I’m asserting that in this instance there is no clear cut attempt at murder or involuntary manslaughter. Grand Juries don’t refer back to “Stoid’s opinion” as a function of law. Your assertions regarding what would happen if the races were reversed falls in the same mindset that drove Zimmerman.
I’m hearing;
He’s fucking toast.
or
He’s fucking close.
It’s interesting how someone could be unsure of what street he’s on when mere moments before he tells 911 the address and street of the house he’s closest to . . . while following someone who’s on foot*. It’s curious that the Sanford PD doesn’t find that suspicious.
*This redefines “low speed chase”.
CMC fnord!
Again, I am sure you did not sit on that GJ. And, having sat on a GJ, that seems doubtful to me. The DA presents the evidence that makes his case, NOT exculpatory evidence. So, the DA would have to really fucking stupid to say “But you know all those 39 hours of evidence I just presented to you will likely be useless as the defendant will claim he is protected under “Stand Your ground”.
Of course, a SYG philosophy could well have been in the jurors mind, but that can exist with or without a actual SYG law.
When I see the GJ not bring a indictment, I have to assume they heard secret testimony or evidence that the public never will learn of. And- that the DA was being a real arrogant dick to the GJ. So, if you find out that the ADA that presented to the GJ is well known for being a arrogant dickwad, then I would be willing to make some assumptions.
Honestly- there’s quite a bit of very interesting completely secret testimony that a GJ hears that the public doesn’t know. Thus, the only assumption I am willing to make (other than the dickwad theory) is that the evidence they heard was simply not enough to support a indictment- that they heard stuff we will never know.
So, second-guessing a GJ is not a good thing to do. If you do so, you are always acting under ignorance. Always.
It is a crime. The District Attorney tried to prosecute him. What we have here is an example of jury nullification. It doesn’t matter what the law says if a jury won’t convict them.
In Tennessee, the guy that ran a general store close to my parent’s house was sleeping in the back of the store when some yahoos thought it would funny to fire some rounds into his store. He came out with his rifle and fired at their truck as they were driving away. He hit one of them in the back and killed him. The DA prosecuted him but the jury acquitted him.
I’ve read many cases reported here in Florida where the facts reported in the paper didn’t seem to support a claim of self-defense and apparently the DA agreed, since they did prosecute, but the jury didn’t agree.
Umm, no. Please read the thread, and Bricker’s excellent article on how a GRAND Jury works.
While I think this was a CYA statement by Zimmerman, I am a little surprised that so many of you here believe it is utterly impossible for him to not know.
I have lived in my neighborhood for 7 years. I have walked and biked every street, lane and avenue. I know all of the major thoroughfares in the area. However the only neighborhood streets I know off hand are my own and the cross street at one end of the block. Not even sure about the other cross street, all I know for sure is it is not sequential with the other. My neighborhood has an odd mix of non-sequential numbers, Lanes, Avenues, and Streets. It is a real PITA and I find it easier for myself and others to just navigate by landmark than street names. And I am a neighborhood watch member. :o
So it isn’t completely impossible that he didn’t know.
I was just pointing out how egregious Joe Horn’s actions actually are (and I’m comfortable talking about the Joe Horn case since it is a settled matter.) I’m all in favor of SYG statutes being repealed. If Zimmerman did something Joe Horn-ish (and I won’t say that until the case is settled), it’ll be another example of bad law. Joe Horn probably didn’t deserve to go to prison for murder but he definitely deserved manslaughter.
My whole point in this thread has always been that what we think someone deserves is irrelevant compared to what the law says they observe, though. And while morally I think Joe Horn deserved punishment, I wouldn’t want him punished if the law doesn’t provide for it. I’d rather say the law should be changed and Joe Horn viewed as an unfortunate person who gets away with an immoral act because we can’t pass retroactive criminal law.
The Orlando Sentinel put out an article noting what the internet controversy suggests he said, but the OS said that it “sounds like” he says punks.
I’m not sure how much I buy the “coon” comment coming out of Zimmerman’s mouth. Is that a racial slur actually used by Hispanic men in South Florida? I don’t doubt they racially slur blacks, but I’ve always associated that slur more with an older generation of Southerns more in the rural areas in Virginia, Carolinas, Tennessee, W. Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. I didn’t think it was much known in the younger generations (unlike other slurs which are very well known) or as geographically spread, but I could be wrong about that.
The argument I heard at the time was Horn claimed the men were charging him but turned away at the last moment when he leveled his gun to fire, which means he pulled the trigger in genuine self defense but both men veered away right as he fired.
