Zimmerman V. Florida

[flyfishing3]

didn't read it all, but my view.

it all starts and stops with him being told not pursue. Everything after was a result of his personal profiling..

Little known fact. GZ has called 911 47 times over the last 6 years on black kids in the neighborhood. I think he had enough and wanted to lower the numbers.

either way, i said he wasn't going to jail.

[S8ET6]

That sums it up. She should have just left, she left anyway but then came back.

Left? My understanding was that this incident occurred in the marital home that they shared... and that this wasn't the first of such abusive incidents between the husband and the wife, so even if she HAD left, the odds are that he would have eventually abused her again.

If you retreat a deadly force situation, retrieve a firearm, then return and use deadly force, there is no way you can justify fear of peril or death. Once you leave the scene, your presumption of such fear ceases.

I agree. The problem with applying your logic to this incident is that she didn't use deadly force - she got 20 years for firing warning shots into the ceiling

You give the fringe element too much credit for having an attention span.

She left the house togo to the car to get a firearm... thats why. She should have pled batter spouse WAY before claiming self defense, but thank you for playing

So... are you saying that it would have been better for her defense (legally as well as literally) to have multiple guns? One hidden in each place that she feared the next abusive incident might occur (i.e 1 in the car, 1 in the bedroom, 1 in the water-tank of the toliet,etc...)?

But, I digress... back to Zimmerman who has just been promoted from neighborhood watch to 007 because he was just granted a license to kill.

I mean, he's been found innocent of the charges. He's currently in hiding because of death threats from the general public. At this point, he can shoot as many fuckers as he wants and just claim that because they were acting suspicious, and he's received so many death threats he feared for his life. The legal precedent was established during Zimmerman V. Florida

[flyfishing3]

But, I digress... back to Zimmerman who has just been promoted from neighborhood watch to 007 because he was just granted a license to kill.

HAHAHAAHAh thats awesome. i wish i had more than 1 to give.

[Burn-E]

See this is my point. Darnell I respect your opinion and I can understand why you would react this way to what happened. But there is a distinct difference between the Zimmerman case and the Alexander case. And it's all based on how the law is worded and how the actions of the defendant line up against that wording.

Zimmerman was not given license to kill by Zimmerman V. Florida. Zimmerman was given the right to use deadly force in self defense as a result of a broadly written Stand Your Ground law that was passed in 2004 by a Legislature that was mixed race.

And in the case of Alexander, the altercation was over, she walked out of the house into the garage and walked back in with a gun. This is not a case of an ongoing fight in process where a weapon is required in order to protect her. Yes she may have been abused and yes she probably deserved protection, but she made a series of bad decisions that eventually put her in a situation where she decided to attack him.

I think, as the article I linked concludes, that Alexander would have been better served using the Castle Doctrine as her legal basis for her actions but even that I don't think would have justified discharging the weapon in the vicinity of children when there was no immediate threat. Her real problem is the mandatory minimum law that mandates 20 years for discharging a firearm in the process of a felony.

[Kevin.]

I'm with Alain on this one....

The media fucked up everything and made TM seem like a innocent helpless child in the grips of an evil power hungry man

[Burn-E]

Little known fact. GZ has called 911 47 times over the last 6 years on black kids in the neighborhood. I think he had enough and wanted to lower the numbers.

Let's fix that to accurately describe the nature of those calls:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/george-zimmerman-s-history-of-911-calls-a-complete-log.html

Called the non-911 number that is dispatched by 911 operator 46 times over a period of 8 years and of those 46 calls, 8 of them characterized race and in 6 of them they were black - the last one being Trayvon. The 6 calls where he related that they were black happened between April 2011 and Februrary 2012.

I'm with Alain on this one....

The media fucked up everything and made TM seem like a innocent helpless child in the grips of an evil power hungry man

That's not what I said Kevin. What I said was, the media and many other parties have sought to influence the perception of what this story is all about. It's pretty clear to me that facts do not conform to the typical race story and that's why I'm asking, in what context would the verdict be just?

[S8ET6]

Alain, I think that the uproar isn't just due to an unjust verdict - the trial just happened to be the final opportunity for some sense of... fairness in the justice process.

Some of the talking points that I've seen/read are:

- If the skin complexion of the parties had been reversed, would T. Martin have been profiled? Shot?

- If the skin complexion of the parties had been reversed, would Zimmerman have been allow to remain free or would he have been arrested on the spot or shortly there-after?

- Why wasn't Zimmerman even found guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter? He could have avoided this "life threatening" situation by standing down, or running away

(BTW, I thought that I read somewhere that Zimmerman had actually trained in MMA fighting styles. If so, a strong argument could be made that he had the necessary skillset in hand to hand combat to properly defend himself and that the use of a gun would have constituted "excessive force". Oh, I forgot... this is Florida that we're talking about... part of the new south)

- Then there are the comparisons between the murders of T. Martin, Medger Evers and Emmitt Till that I've seen posted

[S8ET6]

Zimmerman was not given license to kill by Zimmerman V. Florida. Zimmerman was given the right to use deadly force in self defense as a result of a broadly written Stand Your Ground law that was passed in 2004 by a Legislature that was mixed race.

Alain,

I didn't mean that he had a license to kill (past tense) - I meant that going forward, he has a license to kill (current tense).

And I say that because he's probably paranoid (as I would be if I were in his shoes) that everyone is out to kill him. And IF he were to profile, shoot and kill someone again, he could use the "stand your grand" defense again, and it'll seem a-lot less sketchy the next time around due to all of the death threats (either implicate or implied) that he's receiving.

As for me, I'm on the fence on this subject... did my "reaction" seem otherwise to you? Seriously, if so, how?

