No:
Another thing about the juror that troubles me is that she says she was impressed by Serino’s assessment of GZ’s credibility.
The jury was explicitly instructed to disregard this opinion.
So it’s clear to me that this juror is an attention whore of the first degree. She needs to sit her Chatty Kathy ass down somewhere and STFU. She’s not helping people feel better about the verdict.
The prosecution should have objected to the line of testimony faster.
I feel for you; I’ve been here. It won’t work, though; it’s like beating your head against a particularly stupid brick wall that’s incapable of empathizing with a scared kid. You’ll go insane trying to reason with them.
The time frame in question was very small and involved Zimmerman getting beat up with no way to retreat (he said), and using force under those conditions is justifiable everywhere. The prosecution had to prove that he was lying. That’s why some of us thought pursuing a murder conviction was a waste of time, and why SYG does not have to apply regardless of what individual jurors might think. Like other things, I think the SYG term has been thrown around to create impressions.
IANAL, but was present at some meetings where SYG legislation was discussed before being implemented, and recorded some strong objections from law enforcement. Basically the police suggested that criminals would be its biggest supporters. So there are provisions included that try to prevent aggressors from gaining legal protections for killing people.
Now that Zimmerman has been found not guilty of murder, it was reported that he’s expecting to be granted immunity under the SYG statutes to any civil action stemming from his shooting of Martin. To me, these are two different things - seeking immunity means the burden of proof is on Zimmerman, not the state. I don’t know if beating a murder charge is equal to proof of acting lawfully under the statute, and apparently a lot of experts don’t either - I’ve checked - but it might be a very different thing if Zimmerman has to prove his case instead of the other way around.
I know. And I guess since everything’s all said and done, there’s nothing to be done to address this.
But it just makes me wonder what was the frickin’ point of the exercise. At least based on this juror’s interviews, it’s clear to me that following the spirit and the intent of the law was not on her mind. She had sympathy for GZ and thought he’d learned his lesson. This was enough for her. That doesn’t sound like someone who soberly evaluated the facts and evidence of the case, or even cares enough to pay lip service to them. That sounds like someone who stepped into that jury box with her mind all ready made up.
And she’s just throwing fuel on the fire.
Stopping for a moment doesn’t mean he stayed stopped, and as endlessly shown, he gave every indication that he would continue.
But you go ahead leaning on the fact that in that moment he wasn’t actively moving so that meant he would remain in that spot forever. Or wander aimlessly, requiring the police to call him.
yadda.
yadda.
You got your wish, he’s walking away a free man after killing a kid because he was a stupid, irresponsible asshole lying through his teeth. He convinced the (evidently already convinced and none-too-bright) jury. Rejoice!
They might say one thing but from the other side of their mouths come nuggets like this:
from the Washington Post
I believe the idea that bad legislation is the main cause for this verdict is one more falsehood being kicked around in our discussion, as an unconscious effort to minimize the racial dimension. If this was all about SYG, there would be no reason for the jurors to be pinning any blame on the kid who was shot. If this was all about SYG, there would no reason for the jury to be factoring Serino’s inadmissible testimony about Zimmerman’s truthfulness into their analysis. If this was all about SYG, you wouldn’t have jurors saying that Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place”, as if that stands in the way of a manslaughter conviction.
To be completely frank, until America stops trying to blame this on everything except racism and a defense counsel that profited from a virulent media campaign against kid a whose only crime was looking like Zimmerman’s idea of a bad person, we are going to continue took look gaping idiots in the eyes of future generations. This jury was tainted with bias. The same bias that caused Zimmerman to report the kid as suspicious.
The discussion surrounding the trial is about race, but the trial itself had little to do with race (in my opinion).
This op-ed from the WSJ is interesting:
Nope. He did not.
From the WSJ article just posted
Young black men have always been perceived as threats. “Hard data” is not where this attitude comes from. These attitudes are as old as slavery. White folks were scared of black men the second they stepped off the boat. Even when black folks were oppressed into submission by Jim Crow and segregation, their mere presence struck fear into the hearts of cowardly white idiots.
Trayvon was 17 years old. Too young to pay the price for someone else’s negative programming. Is the author’s point “Well, sucks to be him, but it’s not our fault if society cares so little about him?” Because if that’s the case, he could’ve just wrote that instead of including all that filler about black criminality. If we’re talking about a racist judicial system (which we are, let’s stop the delusions), then data that allows people to talk like experts about black criminality automatically comes under scrunity.
It’s funny, though. Most crimes in general are perpetrated by men. Guess this “hard data” means I could put a bulllet into a random white guy walking down the street and use people’s anti-male biases to get away with it, and no one will complain about this injustice, huh? Everybody will just shrug and say “well, I guess men need to look at what they are doing so this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.” Yup, totally can this happening. Maybe someone crazier than me will try out this experiment.
And most crimes are committed on Earth, so aliens would be justified in zapping our planet. I’m most curious about why you think the judicial system is “racist.”
Jury selection is (despite hundreds of people who make a good living doing nothing else) as much an art as it is a science. If nothing else, it proves that profiling is of limited use as a law enforcement technique.
That’s true of juries in general. If I were King of the World, there’d be no civil jury trials for exactly this reason.
No, you should not assume that. You should remember that Zimmerman stopped following Martin, that Martin decided to, instead of going home, come back and confront Zimmerman, and realise that it’s not Zimmerman who acted rashly.
He used the phrase “feral proto-humans,” and as that was shortly followed by “Euro Americans” (named as those who should start buying guns now), you know very well the phrase was not a colorblind term for the criminal class, of which Martin was no part in any case.
Actually, remember what the evidence is:
Zimmerman paused towards the end of the phone call with NEN, and was banging his flashlight. During her phone call with Martin, Jeantel urged him to run and he declined, stating he was (correct me if this is incorrect) “right by” his father’s. Shortly after that, Jeantel heard Martin say “Why are you following me” and someone else say “Why are you here”.
That’s the evidence. What you infer from that, and whatever other evidence you believe bears, is up to you, along with the conclusions about who acted rashly. Steophan’s forceful assertions about what is and is not fact are his own beliefs, you are in no way obligated to accept any of them as the reality.
As to the public statements of the public juror, known as B37, this just in:
4 Zimmerman trial jurors distance themselves from Juror B37
Sketchy, at this point and possibly forever, but four other jurors say:
If I read G. Kumquat’s timeline right, there appears to be about one minute’s worth of time between the first hostile words and the death of Martin. Including, as I understand, some twenty different slammings of Z’s head on the sidewalk.
Talk about beating a rapid tattoo! It must have been like The Flight of the Bumblebee arranged for skull and sidewalk. Fortissimo! Presto!