They did do so. Zimmerman went voluntarily. This likely helped made up their mind why they didn’t arrest him on the spot.
Well said. I think the outraged are mistaking a lot of the dispassionate analysis as being support for Zimmerman, when in fact it is simply support for the rule of law as it exists.
From what details I know, the case smells a bit foul. But also from what I have read, there are a lot of assumptions that have to be made to get to “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Barring a bombshell of unreported evidence, I suspect Zimmerman will not be convicted in criminal court. However I doubt he will fare so well in the sure to follow civil case where the burden of evidence is much lower.
Listen to it again carefully. There is a break in the audio between “The guy on the bottom, who had a red sweater on, was yelling to me, ‘Help! Help!’”
and where he says “I told him to stop, and I was calling 911,” Its all in the editing.
I am pretty sure he was telling Martin to stop. The quote is misleading.
No.
Zimmerman’s version negates criminal activity, period.
Right, if it was legally justified, then no crime occured, aka the Corpus delicti.
If facts warrant an arrest later, rather than on scene, that can happen, sure.
Welcome to Logical Fallacies 101: all fathers are men, but not all men are fathers.
It would ridiculous to think that all poor judgment rises to the level of dangerous acts undertaken with reckless disregard for human life, and absolutely no one does or did. But it would be just as ridiculous to suggest that dangerous acts undertaken with reckless disregard are not, as you put it, a subset of poor judgment.
And yet that’s pretty much how this little sidebar got started when you decided to keep pushing back at Magivers choice of words as though they made no sense:
Yes, it is! (even though he worded it improperly). When a person dies as a result of another person’s poor judgment leading them to engage in dangerous acts without regard of the harm that might come to others, the crime is murder in the second degree.
Which is what Magiver said:
As far as negligence:
“dangerous acts that disregard human life” cannot possibly be anything other than “conduct that falls below the standards of behavior established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm”, meaning they were negligent. Although that is not the specific legal charge that would be made as a result, Magiver’s reasoning was perfectly sound.
Magiver said potayto. The law says potahto. Magiver made perfect logical sense, and there was no reason for you to question him in that manner.
On the other hand, this question does not make perfectly logical sense: by definition, no law criminalizes self-defense at all. If self-defense is factually true, then the judgment wasn’t poor and no crime was committed.
If the judgment was poor, so poor that the acts undertaken were dangerous to human life, so negligent that a person is harmed in the form of dying, then Florida’s murder statute §782.04 (2) criminalizes it: second degree murder.
It’s now my turn to say, “We need to wait for all the facts to come in.”
If people can suspend judgment on the claim that Zimmerman had chased Martin by foot as evidenced by the sounds on the 911 call, then it seems only proper to do the same to every piece of audio recording being revealed to us through the media.
In fact, I would say since all of the information we are receiving is coming to us through the press, we shouldn’t be accepting anything at face value.
I am going to be waiting patiently for the investigation to tidy up, as has been recommended. And in the meantime, I’m hoping there isn’t going to be a sad confession from the police that they fucked up so badly with collecting the evidence that the case is impossible to prove or disprove. Like the family, I don’t have faith in this police department. And it’s not just because they didn’t arrest Zimmerman, but because from the get-go they made statements about his glowing credibility. Sorry, but I just can’t get that out of my mind. That does not sound like a department burning the midnight oil to scour all the evidence, commiting itself to a full-scale investigation, ensuring justice for all. That sounds like a department already dusting its hands of the whole thing because whadayagonnado? This police stuff is just too HARD!! I think that is why the family’s outrage has reached a fevered pitch. They sensed (as I did) the premature closing of the door on this case.
You want to talk about bad PR? Not doing a perfunctory arrest on Zimmerman has been the worst PR nightmare that the Sanford PD could ever imagine. If they were within the law to do so, as has been admitted by the lawyerly crew, then that’s what they should have done. I understand that arresting someone can sometimes blow a case, but I would think that in a situation like this, where it is so easy to get off the hook based on the law anyway, that it wouldn’t have harmed Zimmerman or the PD to bring him in a formal manner, just to provide assurance to the victim’s family. Given the unbalanced nature of this crazy SYG law, I think arresting the shooter is the very least that law enforcement should do. If the police had done this one thing, no one would even know that this case existed at all.
(2) The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree and constitutes a felony of the first degree, punishable by imprisonment for a term of years not exceeding life or as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
How can you get murder second degree from (2) above?
I was wrong about it being with ABC. The interview I saw with the 13 year old was with the Orlando Sentinel.
He never says they were separated in that interview.
