Explicit language of the law says different.
Not according to the explicit language of the law.
yeah yeah yeah according to the law zimmerman couldn’t be arrested, either.
how’s your interpretation going so far?
I’m confused. The law says:
[QUOTE= Florida Statute 776.013 (3)]
A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
[/QUOTE]
If I commit assault on somebody by striking them, am I not engaged in an unlawful activity? Can you elaborate why you think the law explicitly says you can use lethal force in self defense after you have assaulted someone?
Here:
776.041 Use of force by aggressor.—The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
…
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant;
Hey Bricker, can you weigh in on this hypothetical:
So say that Zimmerman tried to physically restrain Trayvon, maybe tackled him while he was running grabbed and tried to hold him. Whatever, just say he initiated physical contact.
I believe then that Trayvon would be within his rights (being afraid of death or bodily harm) to use physical force in self defense under the stand your ground law.
Being beaten by Trayvon, Zimmerman shoots and kill Trayvon in self defense (whether lawful or not under the stand your ground law is besides the point for the moment). Zimmerman is charged with 2nd degree murder, which is “non-premeditated killing, resulting from an assault in which death of the victim was a distinct possibility”. Could one argue that Zimmerman lacked the mens rea for this crime? After all, he was only trying to stop Zimmerman from getting away until the cops came. I can see an assault charge stick, but 2nd degree murder?
The initial aggressor is permitted to use force iff the initial victim escalated the degree of force (i.e., met non-deadly force with deadly force) and there was no available safe retreat.
Zimmerman and Martin were out on the open street, so, without more, safe retreat was not unavailable, if Zimmerman were the initial aggressor and Martin escalated.
The question becomes, if Martin were straddling Zimmerman, was safe retreat prevented. Those who argue that it was argue (1) that Zimmerman could not throw off Martin, and/or (2) having to throw someone bodily off you defeats the “safe” component of “safe retreat.”
The first is a question of fact; the second, a “mixed question of law and fact.” Both purely factual questions (Was the defendant driving the Hyundai on the night in question?) and MQLFs (Was the defendant’s driving speed reasonable in light of the surrounding circumstances?) are questions for the jury. As such, there is no legal rule that compels one answer or another.
It seems to me that even if we accept Zimmerman’s account (as retold by his father, I still have concerns. The claim is that Martin confronted him and asked him if he had a problem. Setting aside that this contradicts the girlfriend’s account who claims she heard, “Why are you following me?” “What are you doing here?” we’re just taking Z’s account at face value for now:
Trayvon: appears from behind a building, approaches Zimmerman, and says, “What’s your problem, homie?”
Zimmerman: “I don’t have a problem.”
Trayvon: “You do now.” He then punches Zimmerman, knocking him to the ground, pinning him down.
Trayvon: tells Zimmerman, “Shut the fuck up.”
Zimmerman: while being beaten by Trayvon, pulls his gun and fires one shot at close range into Trayvon’s chest.
Trayvon: “You got me.” Falls over, dead.
Trayvon’s father’s recounting of how police described Zimmerman’s initial report to them:
While there is no question that is clearly assault, quite literally throwing the first punch, it seems to me that would have been a great time to simply introduce yourself, “Hello, my name’s George. I’m a member of our neighborhood watch.”
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Zimmerman’s dad wasn’t there. Zimmerman was, was interrogated about his version of events for five hours, and, according to police, didn’t change his story even once during those interrogations. Problem is, we have no idea what exactly he told the police.
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That “while being beaten” continued more than a minute, according to your timeline above. The recount above makes it seem like the decision to shoot was immediate. It wasn’t.
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When someone punches you in the face, very few people respond with “Hello, my name is ****.”.
So far, so good. I agree.
Second-degree murder is an unlawful killing that is “perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life … without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual.”
Conduct that is “imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind” is characterized by "an act or series of acts that meet three characteristics:
[ol]
[li]a person of ordinary judgment would know is reasonably certain to kill or do serious bodily injury to another[/li][li]is done from ill will, hatred, spite or an evil intent[/li][li]is of such a nature that the act itself indicates an indifference to human life.[/li][/ol]
(From State v. Montgomery, 39 So. 3d 252 (Fl. 2010)).
