Zimmerman Trial for Trayvon Martin

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

The issue is you're trying to inflate 2 to 15 through bogus math that paints any numerical minority unfairly. In a world where black on white murder is half as common as white on black, your math would still say that the number is in fact four times higher. In a world where all murder happened by purely random chance, it would say that black on white murder is eight times as high as the opposite despite this telling us literally nothing. If you want to make your point just go with the numbers that actually have any real meaning.

[Tony Stark]

Could someone link me to the figures for that?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Could someone link me to the figures for that?

Everything from Kane's and my discussion is from his link earlier. Here it is, again.

[Kane Starkiller]

The issue is you're trying to inflate 2 to 15 through bogus math that paints any numerical minority unfairly. In a world where black on white murder is half as common as white on black, your math would still say that the number is in fact four times higher. In a world where all murder happened by purely random chance, it would say that black on white murder is eight times as high as the opposite despite this telling us literally nothing. If you want to make your point just go with the numbers that actually have any real meaning.

You are confusing two issues:

1.What is the percentage of black people who have murdered white people

2. What is the percentage of white people who have been killed by black people

If we are calculating 1. then the size of the white population is irrelevant.
If we are calculating 2. then the size of the black population is irrelevant.
I made a claim regarding 1. : the percentage of black people who have murdered white people is 15 times greater than percentage of white people who have murdered black people.
Therefore it is 15 times more likely that a black person will kill a white person than vice versa (using the assumption that each murderer killed one person).
Number of murders depends on the number of murderers among the population not on the number of potential victims therefore number of white people, as I already said, is not relevant for this purpose.

[Grumman]

I'm not sure what confuses you. I did account for the population disparity: blacks managed to rack up two times higher body count against whites despite having 7.7 times smaller population.
Whether white population is 200 million or 200 trillion is completely irrelevant for this purpose. The number is not meaningless. I have already explained the meaning.

You are incorrect, it does cancel out as Jogurt suggests.

As proof: Imagine that there were 100 black people and 900 white people, and one in ten of each committed one murder without regard for race. This means there are 10 murders committed by black people, and 90 murders committed by white people. 1/10th of each have black victims, and 9/10ths of each have white victims. In other words:

Code: Select all

              Black murderer White murderer
Black victim   1               9
White victim   9              81

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Black people killing white people should be rare because black people are a minority. White people killing black people should be rare because black people are a minority.

You can't look at one without the other and give anything meaningful. I'm not disputing your math that leads to the claim of 15x. I'm disputing that it has any meaning. Majorities are, by their very nature, the majority of murder victims. Saying that this is the case means nothing and the way you're saying it implies something it shouldn't. Again, your math would list, say, people who qualify for Mensa as 50x more likely to murder people who don't qualify than for the opposite to happen. Does this mean anything? Is it intellectually honest to talk about it in a way that pretends it implies society should be more scared of Mensa candidates than vice-versa?

[Andras]

Majorities are, by their very nature, the majority of murder victims.

In recent years the majority of murder victims have been black.
in 2009- nearly even 48% black vs 48.1% white (a difference of 12 people)
in 2010-50.4% black compared to 47% white (504)
in 2011-50.0% black compared to 46% white (427)
in 2012- figures not released yet

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/

I need to point out that in both 2010 and 2011 Illinois drastically under reported its crime numbers, Florida wasn't reported in either year, and Alabama wasn't reported in 2011.

[Crown]

Ok, not living in the US perhaps I'm just not qualified to talk about this as I don't experience the reality of race relations in the states, but I have to ask; why is a Hispanic guy with a German/Jewish sounding last name being acquitted of shooting a young African American teenager all about racism and when OJ kills his white wife no one mentioned it at all?

Surely this should be about prosecutorial ineptitude and insane position on gun rights in America?

Arming cowards with guns will lead to more innocent people dying.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Because black men are killed literally almost every day in America (just the ones on record) by extrajudicial murder by cops or vigilante violence and in half the cases they openly admit to racial profiling leading to the confrontation.

[Metahive]

Ok, not living in the US perhaps I'm just not qualified to talk about this as I don't experience the reality of race relations in the states, but I have to ask; why is a Hispanic guy with a German/Jewish sounding last name being acquitted of shooting a young African American teenager all about racism and when OJ kills his white wife no one mentioned it at all?

