The circus surrouding the case was racial, but the actual court case itself wasn’t. It’s standard procedure in ANY court case to try and portray the other side in some sort of negative way- it’s not surprising that the defense portrayed Martin as a super-thuggish angry young black guy who got attitude and beat down a well-meaning, if a bit thick neighborhood watch member.
It’s also not surprising that the prosecution tried to portray Zimmerman as some kind of pathetic Walter Mitty-esque cop wannabe who took the law into his own hands and stalked Martin like some sort of prey, and slaughtered him in cold blood.
Obviously the truth was probably somewhere in the middle. All that characterization is to try and establish motive, and/or influence the jury. It’s not what the trial’s about- in this case it was whether or not Zimmerman shot Martin in self-defense or for some other reason.
All the hoopla about Martin being black, or wearing a hoodie, etc… are incidental to the actual murder verdict.
It sounds to me like a lot of people want to make it about race because there was a black kid involved, but those same people would have been screaming as loudly in reverse had it been a black neighborhood watch guy who shot a Hispanic kid in the same exact situation.
I’d defend him under those circumstances and under FL law, if it was actually established that Zim had a gun in his hand at the time. Not sure if it would be so cut and dried if all Zim had done was “reach for it”, since you can’t really know if someone intends to grab their gun until they actually do so. Perhaps one of the residence lawyers can clarify how the law speaks tot that situation.
Believe what you wish. But if you’re going to throw up a hypothetical, demand people come in and address it, but say in advance you’re only going to believe one answer, then I think you need to be a bit more open minded about things.
The “real” sympathizers seem to be strongly anti-gun, so maybe they wouldn’t. If I understand who qualifies as a “real” sympathizer.
By what evidence would Martin be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt? There were no witnesses to that part of the encounter, except Zimmerman, who would in this alternate scenario be dead. So Martin could say anything he wanted to show he was not the aggressor, and had reasonable fear, just the way Zimmerman did.
Funny how you are so quick to see it as murder when the situation is reversed.
Who made the decision that initiated the chain of events? Martin, walking while black and recklessly eyeballing houses that weren’t his to look at? Or Z, who was specifically instructed by law enforcement not to to follow Martin? Who was armed? If Z had simply did as he was told, he would have been embarrassed by another bullshit call to the cops. And Martin would be alive.
Of course you’re dodging the fact that you’ve specifically claimed, without any credible evidence that Trayvon attacked Zimmerman.
Beyond that, it’s hilarious that someone who defends the verdict in the Emmitt Till case is accusing others of not being taken seriously.
I don’t know whether you’re stupid, a racist, a troll, or some combination but you’re certainly not in any position to accuse others of having “fantasies of persecution”.
We don’t know that Martin said “You’re going to die now.” He could have really said, “You’re an asshole”, and Zimmerman simply misheard him. Or Martin could have said nothing at all, except “Why are you following me?” No one heard him say anything after that. We only have Zimmerman’s word for it.
His wounds aren’t consistent with being punched and slammed 20-odd times. His own vitals didn’t indicate that he was in any fear, let alone mortal fear.
But all of this was deemed irrelevant. As were all the other WTFs. Completely irrelevant.
Makes me wonder just how anyone ever gets sent to prison. Imagine all the guys sitting in prison right now, regretting their decision to plead guilty instead of claiming SYG self-defense. People will be wiser now in the future.
You’ve got that backwards, Martin confronted Zimmerman, at least according to the two people who heard it.
According to the witness who heard it, it was along the lines of “What are you doing here?” Her testimony is on record, if you want to check the exact words.
Nope, he was entitled to be armed. It makes no difference to whether his actions were reasonable or reckless.
Nothing to wonder about. He routinely carried a gun, and it’s fair to presume he did so in case he needed to defend himself. There was nothing unusual about his actions that would make it less likely that normal he would need to defend himself, so no reason to leave the gun.
It could have happened like that. It could also have been space aliens that broke his nose. Both possibilities are equally supported by the evidence.
The gun was not holstered behind his back. It was at his right hip.
[quote]
You think maybe Martin might have noticed that rather than using both hands to protect himself, he started reaching behind his back?
[quote]
Maybe.