That’s just what I remember hearing…since this thread isn’t about the Joe Horn case I certainly won’t swear to anything about it since I’ve not done my homework on the matter.
Of course it isn’t impossible, but highly improbable especially given the guys penchant for patrolling the streets looking for reasons to call 911.
My reason for saying this probably isn’t second degree murder is because of this excerpt from Florida jury instructions:
**What it seems like there is no evidence here is section 2. “done from ill will, hatred, spite, or an evil intent.” My reading of the instructions suggests that you have to prove that in addition to proving the act itself is an act indifferent to human life and that it is an act reasonably certain to kill or do serious bodily injury.
I could definitely be wrong in how I’m interpreting it, but that is what made me think right away it’d be difficult to say Zimmerman was committing 2nd Degree murder, because you have to demonstrate (at least per the jury instructions) that he was acting out of ill will, hatred, spite, or an evil intent.
While not case law, the jury instruction seems important to me because that is what a court uses to inform layman who have to actually decide a case, and that information is typically reflective of current case law in Florida so the jury knows how to correctly interpret the charges.
No, you’re right, I didn’t sit on Joe Horn’s grand jury. But, unless you are willing to assume that the jurors completely disregarded the law, or decided to release him because of a personality clash with the DA (as you say, because the DA was being arrogant), one would have to think that they did take some laws under consideration for not indicting him, and the “Stand Your Ground” types of law seem like they would be the ones that apply in this case.
I agree that you should feel free to say “I don’t know”. I personally will be quite comfortable in stating that it is most likely that the jury made their decision based on the idea that the homeowner had the right, under Texas law, to do what he did because of the “Stand Your Ground” laws.
Yeah, that doesn’t quite make sense to me - and I fully admit that I know nothing about Grand Jury proceedings, but if the DA only needs to present a case of prosecution with no exculpatory evidence, why wouldn’t he just say, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Joe Horn shot three guys in the back. What do you think? Trial? No Trial?”
There must be more to it than that. Either that or the grand juries in Texas don’t seem to give too much of a shit about people being shot in the back.
That is a defense, of course, but this disagreement has been about whether Zimmerman’s act could be charged as murder under Florida law, and it clearly can. Once charged, he can defend against the charge by claiming it was a justifiable use of force, but he can’t just claim it and expect to avoid having the issue tried in court…or at least, that’s what we would expect.
We’d also expect Zimmerman to have been arrested on the spot, at least this silly Florida criminal attorneywould have expected it. He’s evidently behind the times:
He goes on to talk about how homicide does not always mean murder, of course, but he seems pretty clear that when you kill someone, you get arrested first, ask questions after. Does seem the prudent course of action, but apparently these things are evolving at a breakneck pace in Florida.
Is that what occurred? Holy mother of god…
I certainly am, I have no dog in this hunt. The law is plainly before you, you have repeatedly asserted that Florida law requires intent for the crime of murder, but the only thing you have said in support of this repeated assertion is that it is generally true that the law requires intent.
If it were true you’d have no trouble pointing out something to prove it.
That you bob and weave and brush it all aside makes it plain that your assertion that Florida law requiring intent, some vague, formless, unspecified intent, in all cases, in order to charge someone with murder, is mistaken.
Not really, since statutes are written to codify common law and therefore supersede it, and we’ve been disagreeing about a statute and how it must be interpreted, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
This is genuinely interesting stuff, but you haven’t made a case for why it should be read to undermine the plain wording of the Florida statute… remember that the specific overrides the general.
It’s very interesting to note that #3, (which of the four is the only one which matches Florida’s Section (2) Numbers 1, 2 and 4 are all related to Sections 1, 3 and 4 of Florida’s murder statute and I haven’t been arguing against any of that.) does not include any intention. It appears, I dont’ know and that’s why I am asking, that you perhaps want to suggest that #3 should be understood to mean “intent to be extremely reckless” - would that be it? It seems very strange if it is, and the wording of the statute doesn’t reference an intention to be reckless in itself, merely that one has actually behaved that way, intended or not. (I haven’t researched it, but I think it’s a very safe bet that more than one fool out doing something they perceived to be “fun” ended up killing someone and got nailed for second degree murder based on reckless disregard, and they would swear to you very truthfully that the only thing they intended to do was have a good time - they didn’t intend to be reckless, the didn’t intend to disregard the possibility of harm coming to someone, they intended to enjoy themselves and in so doing behaved with reckless disregard and killed someone.)
