My problem with this whole case is that I feel that Martin was the one defending himself. The aggressive, threatening acts were made by Zimmerman first. Act’s that I would consider menacing. Are people really saying that if some random person with no authority at all is following you, all you can do is run away?
So I can basically menace a random person, and if that person decides to not run away but confronts me instead, I can just shoot them down if I start losing an altercation I started?
Really?
Zimmermans actions definitely meet the definition of menace to me.
Which is a problem, because you’re imposing your view that he’s guilty on the evidence, instead of using the evidence to arrive at your view.
Case in point: the idea that “these assholes always get away” was a personal vow to apprehend Martin. It simply isn’t. To arrive at that conclusion requires either mentally inserting additional words, or working backward from Zimmerman’s guilt to the evidence.
Why hadn’t he ever done this before? Recall the incident a few weeks
before, where Zimmerman was involved in an incident where an intruder was spotted in a neighborhood home. He actually saw this person in the act of committing the crime of burglary. Did he charge into the home through the open garage and make the bust?
No. He kept an eye on the house, police were called, and the police caught the suspect.
He does try to take the time of the dispatcher to give the directions. The first time, the dispatcher gets them wrong. The second time, the dispatcher cuts off Zimmerman’s giving of the directions and asks for a specific address. Yes, Zimmerman could have retorted with “Listen! I’m giving you the directions again, now pay attention!”, but people generally are too polite to do that sort of thing.
Also, the dispatcher says the police will call him when they are “in the area”, not that they will arrive, park, and then call. That’d make no sense, surely they’d call as they approached, thus costing them no time.
Also, you’re making the perfect the enemy of the good. Yes, it’d be ideal if the dispatcher relayed the directions accurately. But if he does so incorrectly, they might not arrive at all. What’s the smarter option: risk wasting 20 seconds of the police officer’s time, or risk the police not getting there at all, or at least not any time soon?
That gets into the aforementioned problems with the Zimmerman-wanted-to-catch-this-guy narrative. If he’s afraid the guy will be long gone, why is he giving him such an incredible head start? If Zimmerman wanted to catch the guy, why does he spend so much time on the phone, stationary, hashing things out with the dispatcher? Why’d he stop running in the first place?
By staying around where he was, he can point the police to where he last saw Martin, and give them his last known heading. That’s much harder if he meets them elsewhere, i.e. at the entrance, since he’d have to either describe the layout of the neighborhood, or take them back there, thus wasting yet more time.
To get an address close to where he last saw Martin to give to the police when they called.
That’s not what this was, though, because there were three parties involved: Zimmerman, the dispatcher, and the police. Wanting to cut out the middleman when he’s not reliably able to give directions is the simple explanation. If I were giving my friend A directions to relay to my friend B, and A got them wrong and didn’t let me correct him, you’re darn right I’d tell A to just have B call me. It doesn’t mean I’m moving about, it means I want the directions to be conveyed accurately.
The vast weight of your inferences, sure. But your inferences aren’t reasonable ones. As for the weight of evidence…what evidence? All you gave above was speculation and inference. Evidence in the NEN call would be something like “I’ll catch this guy”, or “Good thing I brought my gun”, or “Have them call me, I don’t know where I’ll be when I find this guy”. None of those statements exist.
No. But neither can you start beating on them, unless it’s reasonably necessary to prevent the person’s imminent use of unlawful force. Someone following you for a short distance, at which time you lose them, is a far cry from that.
What does “confronts” mean, here? If it means “start beating” then yes, you can shoot them if you reasonably fear they will kill you or inflict great bodily harm. Following someone for a short distance doesn’t strip you of your right to self defense if the person comes back and starts beating you, nor should it.
If it truly is an altercation you started, you can shoot them if you’ve made a good-faith effort to retreat and they’ve kept attacking, or if you’ve exhausted every means of escape and reasonably fear death or great bodily harm.
This is what I don’t understand, and I’m not trying to be an ass here. I’m not trying to argue the verdict. I don’t like it, but I accept it.
Do agree that following a random person around, no matter what the distance, is menacing? Didn’t Martin have the right to defend himself because of that? Or no questions asked he had to run. It would seem to make sense to me to just assume my life is in danger if some random person is following me. I would take action from there, sometimes you may run, but sometimes you may defend yourself.
