Memories aside, it does happen.
Appeals Court reverses Johnson City man’s murder conviction in wife’s death
The judicial error was not setting the verdict aside as being unproven:
So, there’s an exemplar for you: jury convicts on insufficient evidence, judge fails to set verdict aside, appeals court overturns conviction.
Chris Serino on the stand. I wonder if Jose Baez is in court? Serino hired him last winter. Serino was the chief investigator on the case.
The judge said the video was redacted. I’ve seen the reenactment on youtube and couldn’t spot what they cut out.
Serino seemed pretty sympathetic in the first interview. Maybe he was playing good cop to throw George off? I know later Serino was critical of the decision not to prosecute. Serino’s attitude changed in the 2nd interview.
The prosecution excluded the portions about mouth covering and seeing the gun.
As for Serino - he was all over the place. He didn’t think there was enough to charge Zimmerman. Then he wrote the affidavit for manslaughter. Then for murder 2. Then he testified to the FBI that he was pressured into doing those affidavits… Who knows. I am sure he will be asked about that.
I wonder if the judge will let them mention Zimmerman’s lie detector test? He passed. I hope the jury is allowed to know that.
How ridiculous and untrue. Just because I don’t believe that Zimmerman has an honest claim of self-defense doesn’t mean I don’t think anyone ever does. How stupid.
Why is it so difficult for people around here to disagree without exaggerating and distorting the position they disagree with?
Ummm… I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone’s lie detector test being admissible as evidence ever anywhere at all under any circumstances of any kind since the dawn of lie detector tests. And I’m probably remembering scripted TV, but still I think even a mention of the test is grounds for judicial hysteria. So to speak.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
How about this: Zimmerman could only be a “false conviction” in the most rigidly technical sense-He is inarguably responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin. The question is simply Whether we are going to let him get away with it. For myself personally, even if everything he said were completely true, which isn’t possible, I would still have no problem with him being convicted Because I think he created the situation recklessly and irresponsibly and his reaction to what ever Martin may have done was grotesquely excessive.
[/QUOTE]
This doesn’t make any sense. If everything Zimmerman said is true, then he didn’t act recklessly or irresponsibly.
You are setting an impossible standard, whereby even if Zimmerman is innocent he is guilty.
Regards,
Shodan
Maybe because of stupidities like this one:
Zimmerman could only be a “false conviction” in the most rigidly technical sense-He is inarguably responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin. The question is simply Whether we are going to let him get away with it. For myself personally, even if everything he said were completely true, which isn’t possible, I would still have no problem with him being convicted Because I think he created the situation recklessly and irresponsibly and his reaction to what ever Martin may have done was grotesquely excessive.
So - even if what he said is completely true (which means it was a case of self-defense), he is still guilty in your eyes. In fact, you explicitly say above that if he was convicted, it cannot be a false conviction because he is “responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin”. It doesn’t (apparently) even cross your mind that one may be “responsible for the death” and still not be guilty of a crime, due to it being in self-defense.
How do you reconcile that with:
If everything Zimmerman said were completely true, then his use of deadly force was completely justified. So why would you want him to be convicted anyway? Is this an objection to Florida’s laws in particular, or what?
In some states, they are admissible as evidence if both the prosecution and the defense agree.
Since Zimmerman passed*, I can’t imagine the prosecution agreeing to have the test result admitted.
Your belief is neither a relevant nor interesting standard, as it is based not on facts but on media distortions and your own warped interpretations of the law and the facts. If your belief is not based on the evidence, it’s not a valid belief about his guilt.
No ides, why do you keep doing it? You’ve repeatedly ridiculed me for explaining that killing someone is not, by itself, a crime, so you can hardly complain when people interpret you as saying that you don’t believe that killing someone is not, by itself, a crime.
Yeah, well, like I said, even if his story is true (to the extent that it is possible, which it isn’t), it’s on him for his behavior creating everything about it. Even if Martin jumped him without so much as a gesture from George, if I were on the jury, GZ’s wounds would tell me that his claim of fearing for his life was bullshit, he overreacted, and showed a depraved indifference to human life by taking aim and firing.
And since it is up to the jury to determine what the facts of the case are, whom they believe where any questions exist, and what the definition of “reasonable” is in each case individually, I’d be absolutely entitled to my finding. I might hang the jury in the process, but it wouldn’t be because I wasn’t doing my job. It would be exactly as it has been for the year+ we’ve all been debating and arguing over it: different people see things differently. And while I recognize that the most persistent and vocal leaders of Team Zimmerman are constitutionally incapable of even imagining how properly functioning adult humans can possibly disagree with their perceptions, the fact is that they do.
The truthiest truth will never really be known by anyone except George, the rest of us just have to run the data through our processors and filters and decide what looks truest to us.
The wftv legal analyst is making the point that the defense couldn’t introduce these interviews because its hearsay. Only the prosecution could introduce these interviews. The analyst thinks that was a misstep. Now theres no reason for George to take the stand. The jury has already heard his entire statement and seen the reenactment. Interesting commentary from the analyst.
I can see his point. It seems pointless for George to risk testifying now. What more could he possibly add? Theres always a chance he might make a mistake on the stand and hurt his case.
But if you believed his story was the complete truth, that includes Martin threatening to kill him and trying to grab his gun. Forget the wounds, that’s reasonable fear right there.
Wonderful day for the prosecution today. Zimmerman’s statement was all over the place. Trayvon’s arms was found clutching his chest, face downward, and says, “Alright, you got me”. After he falls to the ground from a fatal gunshot wound, Zimmerman mounted Trayvon, held his hands up, because “Trayvon was still talking” at this point. Zimmerman then tells the shot, restrained by the arms, still-talking Trayvon saying “Ow, Ow, ow” to “Stay down, don’t move!”. What complete and utter fantasy. George Zimmerman would get eaten alive on the stand. I love how Zimmerman’s testimony contradicts Manolo’s testimony, too. This is guy is a joke.
Thanks for the cite. Interesting case. The judge went on record saying he didn’t believe the prosecution met its burden of proof but would not set aside the verdict.
Was going to respond but others did it better. I don’t think I’m the one looking stupid.
Wow. Talk about utter escape from reality.
The defense has done an excellent job getting the officers to acknowledge that George wasn’t angry or that they were concerned about minor inconsistencies in his statements. Serino even said George seemed very forthright in his answers. The story about George asking the officer about her cross really humanized him for the jury.
The prosecution made a good point that George actually said the screams on the tape didn’t sound like him. The jury also got to hear Serino point out problems with George’s statement. Things like the length of the non emergency call versus the time George was walking. The questions about smothering and not hearing the screams stop on the 911 tape.
Theres still a lot of testimony to hear and then closing when everything gets pulled together.
In fact, that is positive for Zimmerman. If he was an accomplished liar as people here try to portray him, he’d say he recognized himself. Instead, he told the truth - to him it didn’t sound like him. Anyone (who is not in a showbusiness type of work) who ever heard their voice played back can hardly recognize it.