# State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman Trial Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501 "2013-06-20T20:32:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 115
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2281 "2013-07-16T14:38:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > He was a young black man in Florida being confronted by a vigilante with a gun. He should have killed Zimmerman, not just “responded violently”. Again, not sure what your point is. To be sure, his chances of being alive today would be better if he had killed Zimmerman. Better still if he had simply run or walked away without attacking anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2282 "2013-07-16T14:38:56Z")
> [@Mr-Pookie](#): > > Fair enough, I’ll amend my statement to Trayvon would be “much more likely to be alive and out of jail today” if he used a gun instead of a fist. And he’d have been likelier still to be both if he’d used neither. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2283 "2013-07-16T14:39:01Z")
> [@Mr-Pookie](#): > > Fair enough, I’ll amend my statement to Trayvon would be “much more likely to be alive and out of jail today” if he used a gun instead of a fist. And he’d certainly be alive and out of jail if he used neither. ETA: Ninja’d ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2284 "2013-07-16T14:39:56Z")
> [@Tollhouse](#): > > Exactly…you’ve got no idea. Yes – no idea what **Der Trihs** point was. Feel free to spell it out for me. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2285 "2013-07-16T14:41:53Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Normally peaceful leftists, who norally decry violence and vigilantism, suddenly advocate for escalating a mere argument or confrontation into a fight with a stranger as the sensible and morally right thing to do. Well Zimmerman has been assigned the role of the evil racist white person in the Liberal Script. So of course he deserves to die. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2286 "2013-07-16T14:42:09Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > This bizarre double-think has cropped up a bit in discussions of this case. Normally peaceful leftists, who norally decry violence and vigilantism, suddenly advocate for escalating a mere argument or confrontation into a fight with a stranger as the sensible and morally right thing to do. It’s simply them showing their true colours. They are doing what they like to accuse others of doing, which is to support the fighting and killing of one who is not “one of them”. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2287 "2013-07-16T14:42:50Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Yes – no idea what **Der Trihs** point was. Feel free to spell it out for me. **Tollhouse** is morally opposed to including content in his posts. So, good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2288 "2013-07-16T14:42:59Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > This bizarre double-think has cropped up a bit in discussions of this case. Normally peaceful leftists, who norally decry violence and vigilantism, suddenly advocate for escalating a mere argument or confrontation into a fight with a stranger as the sensible and morally right thing to do. > > Responding violently to anything less than an imminent threat of harm is stupid, wrong, and illegal. The man is dead. That’s rather more than an “imminent threat”. And in a state where his life has no legal value, where he can be casually murdered and his killer hailed as a hero it’s rather silly to argue that anything he does to protect himself is “illegal”; the law is a joke, rabidly bigoted. As a black male he’s on his own, an “outlaw” in the original sense of the word; someone who is beyond the protection of the law and can be killed out of hand. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2289 "2013-07-16T14:45:09Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Team Trayvon’s latest argument seems to be as follows: I think it’s hard to pin down any Team into one narrative, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that while Zimmerman’s actions don’t amount to murder or even maybe manslaughter, he made a series of mistakes that resulted in a death and yet won’t be held criminally liable for those mistakes, and that’s frustrating. Zimmerman’s first mistake was characterizing Martin as a drugged-out armed thug, casing the neighborhood. His second mistake was characterizing the beating he was getting as life threatening, because it wasn’t. Now before anyone goes ballistic, I know Zimmerman thought it was life threatening, and legally there’s a standard that was probably met. But in the cold light of day, he was wrong. If he hadn’t been armed, he would have been fine, and Martin would be alive. As a society, we’ve decided to give people in that situation the benefit of the doubt, and that’s true not just in Florida’s bizarre self-defense friendly SYG world, but pretty much everywhere. That’s how a cop can shoot someone with a golf club by claiming he thought it was a sword and get away with it. And the thing is, that’s probably the best we’re gonna get as a society; a regrettably imperfect legal standard for justified homicide that’s better than any other imperfect legal standard we can come up with. As this case dragged on, though, I feel like people on Team Zimmerman have become detached from the reality of the case and are instead incredibly vested in their nitpicking of facts and legal arguments. The 911 operator is not a cop! And he didn’t say not to follow him in those exact words! And he had every legal right to follow him anyway! And it doesn’t even matter if he started the fight! And a broken nose is legally sufficient for self defense! And there’s no “credible” evidence that contradicts the basic facts of this story! The problem as I see it is that if you embrace those arguments too strongly, where does it take you? In Florida, can I break into your house, threaten to rape your wife, and if you attack me, defend myself with deadly force? It certainly appears that way. Is that really the world we want to