He got shot through the heart. People who get shot through the heart don’t unleash zingers. They die.
that premise was shown to be false when it was introduced earlier in the thread.
So I ask you again what evidence do you have that he did or did not say something upon being shot.
About 95% of the issue we are having with the whole “prove murder/disprove self-defense” is less about big misunderstandings of the law itself and much more about bad communication on all sides. (And of course the usual shmear of ego-driven bullshit, but there’s no cure for that…) I think the other 5% is a failure of clarity and understanding about what is really meant by various terms.
The “scintilla of evidence” message is more than a little meaningless standing all naked like that, and so far it has created a focus on the wrong thing entirely, at least in terms of answering the question of the distinctions. Focusing on who has what burden is not the issue. *We all know. * So say it with me, class: “THE PROSECUTION!” I haven’t noticed anyone arguing otherwise, so the relentless repetition mystifies and frustrates me.
The holding in Murray, stripped of all the legal obfuscation, simply means that the defendant can assert self defense and it doesn’t matter what the evidence for it is; it can be as insubstantial as a statement to police: “He attacked me and I was sure I was going to die so I killed him.”[/INDENT]*
If the defendant chooses to leave it at that as far as the evidence he wishes to present in support of his assertion, he is entitled. Stupid, but entitled. That’s the “burden of proof” he must meet in order to get the legal payoff: the right to have the jury consider the possibility that he was defending himself.
What it does not entitle him to is a presumption that he really did act in self-defense, meaning that a failure to specifically “disprove beyond a reasonable doubt” his simple assertion requires the jury to acquit. It does not.
The defendant has the right to claim he killed in self-defense, which then requires the jury to consider the claim, no matter how lame and obviously weak it might be. But considering it isn’t the same as swallowing it. And if the prosecution has proved to them, beyond any doubt, that the elements of the crime have been met, and that the killing happened in such a way as to preclude the believability of self-defense, they can go right ahead and convict. But as with any other defense, affirmative or not, if they instead find themselves doubting whether they should really convict this person because hey, it’s kinda possible he was defending himself, then that is the very definition of reasonable doubt and hence, they should acquit.
In other words, this has been a mash-up about what meeting one’s “burden of proof” actually gets you:
If the prosecution meets its legally required “burden of proof”, they “get” is a conviction from the jury, who must find that proof believable to such a degree that they have no reasonable doubts about it. That makes it a really tough burden to meet, but a conviction a pretty big “get”, so it’s proper to set the bar so high.
On the other hand, if the defense meets its legally required “burden of proof” for a claim of self-defense, what they “get” is not an acquittal, it is simply special instructions to the jury telling them that they have to consider the possibility. Since that’s really not such a big “get”, the bar is so low it’s nearly touching the ground.
The full instructions are here, and I have edited them thusly, emphasis mine of course:
And that’s all of it. That is what the jury is told regarding how to consider the issue of self defense. There’s nothing in there about the prosecution having to “disprove” anything in some separate and distinct way. Because they don’t. They just have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, as they always do, but it’s certainly in their best interests to also do what they can to overcome anything which might serve to steer the jury towards believing the defendant’s weak-ass assertion. Or not, in which case they will almost certainly lose.
So Bricker, with all due respect to your expertise, which you know I do recognize and respect, I think you’ve been overselling the significance of the dicta in the Brown case:
[QUOTE= Bricker]
And here’s the money quote:
While the defendant may have the burden of going forward with evidence of self-defense, the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt never shifts from the State, and this standard broadly includes the requirement that the State prove that the defendant did not act in self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
[/QUOTE]
There really is no meaningful distinction between “Proving criminal guilt so awesomely and thoroughly that claims of self-defense crumble like cookies in milk.” and “Disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.” (and I know you are aware that this has been helping some folks get themselves all puffed up and peacocky with what turns out to be pretty garbled, and in some cases totally nonsensical, declarations about What It All Means.)
No, the issue is 100% with you and others repeatedly posting false statements like this -
when you’ve been shown statute and caselaw that prove you wrong. The jury instructions you quote prove you wrong. They say that if there is reasonable doubt on the question of self defence, the jury must acquit. It’s in the second-to-last paragraph you quoted.
