I don’t either. Because neither of us knows the specifics of Zimmerman’s claim.
So what is required would be a transcript of the Zimmerman interview, or complete notes thereof, together with interviews with all witnesses and any reports from forensic evidence examined in connection with the case.
I tells you, God could come down from heaven and tell us Martin was shot in cold blood, but that wouldn’t stop folks from taking Zimmerman’s side.
And the totality of evidence therein would have to show a probability that Zimmerman shot Treyvan, and either (a) no evidence of self-defense; or (b) a preponderance of evidence of self-defense AND a path for the prosecution to develop sufficient contradicting evidence leading to proof beyond a reasonable doubt disproving self-defense.
“I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Me.”
Yes, because that is what Zimmerman claims happened.
You’ve never encountered teenagers who have problems with authority, who would have a problem with an old (in their eyes) man telling them what to do, and who would consider that they could win a fight with an old guy? I’d be amazed if that’s true. This may not be what happened here, but it’s certainly plausible.
The evidence doesn’t suggest that Zimmerman could catch Martin - because of the size differential you and others keep mentioning, it’s unlikely (though not impossible). To be honest, the thing I find least plausible is the idea that Zimmerman, armed as he was, started a fist fight with Martin. Either he pulled the gun unprovoked or Martin hit him first. The injuries to Zimmerman suggest the latter.
So, in short, you need to explain why you are assuming a chase when there’s no evidence of it, and why you’re assuming that a pissed-off teenager wouldn’t hit someone.
Absolutely agreed. Do you have any evidence that this is what happened?
I understand all of this, but I am not satisfied since I’m a concrete thinker. (Which is not the same as stupid. It just means I really like illustrations).
Can you give an example of something that Zimmerman could say in his interview that would raise a red flag?
Like, if asked why he pursued the victim after being told not to, Zimmerman had said, “Because I didn’t want him to get away. I wanted to hold him before the police came.” Would this be enough to suggest that Zimmerman was not acting out of fear as much as a desire to overtake an “asshole”?
If asked if why, if he was so afraid of Martin, he didn’t run after being struck in the face, he said, “Because I thought he would shoot me if I ran away. I thought he was carrying just like I was, so I shot him before he could shoot me. Now I realize that I was wrong, but in the heat of the battle, I was just thinking about surviving.”
If asked if Zimmerman had tried to pin Martin to the ground, Zimmerman had said, “He was throwing punches and kicking and stuff. I used my body weight to try to get him to stop moving, but he kept thrashing around real crazy-like. He kept screaming and I kept trying to tell him to calm down…that I just wanted to talk to him. But he was crazy, like I said. In the moment, all I could think was, ‘This guy is trying to reach for his gun.’ And when he landed that kick to my head, I realized that this guy wasn’t playing around. That’s when I realized I had to do something. So I pulled out my gun and shot him.”
All of these statements neither eliminate or confirm his claim for self-defense. They also cannot be contradicted by other evidence because they all go to Zimmerman’s perception of events. How does one disprove someone when they say they were in fear for their life?
Unless Zimmerman said something like, “I was just so angry and full of rage and that’s why I shot him! But I was also afraid too, so, well um, SELF-DEFENSE!!”, I don’t see how at this point, his statement could change the picture from what we already know happened.
One doesn’t. One examines the question of whether a reasonable person, in the particular circumstances, should be in the necessary amount of fear - which is that of serious injury, not of death.
A reasonable neighborhood watchman would have called in the suspicious character and continue to “watch”. They are a watchman. Not a chasing-you-down-killing-youman.
How many people who want to murder their spouse won’t have neighbor who testify they fought all the time? Or won’t have some action on the side that they promised they’d “be with permanently soon” or recently upped their life insurance, or etc etc.
You guys keep bringing up how our general concept of self defense makes it so all kinds of murders could happen and people get away with it. You guys aren’t being realistic, the precise set of scenarios that would have to come together for anyone to just be bale to use self-defense to commit any murder they wanted would be highly unusual.
