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<p>In GZ’s original taped statement to the police, which I assume he will reiterate when he testifies, he said he left his car because he didn’t know what street he was on and needed to find a street sign so he could arrange a meet-up with the cops who were coming–and it was while he was looking around for that elusive street sign that TN confronted him. How credible is it that the neighborhood watch guy knew so little about his neighborhood? I leave that to the jury</p>
<p>I agree, there’s no crime here. Short shlumpy Hispanics ought to be able to roam neighborhood shooting any unarmed youth they think is threatening.</p>
<p>Even if GZ is found Not Guilty by Reason of Poor Police Work and Mediocre Prosecution, his behavior will have repercussions that last long after the trial is over. It’s hard for some of us to separate “we don’t want GZ types roaming our neighborhood” from “what he did was perfectly acceptable.”</p>
<p>Mommaj.- good point. In my community there is one street. In GZ’s community there is total of three streets, yep three. Me thinks his statement that he was looking for a street sign may have been a fib. </p>
<p>That’s the thing about believing the defendant you know, he seems to be a bit biased towards saving his own hide.</p>
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<p>[George</a> Zimmerman Witness Can’t Read Letter She ‘Wrote’ About Shooting - ABC News](<a href=“George Zimmerman Witness Can't Say Who Threw First Punch - ABC News”>George Zimmerman Witness Can't Say Who Threw First Punch - ABC News)</p>
<p>^^ A rising senior? That’s terribly sad.</p>
<p>If you carefully follow Zimmerman call with the dispatcher, he was heard saying “he ran” and leaving his car at 7:11:43, the dispatcher asked whether he was following him, and he said yes at 7:11:57. He was then told to no need to do that and GZ said ok. But at 7:12:07, the dispatcher asked for his name, and GZ was heard panting and breathing heavily saying again “he ran”. That does not sound like he went looking for a street sign.</p>
<p>First he admitted on the call that he was following TM after leaving the car contrary to what he said later on. And second, about 12 seconds has transpired after he was leaving the car to the point where the dispatcher told him not to anymore, but it took another maybe 3 minutes before the shooting took place hundreds of yards away from the car. What was he doing all that time? Is walking back to his car a credible explanation?</p>
<p>^ ttparent - So what? If you’re one of “The Good Guys” you ought to strap on your piece for a trip to Target (“hot loaded” just in case you need to defend yourself while shopping), decide on who’s a “suspect” and treat the “probable perp” as such (that is the definition of “suspect” isn’t it?), disregard NW guidelines, disregard police instruction, decide that a wrestling match is life-threatening, give contradictory statements to the police, etc. All that is perquisite for “The Good Guys” isn’t it?</p>
<p>TM wasn’t an unarmed kid walking home with Skittles and iced tea. He was a menace to society. The fact that one of “The Good Guys” shot and killed him is PROOF of that … because “Good Guys” only shoot “Bad Guys.” GZ’s the real victim here. People should be outraged that “The Man” is targeting one of “The Good Guys.” </p>
<p>Sarcasm: The chasm that exists between someone who uses ridiculous statements to support the opposite view … and audience members who don’t “get it.” Often used when a simple statement of facts falls on deaf ears. Example: “Yeah, I wish we had some GZ’s around here … I like my neighbors but I sure don’t like their kids.”</p>
<p>I like this judge. She is clear and strong and is not letting Don West play games with the process.</p>
<p>I think Mr. west is goading the witness, and is doing damage to his own case at this point… In my head I’m starting to cheer on the witness as she stands her own ground while the defense is trying to bully her.</p>
<p>agree eastcoascrazy…</p>
<p>in an interesting parallel, West is acting “combative” with the judge, and while he’s attempting to portray this witness as “ignorant” I think he is the one appearing so.</p>
<p>I remember all the critical remarks about how Attorney Baez handled courtroom presentation of the Anthony defense. I seem to recall he had run-ins with Judge Perry.</p>
<p>There is a particular judge in the city where I live. That judge is transparent in the side she favors in jury trials. In juror exist interviews where I was involved after a defense verdict in two different cases in her court, one or more jurors mentioned that as being obvious and “unfair.” One went so far as to describe it as “ganging up.”</p>
<p>I do not think that a juror who truly gets what is at stake for GZ is going to hold West’s zealous representation against GZ. And, if they think the judge is ganging up with the prosecution that may help GZ.</p>
