Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman Trial Set to Start

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For those who don't know/forgot this case, it involves the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. There's no doubt that Zimmerman killed him, but the reason for the trial is Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Law, which allows deadly force to be used in the case of self defense.

I found this bit of info a little odd...

I can understand that a suspension from school and marijuana use may well be irrelevant to the matter at hand, but I can certainly see how having a history of being involved in fights WOULD be relevant, as the whole Zimmerman defense relies on him acting in self defense. Granted prior fighting doesn't necessarily mean he started the fight with Zimmerman, but I also don't think it immediately becomes irrelevant either. Furthermore, if the reason for his suspension from school was because of fighting, it wouldn't even be hearsay evidence... it would be documented.

I would also say that the text messages are somewhat relevant in that one contains a video he shot of his friends "beating up a homeless guy".

To the judge's credit, she did say while:

That being said, I don't know how high of a bar it is to clear for something to not be considered hearsay evidence. One would think that statements made by Martin via text and any school records about fighting would clear that bar, but I'm no lawyer.

Full story

 

This will be a disaster. The evidence clearly shows that Zimmerman was beaten and had the back of head slammed into the sidewalk. However, none of that came out in the initial reporting. The media also loved showing photos of Trayvon when he was ten years old and a sweet little boy as opposed to the thug he looked like at his death. If justice is served (my opinion) and Zimmerman is let go, there is a strong possibility of "race riots" that could make the Rodney King riots look like a trip to Disneyland.

 

Not to mention how the liberal media edited recordings to make Zimmerman sound racist. The liberal media, and even Obama, have been beating this dead horse and to this day still believe Trayvon is innocent.

 

Sure, the fact that Zimmerman was injured in a fight with someone he was chasing at night is clear evidence that Trayvon was the aggressor, and that Zimmerman would have been killed had he not drawn his gun and shot him. We don't know that. George Zimmerman, no boyscout himself, absolutely had a right to defend himself. So did Trayvon Martin.

Had Zimmerman tried to tackle, hold, or otherwise impede Martin, that would have made Zimmerman the aggressor. We already know that he got out of his car and ran after him, so it isn't exactly hard to understand why Martin would have seen this as an act of aggression. The evidence of this case has been known to the prosecutors charged with building this case for quite some time, and not everything has been mentioned to the news media since it's being, you know, saved for the trial. Had the attorney's office felt the evidence warranted only a charge of negligent manslaughter, which is what they were originally considering, Zimmerman would have been charged only with Negligent Manslaughter. Had the evidence been considered insufficient for any charges at all, or Zimmerman would have walked free without being charged with a crime.

We don't know exactly what happened, but anyone who's given it any thought would recognize that we have not seen the lion's share of the evidence. Let the court do it's job. I'm sure the 24 hour news cycle will be more than happy to provide us with all the lurid and gritty details as they come out.

** Quirky side note ** I always find it amusing that the people most in tune with conservatively biased media channels complain the most vociferously about our so-called liberal media. The 'media' does not have a liberal bias. They have a sensationalism bias, a narrative bias, a covering political process in lieu of researching the issues because actually delving into the facts behind a political debate is costly and time consuming bias, but a liberal one? Well, MSNBC has a liberal bias. Fox News? Not so much.

 

I tend to be an "innocent proven guilty" person myself, and I haven't been following this case at all. I think there is likely, as Drew points out, a lot we don't know. I feel that way about most cases the media covers, and I tend to support the jury. For example, a radio station was asking whether it was okay for Casey Anthony to write a memoir. She was found not guilty, so why not? Unless the memoir indicates that yes, she did commit the crime, I don't see any reason why she shouldn't publish a memoir, particularly if she really is innocent. The media's prosecution of her was far from liberal, and I can tell you I wasn't watching Fox News, so even other channels choose sensationalism over a particular political slant.