While rare, the fact is yes you can kill someone and claim self-defense and get off if the prosecution can’t disprove your claim, would you guys rather the case be that the prosecution not have to disprove your claim? That’s a fine policy position, but at opposition to the law. Our justice system, by design, would allow for guilty men to walk free much easier than it would allow innocent men to go to prison, and that’s a consequence I’m perfectly happy to accept.
Florida is not unique in this situation. Google “Damien Daniels”, a man (black) who shot his girlfriend (also black) and killed her. She was a decorated Army veteran who had served in Afghanistan. Daniels claimed it was self defense, and ultimately had the charges against him dismissed due to lack of evidence to contradict his claim. This stuff can and does happen.
I’ve given you many chances to explain your argument. You seem happy to bitch about the State and its agents but you offer no suggestion as to what your alternative would be.
You suggest the agents of the State should have discretion…but not when you say they shouldn’t. How do we determine when they shouldn’t get to exercise that discretion? What number of people complaining is sufficient to make us say the agents of the State should no longer be able to exercise the lawful discretion we have entrusted them with and instead they must do whatever the mob demands? Fifty angry citizens? Five hundred? Five hundred thousand?
Along with everyone else in this thread, I am of the opinion that if he chased down and killed anyone, he should be punished for it. However, there’s no evidence (revealed to the public) that that is what happened.
If it is reasonable that he was in fear of serious injury, in an altercation he did not begin, he was entitled to shoot and kill Martin and committed no crime. Indeed, in this situation, he is the victim of a crime. That you or other people dislike this fact doesn’t make it any less true, although if enough people dislike it strongly enough, it could well change.
Now, if you’ve seen any evidence that Zimmerman chased Martin, or that he started the fight, or that he had no reason to be in fear of serious injury, please show it.
No suspects makes this a different case than the Zimmerman one, we don’t have any suspects in this case. We have a shooter and the State is trying to decide if the shoot was legal or illegal. In your case it’s a whodunit where the police don’t have evidence to arrest anyone.
Again, how long of a wait is unreasonable to you? How fast do you believe police and the State’s attorney should work?
I’m not a criminal statistician but how often do you think cases like this lead to convictions? Right off the bat, some 40-60% of homicide investigations end because someone confesses the crime to the police. After that, you’ve got homicide cases where massive amounts of evidence points clearly to a suspect with a motive. (Someone the deceased owed money to, someone the deceased had screwed over or etc, who the police then find physical evidence linking to the crime.)
Some percentage of homicides never get solved, no arrests can be made and/or no theory of the crime can even be fully formed.
Cases in which the person who did the killing:
Are probably pretty rare in and of themselves, and I’d actually be willing to bet many such cases do not result in charges or convictions. What Zimmerman did is exactly what you do if you want to be able to get off on self-defense. A lot of people will shoot and kill someone and then run away, hoping the police never link them to the incident. Only when the police have linked them to the shooting do they then claim self-defense. At that point the credibility is destroyed, because most people who have legitimately acted in self-defense will not flee the crime scene (an argument you can present to the jury.)
Imagine if George Zimmerman wasn’t a G.I. Joe wannabe neighborhood watch guy, but a solo police working a beat. Imagine if the cop wanted to bust balls on this teenage black kid, and the black kid gave him a tone so the cop gets pissed at him and goes to arrest him, the kid runs away and the cop catches him. When the cop catches him, Trayvon punches the cop in the face and knocks him down. The cop is really pissed now, so he pulls his gun and shoots Trayvon dead.
Is that a justified homicide? Absolutely not.
Do you think the cop would be convicted of a crime?
Just because a neighborhood watchman puts themselves in a stupid situation does not mean they yield their right to self-defense. If Zimmerman did not commit any crime (assaulting Martin first, for example) and did not provoke Martin (we can’t prove he did or didn’t, there is zero evidence on that) then if him and Martin get into a fight Martin does not have the right to inflict serious bodily harm on him and Martin does have the right to use self-defense.
All that Zimmerman approaching demonstrates is he could have prevented the situation as a whole. That isn’t the same as him being culpable for manslaughter or murder.
