Zimmerman Trial for Trayvon Martin

[Simon_Jester]

I'm sorry, Friendly, but I wouldn't be in a hurry either to find someone guilty of manslaughter in a case where they were killed by a punch in the head, even when they then fell and hit their head on concrete. It's not a reasonable expectation for someone to die from a punch.

Part of the point of having the "manslaughter" charge on the books is to hold people accountable if they act in an irresponsible way where people could get killed.

Getting into a fistfight on a concrete floor is an example of this. So is driving around corners fast and not seeing pedestrians in the street. Sure, "accidents happen," but in these cases the defendant is clearly doing something which has the potential to do a lot of harm, and which they probably should not be doing.

Now, that really only applies to the person who starts a fistfight. If you punch someone in self-defense while they are punching you, and accidentally do something that kills them, that's not quite the same thing.

[Alyrium Denryle]

By that logic everyone is secretly a racist who will occasionally do non-racist things.

Racism does not necessarily require that someone be wearing a white sheet. Just because someone is not in favor of the police beating a homeless man to death and works against that, does not mean they are not unjustifiably afraid of the Scary Black Man(tm) or will not engage in racial profiling. These acts, while not subconscious, are the sorts of things a person will only be aware of if they actually take the time to think about WHY they think they person looks suspicious. Most people are not that introspective.

After the "recent" burglaries (months before the incident), ZImmerman ONLY called about black suspicious characters. Something he had not done in the years prior. That he did not volunteer this information to the police is irrelevant. The fact is that he suspected black men and only black men of burglary, despite there being no evidence as far as I am aware that the burglaries were even committed by black men.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Almost everyone does racist things and holds racist beliefs, to varying degrees, even people who actively try not to do so. Racism isn't a binary on-off switch where you have saints and Klan members or Nazis and no one in between. Intent or past examples or anything doesn't change that sort of thing; one can still racially profile without even intending to. Most modern discriminations are ones that requires discussion and introspection to be aware of, oneself; look at how few people wouldn't say "but I'm not a racist" despite obvious racist opinions having big sway in society. Or the mere existence of the clause, "I'm not a racist, but..."

[aerius]

After the "recent" burglaries (months before the incident), ZImmerman ONLY called about black suspicious characters. Something he had not done in the years prior. That he did not volunteer this information to the police is irrelevant. The fact is that he suspected black men and only black men of burglary, despite there being no evidence as far as I am aware that the burglaries were even committed by black men.

You aren't looking very hard are you? The confirmed reports of black burglars has only been out since last April.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/ ... 8H20120425

Excerpt:

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"

Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.

"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.

Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.

Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE

On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.

Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.

Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.

Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.

Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.

"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.

The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.

This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.

"These assholes," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."

After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.

Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You aren't looking very hard are you? The confirmed reports of black burglars has only been out since last April.

Or I dont catch everything. Actually, I did some digging and found that information AFTER the post. So, mea culpa.

However, even that is not the point. Is every black male a suspect? If it were young white men doing these burglaries, would it be justifiable to suspect ALL young white males? I dont live in the best of neighborhoods. Am I justified in suspecting all black males walking around in the rain (because I can see a few from my window) of being up to no good?

The only evidence Zimmerman had was that Trayvon Martin was black, and walking "slowly". At what speed must a black man walk to avoid suspicion?

[aerius]

The problem is we don't know what Martin was doing and we will never know for sure unless the NSA happened to have a surveillance drone on him, or some other video of the events surfaces in the future. The only thing we have to go by is the 911 call where Zimmerman claims that Martin is acting suspiciously and looking at all the houses. Martin might just have been walking down the sidewalk and looking around because he was lost or sightseeing, or maybe he was walking up to the houses and looking into the windows to scope them out for a burglary, WE DON'T KNOW and likely will never know what Martin was actually doing. Anyone who claims he knows what happened is a lying shitbag.

People may have suspicions on what went down but there is no proof and they don't know shit. It's no better than a gut feeling. All we can do is guess at what may have happened. Bottom line. End of story.

[Terralthra]

Sure, that's true.

