Translation: “If there’s blood then you’ll claim it was framed! If there isn’t then you claim he faked it!”
I’m sure that when we find eyewitness accounts or, perhaps, a phone recording of what he was talking about up to the minute of his death, you’ll say those don’t count because…well, I’m sure you’ll think of something. Is being a racist really that pleasant for you that you’d go around supporting murderers? I can’t imagine that’s a fun thing to have to do all the time
You are an idiot. No reasonable person would characterize anything ive said as supporting Zimmerman. You are one of those idiots who thinks anyone not making the same noises as you must believe the exact opposite as you believe–in reality, my position is tangential to yours.
Well if noone is allowed to have an opinion on anything, then what is the purpose of these threads. What would we be discussing?
Oh, I forget we are all idiots. I probably just don’t understand since I’m obviously so inferior to you intellectually. Being an idiot and all. For having an opinion about something.
I tend to believe HER, not you.
And yet all the idiots are those who don’t buy Zimmerman’s story. There has been plenty of speculation about Martin’s culpability posted with nary a peep out of you. Coincidence, I’m sure.
I see more like a guy who has come to realize that his opinion is indefensible, as evidence drops on his head like bowling balls shat by overflying pigeons. So he tries to pretend that he doesn’t have the stupid opinion, and never did. Of course, he doesn’t have that other stupid opinion, the one supported by an unholy conspiracy of facts and lefties.
So he is left trumpeting the superiority of having no opinion whatsoever. And, of course, trying to pretend he was doing that all along.
When does this awkward teen pretending on the Internet to be a grownup tell us he’s “just asking questions”? 
If it helps at all to try to get things back on track:
This thread was not posted to debate the guilt of Zimmerman. It was about the sloppy work of the Sanford PD. They seemed to have been very dismissive of this whole incident. They handled Zimmerman as if he had been picked up on a very minor complaint. They obviously didn’t give it the gravity of murder or manslaughter.
A lot of time passed between the incident and the uproar. Obviously the SPD thought this whole thing was wrapped up. In order to do that they fabricated the police report to make it look like there was no need of pursuing a possible crime. Make up shit to polish the incident. Submit a phony report, wipe hands, toss it in the out box.
Fast forward. Things start to get examined. Then this surveillance video surfaces. Holy shit! It doesn’t support the police report at all. Houston, we have a problem. Now, the incompetence of all of these knuckleheads is exposed. There is a cover-up. Now the guys of the SPD have to be shitting their pants and lawyering up.
What happens to Zimmerman remains to be seen. But, I want a thorough investigation, including indictments, trials and ruined careers of the inept police officers and commanders that were a part of this farce. I want the Justice Dept. all over this. I hope the Sanford PD gets ripped to shreds. Let is serve as a warning to others.
I don’t understand what the difference is, in terms of moral culpability or the bottom-line result of the situation, of
There’s not anything they would have done differently in the two scenarios, and other than the sentencing phase of the trial that most members of the Sanford PD should have coming in any remotely just world, it doesn’t really make any difference which one of the two possible scenarios is true.
As insightful and accurate as always, luci. See my post in the other pit thread–I’m perfectly happy not constructing some personal narrative based on news reports. I’ve never said anything that would lead a reasonable person to believe that I had constructed a personal narrative that shows Zimmerman to be blameless.
Nice false dichotomy. We’ll all wait while you go look that up.
Back on the issue of Sanford PD, I think we’re going to see this all come down to Bill Lee and the original prosecutor (who has now stepped aside) and possibly something hinky going on between the two.
The chief investigator’s affidavit says that he wanted charges filed and that he found Zimmerman’s story unbelievable. Charges didn’t happen.
However, the same day that Lee was talking to the media and saying that probable cause to arrest Zimmerman didn’t exist, a capias writ was filed by his chief investigator with the prosecutor’s office. (A capias writ being the document in which cops say to the prosecutors “we have enough evidence, please charge this person.”)
Why was Bill Lee openly contradicting his own investigators’ position when talking to the media?
Why was the prosecutor’s office ignoring the investigators and their writ?
Hinky. Even hinkier than an alleged broken nose that doesn’t bleed like a fountain.