As for this case, I tend to agree that a history of fighting would be relevant rather than irrelevant, as Aldeth pointed out, but the judge may have a reason for not allowing it. I will wait to see what the jury decides, and I will probably argue that they are right. There's just too much that the media, liberal or conservative, doesn't get to see that I trust the jury over the media in cases like these. At the same time, I hope that if there is reasonable doubt, the jury will go with Not Guilty.

 

I'm not willing to carry it that far. Juries can and do come to the wrong decision all the time. Sometimes the guilty walk when they shouldn't have been released, and sometimes innocents are charged with insufficient evidence. That said, the people put on trial for specific crimes are usually guilty. I have no problem acknowledging this.

 

Whoa ... Drew that's Republican talk....

 

Re: juries, if you've ever been on one you know what a flighty operation they can be. Once the case is handed over to you, you can pretty much do anything you want with it, all your previous instructions notwithstanding.

I think that those serving generally have good intentions, but people are often incompetent as well in basic things such as thinking rationally. Thus it's easy to have a falsehood or a preconceived notion persist all the way through the process.

 

This is the problem as I see it, as I have mentioned before.

No one else was there. This makes it a case of He said / He said. Zimmerman claims the little thug assaulted him. He has no other person to back that up.

The defense claims the totalitarian jerk assaulted Martin. No one witnessed that either.

So, who is to be believed? Both have histories of being douchenozzles, but both stories are plausible. The case rides on past history and whatever physical evidence can be scrounged up. Then the Jury gets to decide which story is more plausible. Damn tough decision, especially if evidence of past bad behaviour comes into play.

I've said it before, but I see no way that they can convict Zimmermann of murder. They will never be able to decide beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not defending himself. A lesser charge, maybe.

That doesn't mean I am a big supporter of Zimmerman. I have no dog in this race. I am just calling it as I see it.

 

With a good defense Manslaughter, Murder 2 is possible. The biggest strike against him is that Zimmerman was the aggressor -- he was told by the dispatch to stay in his car and not to confront the victim. Zimmerman decided to go all vigilante. He deserves manslaughter.

 

Except that by Zimmerman's own account, he was neither the aggressor nor did he confront Martin, and that Martin confronted him in response to Zimmerman following him. That would make Martin the aggressor, as unless his life is in grave and immediate danger, he is not at liberty to (lawfully) attack anyone.

Zimmerman's actions, by extension and as dictated to some extent by his role as neighborhood watch guy, could be construed as simply carrying out his duty by observing Martin's actions. People actually have no legal obligation to obey dispatchers, as they are generally not police officers, so Zimmerman was not committing a crime by not staying in his vehicle. And Zimmerman actually claimed that he was returning to his vehicle after ascertaining a street address on foot for the benefit of the police when Martin confronted him.

As LKD points out, we have only Zimmerman's eyewitness account to go on, and how much of that is truthful remains unclear. But the scenario is much more complex than a simple assumption that Zimmerman was the aggressor. In fact, Zimmerman's entire defense rests on the claim that he was not.

 

The defense will need to show he was not. When he left his vehicle after receiving instructions otherwise (and it really won't matter to the jury it was a dispatcher) he became the aggressor -- he put himself in a position of confrontation that would have been easily avoided by simply staying in his vehicle.

Zimmerman was a police wannabe who used his "neighborhood watch duties" to play cop -- there were numerous complaints against him and his strong arm tactics. It will not go well for such a vigilante.

Nor should it.

 

Actually, the prosecution will need to show that he was.

He was the aggressor while (presumably) not attacking anyone? People are not culpable in crimes committed against them by not doing things that could have prevented the crimes. Also, he didn't receive any instructions. When Zimmerman answered in the affirmative when the dispatcher asked if he was following Martin, the dispatcher simply stated "we don't need you to do that."

How do you know this?

Can you cite any? I've only heard hearsay along these lines. There are records of him reporting other suspicious persons to police via non-emergency phone calls during the course of his watch duties, and some of them indicate a predisposition to identify black persons as suspicious, but that hardly equates to strong arm tactics. When did he strong arm (use physical force or coercion on) anybody?