In my opinion, if Zimmerman grabbed Martin to physically restrain him, he committed a crime. But if the motive for restraint was to hold him for the police, I don’t see the ill will, hatred, spite or evil intent. I can see a manslaughter charge stick, but I don’t see the murder charge.
But that may well be because there’s other evidence I don’t know about.
Still, to answer your question… no, Zimmerman in your scenario would not be guilty of second-degree murder, because there is no evidence that a reasonable jury could rely upon to find that he had ill will, hatred, spite or evil intent.
Off course. It would have been an even greater time to follow Neighborhood watch guidelines and not the person you suspect, too.
But that does not transform Zimmerman’s actions into a crime. If it happened as you describe, I believe Zimmerman can assert a legal use of force.
Holy shit, I did not read that section. That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever seen. It’s the wild west in Florida!
Suppose Charlie Murphy meets Rick James at the China Club and Rick asks Charlie, “What did the five fingers say to the face? … SLAP!” And instead of going back to Rick’s place to smoke the stickiest of the icky, Charlie pulls out a garrotte and begins to strangle Rick James.* Should Superfreak be without any self-defensive recourse?
- Incidientally, I further observe that the possibilty of just such an escalation is substantiated by the observation that “First of all, you don’t slap a man. Ok? I mean, even when slapping was fashionable—you know, they did it Paris, the guy would come up, WAPAP! ‘I challenge you to a duel.’—they would have a gunfight after that, somebody had to go!”
I fully expect the State Legislature of Texas to rise to this challenge, toot damn sweet!
I think there is a >90% chance that Zimmerman is going to walk in this case; I just don’t see how the prosecutor is going to make any charges stick.
It’s too bad really. Trayvon Martin did not deserve to die. By all accounts he didn’t even deserve to be followed and harrassed. While I have no idea if Zimmerman is guilty of murder or even manslaughter, what happened that night would not have happened if he had listened to the police and had not been so gung-ho on being the vigilante defender of the neighborhood. Yet most likely he will have zero legal consequences to his actions and Trayvon Martin will still be dead.
I, personally, believe in the second amendment and the right to bear arms, but the current trend for everybody tohave access to concealled cary permits and the laws that allow people to take justice into their own hands appall and terrify me.
Yeah, if they haven’t already. But let’s face it, Arizona will have the last word here; they will probably make illegal to not shoot people if you imagine them hitting you and they are browner than tapioca pudding…
Before you spin off into your fantasy world, I wonder if you might reply to my question I posed to you: should an initial non-deadly-force aggressor be denied the ability to use deadly-force in self-defense if the inicident he instigated escalates to deadly-force by the initial victim and there is no available means for his safe retreat?
That is, if you start a slap fight, and your victim pulls out a piece, you’re doomed?
Oh, absolutely, Superfreak can blow him away, if he is so armed. But I also think Zimmerman committed a criminal homicide, and will be found guilty in court. These opinions are not mutually exclusive.
Sorry, I did not mean to ignore your question. No, I believe you should be free to defend yourself, always and without question. Does that mean that you are immune from prosecution on assault or manslaughter? No. If I pick a fight with George Zimmerman and he pulls his gun on me forcing me to shoot him and kill him, I believe I would be culpable for his death even though I was acting in self defense.
What say you? What should happen in a case like this?
In cases of genuine self defense, the self-defendant (to coin a word) should walk free.
Here’s a scenario for you: girlfriend finds out her boyfriend cheated. They argue (in fact, she initiates the argument). She slaps him. He knocks her with a punch to the floor, sits on her and starts pummeling her. She is afraid for her life. She reaches for a gun (a knife, a hammer, whatever), and kills the boyfriend.
What would your ideal law do in this case? Imprison her for murder (or manslaughter)?
Well, in the law and to my own mind, justified self-defense (even by an aggressor in the face of escalation) negates liability for the killing. It would not negate liability for the initial assault. I don’t know that one could be convicted for manslaughter, because the initial aggression was, ex hypothesi, non-deadly.
The SYG law would immunize the initial aggressor for the killing, but not for the assault. I don’t think SYG is the reason why the state’s attorney was slow to charge assault, though, I think that has more to do with the paucity of evidence surrounding what took place in the lead-up to the shooting.