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[Trayvon Martin]'s Violent Attack on George Zimmerman
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just as those who believe in zimmerman's innocence are not a pack of white hood wearing racists, those who believe in zimmerman's guilt are not a lawless, bloodthirsty lynch mob calling for his head.
That is exactly what I said, you think he's guilty and we should ignore law because you think so. You are making wild assumptions and want to throw a potentially, and allegedly, innocent man in jail.
But I mean, I guess all those witches in the 1600-1800s deserved to get burned because they were super fucking guilty right? I bet you heard it from a guy of a guy who they cursed into sleeping with one of them too?
I guess I'll have to submit it to the rest of you: Did I say we should ignore the law?
He doesnt have access to the money.
I get from that that Martin felt cornered (or his girlfriend thought it sounded like he was cornered), and then Martin quite likely began the verbal confrontation.
She also ignores the fact that Martin pushing Zimmerman would cause the headset to fall same as Zimmerman pushing Martin.
This is also where I'll point out that even if Martin was "cornered," and that went to his feeling imminently threatened with physical harm, that this doesn't necessarily make Zimmerman's actions illegal. Not his actions before the altercation, and not his choice to use deadly force to defend himself during it. It's actually possible, legally, for both Martin and Zimmerman to be justified here. Making this a huge tragedy, but no crime. Which speaks to both the value of avoiding confrontation while carrying, and of avoiding physical violence with others unless absolutely necessary (whether or not Martin attacked Zimmerman, which we don't know, the lesson remains).
If the money's for him then unless funds in excess of his legal costs are going to be sent back that's splitting hairs.. he'll get it eventually.
Except that the purpose of bail is to ensure he shows for trial, not to drain him of net worth through the bond.
If he were to flee the jurisdiction, wouldn't those funds wind up frozen?
Besides which, would $200K in net worth be enough to alter the bail math anyway?
Beats me. I'm just saying, if it's supposed to be based on wealth then it seems reasonable to have to take that into account.
No, that speaks to the fact that Florida law is retarded. I'm all for reasonable protections for self-defense but legalizing a shoot out at the OK corral is not that.
No his lawyer will. Its setup as a trust fun administered by his lawyer.
Bail is not a deterrent for people choosing to flee.
Family wealth plays a part in setting the bond amount, but it isn't the only deciding factor. I don't think that the bond amount can later be adjusted just because the defendant became wealth after it was initially set. Realistically he only needs to come up with 10% of the bond amount anyway.
A situation in which both parties were justified in a use of force is going to be fairly uncommon.
However, any time you allow for reasonable protections for self defense this is a thing that can happen, since self-defense is based on the reasonable perception of the person initiating the use of force for self-defense. Not necessarily the intent of the perceived aggressor. So it's always going to be possible for some misunderstanding to lead to a perception of imminent harm even when no criminal intent exists on the part of the perceived aggressor, at which point that perceived aggressor will also be able to use force in self-defense.
That this can lead to the death of one or the other is a result of the fact that we cannot, logically, require either party to actually be dead before allowing them to use deadly force in self-defense...as covered a page or two ago.
Even outside the many states where there is no duty to retreat (not just Florida, as covered repeatedly) this could still happen if either party (or more to the point both parties) had a reasonable perception that retreat wasn't safely possible.
Also, at what point have we "legalized a shoot out at the OK corral?" I'm not seeing that here, or anywhere else in Florida. We did have that one use of self-defense laws in the gang shootout, but that was "legal" only in that the person who initiated the unlawful use of deadly force was, themselves, killed. Had that party survived, they could absolutely have been tried.
Like I said, I go back and forth as to who I think likely started the fight, and it is very plausible that Zimmerman cornerned him in an attempt to hold him until police arrived. I'm hopeful that there's enough brought up in the trial to clarify things beyond just what Zimmerman claims happened.
At the same time, $200K is hardly "live out your days comfortably in a non-extradition country" money.
I'd think that the means to effectively flee, such as connections in foreign countries or extensive criminal connections, would be a larger factor than a couple hundred thousand dollars of net worth.
If you choose to define it that way, which suggests that that is a stupid way to define it. If you shoot an innocent person you should go to jail. If you really feel threatened enough to take someone's life, you should feel threatened enough to take that risk if it turns out you were wrong.
The point where two people can have a shoot out without either doing something illegal.
Well obviously we fundamentally disagree. I'm fine with that.
As I've covered in this thread and others, a person should be able to at least theoretically* know the legality of their own actions, from their own perspective alone (which is all they can have), at the time they are taking them. I think this is a requirement in any just criminal system.
* - Given, say, the ability to pause time and consult the breadth of legal knowledge with perfect understanding before taking their action.
