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Judge Rules Defense Can Use Trayvon Martin Tweets
theodp writes "The NY Times reports a judge in the second-degree murder case against George Zimmerman has ruled that Trayvon Martin's school and social media records should be provided to the defense. Judge Debra S. Nelson said Martin's Twitter, Facebook and school records were relevant in the self-defense case. In those instances, showing whether a victim 'had an alleged propensity to violence' or aggression is germane, the judge said. The defense also got permission for access to the social media postings of a Miami girl who said she was on the phone with Martin just before the shooting. Time to update the Miranda warning to include: 'Anything you Tweet or post can and will be held against you in a court of law'?'"
Nope, I'm staying outta this one. Just keep walking, everyone.
This case has always been much more about media bias than about a mexican shooting a black.
Tweeting, and posting on facebook or other social sites are forms of speech, speech is protected by the first amendment but that said it can also be used against you in any court of law. 'Anything you say can and will be used against you' so I think the current miranda rights cover that.
So nothing really ground breaking here as far as I'm concerned.
Zimmerman, not Martin, is the accused here so of course he should be entitled to what ever exculpatory evidence he can find. If the "Miami girl who said she was on the phone with Martin just before the shooting" wanted her social media postings protected on 5th amendment grounds and the court found that they weren't protected there might be a story here, but the summary at least doesn't hint at that.
In most criminal trials they can't bring up what a scumbag the guy has been in the past. Wonder whats going on here.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Consider: A protected twitter account, a twitter account that is public, a posting on Facebook that is restricted to certain friends, a posting that is open to friends of friends, your school records, your medical records. In each instance, there is a varying degree of privacy expected. That degree of privacy ought to be the measure of how a court accesses the information, rather than the medium the information is stored in.
Okay so you say "Time to update the Miranda warning to include: 'Anything you Tweet or post can and will be held against you in a court of law'?'"' And FTFH "Judge Debra S. Nelson said Martin's Twitter, Facebook and school records were relevant in the self-defense case." Miranda is for the accused. Basically your snide comment makes your headline look dumb.
The defense has argued that Trayvon was the aggressor and are going to see if his school records and online life back that up. The internet is not some parallel dimension with no relationship to our real lives. If Trayvon was into "Thug Life", MMA, etc... or was suspended for getting into fist fights at school (he was suspended at least 3 times) then this is relevant to the case at hand as it makes the notion that he attacked Zimmerman more believable.
Time to update the Miranda warning to include: 'Anything you Tweet or post can and will be held against you in a court of law'?
Sorry but courts allow emails to be introduced as evidence so long as authenticity can be established. Why shouldn't this hold true for tweets and facebook posts? This has absolutely nothing to do with Miranda.
That's true about the defendant, but we're talking about the victim here. It's much easier to get character evidence entered about the victim than it is about the defendant.
"Anything you tweeted six months ago can and will be twisted to portray you in whatever light suits the prosecutor's agenda."
It amazes me that so few people understand how truly dangerous social media is. Everyone who uses it is creating a permanent record of things that used to be hearsay. Even the most innocuous posts can come back to haunt you. Like any corporation, people need to be exceptionally careful about the image they present, even if they believe it to be private. Failing to so so could easily affect ones entire life.
For example, Take a fellow we just received a resume for. The gentleman had all of the qualifications we were looking for, and did quite well on a phone interview. Googling for this guy produced some pictures of what we presumed to be college gatherings that demonstrated extremely poor judgement on this guys part. Final result: no in person interview, they guy is on our block list, and he will never even know why he didn't get an in person interview. How many different opportunities is he going to miss out on that he will never know he missed because of those photos. Same thing goes for all social media postings. How long before Facebook decides to start "enhancing their revenue" by providing this kind of damning information to HR services for a fee. The company I work for wouldn't hesitate for a second to pay for such a "search", and neither would a lot of places. Facebook has almost no real risk of exposure because no HR department would want to publicize this kind of research, and people would have no way of finding out they had been the "victim" of such a search.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
This is to be used for the defense, not for the prosecutor.
Even if the kid was bragging about breaking into houses, and even if Zimmerman was aware that Martin broke into houses, that doesn't clear Zimmerman: A citizen with evidence of somebody else's criminal behavior that isn't in immediate danger is supposed to notify the police, not shoot the alleged criminal.
What I'm assuming they're claiming they're after is evidence that Martin was a violent person who was likely to have responded to Zimmerman by assaulting him. What they're actually almost definitely after is information that they can use to drag Martin's name through the mud to try to convince the jury that Martin's life was not worth protecting under the law.
