George Zimmerman found Not Guilty.

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Saturnine Pariah, Jul 14, 2013.

  1. LoRaan Registered Senior Member

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    Well, it is a good thing that your opinion means squat.

    By your reasoning if I decided to pummel you into the ground, beating your head on the pavement, to the point you are legitimately afraid I will not stop, then it would be murder for you to only means you had available to stop me from killing you.
     
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  3. LoRaan Registered Senior Member

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    The Police can only press charges if there is a preponderance of evidence, a living victim, or an eye witness that will press charges. All other times the DA must press the charges. In this case there was NO EVIDENCE that it was not Self Defense. The local DA was pressured into pressing charges by political means. Every local authority knew this case was unwinnable by the prosecution as there was NO EVIDENCE to refute Self Defense. Hell, the Prosecution did a better job proving it was Self Defense than most Defense Lawyers could have.
     
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  5. LoRaan Registered Senior Member

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    Actually it was more that she left her estranged husband's home, got into her car, retrieved her gun and then came back. Try to see the whole picture. "Stand your Ground." would not apply as she had fled and then returned. Do I think she deserved 20 years? No. Time served for misdemeanor reckless discharge of a firearm would have been enough. But that is not how the law works. The moment she decided to leave to get her gun is when this changed from self defense to assault.
     
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  7. LoRaan Registered Senior Member

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    Actually you would have to be reasonable afraid form your life. Being a jack ass and shooting someone after one punch, no you're fried. But that is not what happened with Zimmerman.

    However for those of us who have followed the trial directly and not listened to the racial baiters, we formed (or reformed) a proper perspective of what actually happened that night. At first I thought he was guilty as sin, but evidence and testimony pretty much put that idea out of my head. Oddly the prosecution witnesses did more damage and anything else.
     
  8. LoRaan Registered Senior Member

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    Actually, the Police are just professional neighborhood watch, they have no power or authority that you do not. I once actually used citizen's arrest to apprehend a criminal in the act. He was quite surprised to find I had that authority when it came to court.

    As for Zimmerman form all accounts, testimony and evidence he was simply following Martin in order to keep track of him for the police. At no point did he accost Martin. In fact he lost track of Martin and was headed back to his truck. Martin however had circled back and attacked Zimmerman for being a "creepy ass cracker" that followed him. Martin broke Zimmerman's nose and was pounding his head on the pavement. Zimmerman had a reasonable fear for his life as the beating continued for a minute after a neighbor yelled for Martin to stop.
     
  9. LoRaan Registered Senior Member

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    Well, it could be because that Zimmerman had been talking with Dispatcher and the unedited tapes used in the courtroom confirm that Zimmerman never made any contact with martin prior to Martin breaking his nose. This after Martin and Zimmerman both confirmed that Zimmerman had lost Martin. Jentel said that Martin thought he lost the "creepy ass cracker" and was going back to teach him a lesson. Zimmerman had told the dispatcher that he lost him and was heading back to his truck. I don't know about you but that and coupled with the Autopsy report confirming that the only bruises Martin had were on his knuckles and the only other wound he had was the bullet wound is pretty good evidence that Martin initiated the assault.
     
  10. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    let me get this straight: if you run away from someone, your attacking them and they are on the defensive?

    Yeah sure a grand jury. I don't see how Zimmerman being on top or the bottom of the fight changes anything.

    Zimmerman got out of the car and chased the kid down. Stated so in the transcript and Zimmerman own testimony.
     
  11. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    You don't see a problem in chasing down anyone you think is suspicious?

    This is all based on Zimmerman testimony alone up until the fight part, for all we know Martin was attempting to get away the whole time and never attempted to attack Zimmerman, as for calling him a creepy ass cracker or so his girlfriend says, I think one is entitle to epithets about someone who chasing you down in the dark for no good reason!

    If children scare me nearly to death can I kill them? I fear for my life when I see those horrible big heads and drooling faces! If self defense clause allows one to kill nearly because they feared for their lives then we have got a problem. If self defense clause allows you to chase someone down in open property that you think or claim to think was a criminal, get in fight with them and shoot them dead when your losing that fight you started, then we have got a problem. This as nothing to do with racism although that is a common source of deathly fear for some people and suspicion for criminality, really anything can be used least of all racism, this has to do with logic: granting everyone the right to murder others out of simple hunches and fear.
     
  12. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    No, but since that isn't what happened (or at least not the event in question), I don't see how that hypothetical scenario is relevant.
    The person on the top is on offense and can get up and walk/run away so he can't claim to be defending himself. The person on the bottom is on defense. That's why this is the single most critical fact in the trial (so says the juror who was interviewed).
     
  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, but it is very relevant. All Martin did was to walk home and runaway from someone who was stalking him. There is nothing aggressive about walking home and running away from a stalker. As for Zimmerman’s nose and all of his injuries for that matter were extraordinarily minor – especially when you consider the fact Zimmerman claimed to have his head severely bashed against a concrete slab 25 times by Martin. And we don’t know if they were standing when the Martin was shot or if they were on the grass when Martin was shot.

