JCC What are your thoughts on Trayvon Martin's death?

So much for speedy justice, huh?! I think the bail hearing could be earlier, tho, if the judge decides to anything about the website money. Just read an article about his myspace page. Not very good remarks from Mr. Zimmerman about life in general and certain people in particular.

I wonder if the judge will consider the fact that Mr. Zimmerman didn't disclose the website money as perjury? It does give the impression that Mr. Zimmerman will conceal facts that he doesn't think are important. Which speaks to his credibility as a witness.

Well, this is... interesting.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57434757-504083/fla-woman-marissa...

(CBS) - Last Friday, Jacksonville mother Marissa Alexander was sentenced by a Florida judge to 20 years in prison for firing what she says was a "warning shot" into the wall after a physical altercation with her husband, Rico Gray.

The case has set off yet another controversy involving the state's "stand your ground" law, which is under intense scrutiny after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in February. Critics, including Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), are crying foul.

How, they ask, could a 31-year-old woman in a relationship with a man who had a history of domestic violence, and whose actions did not result in any physical injury, be sentenced to two decades in prison while George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Martin, is out on bail?

Yeah...I posted about that on Facebook a few days ago. I'm never moving back to Florida. It's been building for a while, but this crap is the last straw.

Our justice system is so screwed up. Florida is just one big symptom of it.

The answer to that is actually fairly simple, from a self-defense standpoint. The two cases have radically different fact patterns.

You never, ever, fire a warning shot. The only time when you are legally justified in pulling the trigger is when you reasonably believe that you are in imminent danger. When that happens, you target the threat itself, not the wall to "warn" the threat. You don't pull the trigger before that moment is reached.

And that's not even mentioning the fact that, according to the article you posted:

As a result, what she did did not meet the requirements to be legally justified.

Contrast that with George Zimmerman's case. According to the police report released last week, one witness saw Martin atop Zimmerman punching him "MMA style", which is corroborated by the medical records that were also released last week. There is no evidence that Zimmerman drew his firearm until immediately before he shot Martin, which he did (according to the autopsy report) from a distance of 1-18 inches, which also supports the claim that there was an actual struggle. All of that supports Zimmerman's claim that he had a reasonable and genuine fear for his life.

As a result, Ms. Alexander's case did not meet the legal criteria to apply self-defense, while Zimmerman's case has a far stronger claim. Do I think that her sentence is excessive? Yes, but that's the result of a mandatory sentencing law being applied. It's the legal minimum that she could receive for her conviction.

Perhaps we should start firing warning shots at the courthouse....

Zimmerman will not be able to use Stand Your Ground for anything. He initiated the conflict, was getting his ass beat, and killed someone as a result of his own intiation. If Martin had lived but wound up killing Zimmerman he would be th eone who could use Stand Your Ground; or so all pre-trial/media release reports seem to indicate.

Actually, from a legal perspective, we don't know who initiated the conflict.

It was legal for Zimmerman to get out of his car. It was legal for him to follow Martin, and it was legal for him to ask Martin what he was doing there. None of that is legally considered initiating the conflict, because all of that was legal to do. Zimmerman was also legally armed, so that cannot be used to determine whether he started the fight.

Similarly, it was legal for Martin to be where he was. As far as we know, he wasn't breaking any laws at the time. It was even legal for him to ask Zimmerman why he was following him.

From a legal standpoint, it boils down to who initiated the conflict by throwing the first punch, and we don't know that. The only witness we have for that is Zimmerman himself.

However, even if Zimmerman threw the first punch, that doesn't mean that he can't rely on "Stand Your Ground". It just means that he has a higher standard to meet (namely that he tried to back down from the conflict and Martin wouldn't let him) before he could use lethal force.

On the basis of the facts presented so far, my best guess would be that Zimmerman's self-defense claim will be upheld, because the presumption of innocence means that ambiguous evidence should be interpreted in his favor. In other words, if we don't know who started the fight, without evidence that Zimmerman attacked Martin first, it is assumed that he didn't start it. (The same principle would apply if it were Martin standing trial for killing or seriously injuring Zimmerman, unless there were evidence that Martin started the fight.)