I watched a defense attorney try this exact move while I was sitting on a jury. The defendant had been accused of smashing a brick over the victim's head, making her smoke crack, dragging her into a house, and then cutting up her face with a knife. The defense counsel offered no defense except to insinuate as much as he could get away with that the victim had entered the house voluntarily and traded the use of her car for the drugs. The jury realized very quickly that this didn't matter at all, because the available evidence made it quite clear that defendant had still taken a knife to the victim, and we were only asked to decide whether an assault with a deadly weapon had occurred. It was plain to me that the point of the "defense" was not to suggest that the defendant was innocent, but to suggest that the victim was a worthless human being so we wouldn't care what the defendant had done.
I am officially gone from
This is definately a "blame the victim" move... Pretty low for the courts.
I don't see what good it would do? Unless the kid was bragging about breaking into houses or getting into fights, there's not much gonna clear the guy. In fact, if the kid tweets about being followed once before, even if he's upset about it, then it's only going to backfire.
But he was bragging. Bragging about punching bus drivers in the face. He was also seen in YouTube videos refereeing Fight Club style fights.
You can read some of his tweets here: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/26/the-daily-caller-obtains-trayvon-martins-tweets/
And if you think someone if blaming the victim, you're right. They are blaming Zimmerman for defending himself. Read the NYT article carefully. Every article from the NYT and most media outlets always make reference to Trayvon being unarmed as if that means you should never be shot or be the recipient of deadly force. The also say Trayvon "hurt" Zimmerman's head. Hurt? Hurt is when you trip and skid your knee. Hurt is not what happens when someone is slamming your head into a concrete pavement.
The courts have *long* recognized that deadly force can be used against unarmed attacker(s) under certain conditions.
Again, all part of the narrative put for by most media outlets --especially the anti-gun NYT-- that despise guns in the hands of civilians and those who use them for self defense.
The first verdict in this thread came from some "other" AC....
All public tweets are archived in the Library of Congress, so why not...
No it is not "blame the victim" move. It is putting all relevant facts into the daylight move in my opinion. If you are a proven aggressor against law enforcement or any other thing for that matter and if you were in a conflict with this group, it is the other party's right to present what and who you are with all publicly available information. Otherwise, we are going into the gray area of a homeowner shooting a thief inside his house and getting sued for the thief's injuries.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Why should they need to have prior knowledge?
In an fairly extreme example: if I post on FB about my martial arts hobby that I'm going to go out and beat some random guy on the street up. Then I'm shot dead out on the street. Then the shooter is prosecuted for shooting innocent me with wide reporting of how innocuous I was. Then it's certainly reasonable to use my prior statements displaying bad intent to call that description of me into question and of my martial arts training to suggest capabilities beyond what might normally be expected of someone my age and appearance.
I don't know all the details of this case and almost certainly neither do you. But it's ludicrous to suggest prior statements are only relevant if the defendant knew about them beforehand or can't be used in this situation under some misunderstanding of the constitutional protections of free speech.
I agree 100%.. once you post it publicly, there is no taking it back. You can't un-ring that bell. Think in terms of the novel 1984. The only thing safe from tampering is your thoughts. In that novel they convinced the populous that they had thought police to even spy on that.
Time to update the Miranda warning to include: 'Anything you Tweet or post can and will be held against you in a court of law'?'"
In 1912, instant messaging meant sending a telegram or mailing a postcard. "Ten words or less." In 2012, you tweet. That changes nothing. Evidence that is relevant to an issue in dispute is admissible unless there is a compelling legal reason to exclude it.
A Miranda warning is required only when you are about to be interrogated by the police, with damn few exceptions, what you expose to others has always been fair game.
Even if the kid was bragging about breaking into houses, and even if Zimmerman was aware that Martin broke into houses, that doesn't clear Zimmerman: A citizen with evidence of somebody else's criminal behavior that isn't in immediate danger is supposed to notify the police, not shoot the alleged criminal.
What I'm assuming they're claiming they're after is evidence that Martin was a violent person who was likely to have responded to Zimmerman by assaulting him.
Zimmerman has always articulated from day one that he shot to stop the active attack. That he only got out of his car to give the relevant information to the 911 dispatcher of Martin's whereabouts. That Martin came back to confront ZImmerman, threw a punch and continued to beat him while he was supine on the ground. Being on the ground with an attacker actively slamming your head into the concrete pavement is reason enough for using deadly force to stop and attack.
Zimmerman has never said that he shot Martin for looking suspicious. The media has latched onto speculation --as if it were fact-- that ZImmerman merely shot someone for walking around. The media has put forth the accusation that Stand Your Ground laws allow for this to happen legally when nothing could be further from the truth.
P.S. Guess which state was the first to enact a Stand Your Ground Law? California. Yes. Hardly the red state bastion of the NRA.