Surely this should be about prosecutorial ineptitude and insane position on gun rights in America?

Arming cowards with guns will lead to more innocent people dying.

Nitpick, Zimmermann is the german word for carpenter. As Jews were for most of german history barred from becoming carpenters, it's not a name commonly associated with them.

[Ralin]

Ok, not living in the US perhaps I'm just not qualified to talk about this as I don't experience the reality of race relations in the states, but I have to ask; why is a Hispanic guy with a German/Jewish sounding last name being acquitted of shooting a young African American teenager all about racism and when OJ kills his white wife no one mentioned it at all?

Uhm. What?

Pretty sure racism was talked about quite a bit during that case.

EDIT:

Or do you mean that no one talks about him doing it for racial reasons? Because if so I'd say it's a pretty damned big stretch to say they should have.

Nitpick, Zimmermann is the german word for carpenter. As Jews were for most of german history barred from becoming carpenters, it's not a name commonly associated with them.

The term 'irony' springs to mind.

[Havok]

The difference Crown is talking about is that the motives are being played up as racist in this case, while in the OJ case the racism was used to get the acquittal, but no one freaked out because the Juice (allegedly) killed two white people.

I gotta be honest with you guys, I think we would have been better served if these idiots would have just killed each other.

[Flagg]

The difference Crown is talking about is that the motives are being played up as racist in this case, while in the OJ case the racism was used to get the acquittal, but no one freaked out because the Juice (allegedly) killed two white people.

I gotta be honest with you guys, I think we would have been better served if these idiots would have just killed each other.

Well OJ didn't kill his wife and Goldman because they were white he did it because he's a narcissistic psychopath who got dumped. If there was any hay to be made (there was) it's that he committed violence against his wife for years with no one doing anything and it culminated in her death as is too often the case. So while there were racial overtones as far as Mark Furhman and the general black/white divide in reaction to the verdict, it wasn't a case that hinged on race.

[Ralin]

Yeah, I'd say racism was pretty low on the list of OJ's negative personality traits.

[Havok]

This case didn't hinge on race either actually. It seems like, since we are on it, the OJ trial actually had more concrete evidence than this one did.

I've always said that if CSI had been on TV when the OJ trial was happening, that the jury would have been able to comprehend the evidence better in that case and he would have been found guilty. They just weren't ready for that whacky DNA yet.

[Flagg]

This case didn't hinge on race either actually. It seems like, since we are on it, the OJ trial actually had more concrete evidence than this one did.

I've always said that if CSI had been on TV when the OJ trial was happening, that the jury would have been able to comprehend the evidence better in that case and he would have been found guilty. They just weren't ready for that whacky DNA yet.

I dunno, I've seen and read some in depth shit on the DNA evidence in the OJ case and the cops botched things so bad it was actually reasonable to disregard the DNA evidence. Of course there was plenty of other evidence that could be used to convict him, including an eyewitness that saw his car speeding away from the scene that the prosecution never called to testify.

[Kane Starkiller]

Black people killing white people should be rare because black people are a minority. White people killing black people should be rare because black people are a minority.

You can't look at one without the other and give anything meaningful. I'm not disputing your math that leads to the claim of 15x. I'm disputing that it has any meaning. Majorities are, by their very nature, the majority of murder victims. Saying that this is the case means nothing and the way you're saying it implies something it shouldn't. Again, your math would list, say, people who qualify for Mensa as 50x more likely to murder people who don't qualify than for the opposite to happen. Does this mean anything? Is it intellectually honest to talk about it in a way that pretends it implies society should be more scared of Mensa candidates than vice-versa?

The number is not meaningless.
If there are 10 members of a certain group of people and 10 murders are commited by that group that mans that all 10 of these people are murderers (under the assumption that each person commited 1 murder). Therefore murder rate is 100%. It doesn't matter how many other groups there are or how big is the total population.
Black people are 15 times more likely to kill a white person. What part is meaningless here?

Looking at the total number of murders regardless of race both whites and blacks commited roughly equal number of murders however since blacks comprise 13% of the population that means that a black person is about 8 times more likely to commit murder than a white person.

So to recap: blacks are 15 times more likely to commit a cross-race murder and 8 times more likely to commit murder in general.

