That is not what you would be judging as a juror. You would not be judging whether his behaviour displayed arrogance, or stupidity, or dick-waving. You would not be expected to consider whether it was, in your opinion, hideous, and you would not be expected to consider what price he would pay if you voted to convict.
You would be expected to judge whether the facts of the case show beyond reasonable doubt that he violated the law.
In al your “reasoning”, you have constantly failed to even attempt to show how the facts in evidence make him guilty, relying instead on your gut feeling that he’s a liar.
It’s clear now that, as well as not understanding what “reasonable doubt” entails, you have no idea what the role of a jury is.
It may surprise you to know that all crimes, even in wacky Florida, have defined elements which must be met, and that all forms of both murder and manslaughter involve determining the mental state of the accused, and determinations of fact regarding such matters are indeed what the jury is for.
What does the law code look like in Steophan land? “Page 1: It shall be illegal to violate the law. Now let’s get lunch.” Of COURSE it’s the jury’s job to examine the nature of the defendant’s behavior in light of whether they find various testimony credible–that’s HOW a jury decides whether there is reasonable doubt or not!
Links works for me, not sure what the deal is there.
Two points.
One, it seems that you’ve forgotten what you wrote that I was responding to, again (if you were Zimmerman, that’d be proof that you lied, of course). It was:
The answer to how such things can be evidence in a case where the two people involved didn’t know each other is that it can serve as character evidence. That’s just the factual answer to your question. It wasn’t an argument for the admittance of any one piece of evidence in this exact case.
Secondly, you’re reading the statute incorrectly. (b), “Character of victim”, is an exception to the general inadmissibility of character evidence. That’s why it says “except” at the end of the line you bolded, there are three general exceptions. Further, there are two exceptions under which character evidence of the victim can be admitted:
Except as provided in s. 794.022,evidence of a pertinent trait of character of the victim of the crime offered by an accused, or by the prosecution to rebut the trait; or
Evidence of a character trait of peacefulness of the victim offered by the prosecution in a homicide case to rebut evidence that the victim was the aggressor.
s. 794.022 just covers various aspects of sexual activity and mental defect, neither of which is applicable here.
Thus, evidence of a trait of Martin’s could be introduced. Like all evidence, the probative value must outweigh the prejudicial value.
For those who have recently brought up the whole discussion on the subject of Martin’s age, THIS ^^^^^^^^^^ is what triggered it.
(To my knowledge…please correct me if I missed it) no one was making a big stink about Trayvon Martin’s age in terms of him being too young to be held responsible for any of his actions.
But Steophan specifically was at pains to point out his view that Martin wasn’t a “kid” or a “boy”. (Although of course, in that idiosyncratically Steophan style, he never expressed it as his view, he expressed it as Immutable Truth Handed Down From He Who Knows, in exactly the same way he has in this post, wherein he has also expressed his view about murder and racist reasons, helpfully explaining that if such things existed, he would have Deigned To Inform Us.) I finally called him on it; since no one else was really making it into a big deal on the opposite side, it seemed strange that Steophan would be making it a big deal to make sure to shoot it down, as he has here, and that said to me that somewhere in his heart the age difference was making him uncomfortable.
Which then meant, of course, a close examination of the actual facts of Martin’s age and what it really meant according to the law, science, culture, etc. Being only a few weeks past his 16th year of life, there is no measure by which, in American society, he would be considered an adult. Not legally, not morally, not emotionally, not neurologically, and not even linguistically.
It’s not true to say he was a child, either, he clearly wasn’t. But human beings do not go straight from child to adult, so while he wasn’t a child and he still wasn’t an adult, he was a boy. He was a kid. He was a “young man” (never “man” - the modifier is required because he was THAT young and we do not refer to 17 year olds as men, ever, we refer to them at most as “young men”) The term “adult” could not be reasonably or truthfully applied to Martin in any respect, so Steophan’s need to consistently make it an issue to reject the term “kid” or “boy” is not just strange, it’s wrong.
So, to summarize: it wasn’t the Justice for Martin types that were overplaying Martin’s youth, it was Steophan specifically trying to underplay it that led to the conversations about it.
I haven’t read previous pages but only parachuted to ask what’s up with the whistleblower from Florida State Attorney’s Office:
This is some crazy stuff.
Aside from having serious impact on the case, it appears that in US anytime anyone points to someone high up in hierarchy “designing” situations, you get fired (or worse) and those who screwed big time go on like nothing happened and act like business as usual.
Should I hold my breath for “attorney offices always do that - why is everyone surprised?” response?
Yep, this is more or less true. Still doesn’t mean he was a “boy”. Go ask some 17 year old black males if they like being referred to as “boys”. There’s some… unfortunate… connotations there, quite apart from the fact that they’re about 5 years to old to be boys, if the context is age.
I’m going to add on to this the wording of the self-defense statute just to hammer home the point of how inane “the only thing against the law is violating the law and trying to explain what is and isn’t violating the law is totally irrelevant!” is:
It is legal, in Florida, to use deadly force in self-defense when a person “reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.”
WHETHER ZIMMERMAN HAD SUCH A BELIEF AND WHETHER IT WAS REASONABLE IS THE ENTIRE ISSUE OF THE CASE! To say that the jury should not be worried about the way Zimmerman behaved and what that might indicate about his state of mind is totally bananas–without them doing so, all we have is a guy who shot another guy, so he’s guilty. The ONLY thing his defense attorneys want is for his “reasonable belief” to be considered favorably by the jury! Geez.
