No, it couldnt have been won, with the most genius prosecutors. And yes, prosecutors decide, every day, whether to bring charges or not, depending on whether they think they can possibly win the case. That is, when the race hustlers and politicians are not breathing down their necks.
Of course, if the races had been reversed, the case would not even have gone to trial and we probably never would have heard of it, because any competent defense attorney in this state would have seen no hope of acquittal and would wisely have browbeaten Black Zimmerman into taking a plea bargain, and he’d take it, too.
Are you having a competition with yourself to see how many times you can repeat the same stupid, incorrect thing?
I can only speak for myself, not the team, and that is not an accurate restating of the position I have had about it.
Yes. Florida statutes:
It began with the following, which absolutely matters. Martin would have gone back home and be perfectly fine today if GZ had not decided to start by staring at him, then following him. We know that Martin this scared him, per Jeantel. We also know that Zimmerman did not identify himself or explain himself in the first moment available to him, he answered a question with a question. Jeantel may have heard “get off me” from Martin. Also in the mix is GZ’s “these assholes always get away” remark.
Reasonable inferences from this evidence: after GZ’s failure to be properly responsive to the scared young man’s entirely legitimate question, Martin concluded he didn’t owe this cracker the time of day and probably turned to leave, at which point Zimmerman, who was looking to prevent at least this particular asshole from getting away, made some kind of movement or gesture, maybe even touched Martin in some way. Not a violent or aggressive way, just some “hey, you don’t get to go yet” sort of way. Martin reacted violently, (And maybe said “get off me”, which is a very common thing for a young person to say to someone who has somehow invaded their physical space).
Thus did Zimmerman, by being really stupid in several legal ways, engender fear in Martin, provoking Martin’s “fight” response.
This triggered 776.041 (2), making GZ the actual aggressor, and thereby denying him justifiable use of force. It was then his responsibility to either withdraw or attempt something, anything (and actually, everything, hence the term “exhaust”) to escape or otherwise end the altercation without deadly force. Only if he failed could he then resort to lethal force.
Zimmerman has never even hinted that he did anything to even protect himself, much less escape, try to reason or simply communicate like a reasonable human being with Martin, or do anything at all other than shoot Martin. That is not exhausting every reasonable means of escape, that is not withdrawing from contact. That’s poking the kid until he pokes back, then shooting him to death and hiding behind self-defense.
The law says no go.
Prosecutors are paid to make judgments all the time, that doesn’t mean they are prescient or have to be prescient to make a judgment. Judgments are decisions based on experience and knowledge, and a knowledgeable prosecutor would know what sort of cases typically prevail and what sort of cases typically do not. Norm Wolfinger declined to pursue the case because he did not believe a jury would convict of manslaughter, he’s a guy who spent 20+ years prosecuting cases in front of jurors in that part of Florida. He’s basically the expert on what sort of cases are likely to prevail in his former district.
I’ll also note that you seem confused about Bricker and Kimmy’s point. They have simply stated that under legal theory, the case was at least sufficient enough that the jury could make a determination or a “judgment call” on the case. What they’re explaining is the concept that in our legal system all the elements for a conviction can be there, but it can come down to a simple judgment call by the jury as to whether or not key elements should be interpreted one way or the other. Our system by design isn’t formulaic, a different jury can decide differently on the same case.
I also don’t see where Kimmy or Bricker are saying the prosecution “sucked ass” and a better prosecutor would have won. Specifically Kimmy says that the jury in the case was basically a “luck of the draw” matter, and Bricker simply said a jury could have found for manslaughter–not that he expected a jury would.
You guys got the bulldog prosecutorial team you wanted because the professional prosecutor in the district was so good he realized it was a loser of a case. When you demand a loser case be prosecuted you’re going to get a politically motivated prosecutor on the case, which is exactly what you got. You also vindicated the original decision making of the normal State’s Attorney for that area.
The prosecution has to actually have evidence of provocation, they had none. Your scenario involves them inferring evidence based on another inference. There is a reason the judge didn’t include the instruction on provocation–it would have been an error of law as the prosecution had done nothing to demonstrate Zimmerman provoked Martin. Can you find an example of a single case in the State of Florida where a judge has allowed jury instructions to include the passage on provocation where the provoking act was simply “staring at someone”, “not explaining themselves” and “following them.”
This reminds me of those threads about your own personal legal case, where you insisted you were right because of how you read statute. But many lawyers told you that you were wrong, based on the actual practicing of laws and the case law and the way cases are actually conducted and decided. When it all resolved a court firmly agreed with everyone else and not with you. This is an identical situation, you’re asserting (like you did in your personal case) superior knowledge of law to the trial judge, and your knowledge of the law has been demonstrated in court to be faulty. You’re the definition of an unreliable interpreter of legal matters.
