Super Civil Thread on Florida v. Zimmerman

Parent Cafe
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<p>I apologize for mentioning the missing wallet in my scenario from earlier today. I have been unable to find the original source of the information, and the task is not made easier by the fact that George Zimmerman was on his way to Target (rather than, say Walmart). I keep getting search results that say “Trayvon Martin target” because apparently some wackjob made a silhouette that looked like him for target practice. Oh yeah, and the wackjob was a Florida police officer.</p>

<p>[Central</a> Fla. police sergeant fired over Trayvon Martin target image - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57579510/central-fla-police-sergeant-fired-over-trayvon-martin-target-image/]Central”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57579510/central-fla-police-sergeant-fired-over-trayvon-martin-target-image/)</p>

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<p>And now for something completely different:</p>

<p>HOW DO COURT RECORDERS KEEP STRAIGHT FACES???
These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place.</p>

<p>ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget…
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He’s 20, much like your IQ.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you ****ting me?</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death…
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I’m going with male.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral…</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.</p>

<hr>

<p>ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?</p>

<hr>

<p>And last:</p>

<p>ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No…
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.</p>

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<p>^ great stuff</p>

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<p>mini, those are hilarious. The last one is just priceless. My husband and son frown on lawyer jokes, but these are just too good to not share. Thanks so much!</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>My mom lives in a luxury high rise, not far from our home. I am white, as is she, and as are the majority of residents of the building. When I visit I walk up to the sliding glass doors. About 75% of the time the concierge at the desk sees me and opens the door so I can come in. Then they wave, or maybe ask who I am coming to see and I say “My mom XX floor” and they say “have a nice visit” as I walk to the elevator. The other 25% of the time someone is coming in or out when I arrive. Before the concierge says anything the person stops so the doors stay open and I can come in. This happened the first I visit. It happens if I visit on a different day or time and there’s a concierge I’ve never seen. It happens at both the North and South entrance.</p>

<p>If my son, who is black, comes he walks up to the sliding glass doors, and the concierge motions towards the phone. He then picks up the phone, explains who is coming to see and waits while they call my mom, describe the person waiting, and then she buzzes him in. My mom moved there when he was 9, and even at that age, if I dropped him off at the front door he waited to be buzzed in. There is one concierge who no longer does this because after seeing him buzzed in 20+ times she must have figured out that he “belongs” to his nana. </p>

<p>My son has also been followed in stores, yelled at for picking up a toy in a store and looking for a price tag, and recently when he was waiting for a friend on the sidewalk outside a pizza restaurant had the owner or manager come out and threaten to call the police for “loitering”. Since he’s been old enough to sit in the front seat, I’ve been pulled over for stupid made up reasons (e.g. “your front tires were two inches past the stop line”), several times, always by cars that were positioned so that they could see him and not me.</p>

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<p>Curiousjane knows whereof she speaks:</p>

<p>[The</a> Reality of Racial Profiling](<a href=“http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial-profiling2011/the-reality-of-racial.html]The”>http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial-profiling2011/the-reality-of-racial.html)</p>

<p>The evidence is inescapable that non-whites are subjected to racial profiling by law enforcement and that the yields in terms of stopping people who turn out to have weapons or drugs, for example, or outstanding warrants do not justify the disproportionate scrutiny. </p>

<p>My daughter, white, has had an eye opening summer working at a retail establishment. She has been told that they want to use her as the “face of the establishment” when many of her coworkers are African American. Then she gets to hear her supervisors make anti-semitic jokes–not knowing she is one of them. It’s shocking to both of us how casual and free and easy the biases are on display. She has–from pre-school through college–been in highly diverse settings–a bubble that is now popped.</p>

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<p>A coworker and her husband got pulled over while driving in an affluent area. When they asked whyntheynwere pulled over, the officer told them he was just checking things out. My co worker and her husband are -AVP and VP respectively of their financial service companies. I was ready to call the police and make an issue of it, but my coworker said not to bother - it wasn’t the first time.</p>

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<p>“There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” </p>

<p>This is a quote from Jesse Jackson. </p>

<p>So please tell me why you think Jesse Jackson said this.</p>

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<p>He said that because he was the victim of two crimes in a relatively short period,of time.</p>

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<p>Why does it matter what JJ said? People here are telling personal and painful stories. Why not respond to those, or address something else relevant to this thread?</p>

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<p>Riprorin, I don’t set Jesse Jackson up as a role model on any level. But I’ll worry about it when he carries around a badge and has the right to pull people over and question them. </p>

<p>As to the testimony today, I don’t understand the prosecution’s approach to the defense’s pathologist. If the clothes were 2-4" away from the skin when TM was shot, and the bullet hole on the clothes was lower than on the body, why does that indicate TM was on top while shot? I don’t get that at all.</p>

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<p>Zoosermon said: “He said that because he was the victim of two crimes in a relatively short period, of time.”</p>

<p>And…</p>

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<p>I think it’s because if you’re lying on you back, your clothes fall towards your body, they don’t hang a couple of inches away the way they do if you’re leaning over someone, but I didn’t watch the testimony.</p>

<p>I think there’s a lot of evidence that, at the point he was shot TM was kneeling over GZ. How he got there, and whether TM was defending himself when they got there, and whether they were throwing punches or TM was struggling to get the gun away from GZ, those are the questions that I think this case hinges on.</p>

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<p>Sally said: “Why does it matter what JJ said? People here are telling personal and painful stories. Why not respond to those, or address something else relevant to this thread?”</p>

<p>I brought it up in regards to the posts above regarding racial profiling. I thought that was blatantly obvious.</p>

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<p>So, riprorin, you are coming down on the side of it being acceptable for poetsheart’s son to be stopped by the police when walking peacefully through his own neighborhood, for the same to be done to the children and friends of countless others? It’s okay with you? Thanks for making that clear. I’ll stop at that because this is supposed to be the civil thread.</p>

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</p>

<p>he can post what he wants…many other posts are not relevant…yet you call out his?</p>

<p>Maybe people are afraid of black males committing crimes because proportionately they commit far more crimes than any other group…not that hard to understand.</p>

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<p>riprorin and geeps: we are trying to keep this thread civil. Most of us are enjoying the running commentary on the trial and appreciate hearing different points of view. But time after time, you come on and flame things up with provocative and not very friendly comments. I am sure I speak for a lot of posters here when I ask you to please stop.</p>

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<p>Interesting video from Broward County about not rioting.</p>

<p>[Broward</a> County Sheriff’s Office “Don’t Riot” Zimmerman Verdict Video - YouTube](<a href=“Broward County Sheriff's Office "Don't Riot" Zimmerman Verdict Video - YouTube”>Broward County Sheriff's Office "Don't Riot" Zimmerman Verdict Video - YouTube)</p>

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<p>^ sorry Sally…I can respond how I wish…just because you don’t agree, doesn’t mean I must stop…typical though, shut up anyone with a differing opinion? </p>

<p>Posters want to post about certain people being stereotyped…fine…not that relevant to this thread IMO…</p>

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<p>Some cops are just jerks. One local cop stopped and harassed my son and a few of his friends when they were hanging out in the front yard of one of the friends. Cop parked his car, flashed his flashlight in their faces, and accused them of smoking pot (on private property!). They weren’t smoking pot. They weren’t smoking anything. The cop continued to be a pain in the a** and thank goodness, they knew enough not to engage in an argument. The kids are white. Is this profiling? More than likely, it was simply a jerk of a cop (A.K.A. dou**h cop around town).</p>