Looking at it another way currently the murder rate in US is 4.8/100000 putting it at 104th place among 207 nations. If there were no black people then US would have a population 87% of 315 million or 274.5 million. Since blacks account for 50% of the murders the total number of murders would drop from 15000 to about 7500 putting the murder rate at 2.7/100000 sending US to 76th place. Conversely if there were no white people this would leave US with a population of 40 million for a murder rate of about 19/100000 dropping it to 167th place equal to Angola.

Again I'm an outsider to US but it seems to me that if the US high crime rate is to be adequately addressed people need to stop pointing to Charlton "Out of my cold dead hands" Heston as a symptom or a cause of the problem which is the impression I get every time I watch a US documentary on violent crime.

[Grumman]

Black people are 15 times more likely to kill a white person. What part is meaningless here?

Fifteen times more likely than what? Inherent in this statement is that there must be a numerator (either the number of black people who kill white people or the number of white people killed by black people) and a denominator. State what the denominator is, and you might understand why your logic is wrong.

[Kane Starkiller]

Fifteen times more likely than what? Inherent in this statement is that there must be a numerator (either the number of black people who kill white people or the number of white people killed by black people) and a denominator. State what the denominator is, and you might understand why your math is wrong.

The denominator is number of white people who have killed black people.
Enumerator is the number of black people who have killed white people.
Number of white people killed by black people is irrelevant for this calculation. (EDIT: irrelevant for this stage of the calculation that is.)

[Alyrium Denryle]

The number is not meaningless.
If there are 10 members of a certain group of people and 10 murders are commited by that group that mans that all 10 of these people are murderers (under the assumption that each person commited 1 murder). Therefore murder rate is 100%. It doesn't matter how many other groups there are or how big is the total population.
Black people are 15 times more likely to kill a white person. What part is meaningless here?

Looking at the total number of murders regardless of race both whites and blacks commited roughly equal number of murders however since blacks comprise 13% of the population that means that a black person is about 8 times more likely to commit murder than a white person.

Here. Let us permit someone who is trained in statistics to do, and talk about, the damn math.

If murder was random, we would expect that 87.4% of murder victims will be non-black and 12.6% will be black.
The same would be true of the murderers.

What we actually see is that 47.4% of victims are black, 50.3% are white, and 2.3% are something else like Asian (total of 52.6%)

So, the odds ratio for black people being the victims or murder is 3.6, this means that the odds of a black person being murder is 360% what it should be, if all murder was committed at random. The odds ratio for white people is .6, they are only 60% as likely to be killed as would be expected by chance.

Now for the perps.

Black people are more likely to BE murderers than is expected from chance (odds ratio: 4.16), which we expect because crime is largely caused by poverty and blacks are more likely to be impoverishes. White people are less likely to be murderers as would be expected by chance (odds ratio: .85)

Now we get into the specifics

Most murders are intraracial. A not-white killer murdered 14% of white victims. A not-black killer killed 7% of black victims.

If we assume from the above murders that approximately 50% of all murders are committed by black people (and I will use a round 50% for the sake of simplicity), then if these are committed at random and approximately 50% of murders are committed against white people. This evens out, they should both kill eachother equally. They dont.

A black person is twice as likely to kill a white person as a white person is to kill a black person. But it is still WAY the fuck less than we would expect from chance given all the other data. The odds ratio for Black on WHite crime is about .28, while the odds ratio for white on black crime is about .14

Most crimes are intraracial not interracial, and a white person still needs to be more afraid of another white person than they do a black person.

That MATTERS are

a) What causes crime.
b) What the response to crime by society is.

The cause of crime is too lengthy a discussion to have here. However, the societal response DOES matter. There are more extrajudicial killings against black people by police than there are against white people.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cvus0602.pdf

That is the file that gives the perceived race of offenders, as reported by the victims of crime.

In total, white non-hispanics were percieved to have committed 59% of crimes against persons, while black people committed 22.4%

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ardus05.pdf

That gives the stats for In Custody Murders.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus8009.pdf

That gives the arrests by race. For the violent crimes listed in the prior tables, the actual arrest rate by race is 59% white, 38% black. So white people are arrested at the rate they commit violent crimes, while black people are arrested at a rate 69% higher than the rate at which they commit violent crimes.


Now for total arrests for all crimes: 66% white, 30% black.

