<p>Geeps, I’m curious. At what point in a fight do you think shooting to kill is justified?</p>
<p>What bothers me is the rush to condemn anyone before an investigation and trial have even played out. None of us really have access to all the available information on this case. Yet there is so much certitude on who is guilty and who is innocent! How about everyone just breathe and be a little bit patient and let the process play out?</p>
<p>Looking at the Florida statute referenced in the Harvard Brief:</p>
<p>“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is atracked 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 forceable felony.”</p>
<p>Sheesh. They both had the right to defend themselves with force. The key phrase there, in my opinion is “REASONABLY BELIEVES”. I think this case is going to hinge on whether the jury believes Zimmerman’s claim that it was reasonable that he believed his actions were necessary to prevent death or GREAT BODILY HARM to himself.</p>
<p>So, at what point in a confrontation would a reasonable person believe that shooting to kill is a reasonable response? I think the standards would be pretty high… But based on the statute, Florida’s standards are much lower, it seems.</p>
<p>If there was a struggle, and Z fired to protect himself to extricate himself from that “life threatening” struggle, then there would surely be gunshot residue on the red jacket. Just test the jacket. Oh, I forgot, the police didn’t take the jacket into evidence.</p>
<p>For those among you who haven’t had the misfortune to be involved in a physical altercation, and who haven’t had the desire to own and operate semi-automatic pistols, Z’s story may sound plausible. But is it really reasonable, while being pummeled, to release your hands (you’ll be needing both of them), retrieve the pistol from your belt, pull back the slide to load a round (that’s the two-hand operation), release the safety, and get the pistol into a firing position … all this while your attacker benignly waits for you to fire a bullet into his chest?</p>
<p>No defense attorney in his right mind is going to have Z demonstrate how he managed to do this. Now if the pistol was already out, and a round already loaded …</p>
<p>Another random thought, as I load the dishwasher:</p>
<p>Zimmerman got out of his car to follow Martin. If they don’t charge him, the state of Florida is stating, in essence, that in the state of Florida a person is within his rights to follow (stalk) another person for any reason, and if that that stalked person makes any move that the stalker feels is threatening, the stalker is allowed to shoot to kill. </p>
<p>Wow. </p>
<p>Domestic abusers will have a licence to kill in the state of Florida.</p>
<p>I always get uncomfortable when people become invested in one or another version of murky facts…even when one version of the facts seems likely to be the more true version.</p>
<p>Where does the screaming fit into the scenario? Trayvon was found shot in the chest, face down on the ground. It would seem that Trayvon must have been either standing up or, as Z recounted, in a sitting position over Z at the time he was shot. Otherwise, Z would have had to roll Trayvon’s body over after shooting him.</p>
<p>So where does the screaming fit into this possible scenario?</p>
<p>Years from now, it will be known as “The Zimmerman Defense”.</p>
<p>I was following my ex down the street, just trying to talk to her, just trying to work things out. She turned on me, yelled some obscenities, and punched me in the face. I felt threatened, so I shot and killed her.</p>
<p>Hunt…well said</p>
<p>Hunt, curious which version you are suggesting seems more “true”?</p>
<p>Sent from my MB860 using CC</p>
<p>Eastcoast…My hypotheticals are just to bring balance to what the majority are saying here…basically that Z is guilty because he approached Martin. It’s not just feeling threatened, it must be live threatening, IMO. How about Martin is banging Z’s head into the ground, Z manages to kick Martin off of him for a moment, doesn’t have time to escape or even get up and Martin decides to attack again instead of running away.</p>
<p>In that moment, Z manages to draw his weapon and fire at the lunging Martin…Murder?..self defense?..I don’t know…but it MIGHT not be as cut and dried as many here believe it to be…</p>
<p>Having said that, you would think the police would now from their investigation and examine of the body…If they botched it or covered up, then that’s another can of worms.</p>
<p>
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<p>Not to mention that the act of pulling out and pointing the gun at someone is itself a hostile act which is covered under the charge of assault in many jurisdictions.</p>
<p>Especially if the one who’s armed is the one who instigated the situation/fight leading up to the confrontation or the one being threatened couldn’t have been taken by a reasonable person to be threatening to the one holding the gun. </p>
