I agree. This whole thing is fucked up from the git-go. We need to reduce the number of guns. Maybe a monumental tasks, but I don’t see anything short of that making things better.
Let’s all keep in mind that Zimmerman did not use the SYG defense in this case.
I’m not sure how significant that us when the jury instructions themselves actually mentioned the stand your ground standard.
Since there was no testimony regarding his ability to retreat, that’s irrelevant.
Having a bit of trouble at this point seeing the value of ‘I don’t know anything about the case but’ type of comments. There’s been a trial, a matter of public record, televised, and I’m sure you can find extended information on it.
Zimmerman’s account in extremely brief summary: he saw person he thought was suspicious, got out of vehicle to follow the person, called 911 and said he was following them, 911 operator NOT A POLICE OFFICER, AND WITH NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO INSTRUCT A CITIZEN told him ‘we don’t need you to do that’, and anyway Zimmerman said ‘OK’ though perhaps because he’d already lost sight of the person. He then started back toward his vehicle and at that point Trayvon Martin confronted him and physically attacked him. Zimmerman ended up underneath Martin with Martin punching him and banging his head on a concrete sidewalk, Zimmerman said Martin also saw Zimmerman’s gun at that point, and Zimmerman says he drew it and fired to save himself from serious injury or death in the beating and so Martin couldn’t grab the gun and shoot him.
Zimmerman’s account was not proved to be true. But it was the prosecutors burden to prove it untrue, and the jury found they did not. I personally think they came up very far short of disproving it. Most evidence and witnesses such as there were seemed to back Zimmerman’s account, in general. And the prosecution never seemed to have any alternative theory, just confining themselves to trying to poke holes in Zimmerman’s account, with some but limited success, and appealing to the emotions of the jury that a young man had died and somebody had to pay for it.
The debate can go on whether Zimmerman was telling the truth, or to what degree, but ‘stand your ground’ was simply not relevant to the defense Zimmerman offered. He claimed a ‘classic’ self defense justification.
If you want to hypothesize any and all other possible scenario’s for which there’s no evidence or which we say might have happened in some other situation, obviously there would be some where SYG applied. But it didn’t, not directly, in the actual trial.
I don’t think that statement is supported by the facts, ie specifically that the police didn’t properly investigate because they though it was an open and shut SYG case. We can debate separately whether flaws in the police investigation had any material effect or whether the case was open and shut.
But specially on SYG, Zimmerman’s account was basically consistent from the beginning: that he’d shot Martin after Martin attacked him physically first, had pinned him down and was beating him and banging his head on the sidewalk, and Zimmerman believed Martin saw his gun and might get it first, so he shot Martin out of reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury in the beating and/or if Martin got his gun. So the police right away heard an account of classic self defense, with no possible retreat, not a claim of SYG defense. And that continued throughout up to the acquittal in the trial.
If you want to say the general atmosphere created in FL by the generally self defender friendly law, which includes an SYG feature, is one where the authorities have generally lowered expectations of being able to convict people who claim self defense in homicides, and that that might affect their investigative practices in some way, OK perhaps. But SYG itself is at most a very indirect factor in the Zimmerman case.
I think we’ll see a reversal of this if black people start winning cases against white people using the SYG law. Though I don’t know if juries in those states would allow that
Well…so much for that then… 
Why?
Both Marissa Alexander and her victim are African-American, for starters.
On the 911 tape, we hear Rico Gray saying, “I’m outa here,” and Marissa Alexander replying, “I’ve got something for you,” followed by a shot.
That is certainly evidence that allows the fact-finder to conclude she wasn’t under attack.
She said the shot was a warning shot, fired “Into the air.” But the bullet hole was in the wall at about the height of Gray’s head. The shell casing was on the kitchen floor and the bullet hole was in the kitchen wall while the bullet itself was lodged in the next room’s ceiling.
There’s no question that Gray was an abusive asshole who had hurt Alexander on other occasions. But the law (again, the law, that pesky irritant to having the freedom to simply decide every case based on whatever criteria strike you as useful that day) says that she must feel in IMMINENT danger of death or serious bodily injury. The 911 tape and the testimony of Gray, and both of Gray sons, directly contradicts her – all say, and the physical evidence supports, the idea that she fired at a retreating Gray.
Can you explain the evidence that causes you to see it differently – that this was a Stand Your Ground case?
Completely agree! I DON’T want more SYG laws!
I’m sure if I gave a shit about it, I would.
And, again, didn’t the dispatcher go on to tell Zimmerman that the police officers would meet him at the mailboxes and Zimmerman, once again, said he would? Did you leave that out of your recap because it wasn’t correct?
Don’t talk to us in pidgin English, racist!
It’s not. From the transcript:
What happened next is disputed. Zimmerman says he started to go back to his truck and Martin appeared from the south, the prosecution alleged that Zimmerman went south and confronted Martin.
This is for Miss Elizabeth too:
Black man shoots white men, claims self-defense, and walks free
Come now, you’re being disingenuous. The Tampa Bay Times article from which these incidents were extracted shows a pattern of differential outcomes based on race of the shooter and target Why this is so may be debated, but no one claims blacks never get the benefit of SYG. The question is why they get less benefit.
Maybe because blacks are … you know … more likely to … ummm … commit violent felonies that give rise to deadly force in self defense?
This was supposed to be in another thread.
The Attorney General’s take on this question:
[QUOTE=WSJ Online]
… Mr. Holder denounced laws that permit a person to use force in self-defense without first attempting to retreat from the situation.
At the convention of the NAACP on Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder blasted “stand-your-ground laws” in the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin.
“Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods,” Mr. Holder said. It was the first time the attorney general criticized such laws publicly, and by raising the issue in a speech largely about Mr. Martin’s death, he suggested a connection between the shooting and the enactment of such laws.
Mr. Holder drew sustained applause when he declared, “We must stand our ground to ensure that our laws reduce violence and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent.”
[/QUOTE]
Ah, the old idea that society isn’t unfair; black are just genuinely subhuman.
The problem that I see with Stand your Ground laws is that there are many cases like the Zimmerman case where both people involved have a legitimate claim to feeling threatened by the other party. Imagine two rival gangbangers with a blood feud meeting on the street each knowing the other is armed. Without the requirement to retreat it is in both parties best interest to kill the other because there is no negative consequences for doing so. Further they know that the other party has no negative consequences for killing them so if they fail to act they’re a dead man. Thus the only sensible action is to escalate as quickly as possible before the other party does so. It just comes down to who is the quickest draw.