Here's a very informative video about what Stan Your Ground laws are really about: http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/stand-ground-laws-self-defense-or-license-kill
Mr. Martin is not on trial. He's dead. Mr. Zimmerman is on trial. If the prosecution could find any "Tweets" or FaceBook postings of his that they could use against him the court would permit it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You also forget that the Miranda warning is there to tell you that you do not have to speak to the police, and nothing more. Mr Martin or Mr Zimmerman could have either written things on paper, online, or in blood and they can be used in a court of law. It doesn't matter when or where you write your stuff down, if the prosecution or defense find it, and can prove its admissible, it's in. Finally, Miranda Rights do not protect anything you say to the police, at all. The only way you can have something thrown out due to lack of notification of Miranda rights is if you can show that they intended to arrest you, or did arrest you, and asked you to talk without Mirandizing you first. This is why, if you watch videos of police interviews, they almost always ask the person if it is okay to talk to them each and every time an officer comes into the room. However, if the police come by to ask you questions as a witness, or neighbor to a crime, and you say something incriminating during that questioning, you're screwed. That's why there is a YouTube series from an ex-cop, now lawyer talking about why you should never ever talk to the police.
It's the way the system works. It's how it's designed. If a fact is relevant, then it's admissible. The defence is arguing that this is relevant. Given that he's going to be locked away from society for a very long time and have his life ruined, I don't think it's too much to ask to be absolutely sure that his actions were totally unjustified.
It's important that all relevant facts are disclosed. The court is meant to consider these facts impartially. If the court can't be impartial, and we need to hide factual information from the jury, then we have bigger problems than this specific decision.
You think he's guilty. That's fair enough. So do I. The court is acting on the presumption that he's innocent, and that's how it should be.
you KNOW that's not why they're doing it. If this were the case, half of court cases would have the lawyers looking through victims' internet history. They're only doing it in this case because widely-publicized stories always lead to biased rulings, and they want to look for any and every angry comment or argument the kid's ever made online to give him a negative image.
You aren't going to see the defense showing any tweets like "brb gonna go beat up this neighborhood watch guy" or "lol gonna rob a store without a gun" or anything that would indicate that Trayvon had bad intentions the night he was killed. Instead you're only going to see negative comments he made on completely irrelevant things like youtube videos or on somebody's facebook wall weeks or months prior to his murder.
And maybe you got rid of your best candidate because of prejudice based on what he does in his private life. You're part of the worst scum of this Earth. Fuck you.
So you declined an interview to a qualified applicant because they partied in college?
I hate to break it to you, but almost all your other interviewee's did too. What we need to do - as a society - is recognize certain social norms. We already do to an extent, but its the silent code that its all ok until you get caught.
Having just read RA Salvatore's Homeland it reminds me of the Drow society - everyone attacking each other and scheming and its fine if you get away with it but if you get caught society punished you to the utmost.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Being on the ground with an attacker actively slamming your head into the concrete pavement is reason enough for using deadly force to stop and attack.
being in such a situation isn't going to give you much opportunity to draw a weapon and fire it, let alone do much else.
I guess the facts of the case are too tied up in partisan opinion and vested interest to make a good verdict happen.
But the jury isn't being asked to decide whether an "assault with a deadly weapon" has occurred. They're being asked to decide whether or not the killing of Trayvon Martin was an act of self defense (and thus unfortunate, but legal under Florida law), or an act of 2nd degree murder (and thus illegal, and carrying with it a stiff prison sentence).
Since all we have is one side of the story, past patterns of behavior on the part of Martin & Zimmerman may be very relevant in assessing the evidence. *IF* Martin has a history of breaking into houses, getting into fights, etc. etc., then it makes Zimmerman's story - that he was standing there when Martin approached him and assaulted him - somewhat more believable. If Martin is shown to be the poster boy for good kids everywhere, then it makes it far less believable. Just as past patterns of behavior on Zimmerman's part are relevant - does he have a history of racism? does he have a history of assault? does he have a history of waving his gun around like a maniac? All of these things would make his story LESS believable.
It's all relevant, because there simply aren't many facts beyond "deceased young black male, shot at close range" and the defendant's claim that "I was jumped, and acted in self defense." What a jury is being asked to decide is - is Zimmerman's story reasonable?
Fact, the young man (17 years old) was shot in the back
Nope, shot in the chest, from the front
and the evidence suggests he was shot at some distance, apparently trying to run for his life.
Nope. Estimated distance was 24 to 36 inches, about arms length for someone his height.
Their has never been a single bit of corroborating evidence that Mr. Zimmerman was in any way assaulted.
Nope. His face and head showed signs of a severe beating and Martin's knuckles were bruised in a way consistent with punching someone in the face and head.
It you attack a cop with stones or a knife or even your hands, it is not excessive force for them to shoot you. Why should it be any different for the public?
Well, in Florida you are allowed to use deadly force against a person if you feel threatened and are in a place you have a right to be. Unfortunately both people in this case can make that claim since they were both allowed to be where they were...
Deadly force should never be used, even in self defense.
There are times that deadly force MUST sometimes be used in self defense, if you intend to survive.