Deaths In Police Custody by homicide were slightly divergent than the percent of crimes by race at 44.8% and 29.9% respectively. So, of all people murdered by police once they were in custody, ~30% of them were black. Of "Accidental deaths", 42% were black. 37% of deaths from illness in police custody are black people (compared to 46% of whites), and 42% of deaths from intoxication are black people, compared to 37% that are white.

What we have here is a situation where black people are arrested for violent crimes more frequently than they commit violent crimes. The rate at which they die in police custody is the same at which they are arrested for all crimes. HOWEVER, White people die in police custody much less often. You know what this means? It means that police are more likely to simply permit a black person to die in police custody than they are a white person.

Then we get into police shootings on the street. Here, there is no reliable data, because no one--I suspect intentionally--records it. No one.

The best I can get are the differences in race with respect to which "justifiable homicides".



That image right there is the change in likelihood that if self defense is claimed, that it will be upheld by the court. 0 is the White on White rate (treated as a baseline), negative numbers are decreased chances. So a black person who killed a white person is 80% less likely to have the court find the killing justified on the basis of self defense. If a white person kills a black person however, courts are 230% MORE likely to find the killing justified on the grounds of self defense. Keep in mind, this is only for cases where self defense was claimed.

[Kane Starkiller]

You seem to be implying I commited some sort of mathematical error but you proceed to talk about chances that a person of a certain racial will be a victim of a murder while I was talking about a chance that a person will be the perpetrator. These are not the same thing.

A black person is twice as likely to kill a white person as a white person is to kill a black person.

Incorrect. Black people killed twice as many white people as white people killed black people over the last 30 years. This is an absolute number. Since there are over 7 times less black people than white people that means a black person is 15 times more likely to kill a white person than vice versa. I went over this many times.

[mr friendly guy]

No, these objections are still valid. The elements that you'd have to meet in order to have chance of defending yourself with a self defense claim are significant. Keep in mind that people are still convicted of crimes even after they claim self defense.

Specifically here Source

and here Source

and here Source

I don't have time to research every one of those cases, but how many of those did not have any witnesses alive?

Oh, I would expect that a vigilante would have the wanted poster memorized. It still doesn't change my opinion that the odds of meeting the elements for this scenario are very high and therefore not worth being concerned about self defense laws.

That remains to be seen doesn't it?

I'm not going to give you any because you can probably chalk that one up to the approval of questionable tactics, failing to follow a procedure for identification, and then later government corruption. A vigilante would not have this benefit.

Yeah, they would have less benefit. They would have questionable tactics (ie following instead of waiting for police), not procedure for identification, and while not corruption, arguably incompetence. Don't see how that makes them MORE likely to end up finding the right wanted person, as opposed to following some other person.

Yeah. Two incidents spread out over a decade. The New York incident took place in 1999. Martin in 2012. The UK incident in 2005. I'm sure you can find more but what standard are we going to use to determine that something is likely to take place or is that not the standard you're concerned about? Are you just concerned that it is possible that this could happen?

1. Against the standard that this scenario will become common place - I think its possible, most likely will not become common. However..
2. If you recall, I was comparing against the standard you propose, that the vigilante just happens to end up following the real wanted person. I contend that they are likely to follow some other person than just so happen to stumble upon the wanted person because of mistaken identity. You can argue that the confrontation might not necessarily lead to what I describe, but it seems mind boggling that you think some wannabe vigilante with a wanted poster following people he thinks looks like it matches a wanted poster, ends up following the right guy as opposed to mistaking them from a distance.

You're taking some liberties there. The evidence and witness testimony supports that Zimmerman was assaulted. We don't know who started the fight but because we don't know that you can't call Trayvon an innocent person. Zimmerman was found not guilty because a reasonable doubt still existed.

The same liberties used for the most part in Zimmerman's case. We don't know who started the fight in my scenario either, in the sense we didn't know if the victim did look like he was going to reach for a gun, because the only witness is kind of dead.

I'm not going to agree that the shooting of Martin was a case of mistaken identity. Zimmerman wasn't following Trayvon because of who he thought he was but because of what he thought he might be doing.

Thats taking liberties. He followed Martin because he thought he might be doing something suspicious, but at the time he was just visiting relatives. So yeah, he did mistake Martin for someone else, albeit not a specific person.