See, and I on the other hand realize how ridiculously improbable this is (no examples shown as of yet but feel free to provide one) and thus I don't necessarily worry about the theoretical possibility.
If your argument boils down to "but what if <extremely improbable scenario> and then <unlikely responses> and then <other remote possibility> so <outcome that will probably never happen> would totally not be illegal!" then honestly I don't care.
Like, I'm having a pretty tough time even concocting a scenario that would lead to your "legal shoot out" in the real world. Hence the above. I can come up with scenarios in which either or both party do commit criminal acts (including unjustified uses of force in self-defense) that would lead to it...but then that wouldn't be a "legal shoot out," now would it? Those crimes may be hard to prove, of course (as in this case, assuming Zimmerman's actions were criminal). But that a crime is difficult to prosecute makes it no less criminal.
If Zimmerman's actions are not criminal, then this example is already proof enough, even though Martin didn't happen to have a gun on his end.
Whatevs. But that is not this:
It's my understanding that both sides at the O.K. Corral had, and used, guns.
I'd almost be interested in your position on killing another person in self defense without a gun. If, say, Zimmerman had still killed Martin with a lucky punch, nearby blunt object, or some other non-firearm means. I mean, Martin's no less dead, and no less unarmed, and no less sixteen and black, does this change anything? It's the gun that's the problem?
Almost. But given that we see above a clear desire to keep those goalposts on wheels, not quite.
The idea that Martin's response to being stalked and losing his pursuer was to turn around, track him down, and jump him without preamble is so alien to my thought process that I cannot place myself in Martin's narrative frame of reference and construe a scenario were these are the actions of a sane person, and AFAIK we have no reason to think Martin was insane.
A scenario were Martin yells at Zimmerman about following him, and then Zimmerman backs off, but instead of going on his way Martin again hunts Zimmerman down is equally fantastical to me.
The problem is that I don't believe a story where Zimmerman doesn't start shit because he's the only one with a clear motive to start shit. And having started shit, he doesn't have a right to self defense anymore.
Well, ignoring the fact that in the second scenario Zimmerman has no legal obligation to back off, I still don't find that to be at all fantastical.
You seriously can't imagine a teenager that would jump somebody for pissing them off? That's, like, a thing that happens. Hell, I hung out with some kids back in high school who were the type to do precisely that.
What, did he put it in a time-lock safe?
The issue is that he collected $200K worth of legal-defense fund and didn't tell the court. (I suspect, reading between the lines, that he didn't tell his current lawyer either.) There's nothing wrong with a legal defense fund, but it's just fucking stupid to lie to a judge about it.
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While this scenario is just a possibility I don't consider it extremely improbable:
Martin sees a stranger watching him. He walks up and says, "What's your problem."
The other guy stays in his car, and is talking on the phone. Martin chooses to ignore him and continue home.
Martin notices the stranger got out of his car and is following him. He is afraid that the man means to harm him, so he walks faster (runs), and ditches him. After he ditches him his initial adrenaline and fear begin to go away. He thinks, "why did I run? I wasn't doing anything wrong. Who is this guy?"
Martin goes back to where the guy was at. He sees Zimmerman still in the area. He walks up to him.
Martin asks, "Who are you?"
Zimmerman responds, "What are you doing here?"
Zimmerman reaches in his pocket for his phone to call police again. Martin thinks he is going for a weapon, and jumps him.
Depends very heavily on the country, incidentally. Just as an example, Burma denies that they have a valid extradition treaty with the U.S., and it would take the average man in Burma about 150 years to make $200,000. I wouldn't exactly call it a luxurious lifestyle -- nobody emigrate to Burma or anything -- but $200K will go a lot further there than it will here.
I agree with you, though, that having the money is an ancillary factor when one considers that he probably doesn't know how to get out of this country and into another without a passport, and he also probably doesn't know how to transfer the money into a foreign bank without the Feds immediately flagging the wire order and seizing the funds.
Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Bail is supposed to be set to mitigate the flight risk. This $200K doesn't really have any effect on the flight risk.
And while lying to the court regarding your wealth is indeed a terrible idea, I could almost see this being an honest mistake. Maybe. Like, mentally he almost certainly has zeroed this out a far as his personal wealth goes, since that money collected is almost certainly going to be offset by anticipated attorney's fees and the other costs of his defense.
If it's not enough money to run with, then why bother to hide it from the court?
My edumacated guess is that Zimmerman's family didn't bother to tell his new lawyer (who is about three thousand percent better at this than the previous two), his lawyer gave the court the information he had, and then later on when he's explaining to them that they need to shut down their website, somebody says "But we've already collected $200K in donations!"
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Clearly, the solution is to start shooting the vending machines.
OK, I am kidding. I know full well that hand to hand combat can be deadly, and if you are a real martial artist it is deadly more often than not.