The problem is the perception that one way or another "We don't know what exactly happened" is, in this case, more or less akin to "if you're a young black man, walking slowly and looking around is all the excuse someone needs to attempt to confront you, and when (purportedly) the confrontation doesn't go their way, shoot you and walk away," and the legal system of the state has backed that up with laws and now a jury verdict.

[Terralthra]

More on Stand Your Ground in Florida:

Florida 'stand your ground' law yields some shocking outcomes depending on how law is applied

Florida's "stand your ground'' law has allowed drug dealers to avoid murder charges and gang members to walk free. It has stymied prosecutors and confused judges. • It has also served its intended purpose, exonerating dozens of people who were deemed to be legitimately acting in self-defense. Among them: a woman who was choked and beaten by an irate tenant and a man who was threatened in his driveway by a felon.

Seven years since it was passed, Florida's "stand your ground" law is being invoked with unexpected frequency, in ways no one imagined, to free killers and violent attackers whose self-defense claims seem questionable at best.

Cases with similar facts show surprising — sometimes shocking — differences in outcomes. If you claim "stand your ground" as the reason you shot someone, what happens to you can depend less on the merits of the case than on who you are, whom you kill and where your case is decided.

Today, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, by a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain has prompted a renewed look at Florida's controversial law.

In the most comprehensive effort of its kind, the Tampa Bay Times has identified nearly 200 "stand your ground'' casesand their outcomes. The Times identified cases through media reports, court records and dozens of interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys across the state.

Among the findings:

• Those who invoke "stand your ground" to avoid prosecution have been extremely successful. Nearly 70 percent have gone free.

• Defendants claiming "stand your ground" are more likely to prevail if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white.

• The number of cases is increasing, largely because defense attorneys are using "stand your ground" in ways state legislators never envisioned. The defense has been invoked in dozens of cases with minor or no injuries. It has also been used by a self-described "vampire" in Pinellas County, a Miami man arrested with a single marijuana cigarette, a Fort Myers homeowner who shot a bear and a West Palm Beach jogger who beat a Jack Russell terrier.

• People often go free under "stand your ground" in cases that seem to make a mockery of what lawmakers intended. One man killed two unarmed peopleand walked out of jail. Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free.

• Similar cases can have opposite outcomes. Depending on who decided their cases, some drug dealers claiming self-defense have gone to prison while others have been set free. The same holds true for killers who left a fight, only to arm themselves and return. Shoot someone from your doorway? Fire on a fleeing burglar? Your case can swing on different interpretations of the law by prosecutors, judge or jury.

• A comprehensive analysis of "stand your ground" decisions is all but impossible. When police and prosecutors decide not to press charges, they don't always keep records showing how they reached their decisions. And no one keeps track of how many "stand your ground" motions have been filed or their outcomes.

Claiming "stand your ground,'' people have used force to meet force outside an ice cream parlor, on a racquetball court and at a school bus stop. Two-thirds of the defendants used guns, though weapons have included an ice pick, shovel and chair leg.

The oldest defendant was an 81-year-old man; the youngest, a 14-year-old Miami youthwho shot someone trying to steal his Jet Ski.

Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, describes "stand your ground" as a "malleable" law being stretched to new limits daily.

"It's arising now in the oddest of places,'' he said.

That's unlikely to change any time soon, according to prosecutors and defense attorneys, who say the number and types of cases are sure to rise.

"If you're a defense counsel, you'd be crazy not to use it in any case where it could apply,'' said Zachary Weaver, a West Palm Beach lawyer. "With the more publicity the law gets, the more individuals will get off.''

Expanding self-defense

People have had the right to defend themselves from a threat as far back as English common law. The key in Florida and many other states was that they could not use deadly force if it was reasonably possible to retreat.

That changed in 2005 when Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Florida Statute 776.013. It says a person "has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground'' if he or she thinks deadly force is necessary to prevent death, great bodily harm or commission of a forcible felony like robbery.

