Of course a homicide took place; Zimmerman shot and killed Martin, nobody at all disputes that. The question is whether it was an illegal homicide- whether it meets the definition of murder, manslaughter, or unnecessary killing under statute law. Are you saying that given everything that’s known besides Zimmerman’s testimony, it would be presumed that he had committed manslaughter, at least as far as probable cause for an arrest goes? Let’s say that Zimmerman had had a stroke five minutes after shooting Martin and was lying unresponsive in a hospital bed; in that case all we would know would be the circumstantial evidence. Would charges have been filed in that instance?. As given in multiple hypotheticals upthread, it’s easy to imagine a case in which the police had a dead body and a shooter, but not quite enough positive elements to make a case for manslaughter.
It surprised me as well, I always knew that if you raised self defense the prosecutor would need to address your claims. I had never heard (before researching SCOTUS law relevant to SD due to this thread) that the prosecutor literally had to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt the claim of self defense. But right there from a SCOTUS case you have a justice writing for the majority who says this:
Note that the justice is talking about a concept under state law, and thus it doesn’t necessarily apply to Florida. Additionally that case is some 40 years old, it may not even apply to Maine law anymore, FWIW. But it does seem that various legal elements are saying that the prosecution has to be able to disprove self defense in this case. One of them is Chief Lee, who is not a lawyer but is an authority on the law. Here is a really good article in the Christian Science Monitor about this case (they don’t cover as much as most places but the stuff they cover is always excellent, I’m glad they did a piece on this.) They have a former Federal prosecutor and law professor who goes into some explanation about the law in Florida and how it affects what the state of Florida has to do to sustain a case against Zimmerman. I found the article interesting at the least.
I think with the evidence we know about it seems reasonable that the police could have made an arrest. I think the position Chief Lee is taking is that they found “affirmative proof” of self defense, so that has the police convinced “no crime occurred at all.” You can’t have probable cause if you don’t believe a crime was committed in the first place, as probable cause relies on the police believing a crime was committed, you can’t arrest someone on probable cause they committed an act that isn’t a crime, and the police are the ones who seem to have defined this act as non-criminal.
This is the murkiest part of the case in the specific. The police have both said there is “evidence to corroborate self-defense” and that they “lacked probable cause” which to me is somewhat contradictory. If you think it is genuine self defense then you view the act as inherently non-criminal, so it’s not so much you lacked evidence of probable cause but that you saw no crime in the first place. If the police know a crime was committed (say they find a meth lab) but can’t link it strongly to the person they think was running it, it makes sense to say they couldn’t find probable cause to arrest.
Also, I don’t know that homicide is always considered inherently criminal. I mentioned in an earlier post under English common law homicide was essentially always treated as murder (even self-defense cases, accidents etc.) However I think the situation in individual American states is vastly different from that.
I don’t know specifically how the prosecutor’s job should change. I do think that if a defendant establishes a strong claim of self defense the prosecutor should want to refute it, otherwise he’s essentially leaving the point uncontested in front of the jury.
No I’m not saying that. And of course I mean illegal homicide.
I’m saying that if the physical and circumstantial evidence, the 911 call, and the witness accounts (i.e., everything except Zimmerman’s testimony) combined point to manslaughter or murder, then why shouldn’t the State bring charges based on this, rather than starting with the assumption that this was self-defense and looking for evidence to contradict that?
There is so little information coming out and what does, seems like it’s from anyone but the PD. First they said Zimmerman’s record was spotless, if I recall correctly. Then an “expunged” run in with police. Then reports from neighbors about his temperament. Things like them “correcting” the statement of a witness and being far from forthcoming with the press is cause for concern, in my opinion.
This young boy should not be dead, and the least he’s owed is a thorough investigation. If it came down as it appears, it needs to be punished. If not, acceptance becomes possible.
If this holds true for FL, then I wonder what happens when self-defense is disproved by the State. Will the defendant automatically be convicted of manslaughter (or murder), or will the defendant then need to be tried for this separately?
If the former (automatic conviction of manslaughter or murder), that means the State can’t just prove a negative; they have to make a case for either one of these things independently from disproving self-defense, right? Which suggests probable cause for manslaughter and murder have to exist.
But I’m a little optimistic this is just semantics we’re talking about. The last sentence from the passage you excerpted makes me think “disproving self-defense” is, on a practical basis, no different than “proving manslaughter/murder”, in the eyes of the SCOTUS:
(bolding mine)
My reading of this is that just because the defendant asserts self-defense, the prosecution isn’t obligated to do anything different than it would be if the defendant hadn’t asserted self-defense. Probable cause for manslaughter/murder = disproof of self-defense.
