<p>Unless Prosecutors can find acquaintances who’ve heard Z use the word, I doubt very much the it will come up at trial.</p>
<p>I don’t know where Zimmerman grew up, but I can tell you that the use of the word “coon” as a derogatory term is alive and well in southern Virginia. My grandfather also went coon hunting but that was mainly a ruse for drinking with his hunting buddies at night.</p>
<p>I would think there are too many interpretations of the voice recording at this point for any one to have a strong validity.</p>
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<p>Well, if you were planning to rob a neighborhood and wanted to get away with it, wouldn’t you try to disguise your identity? </p>
<p>People who are looking for would-be robbers, would be aroused by anyone who looks like they might be trying to disguise their identity, no?</p>
<p>I have a 17-year old son who is about 6 ft tall and 150 lbs. Sometimes even I am intimidated by him.</p>
<p>So Bay if someone did exactly what Zimmermen did to your kid you would be satisified if the police handled it the exact same way?</p>
<p>Bay, I can’t ever imagine being intimidated by my own sons, and I have two also 6 feet tall. </p>
<p>don’t know if it’s just me but this whole conversation about hoodies seems like more finding fault with a dead 17 yr old.</p>
<p>^Probably not. The mother bear instinct clouds all reason. But I think and hope I would reserve judgment about claiming that Z and the cops are racists, and that Z intended to kill my son because of how he looked. Even I have admitted that teenage boys intimidate me.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t have anything to do with finding fault with a 17-year old. It has to do with common perceptions about teenagers and what they wear. Z didn’t have a teenage son, let alone one that is 6ft tall and wears his hood up 24/7.</p>
<p>So what? Many women have “common perceptions” about men. They rob. They rape. They friggin ruin the world. </p>
<p>I just can’t see people on CC – men in particular – using “common perception defense” if TM had been a man, and Z a woman packing heat on the lookout for suspicious *******s.</p>
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<p>If you are on the jury, you would have to. You must put yourself in the perpetrators shoes to determine whether he acted reasonably or not. That is how the law works. If he is a 5’9" man with no kids who lives in a gated community that was recently robbed, you have to look at the scenario from that point of view.</p>
<p>Well, they’d probably have to excuse me from that jury. Because from the moment he got out of his car and followed the guy when the police said he didn’t have to, he became the aggressor in my eyes. So, I guess I’d be off the hook.</p>
<p>“You must put yourself in the perpetrators shoes to determine whether he acted reasonably or not.”</p>
<p>By that logic all sociopaths behave reasonably.</p>
<p>^No, because sociopaths are not reasonable people. It is the reasonable man standard. Not the sociopath standard.</p>
<p>Poetgrl,
I’m pretty sure you would be excused.</p>
<p>^ OK, let me try it this way. Let’s say that I’ve been taught that it’s essential I never damage anyone’s property. That’s reasonable, right? So I’m driving down the road and an empty stroller rolls out into the street, followed by the owner. I want to pull to the left to avoid the stroller, but there’s a car coming the other way. So I pull to the right and run over the lady chasing the stroller. I’m in the clear, right? Because not running over the stroller was reasonable … to me, based on my beliefs.</p>
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<p>Yes, we’d all be excused, though, given how much we’ve discussed this.</p>
<p>Have you ever seen the original “12 Angry Men” with Henry Fonda?</p>
<p>It’s quite good.</p>
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<p>To your first point: Yes, bad guys try to disguise themselves. That does not mean that everyone who wears those items is a bad guy.</p>
<p>To your second: I think that’s just the problem. When you spend much of your time on the lookout for suspicious behavior, as Z seems to have done, then lots of innocuous things begin to take on a sinister tinge – e.g., an unarmed kid walking home from the store. Must we all dress to please the paranoid nut down the street?</p>
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<p>I think it is likely that a jury would agree that you did what a reasonable man would do in your predicament: You stayed in your lane, rather than veer into oncoming traffic, even if it meant colliding with a pedestrian who wrongly and unfortunately stepped into the street. We can’t control what everyone chooses to do; we can only try to make decisions that make the most sense at the time, which is reasonable, and all that anyone is expected to do.</p>
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<p>No. But when we dress any given way, we may or may not be sending a message. I think that is pretty obvious to most people. If you dress in all black, people might not be able to see you at night. If you wear a clown suit to a funeral, people might think you are a little crazy and disrespectful. If you wear something that obscures your face and profile, people might think you are trying to hide your identity. It doesn’t mean you are actually trying to do those things. In a jury trial, all that matters is what a reasonable man who sees you in that setting might make of it. Today’s reasonable man might not agree that a hoodie is indicative of anything suspicious. But he also might think it is, given that hoods are banned in some public places and in banks. That is why we discuss it.</p>
<p>^ actually … I chose NOT to stay in my lane. If I’d stayed in my lane I’d have run over the empty stroller. But I felt I couldn’t damage the stroller, because it was property. So I veered to the right, and ran the lady over. She’s in intensive care, but I’m in the clear because in my (reasonable) mind, I couldn’t run over the stroller.</p>
<p>IMO the person who needs to modify their behavior is the nut, not the person wearing the hoodie. And if the reasonable man thinks that a hoodie magically confers a criminal intent deserving of instant death, then the reasonable man needs to change too.</p>