenly vanish just because it moved aside to go take a dump less than a yard away from your head? Mine wouldn’t, and neither would most people. My panic would last until the cat was miles away from me. The last thing I’d be doing is hopping on top of this animal to restrain it. Why, you ask? Because I already know 1) it has the ability to overpower me 2) it almost killed me the last time it overpowered me and 3) I’ve just been seriously injured and am in poor condition to be wrestling with a life form easily capable of killing me.

The problem is that Zimmerman’s conduct is radically unlike that of a person ambused and attacked by an opponent as vicious as he has portrayed Martin. Things have to add up to argue self defense in a credible fashion, but nothing adds up for him.

What exactly would make this behavior permissible under the law?

Intentionally touching or striking another person against their will counts as battery in Florida. If two people are fighting and one person makes it understood that they are giving up and are withdrawing force, you are essentially committing battery if you continue to touch or strike them from that point onward.

9984

He did not conduct a citizen’s arrest for the obvious reason that he never told the kid that he was conducting a citizen’s arrest. So you’re wrong. Zimmerman broke the law when he laid his paws on the kid.

9985

Could you please produce a cite that a citizen’s arrest in Florida is not valid unless the arrester announces it? Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Shodan

9986

I don’t know what fantasy world you live in but I’m not friends with any of the people explaining the legal case to you. And Martin was a juvenile delinquent by definition. He has a police record. He was kicked out of school. His life wasn’t on track at this point and that’s not uncommon. Kids do stupid things, news at 11:00. But at his age he is accountable for his actions. Smashing someone’s head into cement is a deadly act.

There’s nothing funny about it. You call the person out for this. It’s not a license to imitate.

9987

That’s not what shoot to kill means.

Shoot to stop means to fire until the threat is no longer a threat. It may or may not be fatal.

Shoot to kill means to fire until death is guaranteed. There’s no plausible way, in the dark, Zimmerman could know that he’d struck Martin in the heart. Bullet wounds are quite small.

Cite? As long as the use of force was reasonable and proportionate, I don’t think you’re correct, here.

That’s quite a leap. Seems to me that being beaten and shooting someone would result in a new set of objectives that supercede whatever the plan was before; being beaten and shooting someone is quite a big deal.

Firing the shot was to protect himself, and it was sucessful. The threat was no longer death or grievous bodily harm.

Do you suggest than in any self-defense case in which the shooter does not immediately flee, the shooter wasn’t justified in their use of deadly force?

Martin revealed the “uncanny” ability to punch someone in the face and climp atop of them. There is nothing superhuman about that.

The evidence that his fear of Martin was reasonable includes the beating he took.

As for the lion analogy:

  1. There are multiple levels of fear. Zimmerman’s fear of death or grievous bodily harm likely only last for a few seconds, that doesn’t mean he suddenly lost all fear, it just changed when the circumstances did.

  2. The overpowering was the result of an unexpected punch to the face, not the sort of innate physical advantage a lion enjoys.

  3. A lion can’t comprehend what a gun is, and change its behavior when one is presented and fired.

  4. Zimmerman was wounded and had a joint problem, so perhaps fleeing wasn’t a viable option at that moment. For one, he could be overcome by Martin if Martin got back up.

How about this: if I can find a single case in which a self-defense shooting was found to be justified, in which the shooter did not flee the area, would you accept that fleeing is not a requirement?

Reasonable use of force is permitted, and this seems reasonable. It was seconds after the fight ended. Remember the doctrine that “detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an upturned knife” ? Zimmerman was justified in using force, so holding him to a standard where he has a second or two to realize that force is no longer needed or go to prison is unreasonable.

Going to need a cite.

Ok, first, cite?

Second, so what? If that is a legal requirement, I doubt Zimmerman was thinking about such minutia at the time.

You claimed that Zimmerman shot Martin to avoid going to jail for criminal acts by Zimmerman that Martin witnessed. That makes no sense if those acts came after the shooting!