    The fact is we only have Zimmerman’s word that Martin attacked him and struck his precious nose before Zimmerman brandished the gun. We don’t know if the nose injury preceded the gun or wither it was the other way around. What we do know is the Zimmerman’s story is not credible. It doesn’t add up. It is not consistent with known facts of the case, and Zimmerman has changed his story of events several times.

    Well we don’t know who was on top, not even the eye witness was able to definitively tell who was on top. The mixed martial arts description would indicate Zimmerman was on top. Zimmerman outweighed Martin by 50+ pounds and that would indicate Zimmerman was on top.

    I don’t think there was a single most important fact in this case. There were a lot of facts that put together a picture of murder. I think the single most striking facts are the screams and pleas for help, the gun shot, and Zimmerman’s demeanor immediately after the shooting.

    The screaming stops immediately after the gunshot. Two, minutes after the shooting, Zimmerman was extraordinarily calm. So if we are to believe Zimmerman we have to believe he went from being hysterical (e.g. the screams and pleas for help) to an extraordinarily calm state within minutes of shooting someone in the heart at near point blank range and killing him. Now I have worked as an emergency medical technician in the City of Oakland, California for more than a decade – working ambulances. I have seen it all. And I have never seen someone go from extreme fear to extreme calm within minutes without medication. And Zimmerman didn’t receive medication that evening. Zimmerman is not credible. His story has too many holes and inconsistencies in it. That being the case, one has to wonder why. If Zimmerman was innocent, he would have no need to lie.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2013
  14. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Zimmerman screaming for help never made any sense to me. He had the gun, so why would he be calling for help?
     
  15. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    What if he's a really huge tough guy, and it looks like one punch is all he's gonna need? What if he's thoroughly kicking my ass in the fight that I voluntarily started, I'm getting pummelled, and I have the option of escaping or begging for mercy, but choose to stand my ground?

    From what I've heard (and I haven't been following it very closely), it sounds like the prosecution was a disaster altogether. Maybe they should be worrying about their career prospects more than Zimmerman? I don't care much about either party in this case, simply because if I said I did, that would mean I don't give much of a crap about the countless injustices that occur every day. I'm mostly concerned about what Florida law says about such cases and whether it's going to open the door to more unnecessary vigilanteism resulting in death.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Not only that, you have that extreme emotional shift from hysteria to extraordinary calm within minutes of putting a 9mm slug in Martin's heart - if we are to believe Zimmerman's latest account of that encounter.

    It just doesn't add up.
     
  17. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    The only person on the planet who knows for certain the entire story of what happened is Zimmerman. But next to him, the police, investigators and jury know best. We are left to cobble together what we can from news reports, subject to their and our own biases and make judgments. So you should consider what it means that your opinion so starkly differs from the finding of the jury. Based on what the juror interviewed on AC360 said last night, the jury didn't just believe that the prosecution didn't meet its burden of proof: the jury strongly believed that Zimmerman's account was accurate. The jury believed Zimmerman was credible. Why? Physical evidence. Eyewitnesses. Expert witnesses. Experienced investigators.

    You should seriously consider that the reason that your narrative differs so starkly from what the jury believed is because your opinion is based on bias - your bias and the bias of a media that fed you misinformation about what happened.
    According to the juror interviewed, three of the jurors agreed with that prior to deliberation (in the initial vote). Fortunately, through the course of the deliberations they let go of their emotion and instead made a decision based on the evidence and logic.
     
  18. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    He didn't have it out at the beginning of the altercation and it is difficult to pull out a gun while your head is bouncing off the pavement.

    Consider the opposite question: if Zimmerman had his gun out, why would he allow himself to be beaten?
     
  19. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    I mostly agree, but my fear to take away from this is mob justice, not vigilantism. A number of people involved in the case lost their jobs rather than surrender to mob rule. I only hope that there are enough lawsuits sprung from this to show the country just how big of a miscarriage of justice it was for this case to be tried.

    As for the prosecutor herself, I'm not sure what to think. Typically it is the job of the prosecutor to decide what/whether charges were filed. I think, however, given the outside pressure and abject failure of the prosecution to sell its narrative of the incident - even being contradicted by their own witnesses - I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was forced into prosecuting a nonexistent case and it isn't her fault she looks so bad in it.
     
  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    A miscarriage of justice involves a legal verdict that is obviously wrong, made for reasons other than the facts of the case. Given that this went to trial and the defendant was found "not guilty" that's going to be a hard accusation to demonstrate.
     
  21. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    Well obviously the screaming stops immediately when the threat to your life goes away.

    But "calm" after? No doubt you are familiar with the concept of shock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_(psychological)
     
  22. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    How is this news?
    Isn't "America gets killed by gun" a bit like "Dog bites man"?
     
  23. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    My understanding is that "miscarriage of justice" is not a technical term. The technical term for what I am referring to is "malicious prosecution". Since a miscarriage of justice is being wrongly convicted and/or punished for a crime you didn't commit, I consider the harm done to Zimmerman by the malicious prosecution to fit the definition. Either way, not a hair worth splitting.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage_of_justice
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_prosecution
     

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