Not seeing a weapon is no guarantee that there isn't one, and considering how breakable the human body is that is no protection anyway.
We come in peace, shoot to kill!
Ed & Larry : "Doesn't matter."
I recently was gifted a thing in Steam. If it was from you, thank you very much!
Oh it's definitely enough to run to some places, it's just that any place which won't extradite your ass back to the U.S. is also usually the sort of place where you can't pay for stuff with a personal check drafted on Bank of America. He would theoretically have to figure out how to get the money out of the U.S. first.
In any case, I would be inclined to think this is much more likely to be a case of "holy shit I didn't realize how much money this site raised in just a week!" than a case of "I wonder if $200,000 in twenty-dollar-bills would weigh too much for me to be able to carry it through an airport in a dufflebag?"
So you are ALWAYS in reasonable fear of your life and can shoot an unarmed person with impunity, because they MIGHT have a gun or MIGHT be a martial arts master? Really?
P.S.: It's not *that* easy to kill somebody with your bare hands, unless they're sitting there letting you do it.
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Not cause some guy was maybe following them, no. Maybe it's a class thing but I can't think of anyone I knew in high school who even got into a fight.
If that was the case, I think it is entirely appropriate for Zimmerman to spend the next 5 to 10 years in jail.
If you are in a fight you can reasonably fear that your life may be in danger. The exact circumstances of the fight have to be considered of course. Looking at this one as an example (at least what might have happened) getting your head repeatedly slammed on the ground hard enough to bleed seems to fall well into the reasonable fear of death, or serious bodily harm. Having brain damage counts as serious bodily harm.
It's not hyperbole at all. You said that the truth, in essence, does not matter and that deductive reasoning can stay out of the courtroom. If the defendant's rights are all that matters, you may as well protect them with all of the pseudo-science and hearsay you can find.
Zimmerman's legal team is demanding a negative be proven: he claims that he fired in self defense, and demands we prove him wrong. If we can't prove him wrong, well then obviously that's what happened, or so goes the terribly broken chain of logic.
I do not 'hope he is guilty'. He killed Martin, admitted to doing it and pulled a story out of his ass to justify the action. I do not believe the story, because my default position is skepticism. He can't substantiate his story (or hasn't thus far, anyway) with physical evidence.
Me personally? No. I don't carry a gun and consider extracting myself a sufficient response.
That being said, I have had my ass kicked badly before, requiring a hospital visit.
The guy did time for it.
Edit: I believe if I have fairly consistent on these boards in that I am unwilling to attach an absolute response to anything. There is always nuance. If you feel that anything I say is 100% inflexible then you are misunderstanding me.
Ed & Larry : "Doesn't matter."
I recently was gifted a thing in Steam. If it was from you, thank you very much!
The second sentence makes the first meaningless.
If your first sentence were true, then the law would never ask whether the person claiming self defense "reasonably" believed they were in fear of great bodily harm or death, and therefore that deadly force is OK. It would assume if you were in a fight, that alone is enough to say your fear was reasonable. Do you understand that there are very good reasons we don't, as a matter of law, make that assumption and require a reasonable belief?
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While you, and others may feel it appropriate, I don't know if the law is going to agree. Especially if you continue with:
Zimmerman is on the ground getting his head knocked into the ground.
Zimmerman calls out for help.
This continues for half a minute before Zimmerman remembers, and uses his gun.
I can see the law giving Martin a free pass on the initial assault under self defense. However continuing to assault Zimmerman while he is calling for help is different.
I am assuming that Martin's autopsy shows that he didn't receive wounds from the fight (other than the gun shot). This would show that he is the primary aggressor, and unlikely to be calling for help.
I can come up with scenarios where Martin didn't receive wounds, but did call for help. They just fall into the "unlikely" realm.
The problem is that I don't believe a story where Zimmerman doesn't start shit because he's the only one with a clear motive to start shit. And having started shit, he doesn't have a right to self defense anymore.[/quote]
Under Florida law, aggressors can still claim self defense if they have either tried to defuse the situation (tell the other person that they dont want to fight anymore/tried to stop fighting/tried to get away) or if the person theyre fighting (the victim) uses force that leads them to reasonably believe they will face GBH or death.
Are they really that great though? They let Zimmerman apologize during his bail hearing.
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/04/20/zimmerman-set-for-friday-court-appearance/
Zimmerman's interactions with his previous attorney leads me to believe that he has trouble doing what his lawyers tell him so maybe they advised against this. Regardless, if he wanted to apologize to the family and not come off as sounding guilty (since by claiming self defense hes saying he was a victim) he could have said something like "Im sorry I had to shoot your son" or "I regret the events of that night, but I had no choice" or something to that effect.