live in? Or is that simply the regrettable result of our imperfect laws, a result that we should be saddened by, even if we understand the specific steps we took to arrive there? And I think that’s how I look at the Zimmerman case, as the regrettable result of imperfect laws. A result that I’m saddened by even though I understand it. Logically, I can see that Team Zimmerman is correct, at least from a legal perspective. And I’m glad that Zimmerman can hire lawyers to argue ferociously on his behalf in court. I think that’s a job for the lawyers, though. The rest of us are better off trying to figure out how we can prevent the mistakes that Zimmerman made. I don’t see how we’re going to ever do that if half the country won’t even admit that he was in the wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Mr-Pookie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@Mr-Pookie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr-Pookie)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2290 "2013-07-16T14:47:42Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > And he’d certainly be alive and out of jail if he used neither. > > ETA: Ninja’d Agreed, but perhaps TM had no choice? The defense demonstrated 4 minutes of silence to help the jury understand all of the doubt in the case. 4 minutes where we still have no convincing evidence of where each went? What they were thinking? How they came together? Who said what? Who touched who first? The defense of Zimmerman must admit that those details are absolutely unknown aside from the incomplete (and untrustworthy?) picture painted by GZ’s interviews and the testimony of Jeantel (which is admittedly incoherent and untrustworthy on the whole). ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2291 "2013-07-16T14:48:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The man is dead. That’s rather more than an “imminent threat”. And in a state where his life has no legal value, where he can be casually murdered and his killer hailed as a hero it’s rather silly to argue that anything he does to protect himself is “illegal”; the law is a joke, rabidly bigoted. As a black male he’s on his own, an “outlaw” in the original sense of the word; someone who is beyond the protection of the law and can be killed out of hand. So even if Zimmerman had told police that he had not been attacked at all, that he simply shot Martin because he was a black stranger, Zimmerman would have been acquitted? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2292 "2013-07-16T14:48:57Z")
**brazil84** , you asked what **Der Trihs** ’ point was. It appears to be the same as it always is - just hate spew. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2293 "2013-07-16T14:49:33Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Zimmerman’s first mistake was characterizing Martin as a drugged-out armed thug, casing the neighborhood. His second mistake was characterizing the beating he was getting as life threatening, because it wasn’t. Do you think Martin’s mistake was characterizing Zimmerman as a “rapist” and attacking him? Cuz I think that’s a bigger mistake. > [@](#): > > If he hadn’t been armed, he would have been fine, and Martin would be alive. You have no idea. There are numerous examples of people killed after ONE punch. > [@](#): > > The problem as I see it is that if you embrace those arguments too strongly, where does it take you? In Florida, can I break into your house, threaten to rape your wife, and if you attack me, defend myself with deadly force? It certainly appears that way. It certainly doesn’t. Florida law explicitly would not allow that. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2294 "2013-07-16T14:50:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The man is dead. That’s rather more than an “imminent threat”. And you feel he’d have been killed whether or not he punched Zimmerman? That this was to be an execution all along? > [@Der Trihs](#): > > And in a state where his life has no legal value, where he can be casually murdered and his killer hailed as a hero it’s rather silly to argue that anything he does to protect himself is “illegal”; the law is a joke, rabidly bigoted. As a black male he’s on his own, an “outlaw” in the original sense of the word; someone who is beyond the protection of the law and can be killed out of hand. Protect himself from what, though? Being followed? No, he can’t use violence to protect himself from that. Being attacked? Yes, he can use violence to protect himself from that, but he must allow his opponent an opportunity to escape or the opponent can use deadly force to defend himself. “Ground and pound” is right out. It’s also hard to take seriously the idea that Martin’s life had no legal value, when his killer was put on trial for second-degree murder. That’s not being beyond the protection of the law, that IS the protection of the law. And I’m sure some people hailed Zimmerman as a hero, but it’s a small, idiotic group. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2295 "2013-07-16T14:54:33Z")
> [@Mr-Pookie](#): > > Agreed, but perhaps TM had no choice? Perhaps, sure. Evidence suggests otherwise, though. What leads to believe that Martin had no choice but to attack? > [@Mr-Pookie](#): > > The defense demonstrated 4 minutes of silence to help the jury understand all of the doubt in the case. 4 minutes where we still have no convincing evidence of where each went? What they were thinking? How they came together? Who said what? Who touched who first? > > The defense of Zimmerman must admit that those details are absolutely unknown aside from the incomplete (and untrustworthy?) picture painted by GZ’s interviews and the testimony of Jeantel (which is admittedly incoherent and untrustworthy on the whole). They aren’t _absolutely_ unknown, but they are unknown to some degree, yes. I was responding to **brazil84** ’s summary, which seems to be the majority but not the only view amongst those who believe Zimmerman to be guilty. ---