Also note the two parts of the provocation text are separated by an “or” clause. So even if Zimmerman had actually provoked Martin, it would still have come down to whether he feared death or grievous injury–which is almost the same thing the case came down to anyway. Provocation would have meant Zimmerman couldn’t “stand his ground to meet force with force”, but it doesn’t mean he has to take a beat down. He doesn’t have to do that stuff where he clearly indicates he wishes to end the conflict or etc if the (a) subsection is satisfied.
No, but the prosecution was prepared to argue for it on that basis, case law or no. What choice did they have?
Bricker’s post about this earlier in this thread piqued my interest. How could you craft a compelling argument that following in that manner is provocation? I found an article from Volokh that touches on it. Here are two exceptions to the general rule about provocation ( Laney v. United States and Moore v. State):
You do understand that precedent from other states doesn’t apply in FL, especially if there is in-state (Gibbs) precedent?
Yes, of course. I also understand that the trial is over and Zimmerman cannot be tried again. That doesn’t preclude a discussion about possible arguments for a case with similar circumstances, does it?
These cases in particular are interesting in their own right. I would think you’d not be in agreement with the court ruling that they did not have a right to claim self defense under the circumstances. I might agree with you. I think the jury should have been able to decide that.
Assuming that’s true
(1) What difference does it make that Zimmerman allegedly followed Martin against the police’s suggestion? If the police had (correctly) said “You have every legal right to follow him,” it would still qualify as “provocation” according to your view, no?
(2) Do you agree that a Defendant’s justification for using deadly force should be assessed at the time he makes the actual decision to use deadly force?
(3) Can you show me legal authority that following someone under such circumstances counts as “provocation”?
Your opinion, which you are both entitled to have and entitled to express.
You need to get over your hypersensitivity about this. States are not required to accept the way other states have decided an issue, but they like to learn from other states when their own state lacks sufficient or sufficiently precise case law. Lawyers cite other states for their arguments, the courts cite other states in their opinions. Precedent doesn’t even matter from court to court, officially, but there is an overriding preference in the law for there to be a certain consistency. The laws and decisions are much more alike between the states than they are different.
I am not the slightest bit confused about that at all, it is other voices who have insisted that there could be only one possible outcome. Never me, that’s been exactly what I’ve argued against.
How could I possibly know? It’s not as though whole cases are available for study in the way this one was, the details of each case are specific to that case and rarely available outside the full record. And such a finding would be for the jury to decide in any case, it would be wholly inappropriate for a judge to refuse the instruction based on having come to her own conclusions instead of the jury’s.
I generally ignore references to my case, but this is too specific, and too specifically wrong, both as to what happened in the thread, and in the case itself. Although I have no doubt that you are sincere in remembering it that way, it is not accurate. I will not say more than that publicly, but I would have no problem with explaining it to you privately if you decided to ask privately.
That’s merely the limits you have in your view of it.
The law required him to do something other than go straight to killing Martin. He didn’t.
Remember that it isn’t as though the only point of contention is whether GZ’s actions caused Martin’s, and apart from that we all agree that everything else went down pretty much how GZ says it did, with GZ getting the big beatdown and fearing for his life. No. It’s certainly not the way my fantasy jury saw the evidence, that’s for damn sure. (Slightly edited following Bricker input)
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We all have found Zimmerman to be entirely lacking in credibility, and find that his inconsistencies and implausibilities are centered around the areas which make his actions legally unacceptable. Therefore, any detail of his claims which lacks clear corroboration we are free to reject as false, and we generally do.
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Having found item one to be true, we consider his falsehoods to be evidence that he has knowledge that he is guilty of unlawful killing, and therefore evidence that he is guilty of unlawful killing. (consciousness of guilt).
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We find that his statement regarding assholes getting away, along with his statement regarding having the police call to be sufficient to indicate that he intended to and did continue to look for Martin after he got off the phone.
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We find that Jeantel’s testimony credible as to what the two said, and we find her statement regarding Martin saying “get off me” to be a true one.
**5. From that we infer that Zimmerman did something to try to detain Martin, and that Martin violently resisted. **
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We have witnesses reporting both men on top at different times, we find that the struggle included both men on top at different times,** with neither having a clear and consistent physical advantage over the other. **
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From the 911 phone call, we all find that the voice in the background is young, and profoundly terrified, and we found Martin’s mothers statement that it was her son believable. The voice is cut off abruptly at the shot. We therefore find that the voice screaming for help is that of Martin, and we infer that his terrorized screams were a response to the sight of Zimmerman’s gunwell before the point the non-credible Zimmerman claims he produced it. (which might obviate the need to consider the niceties of how one defines initial aggressor, since [I believe, I’m not certain] waving a gun at someone is considered a forcible felony already, again putting self-defense out of reach.)