This is probably one of the dumbest things I've ever read on Slashdot
If they exist, you sure would. You do realize that the "defense" in this case refers to George Zimmerman's legal team, defending him against the charge of 2nd degree murder - of which he is innocent, until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt... right?
If those tweets exist, they'd certainly be used. Just like if Zimmerman tweeted, "BRB GONNA GO MURDER A BLACK KID IN A HOODIE," the prosecution would be waving those around as well. In both cases, neither Zimmerman nor Martin were quite so obvious about their intentions. And in both cases, the opposing legal teams will seek to use past incidents, statements, and character witnesses to support their point.
The defense will try to cast doubt on the charge of 2nd degree murder by showing that Martin was a violent, antisocial kid who had a habit and a history of getting in fights and behaving violently. This would support Zimmerman's story that he was assaulted by Martin.
The prosecution will try to show that Zimmerman has a long history of racism, harrassment of minorities, and irresponsible gun handling, in order to make the idea that he assaulted Martin and then shot him for no reason other than that he was a black kid walking around the neighborhood.
If Martin has many incidents of fighting and run-ins with the cops and school authorities, and Zimmerman has a pretty clean history, then that pattern of behavior would support Zimmerman's claims. If Martin, on the other hand, is pretty much a choirboy, and Zimmerman has a long history of harassing minorities in his neighborhood, that would cast a lot of doubt on his "self defense" claims.
If Zimmerman outwieghed Martin by 70 pounds, it was obviously not 70 pounds of muscle. So, yeah, it's quite possible the pudgy guy got knocked to the ground. The video you refer to wasn't very good. Other pictures clearly show injuries. One thing everyone wants to ignore is that injuries take time to show. I took a very hard blow to the back that left a tiny scratch. Two days later I had an impressive bruise 15" or more across.
IMO, there's no arguing that Zimmerman shouldn't have confronted Martin. Martin wasn't doing anything wrong. If Martin jumped Zimmerman, this is clear self defense. If not, it's murder. Which was it? I have no idea. Good luck, jury. I hope you get it right.
A fist fight can easily end in the death of one of the parties. If you didn't start the fight, is your only option supposed to be lay there and take it? Hope you don't end up dead by the time the attacker stops?
Non-lethal self defense training or not, you pull a knife and get close to an officer, you're getting shot and rightfully so.
being in such a situation isn't going to give you much opportunity to draw a weapon and fire it, let alone do much else.
Nice blanket assumption. Ever been in that exact situation?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
NYT piece here listing him at 170 lbs: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-prompts-a-review-of-ideals.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all At his booking he was listed at 185, but weight can fluctuate, especially under high stress conditions, which I think you'd agree he'd been under. Either way, it's not like Zimmerman was a grown man fighting a toddler. A 17 year old football player is going to be strong and in great shape. That doesn't make Zimmerman right or even in a moral grey area for what he did, but quit trying to portray someone like Martin as a helpless child.
Police didn't tell him shit, a 911 dispatcher did (hint, you are under no legal obligation to do a damn thing that a dispatcher tells you), his only response was "Ok". In 2 different posts you've made up completely different quotes of his, you can't even keep your false statements consistent even minutes apart.
Following someone isn't stalking them, it isn't hunting them down, stop using loaded phrases. If he suspects someone of illegal doing, he can legally follow them, if someone else initiates a physical attack on him, he's allowed to defend himself, even if it's with a gun.
The only thing that doesn't wash is your ability to fabricate every bit of "evidence" you've claimed.
Unfortunately, "Turning around and swinging at someone who's annoying you," is not a proper response to any sort provocation, short of actual self defense against a physical assault, and the law in Florida makes no allowance for whether or not you were "provoked" into assaulting someone.
The "appropriate" response to someone following and harassing you is to call the police, and report the incident, and ask for a police officer to come and assist you. Not to turn around and coldcock your harasser.
According to Zimmerman's story, all he did was follow Martin so he could report where he was when the police arrived. If that is true, there is nothing illegal about that, even if Martin viewed it as "annoying" or "provocative."
On the internet everybody is a bigger mouth than in reality. I know quite a few people which have semi "violent" forums post, but are cowards in real life. Saying that facebook post shows a history of violence is utterly bullshit. A history of violence is when you bully others, steal, go into a lot of fight. Facebook post are for poseur. If this is used as defense than it is utter bullshit. I hope the prosecutor make sure to check trayvon in real life to show such "history of violence" from facebook psot for the bull it is.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
So you declined an interview to a qualified applicant because they partied in college?
