<p>Yeah - I’m speaking from limited experience – the few cases I’ve handled (and I think Calmom has trial experience with these cases, whereas I only have appellate experience - which does not, by definition, include any cases where the jury acquitted.)</p>
<p>But the “he needed killin” defense has seemed to apply in my experience to explain the difference between murder 2 and manslaughter in the real world. That is, you can parse yourself silly over the differing definitions of murder and manslaughter, “malice” and “premeditation” etc., but the clear distinction as far as I’ve seen is how much the victim “needed killin’.” If the victim is a nice guy, or even just average, you get murder. If the victim is a really bad guy, you’ve got a shot at manslaughter or a drop from murder1 to murder 2. (The worst case I ever had was a horror show - but most people would give the guy who killed the “victim” a medal, if the killer wasn’t almost as much of a scumbag himself. He got murder2 in a clear murder1 case.)</p>
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And yet he did, didn’t he? All of the explanations about how Zimmerman’s conduct was not the conduct of a criminal sort of ignore the fact that this is a guy who shot and killed an unarmed 17 year old boy. I get that he felt he was the guy in the white hat all along - that’s really, really clear. But to me that’s all the more reason to throw the book at him.</p>
<p>Wannabes with guns and delusions of heroism. Not a good thing. I’m one of the few people who will admit that I do like to say “I told you so.” This sort of thing is the predictable product of the NRA pro-gun mentality. We’ll see more.</p>