Diallo is one incident. Again, it's about balance. The system isn't perfect and it will never be. You take away self defense and you have the concerns that you apparently have about your country.

I don't want to take away self defence. I do however want some legal ramification for people that can all but start a confrontation (via following someone) and then claim self defense. I am quite willing to agree that there must be some leeway before it counts as starting a confrontation but that requires fine tuning.

If you're trying to call for an adjustment of the laws so that we can avoid tragedies like this then just say so.

What do you think I have been trying to say when I point out weaknesses in this system?

Stop coming up with contrived situations. But also keep in mind that no law is going to be perfect.

Do you mean contrived as in constructed, because all hypotheticals are by nature contrived. Or contrived as in improbable. Because I am pretty certain this case would have been considered contrived it I proposed this scenario in 2011 as a thought experiment too.

It's an issue about balance and the standards for finding a person guilty of a crime. I personally would like to see legislation that makes a person civilly and criminally liable for following a "suspicious person" if things go wrong. Keep in mind I'm not talking about someone following a person that they watched commit a crime or reasonable suspect of committing a crime.

I am thinking of that too except with some definition of what is considered "reasonable suspect of committing a crime", or failing that, if the person followed turned out not to be the person suspected of a crime (whether you had a reasonable suspicion or not), then you are still liable.

Of course that doesn't address the possibility of your very determined vigilante. So, what's your suggestion?

See above.

[mr friendly guy]

Thank you.

Mr. Friendly Guy would you say your objection to US self defense laws is due to firearms rather than language?

1. I am from WA, not NSW. The state where you can punch someone to death and claim that its his head hitting the pavement not your fist, that did the damage, even though their head wouldn't hit the pavement if you didn't punch him in the first place. This happened several times. With the judges downgrading the charge because of that argument. Google one punch deaths Western Australia.

2. What is with the Americans obsession with firearms? I used gun example because its easier to kill someone with a gun than unarmed or some other weapon available to the public, assuming you had training.

[mr friendly guy]

Do you mean contrived as in constructed, because all hypotheticals are by nature contrived. Or contrived as in improbable. Because I am pretty certain this case would have been considered contrived it I proposed this scenario in 2011 as a thought experiment too.

Damn, too late to edit. When I said this case would have been considered contrived, I meant the Zimmerman case rather than my hypothetical.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You seem to be implying I commited some sort of mathematical error but you proceed to talk about chances that a person of a certain racial will be a victim of a murder while I was talking about a chance that a person will be the perpetrator. These are not the same thing.

I talked about both, you silly person. And I am implying nothing. I am flat out telling you that you dont know how to do math.

Incorrect. Black people killed twice as many white people as white people killed black people over the last 30 years. This is an absolute number. Since there are over 7 times less black people than white people that means a black person is 15 times more likely to kill a white person than vice versa. I went over this many times.

And I am telling you that you are not interpreting the numbers correctly, or doing math properly. This is what you are not grasping. Let us do a thought exercise. Let's say that we have a population of 1000 people. 750 of whom are white, 250 of whom are black. Let us assume that 10% of the population are murderers, distributed randomly.

We end up with 75 white murderers, and 25 black murderers. Everyone gets one murder. All murders happen simultaneously so I don't have to use crazy math.

the 75 white murderers select their murders out of the phone book. They end up with:
56 murders against white people, 19 black people killed. I rounded because you cannot have .25 murders.

The black murderers select their murders from the same phone book
19 white people murdered, 6 black people murdered.

That is if murder is committed at random.

You will notice something. There is an equal chance of everything. The murder rate for each race is the same. The victims are randomly selected. Hey look. The number of white on black and black on white murders is exactly the same.

To get double the absolute number of white people murdered by black people as black people murdered by white people, you dont need to multiply by 15, which is what you suggest. You need to multiply by 2. Double the the number of black murderers, or give each black person 2 murders to commit.

In this place called reality, there are complications because people do not select murder victims out of a phone book. Most murders are committed within a given race because most murderers kill someone they know. Either someone they work with, are having sex with, or are related to. However, black people are twice as likely as white people to cross that boundary and murder a stranger, because their murders are done in the commission of another crime such as burglary more often than murders by white people, which are slightly more likely to be personal.