<p>Again, even one of the drafters of Florida’s SYG law has stated he never intended for it to cover cases like Z’s. </p>
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<p>According to the national neighborhood watch association and groups which follow its guidelines…including ones relatives…including some in Florida belong to…their job is to watch for crime and phone it in to the cops. </p>
<p>It is NOT “trying to stop trouble”. That’s the job for the local authorities. </p>
<p>For the above reason and to prevent violent confrontations like this case…it is also why such neighborhood watch associations don’t want volunteers to perform their duties while carrying guns or to actually confront the potentially suspicious persons they phoned into the local authorities. </p>
<p>If Z joined as a volunteer in the neighborhood watch associations my relatives/friends belonged to…he’d be tossed out quickly…if he wasn’t rejected outright in the first place due to his desire to carry his gun on watch duty and his prior arrest record for violent incidents. </p>
<p>Heck…in some of those communities…his application for residency itself may be rejected for the latter reasons.</p>
<p>"I always get uncomfortable when people become invested in one or another version of murky facts…even when one version of the facts seems likely to be the more true version. "</p>
<p>What ‘seems’ to be is not always the case. Remember the Duke lacrosse case? According to all reports the boys were guilty as he{{. </p>
<p>It is amazing to me how many people still believe everything they read - if it suits their agenda.</p>
<p>Even if it is determined that SYG doesn’t apply, the prosecution still needs to be able to show that Z’s use of deadly force was not reasonable given the circumstances.</p>
<p>Which is why one cannot ignore the details of the confrontation immediately preceding the shot, or discount it based upon Z’s past, the PD’s history, or the fact that Z possessed a gun and followed Trayvon, both of which are legal activities.</p>
<p>I’m interested in how thinking works, and how we frame and reframe what we perceive and what we think we know.</p>
<p>First off, the incident was framed one way–simple self-defense, backburned investigation.</p>
<p>Then, only through the striving of the family, aided by the power of media, social and then commercial, a slew of new facts and artifacts surface–starting with the 911 tapes, then backgrounds of both participants, witness statements, video, etc.</p>
<p>Situation is now reframed–something is wrong, why is there no investigation, why is Z not charged, why no forensics, etc etc. The new framing is basically questions and demands for a real investigation. </p>
<p>That position, I would have thought, would be the rational one–a sort of hey what?? Wait a minute, what the heck happened here! This needs looking at!</p>
<p>But again, a new reframe has occured, in which those questions, that incredulity, that concern, is now labeled a “rush to judgment” rather than a necessary correction to the rush to judgment that had effectively buried the story, until uncovered through the efforts of Trayvon’s family.</p>
<p>I have trouble understanding that. It’s true that, in order to pull the focus away from the lopsided original story, there has been an effort to pull it the other way–but that pull was necessitated from the start by the unbalanced framing at the start. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why a demand for justice is being equated with a “rush to judgment.”</p>
<p>Aren’t we a country based on fair an equal justice? that’s what’s being asked for.</p>
<p>
Well, since you asked, my best guess is that the “true” version, if it could be found, would be one in which Zimmerman’s actions were reckless and unreasonable, but not particularly racially motivated. I don’t think there are enough facts to know just how unreasonable his ultimate actions were, and I don’t think we’ll ever really know what happened in the final encounter–but it’s pretty clear to me that his initial actions weren’t reasonable, and it wasn’t reasonable for him to be patrolling the neighborhood with a gun in the first place. But as uncomfortable as it makes some people, it’s very possible that some actions taken by Martin also made the situation worse.</p>
<p>But I’m just basing my views on my experience, which teach me that in disputed factual situations, usually the actual facts are a murky mixture of what both sides are saying, as well as things that neither side is saying.</p>
<p>“I always get uncomfortable when people become invested in one or another version of murky facts…even when one version of the facts seems likely to be the more true version.”</p>
<p>This has my vote for Post-of-the-Day.</p>
<p>NewHope33,
Does that mean you have not made up your mind about this case?</p>
<p>^ I mean that Z’s explanation of how Martin came to be shot is highly unlikely. Try re-enacting his claim-of-events (with an unloaded weapon of course).</p>