"Now it's lawful to stand there like Matt Dillon at high noon, pull the gun and shoot back,'' said Bob Dekle, a University of Florida law professor and former prosecutor in North Florida.

Durell Peaden, the former Republican senator from Crestview who sponsored the bill, said the law was never intended for people who put themselves in harm's way before they started firing. But the criminal justice system has been blind to that intent.

The new law only requires law enforcement and the justice system to ask three questions in self-defense cases: Did the defendant have the right to be there? Was he engaged in a lawful activity? Could he reasonably have been in fear of death or great bodily harm?

Without convincing evidence to the contrary, "stand your ground'' protection prevails.

If prosecutors press charges, any defendant claiming self-defense is now entitled to a hearing before a judge. At the immunity hearing, a judge must decide based on the "preponderance of the evidence" whether to grant immunity. That's a far lower burden than "beyond a reasonable doubt," the threshold prosecutors must meet at trial.

"It's a very low standard to prove preponderance," said Weaver, the West Palm Beach lawyer. "If 51 percent of the evidence supports your claim, you get off."

Unequal treatment

The outcome of a " stand your ground" case can turn on many factors: the location of blood spatters, the credibility of witnesses, the relative size and age of the parties involved. But the Times found similar incidents handled in dramatically different ways.

Derrick Hansberry thought John Webster was having an affair with his estranged wife, so he confronted Webster on a basketball court in Dade City in 2005. A fight broke out and Hansberry shot his unarmed rival at least five times, putting him in the hospital for three weeks.

Ultimately, a jury acquitted Hansberry, but not before police and prosecutors weighed in. Neither thought Hansberry could reasonably argue self-defense because he took the gun with him and initiated the confrontation.

A judge agreed, denying him immunity at a hearing.

Compare that case to Deounce Harden's. In 2006, he showed up at Steven Deon Mitchell's Jacksonville carwash business and started arguing over a woman. When the fight escalated, Harden shot and killed Mitchell, who was unarmed.

Prosecutors filed no charges.

Similar inconsistencies can be found across the state:

• During an argument at a 2009 party in Fort Myers, Omar Bonilla fired his gun into the ground and beat Demarro Battle, then went inside and gave the gun to a friend. If Battle feared for his life, he had time to flee. Instead, he got a gun from his car and returned to shoot Bonilla three times, including once in the back. Battle was not charged in the slaying.

At another party in the same town five months later, Reginald Etienne and Joshua Sands were arguing. Etienne left the party and returned with a knife. During a fistfight between the two men, Etienne fatally stabbed Sands. He was sent to prison for life.

• In Winter Springs, Owen Eugene Whitlock came home on Christmas Eve 2009 to find his daughter's boyfriend, Jose Ramirez, angrily stalking up his driveway, flexing his muscles and swinging his fists. Whitlock stood his ground and fired a fatal shot. He was not charged.

In Clearwater, Terry Tyrone Davis shot and killed his cousin as he stalked up the walkway of Davis' home in 2010 with a group of friends. "There's no doubt he was going over there to kick his a--,'' Circuit Judge Philip J. Federico said, "but that does not allow you to kill a guy." Davis is now serving 25 years in prison.

• In West Palm Beach, Christopher Cote started pounding on the door of neighbor Jose Tapanes at 4 a.m. after an argument over Cote's dog. Tapanes stepped outside and fired his shotgun twice, killing Cote. A jury acquitted him, but prosecutors and a judge had discounted Tapanes' self-defense claim, saying if he was truly afraid for his life, he should not have stepped outside.

Yet Rhonda Eubanks was not arrested or charged when she opened her front door one evening in 2006 and fatally shot a man who had been causing a ruckus in her Escambia County neighborhood. He had tried to get into her house, then left and tried to take her neighbors' cars. When he returned, Eubanks stood near her doorway and fired as he approached.

Discrepancies among cases cannot all be explained by small differences in the circumstances. Some are clearly caused by different interpretations of the law.

When Gerald Terrell Jones shot his marijuana dealer in the face in Brandon this year, he was charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault. A jury later acquitted him. But a judge had rejected Jones' "stand your ground'' motion, in part, because he was committing a crime at the time.

