Yes, let’s gets the record straight. Trayvon Martin, the 17 year old who enjoys street fighting, filmed a crime with his phone for his entertainment instead of using it to call the police. I guess seeing someone getting beaten up doesn’t count if they’re homeless or that both of them were homeless. This helps explain why Dee Dee didn’t call when she thought Martin was in a fight. It’s expected behavior that even Dee Dee herself saw. Her warning that his behavior was going to get him shot in the chest was spot-on.
So by all means, blame the lawyer who clarified what was on the video while the prosecution withholds evidence. Good perspective.
You can’t see a huge gulf of difference between a kid that films his friends beating up a homeless man and a kid who uses his cell phone to record a fight between people he doesn’t know and had nothing to do with starting?
Because I can, and I think must neutral observers can.
I remain amazed at the capacity for advocates on either side of this question to engage in highly selective interpretation of any event.
Oh, absolutely there’s a difference. There’s also a difference between someone recording a crime on their phone and giving the recording to the police, and someone doing so for their own amusement. The former suggests someone who respects the law, the latter one who laughs at it. It would be interesting to know what Martin did with the video.
If he did not hand it to the police it is, as Magiver says, evidence that he liked violence. Not proof, but don’t forget we’re not looking for proof, we’re looking to see if it’s reasonable to believe Martin attacked Zimmerman.
No Bricker, I can’t see much of a legal or moral difference between filming such an event unless there is some indication that it was used for evidence after calling the police. This wasn’t a boxing match, it was one person trying to steal from another or both trying to steal from someone else. I realize that the homeless don’t count and it was “just a bicycle” but to one of these people it may have been their only transportation to whatever shit-hole job they needed to survive and now they were bloodied over it.
Whether Martin’s friend was doing the fighting or someone else doesn’t change the moral metrics by more than a few millimeters. Imagine if your wife was being assaulted for theft of her car and someone filmed it and walked away because they didn’t know the attacker or your wife.
So either Martin is a hero and called the police or he committed a crime by NOT calling the police because the state of Florida is one of the states with “duty to care” laws. And if this is the case then it should be admissible in court because it was a crime.
I don’t agree with this in the slightest. It could as well suggest someone who doesn’t regard it as his obligation to call the police to report every peccadillo he encounters.
Or it’s evidence that he found it one of life’s ironic vagaries.
Obviously, I’d rather such a person rendered aid, or called police. But if they didn’t, I wouldn’t be concluding that they loved violence and didn’t respect the law. i might conclude that they found the situation unusual but were afraid of the possible repercussions of involving the law, such as retribution from the guilty parties and days of compelled courtroom presence with no recompense.
Well that’s great but you’re forgetting that he RECORDED IT, he didn’t just wander off. If, as you suggest, Martin might have feared for his life for having witnessed the event then recording it would further endanger his well being. I will retract my statement about this as entertainment if such information comes forward but in light of Martin’s school disciplinary actions, his text messages, his mother’s inability to control him, and the way he portrayed himself on facebook he was not on the right track.
This video represents a crime Martin committed. It’s also supports Martin’s desire and enjoyment of street fighting. It’s his hobby which he discusses readily with his girl friend. In her phone texts she acknowledges Martin’s predisposition to being a bad boy to the point she warns him what will happen.
You consider what appears to be a violent theft a peccadillo? That’s an interesting viewpoint, especially for a lawyer.
What about Magiver’s claim that he had a legal duty to report the crime? I can’t find anything to support that, but he certainly had a moral duty to do so, and the ability to do so - if he had a phone that could record video, it could call the police.
All this said, I doubt it has any legal significance. It’s more evidence that Martin was a somewhat unpleasant young man, with an unhealthy interest in violence, but that’s neither in much doubt, nor a crime in and of itself*. If it’s relevant to the trial in any way, it’s simply that it doesn’t provide any evidence that Martin did not start the fight, which is one thing that will need to be proven.
*I’m sure someone will be along to say that the same is true of Zimmerman. Whilst it may well be, that’s even less relevant, as merely showing that Zimmerman might have started the fight counts for, quite literally, nothing.