Don't you think calling this guy a "vigilante" without knowing whether he is or not is a bit reckless? Likewise pre-judging him based on the same wild claim and declaring him guilty before his trial?

It's just as illegal to assault supposed vigilantes as it is to assault little old ladies, and if no premeditation and provocation (e.g. an attack) can be found on Zimmerman's part, Martin was not justified in assaulting him. Furthermore, if the assault was severe enough (the question that most troubles me, incidentally), Zimmerman would be justified in using deadly force to stop it. It's not as though 'vigilantes' or other foolish people are not entitled to defend themselves due to their foolishness.

 

Gaear and Drew, you're right about juries. They are sometimes wrong. I didn't mean to imply they're always right. But I think, on the whole, they're less wrong than the media and the people watching the media and talking about the case. The media are interested in sensationalism, and the people talking rarely get the whole story. Probably the best sources would be the judge and the lawyers, or anyone else who has access to all the information in the way it was originally provided and who has good critical reasoning skills and strong knowledge of the justice system. I really don't trust the media for that, so if that's my only source of information, I tend to be doubtful.

As for people being charged normally being guilty -- perhaps. But one of my greatest fears is that I'll be arrested and convicted for something I didn't do. So, there's always the part of my mind thinking, "So, what if THIS is the 1%** where they're not guilty?"

**Actually, I don't know the actual percentage and I'd suspect it is probably higher since I think a lot of people tend to follow Drew's reasoning that if they're charged, they're probably guilty. But even if it was only .01%, I'd still have that thought.

 

Nah. It's just reality. I'm kind of a fan of it.

 

Gaear we've obviously been reading different articles and formed different opinions. He's going to do prison time IMO. And I personally don't have a lot of confidence in any jury really understanding their role -- yes it's up to the prosecutor to prove guilt, but that's in an ideal world. Reality has shown over and over again the best attorney (or team of attorneys) win. Perception is what matters and it's going to be damn easy for the prosecutors to paint Zimmerman as a cop wannabee who regularly went a bit too far. It will be up to the defense to kill that perception and I doubt they can do it.

 

To expand on that, proving manslaughter will be painfully easy. Zimmerman chased a man down at night, and he killed that man. Even if he killed Trayvon in self defense, he still started the scuffle by chasing down the victim, making this an open and shut manslaughter case. Manslaughter is not a crime of intent. The prosecution need only prove that Trayvon is dead by Zimmerman's hand, and that Trayvon would not be dead had Zimmerman not chased him down. Unless Zimmerman can provide evidence that he was actually chasing Trayvon to return his wallet or offer him a free puppy, he's going to prison.

 

Actually, that's only true if he's already charged with manslaughter. The article above only referenced second degree murder. If he's charged with second degree murder and not manslaughter, the jury will only be deciding if he's guilty or not guilty of second degree murder. If they vote not guilty, it won't automatically turn into manslaughter, so he'd go free in that situation. From my understanding of double jeopardy, he could not then be retried for the same offense even on the different charge of manslaughter. But I am not a lawyer or in the law, so it's possible I don't understand double jeopardy as it might relate in this case.

Also, there still has to be *some* intent involved, or else if someone robs your house and you shoot him in self-defense, then you could be guilty of manslaughter just for having something desirable in your house. The robber wouldn't have been in your house, and thus wouldn't have died, if you hadn't had that desirable thing in your house. So, obviously, even in a non-intent crime, intent has to play some role to avoid ridiculous situations like that (and yes, I know that the Martin/Zimmerman situation is NOT one of these, but I felt a need to point it out).

 

I should clarify that anyone listening to the conversation with the dispatcher would be aware that Zimmerman was already chasing down Trayvon with the explicit intent of subduing or holding him against his will. He did not have the authority to do that, rendering this a clear act of aggression.