“Confronting” - or challenging face to face usually with hostility - certainly carries a threat of violence, and any action to prevent the person from being confronted from moving on is in fact violence and does provide an explicit threat. And the “apparent ability to do so” merely requires two arms, two legs, and the ability to coordinate same. Given the difference in size between the two, the apparent ability part is obvious.
And answer to your question: By nature of work I did for a long time, I frequently encountered…let us call them…situations. I had attorneys on retainer and cops for friends. And I consulted. Frequently.
It is very easy to commit simple assault, just based on the definition. Usually, everyone ignores it. But when things escalate as they did here, then the initial crime was an assault, perpetrated by someone who had no right to do so on someone who was minding his own business.
It doesn’t make any difference. A neighborhood watch officer is just another private citizen. He isn’t under any obligation to identify himself, and it doesn’t change anything if he does (or doesn’t).
It is not a threat to be confronted by a private citizen, whether he belongs to a neighborhood watch or not.
And I reject your use of the loaded term “stalking”. You are assuming facts not in evidence.
Again, you are assuming facts not in evidence. Unless you have some way to show that Zimmerman was charging and yelling when he first spotted Martin.
Where have I mentioned unprovoked aggression on the part of Martin?
And maybe you find it implausible that Martin hit Zimmerman. Nonetheless, there are physical injuries to Zimmerman. So either Zimmerman inflicted the injuries on himself, or he got them in a fight with Martin. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of time between the start of the altercation and the time the police arrived for Zimmerman to hit himself in the face, and on the back of the head. So, subject to revision if and when further evidence comes out, it seems plausible that Martin hit Zimmerman.
And the lack of other injuries to Martin besides the single gunshot wound suggests that the hitting was rather one-sided.
Absent probable cause, being confronted IS simple assault if it carries with it any threat - which can be expressed by body language, facial expression, or tone of voice.
Were I the one walking through the neighborhood, and I were approached by a citizen who asked me what I was doing there, my response would boil down to “none of your business” - and how politely that was phrased would depend wholly on how politely I was asked.
If it was: “you look lost; may I help you?”, then that doesn’t constitute assault and I’d give a polite answer: “no, just out for a walk, thanks.”
But if it was with a scowl and a move to block my way: “Who are you and what are you doing here?”, that certainly IS assault and my response would be “none of your goddamn business. Now stand aside.” And if he didn’t stand aside - and promptly, the very next thing that would happen would be that my .45 would be jammed into his belly, and he’d be looking into the eyes of a man who by god would pull the trigger if he so much as twitched.
What it comes down to, as I see it, is this: If the kid was just walking down the street from the store, then Zimmerman had no authority, no right, and no reason to confront him. None at all, even if he thought the kid was drunk or stoned.
No, I’m not suggesting that at all. Refusing to answer their queries is OK. But if he pushes them, or hits them, and they end up in a tussle on the ground, and the questioners are in fear of their own safety, then they would be justified in shooting him, correct?
P.S. I’m asking because I’m not sure what you are disagreeing with.
Well, as I said, most people will ignore simple assault. Unless, of course, a further crime is committed.
As for your strawman, the neighborhood watch person has no rights that any other citizen doesn’t have. So, while I’m quite positive there have been such cases (I recall one high-profile one some years ago involving that group called the Guardian Angels or some such…long time ago and I caught it on one of the news magazine shows), I’m not inclined to do much research.
It would be equally valid to find circumstances where one individual had been arrested for assault against another in a neighborhood where the arrested party was a resident and the assaulted party was not. I trust you’ll agree that such arrests have occurred?
With a very quick search, I did find this one. Ignoring the humorous overtones of this one, it is indeed a case where a self-appointed guardian crossed the line into vigilantism, which is what Zimmerman appears to have done.
Not a lawyer. Wouldn’t want to be. And you can assume I’m wrong if you want; I’m untroubled by that. But the definitions are pretty clear. And, while I am not admitted to the Bar, I have spent a lot of time on the street and in 'hoods.
600+ replies, so I’m going to assume this has already been said, but — why charge him when they know he won’t be convicted? Given that case in Texas, where the guy executed two people for burglarizing a neighbor’s house and wasn’t indicted, what’s the point?
The kid was guilty of being black in a predominately white neighborhood. The guy was a cop wannabe who was fulfilling his ultimate fantasy. End of story, unfortunately.
Aside from criminal liability, this case is prime for a civil lawsuit where I presume a lesser standard of proof applies. Would anyone with more familiarity on FL law care to comment?
Essentially this is what I mentioned 600+ posts ago, the response from the other side is that in our society prosecutors should have to try a case even if they think they will lose, when the public deems the circumstances of the case to be “obvious” and “clearly criminal.”
As per some of the articles from the Orlando Sentinel, I believe early rumblings of the civil case are already starting. Typically a full blown civil case will not start until the criminal case (or in this instance, non-case) is over, so I wouldn’t expect it to be filed until the State’s Attorney is done with Zimmerman (meaning they choose not to prosecute or they go to trial and a verdict is reached.)