Bonus Finding, not necessary for conviction: Zimmerman’s claims regarding his reasons for climbing on Martin’s back are not logical or believable and not supported by the evidence. We find them to be false. Since we know he did climb on Martin’s back, because witnesses saw him, we believe that Zimmerman was well aware that he had shot the boy, knew he had done so wrongfully, and was actually interested in making sure the boy expired before he would be questioned. Merely putting his weight on the boy’s mortally wounded body would have certainly helped to accomplish that, and there’s no way to be sure what more he might have done.
These are our findings of fact and our reasonable inferences from the evidence, in sum:
Zimmerman hunted Martin down and tried to detain him, thereby provoking him to a violent response, making him the aggressor and putting self-defense out of reach. Zimmerman produced the gun well in advance of the point he stated, (at least as early as the start of the screams), which means there was never a point at which there would have been a legitimate and reasonable belief that his life was at stake, requiring him to actually shoot the screaming Martin. We find that Zimmerman’s claim that he acted in self defense was therefore false from the ground up, and that even so, his actions provoked the incident and he made no attempt to escape the situation he created, putting self-defense beyond his reach in yet another way.
We therefore find no merit of any kind in the defendant’s claim that he acted in self-defense. We find him guilty of manslaughter.
As to inferences, the law does not bar inference upon inference, it is entirely dependent on the specifics. And I think it’s pretty much avoided in any case- there’s evidence for every inference.
I haven’t been particularly interested in obsessing over that minor detail, you’ll have to ask someone about that who really thinks it’s a big deal. I think the only thing about it that matters is that it demonstrates Zimmerman’s awareness that his action was ill-advised and he proceeded anyway, actively hiding that fact, which also demonstrates that he knew he had done something which most people understand to be unwise and potentially dangerous. Which it was, Martin’s body testifies to that.
I’m not clear on what you mean. If you are suggesting it should have been the cops on the scene who decided the question, the answer is Are you out of your fucking mind? If it’s something else, I don’t get what it is.
You are asking for something that doesn’t exist for any specifics, why would it exist for this? The law has not come up with a list of behaviors that count as provocation, and it would be silly to try. Each incident is specific, the behavior of the individuals is specific. The individuals are individuals, the circumstances are unique. What is provocative to Joe in darkness and rain late at night is nothing to take notice of by Jim in broad daylight. You must consider everything to determine if the perception of threat would be a reasonable one, so trying to make something of the absence of these particulars in case law in meaningless.
Good lord, Stoid.
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It is the role of the judge to determine jury instructions you are absolutely, factually incorrect that in the State of Florida it is up to the jury to decide what jury instructions they receive. If the judge gives jury instructions in contravention to Florida law, that is potentially reversible error.
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My point was not based on my “opinion” of the provocation section of the law. It’s literally what it says, it’s an “or” statement. Do you know anything about logic? If there is a condition with two things that can satisfy the condition and an “or” separating them, then if any of the two are satisfied, the condition is satisfied. Compare this to an “and”, in which all conditions listed with and in between them must be satisfied for the condition to be satisfied.
It is the difference between:
if(a = b or c = f)
{
condition = true;
}
and
if(a = b and c = f)
{
condition = true;
}
The Florida passage in which it denies SYG protection to provokers clearly States that even if they provoke it, they are entitled to self defense in two circumstances:
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The force being used is so great, the defendant fears for their life/fears grievous harm.
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The defendant attempted to end the combat, backed away, and the victim refused to end the combat.
So in the Zimmerman case, even if he admitted to provocation, the fact that his version of events meant he could not have exercised option two at all, we can assume he’d make the argument under option one. That basically puts him in the same situation as he is for a “normal” self defense claim–needing to demonstrate the force being used justified his actions and that he could not escape from the situation. He did this, and we know he did this, because he was acquitted by a jury. The only real difference if provocation is he has to demonstrate he had reasonably exhausted his options. The fact that in the story he told, and that at least some jurors have said they believed, he was pinned to the ground unable to move would demonstrate he had exhausted his options in regard to fleeing. The fact that in the story he told, he repeatedly yelled for help over and over again, demonstrates he exhausted other options. Considering the jury allowed Zimmerman’s acquittal when he basically conceded he shot and killed Martin, we have to presume the self defense claim is a substantial part of the reason for the acquittal. If they believed the extant self-defense claim it is simply unlikely they would take a different view of anything just based on the provocation statute.
As for searching cases–you can certainly get case records from unknown cases. But you’d need access to a legal database of some kind.