**Author:** ![Mr-Pookie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@Mr-Pookie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr-Pookie)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2296 "2013-07-16T14:56:07Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There are numerous examples of people killed after ONE punch. Now Trayvon is Chuck Norris. (said while genuflecting) ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2297 "2013-07-16T14:56:23Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Zimmerman’s first mistake was characterizing Martin as a drugged-out armed thug, casing the neighborhood. His second mistake was characterizing the beating he was getting as life threatening, because it wasn’t. He didn’t do either of those things. He called the police because he was suspicious of Martin, not because he was sure he was a thug, and he didn’t claim the beating was life threatening, he claimed Martin trying to take his gun was. > [@](#): > > Now before anyone goes ballistic, I know Zimmerman thought it was life threatening, and legally there’s a standard that was probably met. But in the cold light of day, he was wrong. If he hadn’t been armed, he would have been fine, and Martin would be alive. No, if he’d not been armed, he would not be fine, he would still have received a severe beating. > [@](#): > > As this case dragged on, though, I feel like people on Team Zimmerman have become detached from the reality of the case and are instead incredibly vested in their nitpicking of facts and legal arguments. The 911 operator is not a cop! And he didn’t say not to follow him in those exact words! And he had every legal right to follow him anyway! And it doesn’t even matter if he started the fight! And a broken nose is legally sufficient for self defense! And there’s no “credible” evidence that contradicts the basic facts of this story! The facts, laws, and credible evidence _are_ the reality of the case. That’s it, that’s all we have to actually judge what happened. Unsupported speculation should not be part of that, and any claim that Zimmerman started the fight is unsupported speculation. > [@](#): > > The problem as I see it is that if you embrace those arguments too strongly, where does it take you? In Florida, can I break into your house, threaten to rape your wife, and if you attack me, defend myself with deadly force? It certainly appears that way. Is that really the world we want to live in? Or is that simply the regrettable result of our imperfect laws, a result that we should be saddened by, even if we understand the specific steps we took to arrive there? They should have shot you before it reached that point. > [@](#): > > The rest of us are better off trying to figure out how we can prevent the mistakes that Zimmerman made. I don’t see how we’re going to ever do that if half the country won’t even admit that he was in the wrong. The only mistake he made was in thinking that, if he acted legally and with the motive of protecting his community, he wouldn’t be hauled before the police and court to explain himself. We should certainly investigate how this case made it to trial, and try to prevent that happening in future similar cases. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2298 "2013-07-16T14:59:40Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > And I think that’s how I look at the Zimmerman case, as the regrettable result of imperfect laws. A result that I’m saddened by even though I understand it. Logically, I can see that Team Zimmerman is correct, at least from a legal perspective. And I’m glad that Zimmerman can hire lawyers to argue ferociously on his behalf in court. I think that’s a job for the lawyers, though. The rest of us are better off trying to figure out how we can prevent the mistakes that Zimmerman made. I don’t see how we’re going to ever do that if half the country won’t even admit that he was in the wrong. This board isn’t perfectly representative of the nation, of course, but very few who advocated for Zimmerman’s acquittal supported his conduct as the smart, let alone the right, thing to do. The problem was that the two “sides” were often having very different conversations, one about law, the other about morality. Just because the former group focused on his legal culpability doesn’t mean that they didn’t find him morally culpable, on the contrary, most of them explicitly said Zimmerman was wrong to do much of what he did. He’s just not a murderer, or at least it can’t be proven. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2299 "2013-07-16T15:03:15Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Do you think Martin’s mistake was characterizing Zimmerman as a “rapist” and attacking him? Cuz I think that’s a bigger mistake. I don’t care if you play the “whose mistakes were bigger” game as long as you admit that Zimmerman made significant mistakes. There seems to be a reluctance to do that. Martin paid for his mistakes with his life, so there’s no sense in harping on them. Let’s talk about Zimmerman’s mistakes, and how we can prevent them. > [@Terr](#): > > You have no idea. There are numerous examples of people killed after ONE punch. I don’t believe that Martin had the desire or the means to kill George Zimmerman that night, even accidentally. If you honestly disagree all I can do is roll my eyes at you. > [@Terr](#): > > It certainly doesn’t. Florida law explicitly would not allow that. How so? You’re the one who educated me on Florida law a few weeks ago. It doesn’t matter if I’m committing a felony, as long as I’ve exhausted all means of escape and I’m in fear for my life. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501/2300 "2013-07-16T15:05:42Z")
> [@Mr-Pookie](#): > > Now Trayvon is Chuck Norris. (said while genuflecting) Remember [Brian Stow?](http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/story/2011/04/01/sp-giants-fan.html?ref=rss) Punched once in the head, fell onto cement, and ended up in a coma and brain damaged. Violence is serious business. The message from our laws and our morality should be consistent: _don’t be the first to use violence._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501.md?page=114) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-of-florida-vs-george-zimmerman-trial-thread/661501.md?page=116)