Elsewhere in the state, drug dealers have successfully invoked "stand your ground" even though they were in the middle of a deal when the shooting started.

In Daytona Beach, for example, police Chief Mike Chitwood used the "stand your ground" law as the rationale for not filing charges in two drug deals that ended in deaths. He said he was prevented from going forward because the accused shooters had permits to carry concealed weapons and they claimed they were defending themselves at the time.

"We're seeing a good law that's being abused," Chitwood told a local paper.

Various interpretations

Disparities have been driven in part by vague wording in the 2005 law that has left police, prosecutors and judges struggling to interpret it.

It took five years for the Florida Supreme Court to decide that judges should base immunity decisions on the preponderance of evidence.

Still unresolved is whether a defendant can get immunity if he illegally has a gun. And courts are divided on what the law is when a victim is retreating.

David Heckman of Tampa lost his bid for "stand your ground" protection because his victim was walking away when Heckman shot him.

"We conclude that immunity does not apply because the victim was retreating," the court said.

But Jimmy Hair, who was sitting in a car when he was attacked in Tallahassee, was treated differently. He shot his victim as the man was being pulled from the vehicle. An appeals court gave immunity to Hair, saying: "The statute makes no exception from immunity when the victim is in retreat at the time the defensive force is employed."

While many have argued the law does not allow someone to pick a fight and claim immunity, it has been used to do just that. It is broad enough that one judge complained that in a Wild West-type shootout, where everybody is armed, everyone might go free.

"Each individual on each side of the exchange of gunfire can claim self-defense," Leon County Circuit Judge Terry P. Lewis wrote in 2010, saying it "could conceivably result in all persons who exchanged gunfire on a public street being immune from prosecution."

Lewis was considering immunity motions stemming from a Tallahassee gang shooting that resulted in the death of one of the participants, a 15-year-old boy.

The judge said he had no choice but to grant immunity to two men who fired the AK-47 responsible for the death even though they fired 25 to 30 times outside an apartment complex. The reason: It could not be proved they fired first.

Questionable cases

Whatever lawmakers' expectations, "stand your ground" arguments have resulted in freedom or reduced sentences for some unlikely defendants.

• An 18-year-old felon, convicted of cocaine and weapons charges, shot and wounded a neighbor in the stomach, then fled the scene and was involved in another nonfatal shootout two days later, according to police. He was granted immunity in the first shooting.

• Two men fell into the water while fighting on a dock. When one started climbing out of the water, the other shot him in the back of the head, killing him. He was acquitted after arguing "stand your ground."

• A Seventh-day Adventist was acting erratically, doing cartwheels through an apartment complex parking lot, pounding on cars and apartment windows and setting off alarms. A tenant who felt threatened by the man's behavior shot and killed him. He was not charged.

• A Citrus County manin a longstanding dispute with a neighbor shot and killed the man one night in 2009. He was not charged even though a witness and the location of two bullet wounds showed the victim was turning to leave when he was shot.

Even chasing and killing someone over a drug buy can be considered standing your ground.

Anthony Gonzalez Jr. was part of a 2010 drug deal that went sour when someone threatened Gonzalez with a gun. Gonzalez chased the man down and killed him during a high-speed gunbattle through Miami streets.

Before the "stand your ground'' law, Miami-Dade prosecutors would have had a strong murder case because Gonzalez could have retreated instead of chasing the other vehicle. But Gonzalez's lawyer argued he had a right to be in his car, was licensed to carry a gun and thought his life was in danger.

Soon after the filing of a "stand your ground'' motion, prosecutors agreed to a deal in which Gonzalez pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and got three years in prison.

"The limitations imposed on us by the 'stand your ground' laws made it impossible for any prosecutor to pursue murder charges,'' Griffith of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said at the time. "This is certainly a very difficult thing to tell a grieving family member.''