No where in that post did I say it was a party. In point of fact, it looked to be some kind of hazing ritual. It wasn't even the candidates involvement in the ritual that put the nails in the coffin. If it had been hearsay, we would have dismissed it. The part that got him permanently removed from consideration was that he was stupid enough to allow evidence of a crime to be permanently recorded. That kind of lapse in judgement we can do without. The posting of the pictures were obviously thought to have been private, but through one stupidity or another, the pictures were made publicly available. The moral of the story, is never trust any repository of legally admissible evidence that you, yourself, cannot legally set fire to and destroy.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
What in the world does Miranda have to do with this case? Does everyone understand that the term "Miranda" refers to a specific Supreme Court case that dealt with the rights of persons who were placed under arrest, and where prosecutors wanted to bring their statements to the police as evidence against them into the case? Miranda has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the statements of a deceased person who was never arrested and who is not facing prosecution. The ONLY person who could raise a Miranda issue in this case would be Zimmerman's attorney, on behalf of his client. C'mon people - don't be completely ignorant of the basics of the law - it will only hurt your chances for success in life.
If you didn't start the fight, is your only option supposed to be lay there and take it? Hope you don't end up dead by the time the attacker stops?
That's what the judge told me back in high school. ``You can't fight back unless your life is in danger! Here is a 400$ fine, don't do it again.''
It'll be pretty much the same.
The few people who are actually capable of putting together coherent descriptions of what should reasonably happen given certain assumptions will be shouted down by whoever has decided they know what happened. Regardless of how the case turns out, there will be a large group of people who believe that justice was perverted for political purposes, and the result is more proof that there is a vast left-wing/right-wing conspiracy to destroy group X.
We'll have lots of basement legal experts claim hundreds of completely illogical and irrational things about how the law works, and in general the discussion will devolve to how big a given person's e-peen is.
But since defending yourself with your body against someone attacking you with a gun is also not excessive force, there's a bit of a problem here. Zimmerman was hunting Martin down and was armed with a gun. Martin clearly felt his life and safety were threatened by Zimmerman. So, you have two people committing an act of self-defence against each other. So, then you have to ask how the heck this situation happened and could it have been foreseen. I think that a violent confrontation is a foreseeable consequence of hunting someone against police advice. So, when someone dies as a result of foreseeable consequences and their own negligence, it's generally considered to be at least manslaughter.
A bit hyperbolic, but it touches on several essentials. The causes of Martin's suspensions have been revealed repeatedly, and they are not violence related, but some people on Slashdot are willing to post speculations that there's something beyond that. When you keep looking for the thing that bolsters your opinion, and it's just not there, just maybe it's time to question your opinon instead of doubling down on it.
Beyond that, there was a point where the police locally knew a few things and only those things, for certain. At later times, other facts came to light, and the situation became more complex, but in the first few hours after the shooting, there was a definite point where all the police had to go on were these facts:
1. They knew they had a homicide, and who did it.
2. They knew that the person who did it was claiming it was justifiable self defense.
3. They knew there were major flaws in the shooter's story - changes in the range the encounter supposedly took place at, changes in what the suspect said to dispatch, what he claimed dispatch said to him, how the deceased person had attacked him, what blows were thrown, what blows landed where, and so on. They knew that their possible murderer had repeatedly changed his story.
So why didn't they charge him right there and then?
All debate about what has been revealed weeks or months later ignores this simple question. There was a definite point where George Zimmerman was a strong suspect for a charge of 1st degree murder. Most detectives would have been willing to insist on holding him for at least the standard 24, and go before a judge to apply for a warrent to search Mr. Zimmerman's home. Many would have been willing to get the judge up at 3 AM, if needed, on the strength of what they had at that particular point. Why not in the Martin case?
Who is John Cabal?
He shot and killed a man.
True.
He deliberately went out with a weapon to kill someone.
False. You're attributing intent where none has been proven. Carrying a gun does not equal intent to kill anymore than wearing your seat belt indicates an intention to get into a car wreck.
How is that not murder?
See above.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
'Anything you Tweet or post can and will be held against you in a court of law'?'"
This goes without saying when you're communicating in a place where there is no expectation of privacy.
While you're at it, why don't we add "shooting yourself in the head with gun could be fatal" and "consumption of raw plutonium could have serious health consequences"...
Twin or more? ITA
Apache/Spring/La
Possibly.
The legal standard in most states for the use of deadly force is belief of imminent severe bodily injury or death. Essentially, would a reasonable person believe they might die or be severely injured and that use of deadly force would prevent it? States differ on what other avenues must be attempted prior to the use of deadly force, such as trying to run away, etc.
You can die in a fist fight. You can certainly sustain severe bodily injury.
There's another issue here. In most states, the initiator of the use or threat of force can't claim self defense. So if I punch you and we start fighting, you could then claim self defense if you shot me, but I couldn't if I shot you. The same if I pulled a knife and threatened to stab you.
And thirdly, there's the difference between what's moral and legal. There are probably situations where I'd think the person's choice to shoot was morally despicable but should be legal under the general principles of self defense.