I don't think your comparison of the two cases is very strong, KK. As we have reviewed in this thread, assault includes not merely the actual act of physical contact with another person, but also the threat of violence. Mr. Gray had a history of domestic abuse, is on the record even now freely discussing his propensity for physically abusing partners, forcibly tried to detain her, and made a threat on her life. It's not that hard to see how Ms. Alexander would reasonably have believed herself to be in danger of grave bodily injury.

It's certainly no more clear cut a case than the situation where a guy's supposed injuries were so trivial he declined medical treatment, multiple voice analyses suggest his victim was begging for help, witnesses ID'ed him as being atop the man he killed, and being significantly larger than said person in the first place. Neither case is really an open and shut case, and I don't see how you are so easily dismissive of this woman's claims.

What actually interesting about the divergent results (or at least apparent results) in the two cases is that the main reason Stand Your Ground laws are enacted is specifically with spousal abuse cases in mind -- where a woman has been subjected to repeated abuse, proponents of such laws argue (correctly, imo) that she should be protected from prosecution.

KK, on self defense, you're right about the standard (ie the prosecution has to show beyond a reasonable doubt that you didn't act in self-defense), but it should be noted that most states don't follow that standard -- it's an affirmative defense, so that if the defendant claims it, he has the burden of proof to show that it was the case, wither by a preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence. As you say, though, given how it works in Florida, it will be very difficult for the prosecution to prove theri case, especially given the eye witness who says Martin was on top.

The most galling thing about this is that if Martin had been hispanic or white, or, if Zimmerman were black, that none of us would be discussing this, and Zimmerman wouldn't have been charged with anything.

Except, she escaped the situation after he "forcibly tried to detain her, and made a threat on her life", retrieved the firearm, and then went back into the situation. Once she left the situation where he tried to detain and threaten her, she can't use that incident as a basis for fear of imminent harm. If she had been armed and shot at him at the time that he threatened her and tried to detain her, you might be right, but she wasn't and she didn't. She returned to the situation with gun in hand and proceeded to threaten him with it, ultimately firing the gun.

Legally speaking, the moment she escaped from the situation, the incident was over. When she returned with the gun, she initiated a new incident as the aggressor. The moment that she chose to return to the situation with the gun in hand, she lost the ability to claim self-defense if she pulled the trigger, without doing everything in her power to escape the situation first.

First of all, what is your source for Zimmerman being on top of Martin? All of the witness statements I have seen so far support Martin being the one on top. Please support your claim.

Second, whether or not Zimmerman declined treatment after the fact does nothing to say whether or not he had a reasonable belief that he was facing imminent death or injury. A self-defense claim can be valid without receiving any injury whatsoever.

Third, Zimmerman was not "significantly larger" than Martin. Their actual weight difference was minimal, about 10 pounds (6.25%). Martin's autopsy reported his weight as 158, after blood loss from the gunshot (a pint of blood weighs about 1 pound), meaning he was about 160 at the time of the incident. Zimmerman weighed about 170 pounds. Martin also had about 4 inches on Zimmerman (Martin was 6'1" to Zimmerman's 5'9"). Depending on how much blood Martin lost, he and Zimmerman would have been in the same weight class for Olympic wrestling (the cutoff would be at 163 pounds).

Finally, the reason that I am being dismissive of her claims is that, by her own admission, she retrieved the firearm and then returned to the confrontation. Legally speaking, that makes it two separate incidents, and the prior one cannot be used as justification for use of lethal force in the latter one. As I said before, you have to evaluate the situation at the instant that the trigger is pulled, not based on prior incidents.

By returning with the gun in-hand, at the very least she committed the crime of brandishing (a specific form of assault). By pulling the trigger, she made it aggravated assault. Both crimes can be ruled justifiable if the shooter has a reasonable belief of imminent harm, but that doesn't protect you when you walk into the situation with the gun already in hand.