Increase in cases

If there's one thing on which critics and supporters agree, it is that the "stand your ground'' law is being applied in a growing number of cases, including misdemeanors. That trend is reflected in the Times' database, with a five-fold increase in nonfatal cases from 2008 to 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of fatalities in which "stand your ground" played a role dropped from a peak of 24 cases in 2009 to half that number in 2011.

The nearly 200 cases found by the Times include most of the high-profile homicides in which the law is invoked.

Uncovering minor cases in which defendants argue "stand your ground" is more difficult. When asked by the Times, public defenders in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties came up with a total of 60 "stand your ground" motions filed by their offices in recent years.

In Miami-Dade County, officials tried to count all the "stand your ground" motions filed in the past year. Their best estimate: 50.

If those counties are any indication, several hundred defendants are now invoking the law annually.

Its expanded use comes at a cost to the court system.

In April, a hearing on whether William Siskos should get immunity for killing his girlfriend's husband included the all-day use of a Brooksville courtroom, a judge, a public defender, two prosecutors, clerks and bailiffs and an expert witness who was paid $750 an hour.

The judge denied the motion and the case is pending.

"The court system is overburdened enough without having a bunch of expensive, unnecessary, time-consuming hearings on stand your ground,'' said Dekle, the University of Florida professor.

Argument for success

Donald Day is a Naples defense lawyer who has handled three "stand your ground" cases and believes the law is working "remarkably well."

Day said the immunity hearings are a critical backstop in self-defense cases that should never go to a jury. Of the cases in the Times' database that have been resolved, 23 percent were dismissed by a judge after an immunity hearing. That means 38 defendants facing the prospect of a jury trial were set free by a judge who ruled the evidence leaned in their favor.

"Where the defendant is clearly in the right and gets arrested, should you have to take your chance with what six people believe or don't believe?" Day said. "Judges are denying these motions where they should be denied and granting them in the limited number of cases statewide where they should be granted."

A prime example, he said, is the case of his client, Jorge Saavedra, a 14-year-old charged with aggravated manslaughter last year in the death of Dylan Nuno.

Saavedra was in special education classes at Palmetto Ridge High School in Collier County and was often the target of taunts. Nuno, 16, went to the same school.

On Jan. 24, 2011, the two boys were riding the bus home. Saavedra was warned repeatedly that Nuno intended to fight with him when he got off at his regular stop. Saavedra replied each time that he did not want to fight, but he also pulled out a pocketknife to show friends.

Saavedra got off the bus early with a friend to try to avoid a confrontation. But Nuno and his friends followed, and Nuno punched the younger boy in the back of the head.

For a while, Saavedra kept walking as he was being punched. Then he turned, reached in his pocket for the knife and stabbed Nuno 12 times.

Prosecutors pursued charges despite evidence that Saavedra tried to get away and felt cornered by an older boy and a crowd of teens shouting for a fight. They argued that because he brought a knife to a fistfight, he should be tried for murder.

Without "stand your ground," Saavedra would likely have gone to trial. But the law required a hearing before a judge and that judge granted him immunity.

Nuno's mother, Kim Maxwell, said her son made a bad decision to throw the first punch, but she's incredulous that it led to his death and even more stunned that his killer went free.

Said Day: "You don't have to wait until you're dead before you use deadly force."

'Emboldening'

As "stand your ground" claims have increased, so too has the number of Floridians with guns. Concealed weapons permits now stand at 1.1 million, three times as many as in 2005 when the law was passed.

"I think the (stand your ground) law has an emboldening effect. All of a sudden, you're a tough guy and can be aggressive,'' said George Kirkham, a professor emeritus at Florida State University who has worked as a police officer.

Criminologists say that when people with guns get the message they have a right to stand and fight, rather than retreat, the threshold for using that gun goes down. All too often, Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney for Pinellas-Pasco counties, sees the result.

"I see cases where I'll think, 'This person didn't really need to kill that person but the law, as it is written, justifies their action,' " Bartlett said about incidents that his office decides not to prosecute due to "stand your ground." "It may be legally within the boundaries. But at the end of the day, was it really necessary?"