The prosecution must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Zimmerman was not acting in self defence. Your own cite says that in plain language.
I’ll make this clear again. If Zimmerman asserts that he acted in self defence, or the self defence issue is otherwise raised in court, the jury may only convict if there is no reasonable doubt that he was not acting in self defence. My cite is the jury instructions in your previous post.
Well, doesn’t that mean that every single part of his testimony may well be inaccurate because he is…er, ‘misremembering’? Why is this only an issue for the ‘you got me’ quote but not an issue for everything else he said?
Maybe because he didn’t want to risk letting the crazy guy following him know where he lived?
It is an issue, which is why so many people keep saying that his story should be believed only where it is supported by the other evidence. Bear in mind, though, that should the jury find him an unreliable witness all them may do is disregard his testimony, they may not infer that the opposite of what he says is true.
That’s what Brown v State says, though, very clearly:
Bolding mine. In that instance, the state did disprove self defense. You and you with the face seem to be rejecting this idea because you think it’s too difficult for the state to ever disprove self defense, but it isn’t. It’ll be difficult in this particular case, though.
In other words, this has been a mash-up about what meeting one’s “burden of proof” actually gets you:
Right, they don’t get an acquittal just for making the claim. No one here has said they do. They get an acquittal if the state can’t disprove the claim.
Yes, there is:
How else would the jury not have a reasonable doubt, other than the state proving to them, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant wasn’t acting in self defense?
Yes, there is, because it’s possible to prove the elements of a crime without disproving self defense. Bricker even provided an example of this.
Not every single part, but everything during the struggle and immediately after it, yes, it is an issue. So, one more time: We should only believe Zimmerman’s account where it is backed up by other evidence, because he could be lying or misremembering. Nothing in this case should be taken on trust.
For example: Zimmerman says Martin bashed his head on the sidewalk. Should we believe that, just on his say-so? No, we should look at the other evidence. Witness 6 stated that the fight was moving toward the sidewalk and “intensifying” when he ducked back inside to call 911. Zimmerman has cuts on the back of his head. So yes, it seems that that is what happened.
For example: Zimmerman says Martin used his hands to cover his mouth and strangle him. Should we believe that, just on his say-so? No, we should look at the other evidence. Zimmerman had already been punched in the nose, and yet Zimmerman’s blood wasn’t found on Martin’s hands. So no, we can’t positively assert that that happened.
This is what I mean when I say Zimmerman’s credibility isn’t very important. The parts of his story that demand an acquittal if they are true are backed up by other evidence. We don’t need to take his word for whether he was in a fight in which Martin was on top of him, and beating him: witnesses and physical evidence back this up.
If Martin was scared of the “crazy guy”, why did he double back to him? That’s what DeeDee’s statement and the spot where the confrontation began indicate. If he were scared to enter his house, why not keep moving away from where he last saw Zimmerman? There’s no way Zimmerman would ever catch him.
They had lost sight of each other - Dee Dee said that in her testimony.
Besides, that doesn’t make a lot of sense - “I don’t want him to know where I live, so I will go back and find him and punch him in the face”.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t know how you get from ‘ran away from Zimmerman’ to ‘doubled back to punch Zimmerman’. It’s equally likely that he tried to stay hidden but ‘I spent two minutes after the dispatch phone call not going back to my truck’ found him. If GZ did at some point go through the cut-through to the other side, and if Martin didn’t want to go near his house, and didn’t want (or couldn’t?) cut between the houses, he would obviously have to double-back towards the T, just in time for Zimmerman to bump in to him.
It’s not at all out of the realm of possibility that Martin was worried about going home with a crazy guy running after him. Zimmerman didn’t want to give his address over the phone because he didn’t know where the a$$hole punk running *away *from him was.
From Dee Dee’s testimony.
No, it isn’t equally likely. There is no evidence in its favor, for one thing. For another, if Martin wanted to avoid Zimmerman, he could have gone into his father’s girlfriend’s house. Dee Dee said he told her “he right by his father’s house”.