I can’t find anything to support that either, because it’s untrue: Florida imposes no general duty upon its residents to report crime.
You may think he had a moral duty – that doesn’t make it so, and it CERTAINLY doesn’t make the video admissible as evidence to argue to the jury that he failed in this moral duty.
And “peccadillo” is in the eye of the beholder, and it depends on what that eye is used to seeing. I would consider it gravely disturbing to find ten year old boys ferrying heroin to customers in cars in my neighborhood. In West Baltimore, I wouldn’t stop to call police as I drove by if I saw that happening, because it happens on plenty of street corners.
Perhaps you can explain to this non-lawyer why the judge ruled all that evidence inadmissable. It seems ludicrous to claim that it did not cumulatively impact the likelihood that Martin attacked Zimmerman rather than the other way around or at least that there’s some possiblity that it would impact that likelihood, such that the jury should be able to decide.
I am aware that judges sometimes disallow the evidence that can prejudice the jury, but I thought that was potentially inflamatory evidence about the defendant. In this case, supressing the evidence could potentially send an innocent man to prison, in that it would allow for the jury to make their determination based on a picture of Martin which is inacurate. This seems troubling to me.
we both started from the same position thinking Zimmerman was wrong. The difference is that I reviewed the evidence and judged accordingly. I have taken enough law to understand the foundation for many of them but not the intricacies in their interpretation. I read that Florida had such laws (in a number of referencese) but didn’t realize how narrowly they were written. They were not written from the concept of good Samaritan laws but appear to be tack-on laws to bolster existing criminal laws.
I look forward to your posts in SDMB for legal opinions and appreciate them (not just this thread). We disagree on moral constructs which you don’t like to debate. I think Zimmerman had every right to leave the truck (with a gun) as long as he didn’t openly try to confront Martin. There is no evidence that Zimmerman tried to engage Martin in any way but there is evidence that he avoided such engagements. He refrained from that at the time Martin approached the truck and again when asked NOT to follow Martin.
Martin’s behavior was suspicious to him. Zimmerman knew the owner of the house in question and called the police. He tried to keep Martin in view which is consistent with the call to the police and the purpose of a neighborhood watch.
It bothers me that you won’t debate these facets of the case because I want to hear your legal side of it. You see me as intractable and I see you shying away from an argument. I have no horse in this race. I could care less about Zimmerman as a person and the same goes for Martin. Unless the Prosecution has something that the Defense hasn’t released to the public (very possible) then as it stands now it was self defense. I really hope that the phone logs of both phones show the paths that each took. But at this point I see no reason to disbelieve Zimmerman’s phone call to the police or Martin’s to his girl friend. They place themselves away from each other. Dee Dee’s account places Martin at his house and also demonstrates that Martin starts the confrontation.
Yes, but in this instance Martin recorded the event. Granted there may be more to this but it does support his predilection towards street fighting. There is a distinction to be made between 2 people fighting under some form of moral boundaries and what Martin did.
We got into the occasional fight as kids but nobody would have tolerated one kid smashing another kid’s head into the cement. According to Zimmerman he was attacked. It wasn’t a fight. the evidence backs this up.
Why do you find it necessary to throw a jab at you with the face for no goddamned reason? She and you haven’t bickered in ages. What the hell gives, man?
Maybe because she has consistently argued legal matters with absolutely no clue of what she is talking about and he’s pointed this out repeated. The last time was post 10201 which was less than 2 weeks ago.
And if you think you’re being any more reasonable by insisting that O’Mara is justified in presenting that “evidence”, you are in absolutely no position to talk about anyone’s cluelessness.
Even a two-year-old toddler knows O’Mara’s antics are unethical. If the prosecution tried to pull a similar stunt, you’d be shitting bricks right now.
Or maybe you think it’s fair for the prosecution to call in Zimmerman’s ex-wife, the cop he fought with, the coworker he harrassed, his psychiatrist, and the third-grade teacher who first suspected he has impulse issues? You tell me. If Trayvon’s film reflects on his potentiality for violence, surely these folks will provide an accurate assessment of Zimmerman’s.