Times researchers Carolyn Edds, Caryn Baird and Natalie Watson contributed to this report. Kris Hundley can be reached at (727) 892-2996 or khundley@tampabay.com. Susan Taylor Martin can be reached at (727) 893-8642 or susan@tampabay.com.

The article is dated June, 2012, but I doubt the law has gotten any clearer since then. All links to cases and news articles have been preserved from the original

[aerius]

The problem is the perception that one way or another "We don't know what exactly happened" is, in this case, more or less akin to "if you're a young black man, walking slowly and looking around is all the excuse someone needs to attempt to confront you, and when (purportedly) the confrontation doesn't go their way, shoot you and walk away," and the legal system of the state has backed that up with laws and now a jury verdict.

Right. And if the problem is one of perception, then would that not point to problems with the media which helps shape those perceptions along with deeper problems in your country & society?

From what I can see on various message boards and blogs, there seems to a segment of the population which is convinced that an innocent black teen was gunned down in cold blood by a closet KKK vigilante, another which believes a worthless black thug was justifiably shot by a righteous white/latino man, and not much in between. And a media which has been caught falsifying photos, transcripts, and videos while sensationalizing the shit out of everything and making the facts hard to find & confirm.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The problem is the perception that one way or another "We don't know what exactly happened" is, in this case, more or less akin to "if you're a young black man, walking slowly and looking around is all the excuse someone needs to attempt to confront you, and when (purportedly) the confrontation doesn't go their way, shoot you and walk away," and the legal system of the state has backed that up with laws and now a jury verdict.

Right. And if the problem is one of perception, then would that not point to problems with the media which helps shape those perceptions along with deeper problems in your country & society?

From what I can see on various message boards and blogs, there seems to a segment of the population which is convinced that an innocent black teen was gunned down in cold blood by a closet KKK vigilante, another which believes a worthless black thug was justifiably shot by a righteous white/latino man, and not much in between. And a media which has been caught falsifying photos, transcripts, and videos while sensationalizing the shit out of everything and making the facts hard to find & confirm.

And then, we have an adversarial judicial system that not only rewards high-profile convictions, but was politically pressured into over-reach on the charge, which caused them to present a theory of the crime which was not compatible with the lesser included charge of manslaughter. Me, I would have gone with Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child under Section 782.07 subparagraph 2 of the FL criminal code, with the lesser included charge (if possible) of Unnecessary Killing to Prevent an Unlawful Act under Section 782.11

[Terralthra]

782.07 is still under the exceptions of 776.012:

776.012 Use of force in defense of person.—A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:
(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or
(2) Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013.

776.013 Home protection; use of deadly force; presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm.—
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and
(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.
(2) The presumption set forth in subsection (1) does not apply if:
(a) The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner, lessee, or titleholder, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person; or
(b) The person or persons sought to be removed is a child or grandchild, or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of, the person against whom the defensive force is used; or
(c) The person who uses defensive force is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further an unlawful activity; or
(d) The person against whom the defensive force is used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who enters or attempts to enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a law enforcement officer.
(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

Stand Your Ground, no duty to retreat. It's doubtful 782.11 could stick either, given 776.12+13.

Edit: given the laws as they stand (and the article I posted), it's pretty clear that Stand Your Ground is the problem. It's vague, subject to ridiculous justifications, etc.

[aerius]

And then, we have an adversarial judicial system that not only rewards high-profile convictions, but was politically pressured into over-reach on the charge, which caused them to present a theory of the crime which was not compatible with the lesser included charge of manslaughter. Me, I would have gone with Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child under Section 782.07 subparagraph 2 of the FL criminal code, with the lesser included charge (if possible) of Unnecessary Killing to Prevent an Unlawful Act under Section 782.11

782.07 sub 2 is death of an elderly or disabled person from negligence, something tells me that one ain't gonna work.

782.07 sub 3 is probably the one you were looking for, but that's culpable negligence of a child, good luck making that one apply to the claimed events and getting it to stick.

782.11 is also going to be pretty much impossible to prove given the evidence we have available. The problem here is that once you get to the point where Martin is mounted on top of Zimmerman and punching/attempting to punch him, Section 776.12 comes into play and it's a justifiable shoot.