- The facts of your own personal case are not really in dispute. You believe a lot of things about the law that were wrong. You lost your case. You are not an expert at law, and have shown yourself to be particularly bad at understanding the law. This is because you believe that you can read a statute and interpret it any way you want. In your world, if a judge or jury doesn’t agree with your interpretation of a statute, that just means they are wrong and you are still right.
In the real world, real lawyers study how judges and juries interpret statutes over time to know how their court system actually works. Real lawyers will only rarely throw a “hail mary” and attempt to argue something that would require a new interpretation of existing statute with a long history of being interpreted a particular way. They will typically do this in cases they believe to be no-win situations, because otherwise they would just follow the extant case law. Creative interpretations rarely prevail in court.
We have solid evidence provocation basically should not have been in the jury instructions. A judge said that it shouldn’t, you have to have something other than your weak opinion on law to override a judge’s professional opinion on law. You’ve presented nothing other than tortuous arguments based from ignorance and ego.
Well fine, so you don’t disagree with my main point: The claim, true or false, that Zimmerman disregarded police instructions has no bearing on his legal guilt or innocence.
The point is that even assuming Zimmerman provoked Martin, Zimmerman had no duty to retreat before he even knew that Martin posed a threat of violence against him. Surely you agree that the law cannot expect Zimmerman to be clairvoyant?
No, I’m not asking for a list, but the law does need to come up with a definition, or at least some outer limits. Does an armored car guard provoke robberies by driving through a bad part of town?
But anyway, I was curious so I did some Google searches and found the following blog post
First of all, do you agree that this is an accurate statement of Florida law? i.e. that in Florida, “provocation” does not include mere words or conduct without force or the threat of force?
We’ve actually already had people post about the standards for provocation under Florida laws. Stoid’s basically arguing for a de novo interpretation of the law and standing on the grounds that “the right judge or jury would agree with my argument” as proof that it’s just as valid an argument as case law settled by a Florida appellate court.
No, it is an exact and specifically correct description of your case, your reactions to your case, and especially of the apellate courts reaction to your case. The appellate court found you to be wrong on every single point.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, Stoid is starting to remind me of people who insist that income taxes are optional.
How can I be factually incorrect when iI never said it? Creative dodge, designed to keep the slow an d inattentive entertained. If I don’t give you want you want, you’ll just make it up and claim I said it.
For those who may not follow, let’s parse!
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
Can you find an example of a single case in the State of Florida where a judge has allowed jury instructions to include the passage on provocation where the provoking act was simply “staring at someone”, “not explaining themselves” and “following them”.
[/QUOTE]
judge includes the passage on provocation…by the use of the article “the” you mean the standard jury instruction passage regarding provocation. So can i find a single case in florida where the judge included the standard instructions on provocation…
My reply was in part that “such a finding” would be the jury’s to decide. Perhaps that is why you are so confused, mixing up “finding” with jury instructions, I guess.
The jury makes findings of fact based on the evidence.
Findings of fact are pretty straightforward: what happened? Who did what to whom, who reacted, and why? What happened then?
They make these findings of fact according to specific instructions given them before deliberations.
There` can be no more facty fact in a murder trial than “did the victim react to the accused in a certain way due to the perception the victim had as a result of the accused’s behavior?” This requires a finding of fact about the behavior of the accused and whether the victim had a reasonable reaction to it in being provoked to action as a result.
Yet you asked about a judge including provocation instructions in cases where the behavior was x,y,z.
You were implying by this query that the judge would be the one to make the finding of fact about the behavior, and that they would find the behavior to be unprovocative and therefore leave out the instruction as a result, which is why you didn’t expect me to find such cases.
But in order for that to ever be the case, the judge would have to usurp the jury’s function in advance and determine that the behavior which the jury would normally assess and make findings about was not reasonably provocative.
In other words, exactly what I said:
And you turned that into:
So one of two things is true: you are playing games because that’s what you find entertaining. Or you genuinely have comprehension difficulties, or…and this is three, I guess, you are just super lazy in your rush to show off.
None of the three is very interesting for me, I don’t want to have to comb through your posts to make it absolutely clear what is being said or not said, retracing the steps endlessly to correct your game playing or incomprehension.
I have a pinched nerve causing really significant pain in my hand, whis exacerbated by being forced to cut and paste to correct your egregious “errors”. so I’m leaving it here for now. One can only hope that upon one’s return you will have found either some patience or integrity with which to proceed. It might then be an engaging discussion.
Different states have different laws. Discussing a case in one state citing cases from another is kinda pointless.
No one is suggesting that or has suggested that. His duty under the law would be to do something other than nothing and then finally after doing nothing, go straight to killing Martin, which is apparently what he did.