A guess. A prosecutor is often a very political animal, for many prosecutors, the office is a springboard to political office. Hence, even more than the average competitiveness of lawyers, a prosecutor looks to a conviction rate as his ticket. Prosecuting this case has some obvious drawbacks, not least of which is pissing off the NRA. The image of the citizen shooting a criminal in self defense is dear to their very hearts, it gives them serious wood. Whereas some nut shooting some kid for nothing is a Betty White porno. Just to put these complex notions in terms you deevs can understand…
Sorta kinda. I still have the feeling there is something else going on here, a shadow, an eminence greasy. Because it doesn’t quite work, does it? He would almost have to know that this kind of blow back is possible, he would be anxious to have all the facts before he unzips himself and puts his pecker on the chopping block. But he wasn’t, was he, appears to have been anxious to put the cork in this bottle of woe and bury it, and right now!
Or it could be that his reading of the law is such that he thinks any half-assed community college lawyer could beat the rap and make him look like a stooge. Because the law is written so badly that it is entirely possible that the whole case rests on the mind set of the shooter: can a lawyer get a jury to believe that he had any reasonable expectation of bodily harm? The word “reasonable” being a term of art, meaning whatever you can make a jury believe or even doubt. Or, worse case, whatever you can make one juror believe, one who refuses to vote for conviction no matter what. (Jeebus, I’m thinking like a bad Grisham novel…I considered the law briefly while in college, but my grandmother threw herself at my feet and begged me not to besmirch the family honor of dirt farmers and horse thieves…)
So I guess the argument must first rely on one of the half dozen or so lawyers we got the boards. Or the ones who admit it, anyway. Is this law that badly written? And can you explain that without a buttload of op. cit., dispositives and stark staring decisis? Or penumbras? Jesus, anything but penumbras.
Watch out Rand, your racism is showing
No the video is from that night, hour(s) after the supposed wounds were inflicted, no month involved.
CMC fnord!
And now they’re threatening to arrest reporters for doing their jobs:
Much as I’ve been repelled by the leaks coming out of the Sanford PD, this is obviously not the answer. I’m not even sure if it is even legal, although they don’t seem overly concerned about that. New motto suggestion:
Sanford Police Department: We Really Couldn’t Suck Much More.
I again have to point out that under normal circumstances, which at the time this might have looked like they would remain, the chief of police would NEVER go before the media and contradict the prosecutor. That just is not going to happen. Even if Lee himself wanted charged brought, he would still toe the party line. You cannot have the police force and the district attorney’s office ripping each other in public.
So if the lead invetigator asks that charges be filed, and the state’s attorney says no, Lee is not, normally, going to go up there and say “Oh, man, the state’s attorney is wrong on this one, folks!”
The SPD is melting down NOW, obviously. It’s a small town police force taking more heat than the NYPD usually does on a bad news day; they’re hopelessly overmatched by the weight of a national media firestorm. But they might well have acted rationally on that one day.
This is a more interesting question.
I would suggest, though, that you do automatically assume it’s “hinky.” Never assume malice when incompetence is an equally reasonable explanation, as it is. For all we know this SA is a blithering fool and he fucks up a dozen cases a week that you never heard of.
Watch out, the fact that you have nothing intelligent to say is showing.
I fully understand that the video is of that night. I was speaking of right now. Why argue about whether he had a head wound on a grainy surveillance video, when we could take a look at his head now; it is in fact a month later now, and there should still be a mark there if he had a wound then. fnord!
Yes, it’s badly written.
Here’s why. The usual formula for self-defense law is that the accused, the guy on trial, has to prove at least the basics of self defense. Then, after he’s made that basic case, the prosecution has to disprove him, beyond a reasonable doubt. The usual process puts the fact-finding in court, before a judge and jury.
This law says a person who has used force “is immune from criminal prosecution.” And it specifically defines “criminal prosecution” to mean “arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.” See that? He’s immune from even being arrested.
The only way around that is for the police agency to determine that probable cause exists that the use of force was unlawful. In other words, this is not your usual “is there probable cause to believe a crime was committed” but rather “is there specific information about the use of force that makes it probable that the force used was unlawful?”
That is literally what the law says:
This law puts the cart before the horse, in other words. what would normally be developed after arrest, interrogation, charging, etc., now must be essentially an one-the-scene determination by the police.
It’s crazy.
Does that help, without being too technical?