Right now if I see a young black kid with a hoodie outside my house and I go and demand he explain what he’s doing on the public streets, I’m being a prick. I’m not committing a crime, and I’m not being provocative sufficient to excuse an assault on my person. If the kid assaults me and is trying to seriously harm me, I would be acting in legitimate self defense (that’s my understanding of our law here in Virginia) if I shot the teenager dead.
I actually have a life so I wouldn’t think twice about someone walking past my house nor would I be especially concerned if it was a black kid since I have two black neighbors who have teenage kids so I’d assume it was one of them, so this would never happen. I also don’t carry a gun. But nonetheless, if this happened I wouldn’t be acting in a criminal manner.
Really that’s not much different than Zimmerman’s story as we know it. We know Zimmerman approached Martin unnecessarily. After that, we have no evidence of who started what. If Zimmerman started an assault on Martin, we have no evidence. If Zimmerman provoked Martin, we have no evidence.
We have evidence from the 911 call that you with the face believes any reasonable person would recognize is absolute proof Zimmerman was the aggressor (combined with Zimmerman’s size, which also proves likelihood of aggressiveness in a situation), but I simply don’t believe any of it is so cut and dry nor do I think a jury would either.
I’ve never heard of a normally well behaved kid launching an attack on a much bigger man, by himself, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, in the dark. Add up all these factors and you get implausibility that needs to be offset by more evidence than just say-so.
We aren’t just talking about problems with authority. Zimmerman had no authority. Martin had no obligation to comply with this man’s demands, and it was his right to tell him to fuck off.
He could catch him if he grabbed Martin right when he tried to run. Or if Martin lost his balance and fell. It’s possible Martin froze at first, then tried to run. This would give Zimmerman all the time he needed to wrestle him to the ground.
We know the kid had run before the fight, based on Zimmermans 911.Either the sight of Zimmerman spooked him, or he just started running away from Zimmerman for no reason at all. Either way it implies that Zimmerman, with all his portliness, found a way to catch up with him. It also suggests Martin had zero interest in starting shit with Zimmerman.
Theres plenty of evidence of a chase. Zimmerman admitted to following Martin from the start. The shooting took place several houses down from where witnesses saw them fighting. These things are not in dispute.
Here is an interesting Q&A article the Orlando Sentinel put together about the case, I think it’s really worth a read for people interested in how unusual this case is in Florida: link (or rather that it isn’t so unusual as result)
Some notable excerpts:
I’m not so convinced the Sanford police or the State’s Attorney for that county are acting inconsistently with other police agencies or other State’s Attorneys throughout Florida.
We don’t have direct evidence that he pulled it out before the fight began. But we have evidence that Martin behaved just as one would expect when having a gun pulled out at him. There were screams for help and a chase. Thats compelling indirect evidence.
you with the face, we know no such things. You are choosing to believe certain ideas about this - not even supported by evidence - because of your bias. Following is not equal to a chase.
It could have happened the way you described. It’s not impossible, but that’s not the point. You are the one accusing him of a (very serious) crime, so the burden of proof is on you. As yet, you’ve provided nothing but supposition and, in the most literal sense, prejudice. Thankfully, this is not how the legal system works.
Martin, I’ve moved beyond whether the police are following the law. It’s clear to me that the law is the thing that is fucked up, not necessarily the police. Although I’m not ready to give them the thumbs-up either. They have made public statements that seem inappropriate and premature, if indeed the case is still being investigated
I’m trying to figure out how this law got in the books. I’ve shared just some of multiple hypothetical killings ginned up by my mind that would be deemed legal based on this law, but that yet defy common ethics (if there is such a thing).
So why is it that only paranoid wannabe cops use this defense? You seem to be alleging that it is available to anyone and everyone. Why is this not the case?
Or, if you prefer, what is it about the self-defense laws in Florida to which you have been objecting that limits their effect only to neighborhood watch participants? You seemed to say that anyone could get away with murder by claiming self-defense in Florida. But, by and large, they don’t.
What is your explanation for that, if any?
Regards,
Shodan