I think that Zimmerman should have been charged with menacing at least.
No, you do not have the right to defend yourself against someone who is simply following you. Following someone is not, by itself, a crime. There would need to be repeat incidents that could lead to a claim of harassment or stalking, or a specific and imminent threat accompanying the following.
Your options aren’t only fight or run. You can carry on walking as you would normally, perhaps being extra alert for a threat if it does come. You can ask him why he’s following you. You can ask him, or tell him, to stop following you (not that he has to obey). You can call the police. You can do pretty much anything you like except threaten or attack him.
To use force in self defence, you need to be in reasonable fear of imminent attack. Someone following you is not an imminent threat. To use lethal force, it would need to be an imminent threat of death or serious injury.
That’s not to say that, in certain circumstances, someone following you is not an imminent threat. They may be, but it’s those other circumstances that create the threat, not that they’re following you.
To bring this back to Martin and Zimmerman, unless Zimmerman threatened Martin with the gun before the fight started, Martin wouldn’t have been entitled to use the level of force he used - that is, the beating following the punch. It’s possible, but not actually supported by any evidence, that Zimmerman said something that could justify the punch, or that he grabbed Martin, which would entitle him to use force to free himself.
In any case except the first, Zimmerman would have been allowed to use lethal force at the time he did. So, unless there’s proof that Zimmerman threatened death or serious harm to Martin prior to the fight, he acted in legitimate self defence. Not only is there no proof of that, there’s not even any evidence.
Zimmerman had a broken nose, and people said that was a small injury that didn’t justify his use of deadly force. But, according to you, simply being followed, no matter the distance, justifies the use of force.
Maybe that’s what you’d like the law to be. But that’s not the law in Florida.
And if Zimmerman didn’t violate the law in Florida, why would you have liked to have seen him convicted?
No, because (as far as can be determined), he wasn’t facing an imminent use of unlawful force.
He didn’t have to run, no. But he couldn’t use force without it be necessary to prevent the imminent use of unlawful force by Zimmerman. Just feeling menaced or frightened in a general way isn’t enough.
If your view is that being followed is enough to legally justify the use of force, well, you’re mistaken.
And in this particular case, we know that Martin ran initially, the two lost sight of one another, and Martin had a head start of several minutes, as Zimmerman stopped running to finish his conversation with the NEN dispatcher and loudly bang his flashlight in a failed attempt to get it to work.
The evidence indicates that Martin then returned to where he knew Zimmerman to be (the T, or just south of it), and a fight ensued in which only Martin inflicted wounds, until the fight was ended by the shot. Are you comfortable saying that this was Martin defending himself from the threat of Zimmerman, as opposed to leaving a place where he faced no threat so as to start a fight? I am not.
Florida doesn’t have a menacing law that I can find, though they might have something similar under a different name. If you can find it, we can speculate as to whether Zimmerman violated it.
I would seriously question whether Zimmerman can win a SYG hearing. ISTM that the judge was favorably disposed to the prosecution in this trial and tended to rule in their favor (as previous, I would appreciate an assessment from experienced litigators).
As Bricker noted, she could - and should, IMO - have dismissed the case on her own, but did not. Bricker speculated that she would have preferred to let the jury bail her out, i.e. take the heat for the decision rather than face up to having on her own ruled that the evidence did not support guilt.
Question then becomes whether this dynamic would also be in play in a SYG hearing. You could argue that a judge in a case involving a jury has the option of letting the jury make the correct decision, while in a SYG the ball is completely in their court.
But I think judges are human. There has been widespread outrage at this verdict in certain communities and among certain special interest groups. And judges in FLorida are elected.
I think winning the SYG would be a tough task. (A lot would depend on how much ongoing attention this gets. If it fades away from public consciousness, he has a better shot. In this sense, federal charges will not help him, even if they are dismissed.)