Of course, who knows how folks in Sanford have twisted this to suit their purposes.
I think generally it’s up to the jury to decide whether or not a defense has been established, whether the prosecution has disproven it, and whether the prosecution has made a case beyond reasonable doubt for guilt. I agree with the SCOTUS that the practicalities aren’t as fine as the theory on these sort of things. Basically a good prosecutor who makes a self defense claim seem false and who proves the elements of the underlying crime will get a conviction. (I am aware to exceptions on some defenses, my understanding is some courts if you don’t establish to some level of competency an affirmative defense the judge can actually rule that you are not permitted to even argue that defense, I don’t know much about that, though, and could be wrong.)
However, there is still a difference in how the prosecution must respond. I can provide absolute, undeniable proof of manslaughter as a prosecutor. However under some statutes self-defense negates. In Florida law it seems they call manslaughter “an unjustified killing.” But in some states manslaughter is just a killing, so if you can prove the killing you’ve proven the manslaughter. Self-defense comes in as something that negates the charge, meaning the prosecution can prove manslaughter beyond a shadow of a doubt (more than reasonable doubt), but if the defense firmly establishes self-defense it can negate the culpability of manslaughter. I don’t know that it works that way in Florida, but in states with that sort of mechanism the prosecutor obviously needs to prove the elements of manslaughter but they also need to pain a good picture for the jury that the self defense claim is not credible to avoid negation.
LIke I said earlier, suppose we didn’t have Zimmerman’s testimony- what would have happened? We know that Zimmerman is a neighborhood watch captain in charge of looking out for prowlers, that he notified the police that someone he considered suspicious was there, that he went to follow the person, that Martin ended up shot dead by Zimmerman’s gun, that Zimmerman suffered injuries, that one witness heard somebody crying for help and that it stopped after the shooting. There’s still a hell of lot that hasn’t been released to the public so who knows what other evidence there might be- the angle of the bullet path, powder burns, etc. If Zimmerman was lying in a coma from a stroke and prosecutors had to decide whether to file charges of manslaughter just on the circumstantial evidence, I’m not certain it would be a slam dunk even then.
What I’m not following is the contention that Zimmerman’s testimony has somehow colored the rest of the evidence, that the police are somehow dismissing what would otherwise be highly suspicious clues that have supposedly been “explained away” by Zimmerman.
The only difference between this crap and the crap talked by a Texas lynch mob is that this crap is supposedly from intelligent, educated people.
If a woman accused you of rape, which would you prefer: that the cops arrest you just because they couldnt find evidence that she was lying? Or would you rather the cops to just look for objective evidence that you raped her?
Most men would prefer the latter, I’m thinking. Because all it would take is a good actress and some gullible cops to have you locked up instantly. After all, any evidence that might cast doubt on your involvement (e.g., the lack of any of your semen on her, no shows of a struggle) won’t be a hurdle for her just as long as she can create a narrative that convinces the biased cops (e.g., you wore a condom and forced her at gunpoint, so there was no struggle).
But if you start with a null hypothesis (Is there evidence that you raped her?), you don’t have this problem. Because the police have to start looking at the evidence from an objective standpoint, without preference to one side or another.
Essentially, Zimmerman has attempted to excuse himself from manslaughter by accusing his victim of a crime. And the cops, in turn, have glommed on to this excuse and are acting as though they have to prove that Martin wasn’t committing a crime just to arrest Zimmerman. Not only is this unfair to a victim too dead to defend himself, but it means they could very well be ignoring evidence that suggests Zimmerman was the one committing a crime.
The 911 tapes are out now, along with an article with more information from the Orlando Sentinel. Link. Supposedly there are 8 recordings, but unless I’m navigating the Sentinel webpage incorrectly I can only find audio for four of the calls. The three from neighborhood people aren’t really conclusive of anything to me personally. You just hear screaming and people reporting screaming and a gunshot.
Not knowing what Zimmerman or Trayvon sound like, and because of the muddled nature of the recordings I can’t really tell who is screaming what, or anything. Apparently Trayvon’s parent’s lawyer is saying the screaming was clear evidence of murder, for what that is worth.
One of the calls reports seeing Zimmerman on top, but I can’t tell if that was before or after the shooting.