And that is the key to the two situations. According to all of the evidence we have, Zimmerman was carrying his gun in a holster, and only drew it when he was already engaged in the conflict. (We still do not know who initiated the actual conflict,) Alexander, on the other hand, carried her gun in her hands when she initiated the conflict (by returning with the gun after escaping the situation) that resulted in her firing the gun.

Just because it was avoidable doesn't mean that Zimmerman broke the law, and therefore should be punished. I know that's a hard thing for some people to accept on an emotional level, but that's the truth. It's the nature of life that such things can happen.

As I've stated many times before in this thread, it's completely possible for there to be a conflict, and both parties could invoke self-defense. That's partly a function of the legal standard involved (a reasonable belief of imminent harm doesn't necessarily mean that you actually face imminent harm, only that it is reasonable for you to believe so), part of it has to do with a complete lack of evidence regarding the actual violation of the law (i.e. who threw the first punch).

Consider the historical example of the Boston Massacre. In that case, the soldiers were acquitted of wrongdoing because of a combination of factors (especially the mistaken belief that they had been ordered to fire because of someone crying "fire" about a nearby burning building). The massacre was completely avoidable on both sides (the colonists were throwing rocks and debris at the soldiers, after all). That doesn't mean that the victims of the massacre were at fault for what happened, nor does it make their deaths less tragic. It only means that it wasn't criminal just because it could have been avoided.

At 7:11 that night, Zimmerman, a member of the area's neighborhood watch, had called 911 to report a suspicious teenager. Minutes later, the police dispatcher told Zimmerman to stop follwing Martin. Moments later, Zimmerman got out of his car. That's when the two met and Martin was killed.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-ma...tended-kid-die/story?id=16380864#.T7pXV9xDy8A

That's irrelevant to the case, because Zimmerman wasn't legally obligated to stop.

First of all, the dispatcher didn't tell him to stop following Martin. The dispatcher said that he didn't need to follow him. That is an important distinction.

But, even if the dispatcher told him directly to stop, it's not illegal to ignore directions like that from the police unless you are being detained or otherwise have a positive obligation to obey (such as as a requirement for driving on public roads). For example, in Virginia, if the police ask to see my ID when I am just walking down the street, I have no obligation to show it to them and can simply go about my business.

Zimmerman didn't break any laws by following Martin, even after the police said that he didn't need to follow him. The police verified that, and Zimmerman hasn't been charged with any crime for following Martin. If you are going to claim that he did break the law, then you should at least be able to cite what the charge should be. Care to try that?

That's poor reporting by ABC, Kristie -- the exact quote is more like "We don't need you to do that". Parsing words here a bit, but she's not telling him to stop following him, just that they don't need him to. And even if she did, there's no law (to my knowledge) that says that Zimmerman is required to follow her dinstruction. You cold, of course, argue that it gives evidence to his state of mind, that he was actively seeking to start a confrontation.

Also, without wanting to open up a "liberal media bias" can of worms, but I do find it interesting that ABC chose to put the two quotes that go to witnesses impressions about Zimmerman after the fact at the top of the article, but bury the witness statement that backs up a significant point in Zimmerman's account to the end of the first and start of the second page.

One thing that really scares me about this going forward is that it doesn't seem like the media learned from its mistakes in the Rodney King case -- imo, a big part of what led to the riots was the way the media portrayed the case, as if there was no way on earth the defendant police officers could be found innocent. it was only after the acquittal that they actually bothered to report on how the prosecution and defense had presented their cases, and how effectively the defense emphaszed the first 30-40 seconds of the video, where King is continuing to assault the police officers despite their use of force against him. Most media outlets hardly ever showwd that footing, choosing to focus on the last 20 seconds or so. I'm very afraid that many media outlets are doing a similar thing in the Martin case, failing to give an objective analysis of what we know and what the law says, and even going so far as to alter quotes (hello msnbc!) and, in this case, incorrectly paraphrase.

When push comes to shove, given how Florida law sets the burden of proof for self-defense (prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not self-defense) it is going to be very hard for them to get a conviction. That has nothing to do with stand your ground.