Once again, given the lack of hard evidence and the way Florida's laws are written, there's just no way to make anything stick without a dumbass or crooked jury.

[Saxtonite]

I do hope you can understand why this term means absolutely nothing to the very large majority of whites (and Asians and so on) who are not actual skinheads. It's kind of like how the number "88" is used as a sort of second or third-order rhyming slang thing for "Heil Hitler" in the neo-Nazi community; the very reason they have such a code-phrase is because no one outside their immediate in-group knows what the hell they're talking about.

Yes, I acknowledge that.

[Patroklos]

After the "recent" burglaries (months before the incident), ZImmerman ONLY called about black suspicious characters. Something he had not done in the years prior. That he did not volunteer this information to the police is irrelevant. The fact is that he suspected black men and only black men of burglary, despite there being no evidence as far as I am aware that the burglaries were even committed by black men.

EDIT: Already covered, here are the raw reports:

http://www.wagist.com/wp-content/upload ... eports.pdf

[TheFeniX]

More on Stand Your Ground in Florida:

• People often go free under "stand your ground" in cases that seem to make a mockery of what lawmakers intended. One man killed two unarmed peopleand walked out of jail. Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free.

This article provides a lot of good insight into Florida Law, but is pretty loaded in places, like here. In the first instance, 2 men who had been drinking cornered a 65-year-old disabled veteran in the cabin of a sailboat. It didn't help that the prosecutor tried for 1st degree murder.

The second reads like there was a fight and a shoot-out right afterward, but just because you had a scuffle with some guy 30 minutes ago doesn't mean he's the aggressor when you come back with a gun and friend's to riddle his van with bullets.

Gallo's van had several bullet holes, shells from different types of guns were found and there was ample time for people in the crowd that had gathered to take a gun from Barbour's body before police arrived, Dakan wrote.

It reads like a scene from a bad action movie.

[TheHammer]

And then, we have an adversarial judicial system that not only rewards high-profile convictions, but was politically pressured into over-reach on the charge, which caused them to present a theory of the crime which was not compatible with the lesser included charge of manslaughter. Me, I would have gone with Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child under Section 782.07 subparagraph 2 of the FL criminal code, with the lesser included charge (if possible) of Unnecessary Killing to Prevent an Unlawful Act under Section 782.11

782.07 sub 2 is death of an elderly or disabled person from negligence, something tells me that one ain't gonna work.

782.07 sub 3 is probably the one you were looking for, but that's culpable negligence of a child, good luck making that one apply to the claimed events and getting it to stick.

782.11 is also going to be pretty much impossible to prove given the evidence we have available. The problem here is that once you get to the point where Martin is mounted on top of Zimmerman and punching/attempting to punch him, Section 776.12 comes into play and it's a justifiable shoot.

Once again, given the lack of hard evidence and the way Florida's laws are written, there's just no way to make anything stick without a dumbass or crooked jury.

The reality is without some eye witness testimony, or some physical evidence to contradict Zimmerman's account of events, there is absolutely nothing to convict him of. Even in states without a crazy "stand your ground" law, there is nothing to convict him of.

It is quite probable that the state was unable to disprove Zimmerman's account of events because they went down exactly as he said they did. It seems that many people were expecting them to convict Zimmerman because Martin was black, despite the complete lack of evidence to do so.

[Terralthra]

TheHammer - other states have a duty to retreat, to which Zimmerman would obviously not have conformed.

[TheHammer]

TheHammer - other states have a duty to retreat, to which Zimmerman would obviously not have conformed.

Zimmerman's story is that he was sucker punched, eventually knocked to the ground, and mounted where he continued to be struck by Martin. The physical evidence, i.e. the scrapes to the back of the head, would seem to support that. In that position he would be utterly unable to retreat. Even in a "duty to retreat" state that would be justifiable use of force if he was being assaulted to an extent that he was in danger of serious injury or death.