Zimmerman is probably close to judgment proof, I didn’t gather he was meaningfully employed and he’s intermittently taken community college courses throughout his 20s. I’m assuming Martin’s family and their lawyer is going to look for some way to attach the Sanford Police to any case since Zimmerman himself won’t be able to pay any meaningful amount.
Let me try it another way. To commit a crime, you have to commit a criminal act and have a guilty mind. Some crimes are specific intent crimes: you can’t commit the crime unless you intended to commit it. Theft, for example: if you pick up the wrong suitcase because it looks just like yours and leave the airport, you have not committed a crime. The exact same act is criminal if you picked up that suitcase and left the airport intending to steal the suitcase.
How can this be proved? What’s to stop a thief from claiming, after he’s caught, that he didn’t intend to steal? The answer is that at a trial, the jury or judge whose job it is to decide the facts of the case can look at all the evidence, and decide what he believes.
Some crimes are of more general intent: you commit the crime by doing the act and having a general intent that’s punishable. On the Fourth of July you fire your gun into the air to celebrate; the bullet tumbles to the ground and kills your neighbor. You never intended to kill anyone, but the death is still a criminal act because your reckless intent caused it. It’s a less serious crime than it would be if you had aimed at your neighbor carefully and pulled the trigger… even though the act is the same: you shot a bullet into his brain.
There are a few - very few - crimes that we call “strict liability” in nature. They don’t require any intent. The act, and only the act, are criminal. Statutory rape is the classic example. Because it is often so difficult to prove to a jury from the circumstances that the actor should have known his partner was underage, we strictly criminalize the act.
Finally, we add to the mix the maxim that all persons should know the law, and a reasonable person is presumed to know the law.
So let’s examine your hypo with these principles in mind: if Zimmerman grabbed Martin so that he could restrain him until the cops arrived, and he thought this was perfectly legal, can he avoid criminal liability? Probably not.
Why? Well, let’s look at the crime he’d be committing. Grabbing Martin is an assault, a specific intent crime – he has to actually grab him, and he has to intend to grab him. That’s the intent part. What he believes about the law can only save him if it’s reasonable that he believes it’s legal. Since the reasonable person is presumed to know the law, Zimmerman can’t save himself by saying, “I thought I had the right to hold him.”
But to illustrate the concept, let’s imagine that the police had arrived, and Martin ran away. Zimmerman asks if the cops need any help, and a deputy sheriff tells him, “We sure do. I’m going to deputize you as a peace officer under Florida law, for tonight only. Check those woods over there.” Zimmerman finds and restrains Martin until the cops handcuff him. Later Zimmerman learns that under Florida law there’s no such thing as a temporary deputy for one night by the say-so of a deputy sheriff.
Would he be guilty then?
Probably not. Now he can argue, convincingly, that a reasonable person would have accepted the deputy’s word as truth.
So his state of mind is relevant. But it’s balanced by the general test of reasonableness.
I’m glad we agree.
An alternative to those militia members, instead of trying to do a citizen’s arrest, would be to arm themselves for their own safety, and go question Mr. Zimmerman themselves, to verify that he is not a danger to other people.
Link? I know of cases in TX where burglars have been shot in the act by neighbors. I also know of at least one case in TX where a homeowner apparently thought he was in danger for his life when a somewhat rowdy teenager knocked on his door apparently looking for directions and got killed for it.
But I don’t know of any cases where neighbors “executed” burglars - which carries with it the implication that they caught and secured the burglars, then killed them.
I don’t know about “end of story”. But the rest does pretty much capture it. Zimmerman was a Big Man. He was on Neighborhood Watch. Not only that, he was a Captain. He had a Gun. He had Authority, and, By God, he was going to USE it. Too bad.
I guess I agree with that. Killing someone is a serious thing, and there should be something on the record – even if everyone agrees it was justified, which is hardly the case here.
No. One element of assault in Florida is doing some act which creates a well-founded fear in such other person that such violence is imminent. The term “well-founded” means that the fear must be reasonable and founded on specifics; it cannot be a general, inchoate fear. Indeed, the fear has to exist; in Pray v. State, 571 So.2d 554 (Fl. Ct App 1990), an assault conviction fails because the victim, a toddler, could not have a well-found basis for fear.
It seems to me you’re deciding, on your own, that “confront” means something more than the dictionary says it does. The word means “to cause to meet : bring face-to-face; to to face especially in challenge.” Nothing about the word demands that it include an assault. Your claim that when Zimmerman confronted Martin, he committed a crime is absolutely unsupportable. Certainly it COULD include the threat of violence, but there is no particular evidence that it did in this case.
No. In my example, my intent is to celebrate Independence Day by recklessly firing into the air. I intend to hit no one. The doctrine of transferred into is inapplicable to that example.