Maybe Martin punched before Zimmerman could raise his arms.
More to the point, the whole point of the SYG law is that if someone is punching you in the face, you don’t have the duty to cower and cover your face with your arms. I have no idea what happened, and neither do you, but if Martin struck Zimmerman first then you can’t demand that Zimmerman should respond by covering his face.
It speaks to the absurdity of these laws in real-life situations. If Zimmerman was the agressor, something that I don’t think will ever be proven either way, then Martin was legally exercising his right to self-defense which was then interrupted by a bullet. He was deprived of his right to stand his ground. Surely there should be a penalty for that.
Terr was also trying to sell Martin as a 6’3" football player, as if he was a starting linebacker for USC, completely ignoring the weight differences. So yeah, I wasn’t taking it all that seriously. Final score 15-13, that fucker Zimmerman wins again.
Indeed. Fortunately for us all, when the outcomes of the legal machinery is at odds with what is just, we change the legal machinery and not our expectations of justice. Sometimes that change requires a demonstration, a hue and cry, a remarkable circumstance that indicates where change is needed.
You may be learned in legal matters, but you are still just a cog in the machine, and are always subject to correction or replacement if your product is insufficient.
If you punch someone in the heat of anger, over drama that they created, can you expect that they will not shoot you in turn?
Do you think SYG is a good law, Bricker? Or are you not making any opinion about anything related to this case, including the righteousness of the law?
Who cares?
From a legal perspective, that is. Who cares?
Especially about the law itself, I have no comment. That’s not because all the facts aren’t in, but because I haven’t figured it out yet.
Absolutely. Changing the law is our joint exercise of our sovereignty.
Unless you mean, as *Magiver does, that we effect a “change” by ignoring the law, lying to get the result you wish.
Fair enough, I guess.
The authors of the Florida SYG law has indicated that it does not apply to Zimmerman’s actions, and that he should probably be arrested for murder. Sen. Durell Pleaden said “When he said ‘I’m following him,’ he lost his defense.”
The person who signed the bill into law, Jeb Bush, has said it does not apply to Zimmerman’s case.
How are you so learned that you know better that the authors of the law how it should be applied?
Sure, there should be a penalty. But to exact that penalty, you must prove Zimmerman was the aggressor. You can’t say, “Maybe Zimmerman was the aggressor, so definitely there should be a penalty.”
I am fascinated, Hentor, to see this sudden interest in the intent of the lawmakers. Looking back, it sure seems to me that in other debates involving the original intent of the lawmakers, you have taken the side of those that say we should NOT be bound by that intent.
The answer to your questions that those lawmakers have no more idea than I what the facts of this case are, unless they are privy to Zimmerman’s statement and the body of evidence assembled by the police. And while they may wish their law removed the defense simply for following someone, it’s plain text does not.
And looking at other Florida cases involving the law, it seems it’s being applied in the way I am describing, not in the way the authors are now suggesting. So I would say their law is having consequences they did not intend.
A point raised by Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos fame – there seems to be an odd absence of “if only the victim had been armed, this tragedy would have been avoided” arguments from the usual suspects. Wonder why that is…?
The SYG law isn’t necessary for that, is it? Every country and state has self-defence laws saying that you’re allowed to defend yourself if someone hits you.
I have been reading the whole thread, although I haven’t commented yet. FWIW It’s been an interesting one on both ‘sides’ - although ISTM that most people on both sides, based on current information, think that Zimmerman probably should go down for something - the disagreement is whether he will.
I will share what I am struggling with.
As a matter of principle, I support the idea of SYG.
But the devil is in the details. Without the law, people are prosecuted by over zealous authority for legitimate self-defense actions. With the law, people can commit murder and simultaneously remove the only witness that could rebut their claim of self-defense.
I think this version of stand your ground is flawed. I am leaning towards something that protects self defense with mandatory strong jury instructions and a bill that would recompense an acquitted shooter for his legal bills, or something, but I haven’t fully figured out how such a scheme might work.
No, if you’re hit with non-deadly force and you can retreat instead of using deadly force, a state with no SYG law might well require you to do so.
Zimmerman’s attorney has now said that under ordinary Florida self defense law his client would have a valid self defense claim, without the stand your ground statute.
That mirrors what a SMU law professor and former Federal prosecutor said–that in many states this would be a self defense claim likely to prevent conviction in court even without specific stand your ground statutes.