The state needed to prove that the above scenario did not happen. They needed to show that either Zimmerman started the fight, or that he shot Martin when he was in no real danger. And they utterly failed to do so. Given what I saw at the trial, and the rather pathetic case the prosecution put forward, it would seem that the initial decision not to charge Zimmerman was probably the correct one.

[Kane Starkiller]

George Zimmerman helps family in car accident

Trayvon Martin case: George Zimmerman helps family in car accident
A Florida man cleared in the death of a black teenager helped rescue a family from an overturned vehicle last week, police say.
George Zimmerman, 29, and another man pulled four people from the car in Florida last week, said police.

Seminole County Sheriff's office said Mr Zimmerman left the scene after speaking to a responding officer.

The ex-volunteer neighbourhood watchman was acquitted this month of Trayvon Martin's death in February 2012.

According to police, Mr Zimmerman intervened after a sports utility vehicle carrying a couple and their two children went off the road and overturned last Wednesday.

"He did not witness the crash," sheriff's spokeswoman Kim Cannaday told Reuters news agency.

"He rolled up on it after the fact and assisted in getting the family out of the vehicle."

There were no reported injuries.

Asked if Mr Zimmerman was being called a hero, the police spokeswoman said: "We're not going that far."

The accident happened four days after Mr Zimmerman walked free from court.

He is said to have been in hiding since the end of the trial.

The not-guilty verdict has prompted nationwide protests over racial profiling and US "stand your ground" self-defence laws.

...so we'll hunt him, because he can take it, because he is not a hero, he is a silent guardian, a watchful protector...a Dark Knight

[Grumman]

TheHammer - other states have a duty to retreat, to which Zimmerman would obviously not have conformed.

He was physically incapable of retreating, on account of Martin pinning him to the ground.

[Patroklos]

TheHammer - other states have a duty to retreat, to which Zimmerman would obviously not have conformed.

So does Florida for normal self defense situations, stand your ground was NOT used as a defense.

[Terralthra]

TheHammer - other states have a duty to retreat, to which Zimmerman would obviously not have conformed.

Zimmerman's story is that he was sucker punched, eventually knocked to the ground, and mounted where he continued to be struck by Martin. The physical evidence, i.e. the scrapes to the back of the head, would seem to support that. In that position he would be utterly unable to retreat. Even in a "duty to retreat" state that would be justifiable use of force if he was being assaulted to an extent that he was in danger of serious injury or death.

The state needed to prove that the above scenario did not happen. They needed to show that either Zimmerman started the fight, or that he shot Martin when he was in no real danger. And they utterly failed to do so. Given what I saw at the trial, and the rather pathetic case the prosecution put forward, it would seem that the initial decision not to charge Zimmerman was probably the correct one.

Zimmerman's story doesn't hold up without SYG. Pictures of Trayvon's body on the ground show him still holding a bag with skittles and iced tea in one hand. If Zimmerman couldn't disengage from a guy holding convenience store groceries in one hand, then that's a really low standard for duty to retreat.

[Kon_El]

Zimmerman's story doesn't hold up without SYG. Pictures of Trayvon's body on the ground show him still holding a bag with skittles and iced tea in one hand. If Zimmerman couldn't disengage from a guy holding convenience store groceries in one hand, then that's a really low standard for duty to retreat.

Source? While I could find mention of this, the only images I could find show him empty handed.

[Terralthra]

Zimmerman's story doesn't hold up without SYG. Pictures of Trayvon's body on the ground show him still holding a bag with skittles and iced tea in one hand. If Zimmerman couldn't disengage from a guy holding convenience store groceries in one hand, then that's a really low standard for duty to retreat.

Source? While I could find mention of this, the only images I could find show him empty handed.

The bag was in his left hand, which is mostly hidden behind his body in the images commonly circulated. I'm looking for the one not taken from his right side, which shows the bag more clearly.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Not only that, but the damage to his head is actually inconsistent with repeated beatings into the ground, which would've caused much more damage and the paramedics would've required him to undergo immediate hospitalisation in case of brain injury. It's significantly more consistent with a single fall to the ground rather than being mounted and beaten.