In my foreign land, murder is OKFollow

The only speculation on my side is whether or not Zimmerman is providing an honest account of what happened (and that's less speculation than logical analysis of the facts). You're just randomly speculating and including every possibility *except* the one that Zimmerman said happened.

Zimmerman followed Martin but lost sight of him. He headed back towards his car, but before getting there, Martin approached him, exchanged some words and the attacked Zimmerman without warning. Zimmerman immediately fell to the ground and Martin jumped on top of him and started beating him in the face and slamming his head onto the cement walkway. Zimmerman screamed for help, but no one helped him. At that point Zimmerman shot Martin in self defense.


That's Zimmerman's story. And that story matches every single eye witness account of events that we have. And while you're free to speculate about a whole range of other possible sequences, baring any evidence, it is just speculation. We absolutely know (because of three eye witnesses) that the last part of Zimmerman's story is true. The *only* part we don't know for sure is how the physical altercation started. But in the absence of any evidence, there's no reason to assume that Zimmerman is lying.

Let me point out again that while all three eye witnesses reported seeing Martin on top of Zimmerman beating him, and Zimmerman screaming for help, none of them reported ever seeing Zimmerman on top, or chasing Martin, or at any point having any choice or control at all in the matter of the physical fight. So while it's possible that at some earlier point Zimmerman had the upper hand, or started the fight, or chased Martin down, we have no evidence of that. And frankly, he'd have to be the luckiest liar in the world to make up a story that commits him to a short immediate fight in one place in which Martin always had the upper hand and just having it just happen that all three witnesses saw just the part he described and none of the part he omitted. What are the odds of that? Pretty low, right?


Every fact in this case supports Zimmerman's account of events. The only reason to disbelieve it is if you're putting emotions ahead of reason. Which, unfortunately, a whole hell of a lot of people are doing.

Edited, Apr 3rd 2012 6:50pm by gbaji

Yes it was dumbass that is called stalking. No one has that right.

You claimed Martin was not justified in running, and it was explained having broke no law he was justified to do whatever he wanted. You said assault is breaking the law so running wasn't justified.

You do see the logical fallacy here yes?



@ thread in general

It all comes down to Zimmermans choice to pursue Martin and not listen to the 911 operator, which is the only piece of evidence that matters. Zimmerman knowingly and willingly pursued a target he did not know and suspected to be up to no good. His suspicions even led to the calling of 911. Zimmerman put himself in a potentially dangerous situation (if we believe the snooping around type behavior claimed to be seen) the 911 operator told him he did not have to follow Martin.

Thus the silly law should not apply here. Zimmerman knowingly and willingly endangered himself Martin was not responsible for Zimmermans choice to do that. It is murder, Zimmerman put himself at risk, and then when sh*t hit the fan killed a man, knowing full well it could have ended either way, from the moment he opted to play police man.



Edited, Apr 4th 2012 12:15am by rdmcandie

Edited, Apr 4th 2012 12:21am by rdmcandie

ftfy

No, I'm not arguing.

You're arguing. There is nothing to argue. I'll tell you again what happened. A man shot a teenager. The shooter has not been arrested. ANYTHING else is speculation. Even Zimmerman's statements. He's not been under under oath, nor have the so-called eye witnesses, nor have any of them been cross-examined. There's been no trial gbaji. Stop spewing what you think is so obviously the truth. You don't know anything.

You didn't even read the frickin book!!

That you're conflating several different statements in the wrong order and creating logical associations between them that I never claimed? Yeah. I see a whole bunch of fallacies in what you're doing.

For the record: At no point *ever* did I say that running wasn't justified because assault is breaking the law. That's honestly the most bizarre statement I've heard someone make in this whole thread, in fact.


You really really really need to lay off the pot.




The only piece? So three eye witnesses saying they saw Martin on top of Zimmerman beating him doesn't matter? I'd say that matters a hell of a lot more than Zimmerman's choice to follow Martin. Following someone doesn't justify a violent action against you. Sitting on top of someone and beating them *does*.



So you're saying that a private citizen on private property to which he is a part owner and has volunteered to watch over cannot follow someone he thinks is suspicious because that person might assault him violently and require him to defend himself? Really? So if I see someone stealing my stuff, I just have to stand there and watch because if I approach the thief and ask him to stop, he might do something violent? And if I do, and he does get violent, it's my fault?

How about we blame the guy who got violent? Doesn't that make a hell of a lot more sense? Zimmerman following Martin is not dangerous *unless* Martin is a dangerous person. Are you saying that Martin was a dangerous thug and Zimmerman should have known this and thus not followed? I thought the whole argument for weeks now has been that Martin was this angelic innocent kid who couldn't hurt a fly? If this fact is so obvious that you've all adopted it without question, then shouldn't Zimmerman have felt completely safe following Martin?

Maybe Zimmerman just wanted to ask him where he got his skittles? Since it should have been so obvious to him that Martin was completely harmless. Which is it?