Under some versions of this incident, I can easily agree with that.
Stand Your Ground just means if I’m a prosecutor and I can demonstrate that the shooter had an ability to flee the scene I can use that to undermine his claim of self defense (assuming the jury agrees with my interpretation of whether or not the defendant could in fact, reasonably flee.)
However even under “ordinary” self defense, a duty to flee attaches when the actual “conflict” starts, I would think. Otherwise imagine a scenario where I’m not a neighborhood watchman but just a guy walking down the street, I notice an unsavory character and I call 911 and say that I see someone walking down the street towards me who makes me very afraid. The 911 dispatchers tells me I should try to cross the street, but I’m on a very busy roadway and that’s just not possible. So I decide to tightly clench the grip of my pistol I always carry with me as I walk past this guy…in this case the guy turns on me as we cross paths and knocks me over while brandishing a knife. While prone on the ground with a knife wielding assailant over me, I draw my weapon and kill him.
In that scenario the duty to flee doesn’t start with the 911 call, but with the moment the assailant attacks me–and since the initial attack knocked me on the ground and left me exposed to mortal injury, I had no reasonable chance to flee and a reasonable right to use self defense.
That’s a totally unrelated scenario to this case, but based on what Zimmerman’s story is, if he says he was knocked down by Trayvon and Trayvon was on top of him wailing on him, and that this happened moments after the “physical conflict” began, then I think under most self defense doctrines it’s not likely you could demonstrate Zimmerman had a reasonable ability to flee after the conflict itself began.
Now, obviously in the actual case before us, where it’s actually possible Zimmerman started the physical conflict, I imagine in any hypothetical trial a prosecutor will try to undermine the claim that Martin assaulted and knocked Zimmerman over at all, and will instead present one of the many alternative narratives we’ve seen discussed in this thread.
I’m at a loss to understand your fascination. My position is and has been that everyone can see what the just and right outcome would be here. Our so very learned legal brethren here have been at pains to explain to us novices how we are confusing the law with issues of justice, and how a dispassionate understanding of the law would help our little minds to understand. In some circumstances, some interpretations of the matter have been wondered about as being biased by race.
Now it turns out that those who authored and signed into law the very thing we needed help to comprehend agree with our interpretation.
So I’m left with the impression that our learned brethren have been misleading us all along, and I am left to wonder if their impressions were based on political biases and agendas rather than a dispassionate comprehension of difficult legal concepts.
I think English common law gets this one right, in the current system in England (I use “England” because I do think criminal justice systems are different from England to Scotland…don’t know about Wales/Northern Ireland) there is no duty to flee, but instead the total circumstance is looked at and a jury has to decide whether or not the self defense was a reasonable action. That means that “ability to flee” will factor in, but only when a jury thinks it’s reasonable to factor it in. In general I think it is a superior approach to stand your grand statute and “duty to flee” statute.
England doesn’t have a gun ownership culture of course, so that also changes the self defense dynamic dramatically.
Chief Lee initially said that Zimmerman had a bloody nose and some blood on the back of his head. Now, because of comments by Zimmerman’s legal adviser Craig Sonner, it’s taken as gospel that he had a broken nose and a seriuos laceration to the back of his head. Did he? I can’t tell. Isn’t a broken nose a simple medical fact? Sonner doesn’t seem sure,..in his own words:
From here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/justice/florida-teen-shooting/?hpt=hp_t1
Sonner has also said that he doesn’t believe SYG is relevant to this case and that it’s really about defending yourself in your home. It is? He also has states that he hasn’t discussed what happened that night with Zimmerman. People are referring to this guy as Zimmerman’s lawyer but he seems to have been hired as a PR guy.
I tend to agree. However it’s a matter of what they can prove. In the beginning it looked like there was a lot less evidence. I’m not so sure now that it would be as hard to prove. However, most of the information so far has been filtered through various sources so I don’t take it as gospel.
I have no problem with people expressing their outrage. What is annoying is when those that are expressing their outrage assume that those that are explaining the problems with the case are somehow trying to justify the death. I certainly am not.
The system was set up so it is more difficult for the state for a reason. Perfect justice would be that the guilty always get punished and the innocent always go free. The system is set up so it is more likely that the guilty go free rather than have the innocent go to jail. In this case I think it’s more problematic because of how the law is written. And what is important is not how politicians feel about it. Including those that wrote it. What is important is how the courts have interpreted the law.