Looking at the federal statutes in question: zero.
Oh, Jackson and Sharpton can call for action all day long, but since they’ve been wrong for the past year and a half, they can continue being wrong. Hell, it suits them.
It wasn’t an issue at trial. What seems to be the issue now is that, in order for Zimmerman to get his civil immunity, he’ll need to have a SYG hearing. Since, like has been mentioned, there’s not a lot of case law on this yet, there’s not a consensus on how it all goes from here.
One interesting aspect of this case was when the prosecution, by claiming that Trayvon was going to get up, to end the fight, before George shot him. In the jorys mind, this is essentially an admission that Trayvon was on top of George, pummeling him. They never presented any evidence that Trayvon was trying to end the fight, relegating the claim to wishful thinking. These are not the brightest prosecutors.
To be fair, by that time in the trial the prosecution was clutching at straws. That was one of the straws.
Of course, also to be fair, those were utterly unethical and corrupt prosecutors that knew they couldn’t prove their case to start with but proceeded with the trial.
This is true, but in order to mount an affirmative defense, you’ve already been sued and brought to court. If he goes for his SYG hearing, then he doesn’t have to “defend” anything at all in a civil suit. But like I’ve said–it’s all so new that it’s essentially uncharted ground.
Well, in a sense they are by default, I suppose, since when you straight up claim self-defense, as Zimmerman did at trial, the jury has to be informed that the defendant had no legal duty to retreat and could stand his ground.
He waived his right to a SYG hearing pre-trial, which would have granted him immunity from criminal and civil prosecution. So, in that sense, his case wasn’t a SYG one, but simple self-defense.
However, because of castle doctrine, the jury had to see in the instructions that there was no duty to retreat.
I haven’t read the whole thread (but most of it) and I watched very little of the trial.
From what I did see, Zimmerman had the same expression – or lack of expression. I’ve never seen such a lack of interest by a defendant. I couldn’t tell if I was looking at a photo or a live person. It was like “I guess I have to get through this but damn, this is boring.”
Anybody else think his flat affect was kinda odd? Or was I just watching at the wrong times?
O’Mara said exactly that in the post-trial press conference. He said he didn’t want Z pumping his fist or doing something else that would inflame passions or be disrespectful to the Martin family.
Am I correct in that there must be state action? The only thing I could think of is if it is alleged that Z and the Sanford Police Department conspired to bury it, AND they can prove racial animus on someone’s part.
Seems it was so. And for many people, “try not to show any improper emotional reaction” translates most easily into: don’t show any emotional reaction. Because you can never be sure who’s watching when and how they will take it.
^^^The best commentary, IMHO, on the larger societal context of this case. It does a very good job of reminding us that things don’t happen in a vacuum.
This is the most tragic part of this case, for me. They both made a series of stupid decisions, any one of which if decided more wisely would have prevented the fatal encounter. But if Z had just taken the beating (that he deserved for his stupidity in getting out of his truck in the first place) for another minute or two, the cops would have shown up, broken up the fight, and M would be alive today, although he would probably have been deservedly charged and convicted of assault and battery (or whatever FL law calls it). And it’s highly unlikely that Z would have sustained much more injury than he actually got if he’d not pulled the trigger for a couple more minutes.
There are no winners in this case, and we all are losers because of it. Regardless of which verdict the jury came up with. This case epitomizes “lose-lose”.