Actually thats not true. This is the part of the florida stand your ground law that deals with provocation. The problem is not that the stand your ground law has no clause on provocation. The problem is section 2 (a) and (b) have such big loopholes that they are meaningless. The right limit to this law would be to prohibit aggressors from claiming protection under stand your ground...period. Someone who is defending themselves after provoking a fight can still use a traditional claim of self-defense and make their case to a jury.
776.041Use of force by aggressor.—
The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1)Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2)Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a)Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b)In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.
If someone has a gun and you don't, attacking him is the last thing you will do, unless you are corned and cannot run away. Unless Zimmerman actually pulled his gun at Martin and put him in a situation where he couldn't possibly escape, or escape were unlikely, before firing at him, Martin had no logical reason to attack him if he knew he had a gun. More likely than not Martin attacked Zimmerman because he was unaware he had a gun and if Zimmerman didn't had a gun he could easily be the one dead or at least severely injured.
Exerting your freedom and going where you are legally allowed to go even if you know you may be attacked, whilst taking precautions to defend yourself in case you are attacked, is hardly negligence.
And you can cite the Florida law requiring persons to obey the instructions of 911 operators, and which further provide that self-defense is rules out if that law is broken?
Your life is no more important than anyone else's, to assume so is extremely arrogant and selfish.
??? Do you not understand the notion of "social contract"? You can say that our lives have equal worth, OK, fine. You don't attack me and I won't attack you. However, if you do attack me, you give up the right to not be attacked. You get that, right?
So if I have to kill you to stop the attack, I damn sure will, and that's one of the most fundamental human rights there is.
You have it backwards. It isn't an attempt to make white people afraid of blacks, it is an attempt to get blacks outraged against whites. If it was an attempt to scare white people, they would not have misreported Trayvon as a young child. They would have made shown him as being as big and menacing as possible. Instead, the media has portrayed Martin as being a lose cannon, and Trayvon as being a defenseless child. The fact that you call him a child shows that you have fallen for it hook line and sinker. The media even went so far as to splice the audio tapes together in a way to try and vilify Martin.
Which ever one is the aggressor (could even be both), it is clear that the media is not trying to rally white people up against blacks.
The *killing* is unfortunate. In the final analysis, a 17 year old kid is dead, regardless of the reasons. I consider that unfortunate, and I can still be sorry to hear of his death, even if it was a completely warranted act of self defense on Zimmerman's part.
If the shooting was self defense, I'd never suggest that Zimmerman shouldn't have defended himself... but the outcome is still tragic.
Yes yes, we all know teenagers are EXACTLY who they pretend to be on Facebook. No one ever exaggerates or role-plays online.
Just look at the posts on this thread: all the self-righteous self-defenders who talk so goddamn tough about how they've trained to Rambo their way out of any conflict. There was a reply post a few weeks ago about some kid who was bullied so badly that he now has an arsenal of guns and makes his own body armor, or rather that's what he claims because, y'know, internet.
The defense should have access to this data, but any rational person knows it's a kid pretending to be bad ass. Now, getting thrown out of school for starting fights is more accurate, tangible info compared to web bragging from an overinflated sense of self-worth: aka, teenagers.
This is a good example that anything you say online is fair game, and is eternal. Same goes for pictures and dumb youtube videos. I kinda feel bad for all the young girls who post risque vids of themselves the end up on porn aggregators, that shit's out there forever. Note: I said "kinda", I'd also like to thank them from the bottom of my .. uh .. heart.
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Zimmerman was hunting Martin down and was armed with a gun. Martin clearly felt his life and safety were threatened
That is not a fair way to describe what happened. A neighborhood watchman following what he considers a "suspicious" looking person is not "hunting them down with a gun". Sure he may have been overzealous and it is not pleasant to be followed around and considered a criminal when you are not, but that's not enough of a reason to jump on the guy and start pounding his head against the concrete (saw the pictures?). On the other hand, once that happened, Zimmerman WAS justified in using deadly force to defend himself. It's a shitty deal for Trayvon but this case should never have been brought to trial and it wouldn't have been if it wasn't so politicized.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
They are not police except in the cases where it's an actual officer is acting as dispatcher and there is still zero legal obligation to do what a dispatcher tells you to do. They aren't there, they don't have all the facts and have no legal or moral authority to give you orders that you must adhere to.
No they are not. Dispatchers do not have a badge and cannot issues lawful orders. He was under no more scrutiny than if you or I had told him to stop. Stanford police stated as much early in the investigation and said he was under no obligation to do so.
There was bruising and other marks on Martin's knuckes. Read the autopsy report
Nifty piece of information on Zimmerman's background as a bouncer: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/31/1079454/-Zimmerman-was-Fired-from-Security-Job-after-he-Snapped. Yeah, it's dailykos, but that story was pretty broadly distributed. Feel free to find your own link.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Of course, that could be highly unfair treatment. It assumes that past behavior is a reliable predictor of future behavior.