Unless Zimmerman is a psychotic killer I can’t imagine him being anything other than what I speculated given the circumstances. The same rules of common sense should apply whether you’re driving a car recklessly or hunting perps while on a neighborhood watch. The 911 call shows a level of recklessness when Zimmerman chose to follow and confront someone he suspected was both high and armed.
Thank you!!
Thank you again… and this seems to be an opportune time to ask: I have been reading that the investigation had ended, for all intents and purposes, and that is why Martin’s parents have raised a stink. Contrary to much of what’s been put forth in this thread, there was no ongoing investigation, no evidence gathering, nothing. They had pretty much taken Zimmerman at face value and left it at that. (The Wikipedia entry seems pretty well-sourced and has interesting details I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet, by the way.) Does anyone have any sources for that one way or another?
I find it credible simply because of the fact that Martin’s body was listed as a John Doe for 2-3 days when his father had reported him missing the following morning and he had a cel phone which was receiving calls that no one was bothering to answer: how much “investigating” could they possibly have been doing if it took almost three full days to even identify Martin? Either they weren’t investigating much of anything, or they are grossly incompetent.
Read my post #1408. Now, do you still think that the police should have done a “perfunctory arrest on Zimmerman”? Do you still think “think arresting the shooter is the very least that law enforcement should do.” Do you want Zimmerman to get off or do you want him brought to justice? If you want Zimmerman to go free, you should make sure the police and DA jump the gun and proceed without the proper steps. If you want Zimmerman charged with murder- then you should applaud the police and DA.
Yes, it has caused a PR nitemare. And, maybe the Police were hoping that the case would go away. But, in any case, what they did was the right thing if you want Zimmerman brought to justice.
But I do agree “we shouldn’t be accepting anything at face value” here.
So you believe the cops were incompetent in not getting a court order to test Zimmerman’s blood, which they could have by swearing that because Zimmerman’s statement was disorganized and he was twitchy.
And your evidence that Zimmerman’s statement was disorganized and he was twitchy is that you can’t imagine that he wasn’t.
Wow.
Well, damn, why don’t we just ask you what happened, take your word for it, and proceed to sentencing?
Cite that “there was no ongoing investigation, no evidence gathering, nothing”?
Nope, it was the day after, not “2-3 days “. From your own cite “The morning after the incident, Tracy Martin called missing persons and the police to report his son as missing. Officers were dispatched to the home, where they showed the father a crime scene photograph of Martin for identification purposes. Martin’s body had been taken to the medical examiner’s office as a John Doe.[47]
Don’t bother. Stoid is impervious to facts she doesn’t like.
Zimmerman’s story doesn’t hold up under a sober examination of the evidence. The shooting happened well away from his car, despite being “jumped”, Zimmerman claims he got out of the car to read the street sign in a small neighborhood he patrols, he also bothered to take his gun with him when he did this. Zimmerman hangs up the phone,there is nothing on the 911 call to indicate a struggle, why would he do that? He told the dispatcher he was following Trayvon and never indicated he wouldn’t. Zimmerman’s comment about “They always get away with it” certainly indicates some level of dissatisfaction that may urge to act on their own (I say may, it is an indication, not proof).
Now I think all of this indicates that he did in fact follow Martin and confront him. A physical confrontation followed, it is not clear who initiated the actual physical contact. it is unclear who had the “upper hand” but Zimmerman at some point shot Martin. He may have in fact been thinking he was defending himself, but he also probably had an itchy trigger finger and even possibly a misguided sense of vigilante-ism. He then told the police a lie about who initiated the initial confrontation. I do not know what laws that would mean he broke, if any.
This is my belief. My belief is just that, my belief. It is not offered up as being definitive of anything, just what I think likely happened. If burden of proof to convict is 95-99% confidence, I would place my belief at about 70-75%.
By arguing that Zimmerman’s decision to play cop (see all the information about his background, fascination with law enforcement, etc) with a loaded gun, patrolling the grounds looking for suspicious people and following them around is a recipe for disaster, one that has baked up into a dead 17 year old boy who was an excellent student with a bright future and no record of any kind.
Another way to express “recipe for disaster” is an “act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life”. From earlier posts:
True. Except that you have seen maybe 1% of the evidence. Have you read Zimmerman’s statement? The ballistics report? The Medical Examiners report? The CSI report? (none of these are available, mind you, so the answer is no.)
Stoid, I don’t see it that way, to wit:
…The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life…
I bolded AND, it does not say OR. So being conjunctive, one must possess a depraved mind WITH an act imminently dangerous to another.
What was the ACT (s) that were imminently dangerous, or do you read the clauses as seperable in nature? I don’t.
Er, don’t you mean “did Zimmerman possess a depraved mind”? Obviously the “imminently dangerous act” was the gunshot, so it’s the other clause that’s in question.