The point being that Z’man might not be able to successfully plea self defense if Martin was the one defending himself.
There could be two people, each self-defending.
Haha, that’s hilarious! I’m trying to picture what 2 people self defending looks like. Do they just circle around each other with their arms up in defense? Wouldn’t they just cancel each other out then, I mean how would a fight even happen with 2 people self-defending. Where does the offense come from? How is there ever an attack?
Shared suicide by self-defense? Sure, it could happen, the US and the USSR nearly did it a bunch of times. Fear makes stupid, stupid makes dead.
If each one has a reasonable fear for his life, and neither has an easy way to escape.
Certainly both could percieve they are defending themselves. Z’man likley thought he was defending his neighborhood when he followed MArtin and profiled him, and got out to follow him. Whether the law will see it that way is another question.
But to escape from what? Someone has to create a situation from which the other needs to escape right? How can both people feel like they need to escape from a defensive person?
Again, where is the offense coming from? If the encounter escalates beyond the two person defense tango anyway. If there is an incident coming from the dual-defender scenario, the incident must come from someone at some point doing something offensive right? What triggers things? What causes a situation from which escape is necessitated?
The way the arrest was announced it sounded like it was made after testimony from Martin’s mother who identified her son’s screaming voice.
Can’t find any quotes.
If at some moment in time you reasonably feel fear for life or grave bodily injury, and cannot reasonably escape, you can employ deadly force, no matter who the original offender is. And that goes for both parties.
You are misinformed on the law then. Whether Zimmerman felt he was “defending his neighborhood” is immaterial to the legal question of whether his shooting Martin was self-defense or not.
Whew, then it’s lucky I didn’t say that.
So whomever survives is innocent?
I’m pretty skeptical of this as fact or law.
If someone brandishes a weapon or threatens someone else , and then they are attacked by someone defending themsleves from that threat, they are not justified in using deadly force.
If that’s the law then it grants a license to anyone to create a confrontation, and then kill someone and claim self defense.
According to Florida law, if they have reasonable fear for their life, yes, they are. The law has only been cited a few dozen times in this and other threads. Take a look.
Hence the name, the “Shoot First” law.
Yeah, it almost seems like this law discourages being defensive and instead encourages you to just shoot first to make sure that you get to tell the story.
I’m no legal expert but there’s this,
I think the argument can be made, and likely will be made that Z’man was the aggressor and failed to use reasonable means to withdraw or end the conflict before using deadly force
it is hard to escape with someone sitting on you beating you up.
If you can scream for help you can say “I’ve had enough, You win, I surrender”
That is incorrect. If you look at this article you will see that Trevor Dooley wasn’t arrested until the two days later after there was a lot of media attention.
Apparently some people were upset that Dooley was driving his school bus the next day.
… and then a referee, striped uniform, white gloves, will come out and stop the fight.