Well then, it must have been the space aliens again, as there was none of Zimmerman’s DNA on the gun either.
Stop watching bad TV shows for your legal and scientific education.
How do you know he didn’t touch it? Why would you expect there to be touch DNA on a smooth surface? It can happen, but it’s by no means expected.
He was not told to do that, and indeed spoke to no-one with authority to tell him to do that.
Wow, you are actually right about something.
What’s that got to do with anything? Martin may not have followed Zimmerman, but if not it’s because Zimmerman stopped moving.
Zimmerman stopped following, and we have a couple of minutes during which we don’t know his movements, if any. In those couple of minutes, Martin got home then, instead of going in, returned to Zimmerman. Then, for reasons unknown, punched him.
What has sunk in is that you didn’t follow the trial, haven’t actually looked at the evidence or the law, and are wrong about almost everything you claim as a fact in your post. Most importantly, you are wrong - utterly so - in your insinuation that Zimmerman did something wrong in following Martin, whether he was armed or not, and in your claim that he didn’t stop following when he was advised to. Advice he was give for his own safety, not because he should not have followed him.
Apart from the witness who saw him on top beating Zimmerman, you mean? Apart from the injuries to Zimmerman’s face and Martin’s fist?
Have you actually looked at that case? The prosecution didn’t even prove Till was dead. It was a horrible, racist judicial system that deliberately didn’t prove guilt - but no honest juror could have convicted on the evidence provided.
So yes, I’ll defend the verdict there, but say that the trial could, and should, have been conducted in such a way that a fair jury would have convicted.
I also don’t believe that the actual jury there would have convicted in a proper trial.
Ha ha keep having your little fantasies. When you have to attack me personally rather than show that I’m wrong, it means I’m correct. Even if I’m correct about some fucking unpleasant things, such as the Till case.
People arguing with Steophan should remember that he believes that the Emmett Till jury did the correct thing when they took the advice of the defense lawyers to “do their anglo-saxon duty” and let off the men who beat him to death and then threw him in the river afterwards.
If he’s going to agree with that jury it should come as no mistake that he supports another uppity negro getting murdered by yet another racist bigot.
It should be difficult, extremely difficult, to find someone guilty of a crime and deprive them of their liberty. If there’s any reason to doubt their guilt, they should go free. In this case, there are many reasons for such doubt.
No, I believe they did the correct thing by not convicted some people for the murder of someone who was not proved to be dead.
Please, try to keep up, and please, look at the actual facts of the case. There was a shitload of racism, from the judge, jury, prosecution, defence, and defendants, and there was certainly a conspiracy to ensure that they could not be convicted. But it was not the jury at fault.
As I said, I have no doubt that, had the case been solid, they would still not have convicted, and then it would have been their responsibility. I will not, however, condemn any jury for finding not guilty when there is reason to doubt that a crime occurred.
Bear in mind, the jury were only allowed to decide based on evidence presented in court, even if they knew from outside that the killers had admitted it they were bound not to use that knowledge.
So why, when I clearly said that all parties were involved in a racist conspiracy, do you call me racist for noting that the jury were technically correct?
Ha ha, try actually reading people’s posts rather than taking the word of one of this site’s more notable racists (that’s Ibn I’m on about, by the way).
Belowjob put out a scenario. Under that scenario yes, Martin would be convicted. Of course, if he lied and lied convincingly, there would be another scenario and he might not be convicted. Is that what you’re implying?
Being followed by an armed man in a state where it’s essentially legal for him to kill you at a whim is a “reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm”. Something clearly demonstrated by the fact that he’s dead.
He would have been charged and convicted anyway of course, or outright killed at the scene by the cops; wrong skin color.
This verdict really sends a terrible message to the following demographic:
The cross-eyed, drooling, inbred white trash douchebags, such as Zimmerman
(he got meds to correct those problems while he was in court), who have been
itching all their lives for an excuse to plug someone, 99.9999% of whom now
vote Republican.
Look for more of the same, since the Republican have taken gerrymandering
to a truly obscene level today, and are going to make it hard to roll back even
their most insane and degraded legislation, such as the FL so called “Stand Your
Ground Law”, which allowed an innocent, unarmed man to be gunned down in
cold blood by the scum who was stalking him.