9988

Laws specific to Florida are light on the subject of citizen’s arrest. According this cite, the law treats citizen’s arrest like it does an officer arresting someone outside of their normal jurisdiction.

According to this cite about CA in general, to make an arrest that holds up in court, one must:

And according to the Sun Sentinel:

So where are the cites showing that Zimmerman was conducting a citizen’s arrest when he got on top of Martin? He has never claimed that this is what he was doing, so pressing this point only means you acknowledge he’s got some 'splaining to do. Lol. Sorry to break this to yall, CA doesn’t work here. Try something else.

9989

It doesn’t say “must”.

That one says “should”.

You misunderstand me, I’m not saying that’s what Zimmerman was intending to do. I think he was trying to restrain the guy who’d been beating him.

But if you’re going to insist that the restraint was illegal, I’m going to point to two things: Zimmerman’s right to use reasonable force to defend himself, and Zimmerman’s right to arrest someone who’s committed a felony in his presence.

9990

Proportionate to what? If someone stops touching you, the only thing that is proportionate is for you to stop touching them.

This is not a simple case of “not fleeing”. We are talking about him bringing his body in close contact with Martin’s and continuing the conflict by applying force.

Again, this is not a simple case of “not fleeing”. *We are talking about him bringing his body in close contact with Martin’s and applying force. * What part of this is difficult to understand?

If you can find me one case in which the defendant shot someone and then successfully argued self-defense despite, at the end of the fight, putting the victim in a wrestle move, I will be amazed. But I fully invite you to try.

Forget about legal standards for a sec. This is evidence that he was not in fear for his life. Even if we give him a pass for breaking the law, we still need to reconcile his actions with someone who seconds before was supposedly overpowered by a stronger opponent.

It makes plenty of sense if he broke the law before the shooting too.

9991

You think there is a case against Zimmerman because he searched Martin for a weapon?

9992

Responses like this are why Jesus came.

Right, and in doing so, he broke the law. His “right” to conduct a citizen’s arrest is irrelevant if that isn’t what he actually did. And since Martin was not a threat to him once he was shot, he had no right to touch the kid any further either.

9993

According to Zimmerman, he grabbed him by his wrists and held them outstretched. Witnesses said they saw him pressing down on his back as well.

9994

And if someone attacks you and sits on your chest bashing your head on the ground, pushing them off you is proportionate.

The untrue part, or at least the part for which there is no evidence. There is no evidence that Zimmerman brought his body into close contact with Martin’s. There is evidence that Martin brought his body into close contact with Zimmerman’s.

Why should we bother with a nonsensical search for that? There is no evidence that Zimmerman put Martin in a “wrestle move”. There is evidence that Martin put Zimmerman into a position known in MMA as a “ground and pound”.

No, it isn’t. And it won’t be, no matter how many times you say it, unless and until you come up with some kind of evidence or some form of reasoning to justify this frankly bizarre notion.

But pushing your assailant off your chest is not an assault. And pushing your assailant off your chest is not evidence that he was not your assailant. Just the opposite is true - if Zimmerman were the attacker, and/or were getting the upper hand in the struggle, how did Martin wind up on top such that Zimmerman had to push him off after shooting him?

It is exactly consistent with someone who is being overpowered.

But there is no evidence to date that Zimmerman broke the law.

Regards,
Shodan

9995

Proportionate to the fight.

So him standing there indicates fear, but him jumping on his attacker does not?

I’ll look for cases with a struggle, a deadly act, and then more struggle.

Ok, if you aren’t literally saying he should be prosecuted for jumping on Martin, then the legal aspect of it does not matter.

So in your scenario, why does Zimmerman jump on Martin?

9996

You don’t think there’s a major difference between “must” and “should”?

If your focus is on Zimmerman’s state of mind and not that he should be charged with assault, then this is a tangent that doesn’t matter.

9997

Once someone withdraws force and indicates that they are no longer interested in fighting, then there is no fight. That is, unless the other person doesn’t withdraw force.