You are misunderstanding what this is about. This is not "there's a 17 year old, tall, strong kid looking at me. If he's never done anything wrong, then he is harmless. If he has a history of fights, then I look for my gun". This is a case "The guy shooting the 17 year old claims it was self defence. There are no witnesses. Do we believe him? If the 17 year old has never been in trouble, then the guy is likely lying. If the 17 year old has a history of fights, then it is quite possible that the story is true".
The copious amounts of blood from a shooting tend to come out the exit wound (and there was none in this case). You get some from the entry wound, but not nearly as much. Zimmerman's jacket had four bloodstains containing Martin's DNA, so there's your blood.
Yeah so my point still stands. Next time save yourself the time and effort in posting.
I completely disagree. He offered relevant information and clarified what the law says. Even if it doesn't invalidate your point, it's a good post.
Discussion is not about winning arguments, it's about exchanging ideas to better understand things.
I'm sorry, maybe I misunderstood, but did you really just say most teens have a history of violence and justify it as being part of growing up? Seriously? If this is true where you live, you should move. The rest of the world is different.
The court should not be putting George Zimmerman in a position where he is forced to prove his innocence. Material which is relevant to proving his guilt can be admitted as long as it meets the standard of evidence but it is generally easier to get character evidence about the victim admitted than it is to get character evidence about the defendant admitted. Courts look down on putting the victim on trial but when there's a lack of witnesses there's not much of a choice.
Please remember that it is the prosecution that has to prove George Zimmerman's guilt, not George Zimmerman that has to prove his own innocence. Under Florida law they must disprove Zimmerman's account of events using investigative procedure, not by hoping that a jury will find him guilty on a whim. This case has already made a mockery of our justice system.
So flip a coin? If my life supposedly isn't any more important than anyone else's, why are you assuming *his* is?
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1st degree murder...whaaaat? That's premeditated murder, like when you lie in wait for someone. Sorry, you have no business discussing this situation with adults.
He's talking about the night of the shooting. Despite being asked (not told, since a 911 dispatcher cannot give you orders) to not follow the kid, he got out of the car anyway and then somehow the kid ended up dead after being shot with George's gun. There's potential cause for a charge of premeditation - (why did he get out of the car? Even if it's his "legal right" to get out of the car, as some /. posters have been using as justification for killing the kid, why did he get out and go after him if he thought Trayvon was dangerous or suspicious - he's not a cop himself, so what is he going to do when he catches up to him?) , however I doubt very much that he would have been charged with such a thing had this all been handled properly at the time - hence the holding of the suspect for 24 hours and the following investigation of the crime that should have happened but did not.
But, when Martin asked Zimmerman what his problem was, Zimmerman didn't identify himself as neighborhood watch, but instead lied and acted suspiciously. This is Zimmerman's version of events, not Martin's (since, you know, dead).
Sorry, I've seen the pictures of Martin. Not just the young pictures, the ones from pretty much immediately before his death where he's posing and trying to look tough. He was a stick insect.
The weather in Sanford, Florida on February 26th of this year was a mean temperature of 58.7. Notes say rain and/or melted snow reported during the day. Mean wind speed was 7.83 MPH with gusts of 21.86 MPH. Sunset was at 6:23 PM. Zimmerman spotted Martin at approximately 7:09 PM. Temperatures in the evening could be expected to be below the mean temperature, making Martin's clothing completely weather-appropriate.
This was a gated neighborhood, as you observed. It was not, despite some break-ins, a high crime area.
Instead of a beatdown, its fear of life... being intimidated?? its fear for your life... every paranoid over compensating coward will be able to shoot most people. These neighborhood watch fanatic types are always big cowards.
I don't care if the teen purposely pounded on him, his life was not in jeopardy... teens killing adults is quite rare; even in this country (hint: national news covers man biting dog means it is not that common.)
They've had somebody ID the voice yelling for help. I thought it wasn't zimmerman?
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Zimmerman used a gun on an unarmed opponent - there are stages of escalation even in combat and you never go straight from "hands" to "gun".
Zimmerman said that Martin was slamming his head into a concrete sidewalk; that's potentially lethal right there. Zimmerman also said that Martin spotted the gun and said "You are going to die tonight". We only have Zimmerman's word for the latter, but as to the former, he had head wounds consistent with his story.
And a witness said he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, attacking "MMA style", which most people took to mean beating with alternating fists.
So, while I agree with you that a simple bare-handed attack is several levels below lethal force response level, this situation may well have been an appropriate one for a letal force response.
In any event, it is not your job to make that decision, or mine. There will be a trial, and the issues of fact and law will be laid out.
My goodness. Such vitriol.
I never claimed that walking at night, in a hoodie, in a gated community at night wasn't suspicious. I said it wasn't a crime. Maybe that makes me retarded because you lack reading comprehension? Probably.