Yes, exactly. It becomes sort of circular… murder is causing the death of someone without intention but with “depraved” indifference to the possiblity that someone might die because you are doing something which could reasonably be considered life-threatening and dangerous:
So the argument is pretty clear: patrolling the neighborhood playing cop with a loaded gun is a very dangerous way to behave and presents a very high risk of death to others. (And just as an aside, I would think that the research I cited earlier demonstrating that people are more likely to think others have a gun when they have one would be something you’d want to use to support this argument…)
More on depravity of mind defined:
Even more interesting is case law from Floridathat would undermine any suggestion that “depraved” in this instance is something terribly complex that only trained legal minds can possibly fathom:
There’s no question that a second degree murder charge against Zimmerman could be defended against any number of ways, of course. But I don’t see anything that suggests it’s not a solid charge to make in this instance, or, more on point, that intention is a necessary element of the charge, the absence of which means the charge cannot be successfully made or prosecuted.
You have gone on in your explanation:
Betokened or not, (and that could absolutely be argued!), it’s irrelevant. Florida’s statute specifically precludes any necessity for it in the second degree charge under Section (2).
And now I’ve corrected you, because Florida law does not require any kind of intention in order to charge murder in the second degree under 782.04, merely behavior that reasonable people can agree indicates a reckless disregard for the possibility of harm. (And for the hell of it I’d actually throw in the argument that the mere act of carrying a loaded gun in public qualifies as reckless disregard, but of course that’s just asking for a big ol’ gun thread…)
Whether George Zimmerman’s playing cop with a loaded gun that he ended up discharging into the chest of a 17 year old boy armed with Skittles actually falls within the definition of “unlawful killing of a human being via an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life” is a separate question, one that should be answered by a jury of his peers after they have been presented with all the evidence.
I’m sure a prosecutor could try to charge him with murder. But again, several legal experts seem to be saying that in cases like this one (Zimmerman shooting Martin), the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law makes it very difficult to obtain a conviction, and it’s very easy for a defendant to come up with a defense against the charge, so maybe the DA won’t bother.
Ok, you asked for speculation, So what we have as evidence prior to the hearing is a preliminary police report (“His report on the incident indicated that the men who were killed “received gunfire from the rear”.[1] Police Capt. A.H. Corbett stated the two men ignored Mr. Horn’s order to freeze and that one of the suspects ran towards Joe Horn before angling away from Horn toward the street when the suspect was shot in the back”.)
And the 911 call transcript.
Note that “The medical examiner’s report could not specify whether they were shot in the back due to the ballistics of the shotgun wound.”
So in the hearing, under oath, the cop sez he no can’t say for sure whether the shot occurred before or after the burglar turned away, maybe the shot occurred just before and that’s what made him turn. And furthermore, there was something “shiny” in the burglars hand. (Bricker will confirm that between initial report and testimony under oath, things fairly often change) .
CSI comes in and sez that a switchblade knife, blade extended, was found in the grass, in the right position to have been flung from the burglars hand after being shot. And that a partial was lifted that matched the burglar.
Now, we have come from Joe shooting two fleeing men in the back to Joe shooting a charging armed assailant. And all of that would be under Grand Jury seal- never released to the press or public.
Now are you going to say that we need to lynch Joe?
It is possible I’m wrong about Zimmerman’s street, but according to the Seminole County property Appraiser there is only one Zimmerman living in that Retreat at Twin Lakes subdivision, but her name is Julie. Unless that is his father’s wife name I don’t know where he lives.
While I trying to find out if Julie was George’s step mother, I did come across an interesting article:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/21/george-zimmerman-the-man-who-shot-trayvon-martin-profiled-by-family-and-neighbors.html
I think that despite some of the back and forth I’ve engaged in with you in this thread, we agree on the essentials. I’ll offer you a virtual handshake.
What I find telling about the call is Zimmerman’s attitude, which is detectable in his words alone, but extremely plain when you listen. He’s very mellow and relaxed as he says the following things:
He doesn’t sound alarmed, concerned, scared…nothing. Fascinated, maybe, focused. While he describes what I guess we’re supposed to understand was scary and threatening (it will need to be, to justify his killing Martin.)
So when does he become animated? Excited? Concerned? Not when Martin is coming towards him, but when Martin is running away.
Yeah, he was TERRIFIED of the kid who was running away and had no choice but to kill him, obviously!
Sickening.
All true. All sad. All fucking infuriating as hell. If nothing else, though, we can hope that it will get that insane law repealed.