Uh, yes. What part of “jumping on his attacker” sounds the like action of someone who is fearful and is only trying to protect themselves? To me, it sounds like the actions of person who is more concerned with winning the fight than it is someone defending themselves. It sounds like the actions of an angry, aggressive person.

Please make sure that in these cases, the “more stuggle” part is initiated by the defendant.

Oh, it definitely matters. My point is that it’s not the only thing that does.

I believe he jumped on the kid to look for anything that he could point to as evidence in support of his self defense story and/or his profiling the kid. A pocket knife, a pen, anything remotely weapon-like.

I also believe, based on at least one witness statement that indicated he was kneeling on the kid’s back, that he might have been trying to hasten Martin’s demise by putting pressure on his thoracic cavity. It is also possible he manipulated the position of the body so that it looked “right” in his eyes.

9998

Why don’t you dazzle us with a parsing of these terms?

You don’t win debates by quibbling over semantics like this. If you really think a citizen’s arrest is valid without informing the arrestee that they are under arrest, cough up the evidence for this position. Otherwise, let it drop. It’s a moot point since Zimmerman didn’t conduct a CA.

9999

There is literally no evidence that Martin did this, and hence no reason whatsoever to think that any force Zimmerman used on Martin after he shot him was illegal.

This seems to be what you don’t get. The law is designed, correctly in my opinion, to provide all the rights to the person who is defending themselves, including the right to use lethal force if necessary, and to continue using force unless the aggressor clearly and believably indicates that they will stop fighting. I strongly suspect Martin was more concerned with the gunshot wound to his heart than with communicating anything to Zimmerman.

This is what I mean when I keep saying that you need to look at what the law actually is, and what the facts of the case actually are, not your idiotic view of how the law should work and your wild, baseless speculations about what happened that night.

10000

We’re talking about what, one to three seconds or so? Things aren’t that clear cut in the real world, no referee blows a whistle to signal the end of the fight. Cognition and observation are not instantaneous, especially under stress.

No jury in their right mind would convict on a battery that was a couple seconds after a legal use of force in self-defense, especially one in which the original attacker merely slumped to the ground, which hardly rules out a continuing threat, albeit a reduced one.

Well, all of it. Standing there gazing at the other person is much more indicative of no fear than trying to restrain the person. Someone restrained is less of a threat than someone who isn’t, that’s why restraint is used by police and such.

I’ll see what I can find over the next couple days. To be crystal clear, you allege that Zimmerman jumping on Martin is proof that he was never in legitimate fear for his life?

This leaves me confused. If your point is that Zimmerman also should have been charged with battery, I’m content to just point at self-defense and citizen’s arrest law and shrug, because Zimmerman wasn’t charged with battery, and it’s quite small potatoes compared to what he was charged with.

So, unless it has come bearing on your theories beyond just “he should have been charged with battery”, I don’t see the point in pursuing it.

Someone who’d just acted in self-defense might well do this too, though. It’s just good sense. Zimmerman mentions in the walkthrough that he thought Martin was hitting him with something, for instance.

So, how can you discern between a sinister search for weapons and an innocent one?

If Zimmerman wanted to hasten Martin’s demise, he had a much faster, more reliable, and less suspicious-looking method available: a 9mm pistol with either 6 or 7 rounds remaining in it.

10001

It’s your claim, not mine.

As above, unless this has some relevance beyond “Zimmerman should have been charged with battery, too”, then I don’t see the point.

10002

This point was discussed before, possibly before you joined the board (this thread’s been going a long time, and there was another one prior to it). What happened after the shot was fired has no bearing on Zimmerman’s state of mind when it was fired,which is what matters in determining whether it was legal. Either he was in fear of death or great bodily harm, and said fear was reasonable, and he is not guilty, or the prosecution can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he wasn’t, and he’s guilty.

As you correctly say, the only issue with Zimmerman restraining Martin after the shot is whether it’s a battery, unless one wants to claim that said restraint contributed to his death. Which would not be the most ridiculous claim made here…