Regards,
Shodan
Even if it were equally likely (which it isn’t, we have evidence suggesting one, and none suggesting the other), that means Zimmerman must be acquitted.
Good point, and one that needs to be kept in mind.
Regards,
Shodan
What do you mean, there’s ‘no evidence’? They eventually ran into each other. We know from Zimmerman himself that before the altercation, a) Martin was running *away *from George, and b) George was running *after *Martin.
Asked and answered: He very reasonably could have decided that it was better tha the crazy guy running after him didn’t know where he or his family members lived.
I thought you said who started the fight was irrelevant to GZ’s guilt or innocence.
Not that I recall; it isn’t irrelevant, nor is it the end-all, be-all of this case.
Even if Zimmerman started the fight, under Florida law he can use deadly force in self defense under certain circumstances. See 776.041:
Compare to 776.013:
Thus, if Zimmerman was the aggressor, he can only use deadly force in self-defense if he’s in reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm, AND he’s exhausted every reasonable means to escape the danger, OR if he’s withdrawn from physical contact in good faith.
If Zimmerman was not the aggressor, he can use deadly force if he reasonably thought it were necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.
So, if it could be proven that Zimmerman were the aggressor, he’d have a harder time with a self defense claim, because there are additional criteria that apply to aggressors.
However, it can’t actually be proven that Zimmerman was the aggressor with the evidence we have; on the contrary, there is evidence that he wasn’t (lack of fighting wounds to Martin, DeeDee’s account of Martin’s movements, the location where the fight occured). That is what I meant by “Zimmerman must be acquitted”: if it’s reasonably possible both that Martin attacked Zimmmeran and Zimmerman defended himself, and that Zimmerman attacked Martin and murdered him, then the burden of proof hasn’t been met and he must be acquitted.
We also know from Zimmerman and from Dee Dee that they had lost sight of each other. There is no evidence that Zimmerman found Martin; there is evidence that Martin found Zimmerman.
No, that is not reasonable. Since Martin was out of sight of Zimmerman (as indicated by Dee Dee’s testimony), then there was no chance that Zimmerman would be able to tell what house Martin lived in. Instead of doing the safe thing and walking back into the house, he doubled back and went looking for Zimmerman and punched him in the face. This is not the way to make sure nobody knows where you live.
It is the way you act if you are not afraid of someone, but want to start a fight with them.
So, we have two scenarios -[ol][li]Martin is afraid to let the crazy guy see where he lives. No evidence in its favor.[*]Martin is not afraid, but wants to start a fight. Evidence in its favor - Dee Dee’s account of Martin’s movements (and the subsequent evidence showing that Martin attacked Zimmerman).[/ol][/li]
And, to repeat Human Action’s point, if you have two equally plausible scenarios, one pointing to Zimmerman’s guilt and one pointing away, then Zimmerman is Not Guilty. And to repeat my point, if you have two scenarios, one of which has evidence in its favor and points to Zimmerman’s innocence, and one with no evidence in its favor and points to Zimmerman’s guilt, then Zimmerman is Not Guilty then as well.
Regards,
Shodan
Of course, your summary is not an accurate one. (No shock to regular readers of your prose, I imagine).
You conflate “they can’t convict him” with my point, which was: if he claims self-defense, they must prove additional facts in order to convict him.
Again a key error. In Florida, a “forcible felony” under the final clause of section 776.08 is a felony whose statutory elements include the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.
What crime does Zimmerman commit if the facts show he intended to scare Martin the offense of being black? I know you simply don’t understand that crimes have statutory elements, but try to wrap your head around it anyway.
So you persist with the absurdity. Not terribly surprising, but damn, at least make this challenging for me.
This is what you posted:
A high school drop out can guess what crime that is, Bricker. But since you can’'t, here are the laws to spell it out for you.
http://law.onecle.com/florida/crimes/784.011.html
The fact that I’m having to post this shit is why I can’t take you seriously. You’re the reason why the eyeroll emoticon was invented.
You have no credible evidence to support your cites in respect to this case and you don’t know anything about the law yet you continue to argue with a lawyer.