(B) Circumstances described.— For purposes of subparagraph (A), the circumstances described in this subparagraph are that—
(i) the conduct described in subparagraph (A) occurs during the course of, or as the result of, the travel of the defendant or the victim—
(I) across a State line or national border; or
(II) using a channel, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce;
(ii) the defendant uses a channel, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce in connection with the conduct described in subparagraph (A);
(iii) in connection with the conduct described in subparagraph (A), the defendant employs a firearm, dangerous weapon, explosive or incendiary device, or other weapon that has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce; or
(iv) the conduct described in subparagraph (A)—
(I) interferes with commercial or other economic activity in which the victim is engaged at the time of the conduct; or
(II) otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce.
It should be noted that Kel Tec firearms are manufactured in Florida.
I disagree that it was a general feeling, Martin was on the street by himself. I feel comfortable saying that Zimmerman was following in a car, so a few minutes head start really means nothing.
You say he was trying to start a fight, but I don’t really see the evidence for that either. I see it as he was trying to get home, and as I understand it he wasn’t as close to his father as people make it out to be.
To me it seems quite clear he was responding to the threat that Zimmerman created.
I don’t know if there is a menacing law in Florida, but there is in my state. That’s why people don’t randomly follow you in NY. Class B misdemeanor, but Zimmerman got away with nothing.
Ms. Jeantel testified that she urged Martin to run, and he told her he didn’t need to because he was “at the back of” the townhouse.
He had a couple minutes to get there, which even a brisk walk would achieve, and we know he ran part of the distance.
Given that..if he was trying to get home, why didn’t he?
It’s not at all clear. If you escape from a threat, then go back to it, that’s not responding to the threat in the sense of defending yourself.
Zimmerman didn’t violate that law, either. There was no physical menace, nor could you prove that Zimmerman intentionally placed or attempted to place Martin in fear of death, imminent serious physical injury or physical injury.
So in New York, if someone follows you, tells you he has a gun is going to blow your head off, and and then reaches into his pocket, causing you to fear possible serious injury, in your view he could be convicted of menacing in New York?
Multiple witnesses have the altercation beginning west of the T, than moving south. This would tendd to corroborate Zimmerman’s claim that he was returning to his truck.
According to the testimony presented in court -
TM ran away and then GZ got out of his vehicle.
TM was by his father house while GZ was by the “T”.
There was over 300 feet between the house and the “T”.
The 2nd/final confrontation occured near the “T”.
That indicates that TM traveled 300 feet back to the “T” to confront the (insert “N” word here) and creepy azz cracker.
At the back of doesn’t mean right behind the house at the back door. For all Martin knew at the time, Zimmerman could have come and cut him off before he made it to his fathers house. Why is the burden on Martin, anyway? We are auguring semantics now.
Zimmerman started the whole thing, his behavior was very aggressive and threatening. I think the NY law I quoted is pretty straight forward. He would be guilty of menacing in the third degree in NY at the very least. You don’t follow random people around up here if you have no authority. You can watch them, like the 911 dispatcher said to Zimmerman, but you do not follow them.
For backwards Florida, my original question still stands. I already know the answer of course.
Not semantics. Testimony. GZ said he lost sight of TM. Jeantel testified that TM told her he had lost GZ. The original confrontation was over.
If you believe what Jeantel testified to, TM had to return some 300 feet to get into a confrontation with GZ.
If the final confrontation had occured near TM’s father house, some 300 feet from where it actually occured, it would be reasonable to assume that GZ had followed TM to that location. That’s not what happened. It’s also reasonable to assume that at no time did TM/GZ follow GZ/TM to New York.
Eh? Martin feared that Zimmerman had used Olympic-sprinter level speed to get in front of him, so he went back to the place that he knew Zimmerman had just been? Or, really, was. Remember, Zimmerman was a) talking on the phone in a normal, conversation tone, b) banging a metal flashlight, and then c) switching on his little backup flashlight. The idea that Martin wouldn’t have known were Zimmerman was as Martin approached the T is thus spurious.
What does that mean? I thought we were discussing what most likely happened that night, based on the evidence we have. Martin is accountable for his actions, just as Zimmerman was, if that’s what you mean.
Eh? We haven’t debated the meanings of any words.
Again, that law requires physical menace. Following someone isn’t physical menace.
So in New York, if someone follows you, tells you he has a gun is going to blow your head off, and and then reaches into his pocket, causing you to fear possible serious injury, in your view he could be convicted of menacing in New York?