This case is absolutely about Stand Your Ground. George Zimmerman himself (you know, the guy who shot the kid) has requested a hearing based on those provisions, so I'm not sure how this "isn't a stand your ground issue ffs". Maybe you can enlighten me?
I ask again. Why did Zimmerman confront him? If Martin was as dangerous-looking and suspicious as he claims then why get out of the car at all? He may have had the right to do so, and even the right to go up and confront him, but he had no reason to other than the belief that he would "get away" before the police showed up. In this "higher than average" crime area, Zimmerman put himself into a situation that he had no full idea about. What if Martin had been one of the burglars who had been seen a few weeks before, and armed with a weapon themselves? What if there had been more than one of them? He had no idea. As it turns out he got lucky - it was just an innocent guy with some skittles walking home to the house that he was staying at *in the community*. Martin had every right to be there too - and just "looking suspicious" is not a criminal act.
The wounds on zimmerman's head are irrelevant - I'd expect both of them to be bloodied if the situation happened as described by Zimmerman - a human fighting for his life is a pretty tenacious thing. As it happens I don't think things happened exactly as described - Martin doesn't have many offensive or defensive wounds based on the autopsy report, and neither does Zimmerman, other than the superficial head wounds (he was examined and treated at the scene by a paramedic and not hospitalised - his head wounds were nothing overtly serious).
I have no idea what happened that night, other than the fact that Zimmerman got out of his car and shot Martin. Whether he was justified in doing so depends on what he did in between those two facts. He should never have put himself in that position in the first place.
I see that you've already made up your mind though, that Marin deserved it, given your description of him (you'll note carefully that I have not judged Zimmerman's character based on his appearance, race, or personality, merely questioned some of the choices he made that night), so I think this discussion is ultimately pointless. You've made up your mind that this "underaged, tattoo'd (sic) delinquent" got what was coming to him because he was walking down the street at night in the neighbourhood where he was staying and had the nerve to try and run away from a guy following him in a car, and then on foot, who was armed with a gun.
So what if he "tried to keep it real" - surely that's self defence against a man coming at you on a dark street at night, on a school night, with a gun - that's suspicious and dangerous behaviour, as you pointed out! Martin would have to be retarded not to believe that wasn't suspicious! It was only logical that he defend himself, right?!
Challenging Zimmerman's account of events is fine. However, it needs to be challenged by investigation in accordance with the standards of evidence. It is not acceptable to throw him at the mercy of a jury and hope that something sticks.
One of the few photos of myself on my facebook page is a picture of me with an empty birdbath-sized margarita glass in front of me. Judging from my expression, I drank that margarita (and, in fact, I did. And it was very good. Unfortunately, the restaurant is out of business now.). Another photo is me with two beers in front of me. I leave these up there to ensure that I never get hired by the sort of tight-assed company which would judge me according to essentially-innocuous pictures on social media.
...if I punch you and we start fighting, you could then claim self defense if you shot me, but I couldn't if I shot you. The same if I pulled a knife and threatened to stab you.
The problem is that if Zimmerman started the fight, and Martin (the only other witness) is dead, now Zimmerman can claim anything he wants.
Zimmerman's father, Robert Zimmerman, was a US Magistrate judge and his mother was a court clerk so, even before he had a lawyer, it would be easy for him to get advice on exactly what to say to beat the rap.
Oh, I do apply that to Martin. If he was shot without trying to beat another person to death just because he was there I would be the first to call foul. But really, if he is stupid enough to attack someone whom he knows to have a gun he deserves to get shot.
It's not clear exactly when Martin realized that Zimmerman had a gun, but it was probably after he approached him, at which point, retreat doesn't seem like a safe option, especially if you're a teenage kid who believes that handgun accuracy is similar to what you see in movies. Turning your back on someone with a gun who you think wants to hurt you is not something you can expect people to do.
Oh, and "trying to beat another person to death just because he was there"? Yeah, poor Zimmerman, on his way back from the store and this kid comes out of nowhere and... Oh wait, that's backwards. Martin was the one minding his own business and Zimmerman was the one who just came out of nowhere.
Also, saying that Martin deserved to die? What kind of sick, twisted person are you? We're talking about a real human being here.
As for my example with a teenage girl, I didn't, in my hypothetical example, say that the girl would attack Zimmerman. The example was if he had been arrested for being a creepy stalker. In that situation, with the exact same behaviour, he wouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt that so many people seem to be frothing at the mouth to give him.
Fine then, here's another example. Zimmerman chases down a teenage girl and her father catches him doing it, asks Zimmerman what he thinks he's doing, to which Zimmerman responds the way he did to Martin. The angry, protective father attacks him, thinking he's a threat to his daughter, and Zimmerman ends up shooting the father in the heart? Whose side are you on that scenario?