<p>No matter how the point got made, the jurors now have as part of the information that TM’s close HS friend is not fully literate. Remember what your mother told you?–birds of a feather flock together and your are known by the company you keep.</p>
<p>The jurors have already heard from her that TM engages in ghetto/racist trash talk. The autopsy report (which seems a certainty to be placed in evidence) shows TM to be tattoo’d in two places. Anyone who has read the CC threads on tatoos knows that some people absolutely associate tattoos with deviants/“bad” people. Hoodie drawn down over the face in the store video.</p>
<p>Quite a mental picture of TM. Will at least one of the white/hispanic female jurors have that image? Don’t know. It takes a unanimous verdict to convict. And, the prosecution may not be able to counter this mental picture, if it exists, without “opening the door” for the HS suspension to come in.</p>
<p>A lot of bias comes from who a person identifies with the most. Is it supposed to work that way? No. Does it? You decide. Will it in this case? Stay tuned.</p>
<p>FYI-- my State, Texas just executed its 500 convict by lethal injection yesterday. An African American woman. Add that to the number of convicts hung and electrocuted in Texas and the total is well over 1000 executions, including several females. </p>
<p>Dallas (where I live) and Texas gemerally has had a very, very substantial number of convicted people released based on DNA and other subsequent scientific advancements. One case where it is clear a “mistake” was made came after the guy was executed. </p>
<p>If you believe in capital punishment (and even these very, very long, if not life, sentences), I think you have to view “beyond a reasonable doubt” very seriously.</p>
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I don’t believe in capital punishment and am a law-and-order conservative, but I have always taken the reasonable doubt admonition very seriously. It would be incredibly hard for me to convict someone if I could make any kind of case at all against conviction. No one can ever really know what anyone else would consider “reasonable.”</p>
<p>Jeantel said she didn’t believe “cracker” was a racial term, after testifying yesterday that Martin said that a “creepy ass cracker” was following him.</p>
<p>She’s using the Paula Deen defense.</p>
<p>As I said yesterday, I hadn’t heard that term before and, let me tell you, its entries on Urban Dictionary are something else entirely. The other context is not racial but has a different emphasis than cracker standing alone.</p>
<p>yes, that term for younger set references one being a rapist.</p>
<p>It’s hard to believe that a person has not heard the word ‘cracker’ being used as a racial slur against whites. The entries on Urban dictionary repeatedly reference this type of usage. Zoosermom, if you don’t mind me asking, where are you from?</p>
<p>I’m pleased to see your awareness of the large number of people who have been wrongly convicted of serious crimes, 07DAD. But in the overwhelming majority of those cases the reason they were wrongfully convicted is because they were actually not the person who did the act which was punished as a crime. They didn’t kill anyone, they didn’t rape anyone, etc.</p>
<p>That’s not the question here. George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin - there’s no dispute about that. The only question is whether that killing was lawful or not.</p>
<p>That’s why this case is interesting to me - particularly the lineup of the people who seem very upset about the possibility that the white neighborhood watch guy with a loaded gun who followed the black teenager and killed him might be found to have broken the law. My assessment is that the pro-Zimmerman zeal is driven by a combination of his problematic status in terms of the NRA world view that having a lot of “good guys with guns” running around will make the country a better place and fear of “scary black men.” </p>
<p>I think that people who are not comfortable with Zimmerman’s homicide being ruled to be legal feel that following a teenager on a Skittles run with a loaded gun and then shooting him is inherently inconsistent with the concept of “self defense.”</p>
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New York City. I’ve never heard that word spoken in my life and I have always lived in racially mixed areas and attended racially mixed public schools, as did some of my kids. It’s just not a term used here. I have, of course, read it in books, but never heard it in modern, spoken usage. As 07Dad mentioned, it is a common term in the south.</p>
<p>agree kluge…</p>
<p>sschickens–if you hear the term she reported that TM used, “creepy a-- cracker”, it does take on a different meaning. think about it.</p>
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That’s what I was getting at. Thank you.</p>