An investigator from the Sanford Police Department released this statement:
If that’s true I don’t know how much blame can be put on the SPD, if they’ve legitimately not charged because the prosecutor told them they didn’t have sufficient evidence.
This is the call Zimmerman made.
What I’ll say after listening to Zimmerman’s phone call is this.
If we just accept Zimmerman is innocent of manslaughter 100%, the problem I still have with him is the nature of what he was doing and how he was doing it.
He’s a totally untrained person driving around the neighborhood and confronting suspicious people, one thing I can conclusively tell from the 911 recording is that Zimmerman is in a state of nervousness/excitement or whatever you want to call it. Basically he’s an untrained guy with a gun whose heart rate is obviously very elevated. I’ve never been a police officer but I was in the Army for over two decades and it takes a great deal of discipline to be in a potentially life or death situation and maintain the ability to be able to make intelligent decisions and judgments.
Police aren’t robots, but with their training they are much better equipped to handle situations, to keep situations from escalating, and to respond coolly and in a rational manner to situations. People who do this community-watch stuff armed with a deadly weapon are putting themselves into situations they are not equipped to handle.
That was a whole lot of screaming.
This is just a horrible rotten thing. I keep thinking about my nephew and how upset my family would feel if this had happened to him. And what would be the advice I’d give him to avoid this situation? “If some guy strolls up on you at night, just assume he’s going to kill you if you don’t do everything he tells you to do.” It is actually stuff like this that makes people think they have to carry guns with them all the time.
I’m still wondering if Martin had been the shooter, would the police department have accepted his word that Zimmerman had represented a threat on his life? I don’t think so, and that’s what has bothered me about this whole incident.
Why did you put quotation marks around the word expunged?
I’m not really sure there is anything you could say to a young male that would enable them to reliably avoid a situation like this. The only thing I can think of in this situation, is if Trayvon made the decision to engage with Zimmerman at all then I would say he should have instead just ran away. Not to stereotype against fat people but from what I’ve seen I think it extremely unlikely Zimmerman could have caught Trayvon in a foot race.
We don’t actually know how their encounter starts though, because the Zimmerman call ends with Zimmerman ends before you really find that out.
Your reading is not correct. If the defendant shows by preponderance of the evidence that he acted In self defense, the prosecution must then adduce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn’t. They don’t have to do this if the defendant does not assert self-defense.
This has been explained several times in this thread alone.
I agree 100% with this and said so in an earlier post. If Zimmerman was a police officer, I would be more convinced by a “self-defense” argument, despite all the incidents of police officers having quick trigger fingers. At least they are trained to recognize when someone is a likely threat to their life. They also know how to approach and restrain someone so that they don’t end up in a wrestling match.
The 911 tape indicates that Zimmerman showed poor judgment in a couple of areas (like saying that Martin looked like he was on drugs, in addition to chasing after him after dispatch told him not to). He may have thought his life really was in danger, but his judgment was clearly questionable. Too bad that’s not a crime, I guess. (I still don’t understand how this can be.)
Because I read that some were questioning whether it was expunged or something else – charges dropped? I don’t know the resolution of that event and thought the quotes worked as a shortcut to illustrate that. Clumsy, I see…
Not to mention that cops carry pepper spray, nightsticks, tasers…they always have non-lethal options. If only Zimmerman had a can of mace on his belt, maybe this story ends with Trayvon Martin having a bad night.
The arrest appears to have been expunged. There is no corresponding arrest record matching the described event.
The 911 call made by Zimmerman has him saying the kid ran away. You then hear him sounding out of breath as though he’s already started giving chase when he was told to stay put by the dispatcher.
I have to wonder what spooked Martin into running all of a sudden? One minute he was walking slow like someone drugged, according to Zimmerman, and then in a flash, he’s running so fast that Zimmerman thought he was going to lose him. Zimmerman also says the kid was walking towards him, but then somehow…what, the kid decides to run away in a brand new direction? Sounds like a fearful reaction to me, not aggressive. It suggests that Zimmerman did something to cause this behavior.
Zimmermans description of suspiciousness was underwhelming as well. Okay, so they had break ins in the neighborhood recently. But why would someone think a person showing symptoms of drug use is a would-be burglar? It looks like he connected two unrelated things together to create a certain picture about Martin, probably to justify to the cops why they should come out and investigate. But since teens are known to be lost in thought while walking down the street in their own neighborhoods, looking goofy and other things, and none of this comes close to being illegal, I can’t say Zimmmermans description of suspiciousness made me sympathize with his alarm.