[Burn-E]

Alain, I think that the uproar isn't just due to an unjust verdict - the trial just happened to be the final opportunity for some sense of... fairness in the justice process.

Some of the talking points that I've seen/read are:

- If the skin complexion of the parties had been reversed, would T. Martin have been profiled? Shot?

- If the skin complexion of the parties had been reversed, would Zimmerman have been allow to remain free or would he have been arrested on the spot or shortly there-after?

- Why wasn't Zimmerman even found guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter? He could have avoided this "life threatening" situation by standing down, or running away

(BTW, I thought that I read somewhere that Zimmerman had actually trained in MMA fighting styles. If so, a strong argument could be made that he had the necessary skillset in hand to hand combat to properly defend himself and that the use of a gun would have constituted "excessive force". Oh, I forgot... this is Florida that we're talking about... part of the new south)

- Then there are the comparisons between the murders of T. Martin, Medger Evers and Emmitt Till that I've seen posted

Yes, and those are specifically the questions I'm asking. Because they're elevating a case in which the facts don't fit the story that these people want to tell. Zimmerman isn't a white racist as was the case in the killing of Emmitt Till by the husband and half brother of a 21 year old white woman with whom Till had spoken / flirted in 1955. Nor is he a hooded clansman as was the case in the assasination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963.

He's an overly nosy neighborhood watch captain. And Martin was a young "thug" who went around looking for trouble. Neither one of them is worthy of being held up as an example for the civil rights conversation. Instead, people are using Martin as a cipher on whom they're hanging a storyline they WANT to pursue in order to further their own agendas. I'm not saying there aren't issues in the judicial system or laws that do lead to discrimination. It's just that as an activist I don't think this story really accomplishes what these protestors want it to specifically because the facts as we know them don't support it. And pursuing that path in activism actually damages your cause rather than helping it. Much like Jesse Jackson went from a true civil rights activist to a man sought his own power and influence by leveraging his name and access to the black psyche and in the process set back the whole civil rights conversation by at least a decade with the help other men like Al Sharpton.

On a few other points:

1. Manslaughter doesn't stand here specifically because if he didn't start the fight (which it appears the jurors didn't believe he started it) then he's defending himself and the Stand Your Ground law gives him the right to use deadly force in self defense.

2. I don't think skin complexions have as much to do with this as do behavior

3. Martin didn't have to fight - he at one point was on top of Zimmerman and could have retreated but instead he chose to give Zimmerman a pounding - we know he was into street fighting

4. They were both into MMA style fighting - this tells us nothing other than they both enjoyed physical conflict at some level

A hot head (Martin) and a nosy complainer (Zimmerman) got into a fight. No one knows who started it. But there were opportunities for both of them to retreat. The unfortunate fact is that the law as written actually gives them the right to stand and fight in a public street rather than retreat. All this does is escalate the violence and lead to a death.

[flyfishing3]

Let's fix that to accurately describe the nature of those calls:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/george-zimmerman-s-history-of-911-calls-a-complete-log.html

Called the non-911 number that is dispatched by 911 operator 46 times over a period of 8 years and of those 46 calls, 8 of them characterized race and in 6 of them they were black - the last one being Trayvon. The 6 calls where he related that they were black happened between April 2011 and Februrary 2012.

see, i can't trust the right wing nut ball news for accuracy.

[S8ET6]

Alain, I think that the root issue, both at the Macro and Micro level, is power. And historically in the South, power has been a black or white issue. This case, for all intents and purposes is a black and white issue - both literally and figuratively - but, ironically, Zimmerman (Hispanic) isn't categorized as either of those races. He may self-identify with one or more races, but the media has painted him as a white guy. (Side note: I think that the overwhelming silence of the Hispanic community on this issue is deafening)

I moved to the south in 1994 just before the Olympics and lived there for seven years. Back then. there was a big marketing push in NC, SC, GA, Fl, and Alabama for the "New South" - the implied message to the people who had participated in the great migration of the 20s, 30s and 40s was "come on back home - we'll treat you fairly now." However, that didn't prove to be the case. There was still issues. Red flags such as the flying of the Rebel flag on the State capitals, the whole hanging chad fiasco, and the James Byrd murder individually appeared to be isolated incidents, but now, looking back, might have been leading indicators... Fast forward to the election of Obama, (which NOBODY saw coming as recently as four years prior) and all of a sudden there's one subset of Americans screaming that this proves racism is dead while another faction is demanding the return of "their America".

Now, after this last election, it's clear that the balance of power is shifting - and this case is nothing more than a political arrow in the quiver of both groups and individuals who have a vested interest in the outcome of the aforementioned power shift. Ultimately, I think that the principles involved will become pawns used to further agendas.

You know... it's funny how times change ...50 years ago Malcom X had a "Stand your Ground" ideology - yet he was considered a militant. Perhaps he was a visionary (and more like Chuck afterall)

[Che'_Moderator]

Left? My understanding was that this incident occurred in the marital home that they shared... and that this wasn't the first of such abusive incidents between the husband and the wife, so even if she HAD left, the odds are that he would have eventually abused her again.

So... are you saying that it would have been better for her defense (legally as well as literally) to have multiple guns? One hidden in each place that she feared the next abusive incident might occur (i.e 1 in the car, 1 in the bedroom, 1 in the water-tank of the toliet,etc...)?

How is it a warning shot when you come back. She was warning him she was back? As yes. I pretty much have firearms anywhere I expect to be assaulted.

[S8ET6]

Chuck, why do you walk around expecting to be assaulted?

[Burn-E]

Chuck, why do you walk around expecting to be assaulted?

Because ex-military?

[JRL]

One of the jurors was just interviewed on CNN...(no name, no face), worth the watch, was quite interesting

(I'm sure it will be repeated many times)