You are mistaken. The law defines “reasonable” in this circumstance as something a reasonable person may feel in this situation. Not the defendant. An abstract “reasonable person”. You don’t have to know or guess how the defendant felt. You have to know what he says he felt (in this case he says he had fear of death or great bodily harm) and you have to figure out if a reasonable person in the same exact situation would feel that fear of death or great bodily harm.
All this is right there in the jury instructions. I suspect you haven’t read them.
In the NEN phone call he accurately describes him as being “late teens”. (Yet another of the non-stop “misrememberings” :rolleyes: of Mr. Zimmerman: he said afterwards that he didn’t realize Martin was that young when he shot him. So from afar he looked late teens, but up close he looked 28? For fucks sake…)
You know, if ALL the inconsistencies in Zimmerman’s statements were legitimately attributable to his shitty post-killing-someone memory…why the fuck should we believe he accurately remembers anything? Without sitting down and examining it for a couple of hours, I can’t readily think of anything that Zimmerman has been consistent about all the way through. Nothing. Seriously…can someone write for us Zimmerman’s story from beginning to end, in as much detail as *he *has ever offered, that doesn’t leave itself open to changes on virtually every meaningful detail using other Zimmerman statements?
Because it matches the witness testimony, forensics, and circumstantial evidence. No-one has suggested taking him at his word because of his unimpeachable character. I have maintained that he should be believed where his story matches the evidence, and not otherwise.
Apart from that, no, there’s no reason to believe it, and if his case relied solely on people believing him, he’d be in trouble. It doesn’t, his story is supported by plenty of evidence - most of it introduced by the prosecution.
Oh, I forgot, you didn’t bother following the trial, so you don’t know that.
**(Adopting Steophan’s Truth Decree style of expression)
**
What? Why wouldn’t Zimmerman introduce himself properly to a young man he had hunted down to detain until the cops arrived? Zimmerman is the one who initiated everything, making him the one who had to explain himself.
This was not self-defense, this was the murder of an unarmed kid trying to stop some random guy with a gun from shooting him because the guy jumped to conclusions about him. The fact that he took a couple of punches from the kid defending himself doesn’t make Zimmerman any less of a murderer.
Were I followed around on a dark night by some guy who first stared at me from his truck then got out of his truck to follow me, I’d be scared shitless. If I were a young man starting to feel a little braver than I did as a child I might ask him flat out why he’s following me, and if he answered by asking me what I was doing there and then made the slightest gesture indicating his intention to touch me, I’d absolutely defend myself against whatever nefarious purpose the creepy weirdo had in mind.
Then if I saw him pull out his gun I’d do everything in my power to stop him from being able to use it and start screaming my head off, just like Martin did.
Yep, if that had happened, things would be different. Please, show me the evidence that makes you so sure that Martin was the one screaming, and that Zimmerman pulled the gun before Martin went for it.
Please, I’ve asked so many times and for some reason you’ve repeatedly failed to do so.
Martin was walking home minding his own business when he realized some creep was zeroed in on him. He started to run towards his dad’s house and got to the dog walk and slowed, figuring the guy couldn’t see him from the truck. Halfway down the creepy dude suddenly comes around the corner of the first block of townhomes, so Martin asked him why he was following him. (And the fact that Zimmerman appeared so suddenly and unexpectedly after Martin had last seen him in his truck was particularly terrifying to the kid - obviously this guy had an agenda!)
My sole motive is to make it as clear as possible that it is absolutely fucking outrageous to hunt down a kid doing nothing wrong, scare him half to death so he feels like he has to protect himself, then kill him for doing exactly that and claim you were defending yourself. Vile.
Zimmerman hunted Martin down, his own words made that perfectly clear.
Ya know, I know a lot of people. Including people who have been arrested. And people who have been arrested and charged, even convicted.
And I have never known anyone to have repeatedly been the subject of arrests, inquiries, restraining orders…for absolutely no reason of any kind. I have never known people like me, for instance, a person who simply does not ever engage in the sort of behavior that could be in any respect mistaken for violence of any kind, to be arrested or questioned or had restraining orders taken out.
Because it doesn’t happen. Once, sure. Not repeatedly. There’s a reason these things happened, and it wasn’t because George Zimmerman is a beacon of zen-like self restraint and peace.
The fact that it never went so far as trial and conviction does not automatically mean that there was never any kind of fire leading to the smoke. Again, especially when there’s more than one incident.
The style isn’t bad. It’s the substance you’re struggling with. You see, my statements are backed up with evidence. Yours are not.
How do you explain the contradictions between this account and the account Martin gave on the phone, as it happened?
That would be poor form, but it bears no relation to what, according to the evidence, happened that night. For reasons that still elude me, you are ignoring the fact (hey, that word again! Learn what it means sometime) that Martin had escaped Zimmerman, and were he so scared he would not have returned to him. You are also ignoring the evidence that Martin initiated the confrontation, according to both the people who heard it.
What, the words where he said he wasn’t following him, and had lost sight of him? The words where he said that he wanted the police to come and investigate his suspicions? Which words? Please, quote them for me, the ones that admit no possible meaning other than that he intended to hunt down and kill an innocent kid.