Ok. I get that some of you are very emotional about this case. But that's not even remotely how the actual law applies. The law does not require that you adjust your every choice and act in order to avoid the possibility that someone might violently respond to you. It does, in fact, protect your rights to do any lawful action and punish those who act violently against you.

If all Zimmerman did was follow Martin, and Martin assaulted him because of that, then Martin is the one committing a crime. Zimmerman did nothing wrong. I just don't get people who so willingly adopt an argument that basically says that you have to appease anyone who might become violent. That's not the way the law works. And if you step back from your emotional attachments to this issue, you'll see that the law *can't* work that way. It would become arbitrary if it did. By your own logic, we can blame Martin for running because he should have known that Zimmerman would follow him and lead to a confrontation which would result in Martin being shot and killed. Or heck! Martin should have not walked to the store because by doing so, he might have encountered a watchman on his way back, and then run, and been chased, then got into said confrontation leading to him being shot and killed.


Zimmerman had no more reason to assume that following Martin would end with the result that occurred than Martin could assume that running would, or walking to the store, or any actions that occurred that day. The law requires that we look at the first illegal action taken and follow from that chain. Running, and following, are not illegal.

Edited, Apr 4th 2012 2:19pm by gbaji

Seems like a straight forward claim to me.

Post 399!





No I am saying that self defense does not apply when you knowingly and willingly place yourself in a dangerous situation where your life could be put in danger. Had Zimmerman calmly waited in his vehicle, Martin would of had to bring the confrontation to Zimmerman. We know of course Zimmerman was pursuing Martin, as evidenced by his answer to the 911 operator when asked if he was following Martin.




I see your hypocrisy knows no bounds.



Edited, Apr 4th 2012 5:37pm by rdmcandie

And you're wrong. I'm sorry. I know that our public school system teaches us that everyone is entitled to an opinion. But that doesn't make every opinion correct. In this case, you are just plain absolutely wrong.

I can walk down a street in the worst part of town with $100 bills hanging out of my pockets and wearing a shirt that says "******* must die", and if someone assaults me, I still have the right to defend myself. Why? Because I have a right to carry money on my person, even foolishly. I also have a right to free speech. Again, even if foolishly implemented.

We might question the sanity of someone who does that, but that person has an absolute right to do so, and if he's attacked for doing so, the crime is committed by the person attacking him and he has an absolute right to defend himself.


Unless you're arguing that if someone finds something about you offensive, they can ignore a whole set of laws which say that assault is illegal and choose to do it anyway? You're free to do this, of course, but I suspect you'll get yourself into a logical bind pretty fast. Our laws have to be consistent and applied equally.



Our actions cannot be legally dictated to us by threat of someone else's potential criminal act(s). While we might say it's smart to avoid putting yourself in that position, it is *not* illegal to do so and doing so does not eliminate your right not to be attacked and your right to defend yourself if you are. As I have stated several times, Zimmerman's right to walk through the complex does not evaporate because Martin is on the same path. Trying to argue such a thing would lead you to all sorts of absurd legal assumptions which would require people to be mind readers and see the future.


Put another way. If your logic worked legally then every single homeowner who's ever walked down the stairs to see if the sound they heard really is someone robbing their house deserves whatever violence that robber commits against them. And if they were smart enough to bring a weapon and were able to defend themselves, they can't claim self defense. Because by your logic, since they went down stairs suspecting someone potentially violent to be there, they've lost all rights to self defense of themselves and their property.

I'm sorry. I just don't know how many times I have to say this to get it to sink in: The law does not work that way. Nothing Zimmerman did that night (as far as we know) justified the resulting assault by Martin. Certainly, we have zero evidence of Zimmerman doing anything which would remove his right to self defense in this case. And no amount of you (and others) jumping up and down and screaming like children that "it's not fair!!! Waaaaah!", isn't going to change the law.

By being inside the house, you are already in danger. Upstairs or downstairs doesn't matter. A correct analogy would be if you see someone robbing the house across the street and after calling the cops you decide to take your gun, cross the street and confront the robber in your neighbor's house. By leaving the security of your house, you voluntarily put yourself in a situation of danger. That's what Zimmerman did when he left his car against the advice of the authorities to confront someone he thought was a potential threat. If Martin was really that suspicious and possibly armed then Zimmerman should have stayed in his car where he was in security instead of voluntarily putting himself at risk.

Of course it matters. Because someone could argue that the thief was only interested in my TV and stereo and would not have gone upstairs. So if I'd stayed up there, I would have not confronted him, I'd be fine, and he'd be fine. But because I went down the stairs, I caused a confrontation, which resulted in me shooting the intruder.

BTW, this scenario is why the "stand your ground" laws were created in the first place. Prosecutors were charging homeowners with manslaughter in cases where it could be argued that had they simply stayed upstairs (or fled once they saw the person in their home), the death of the intruder would not have occurred. Those laws were written specifically to counter an argument that self defense only applies in cases where the person has no option to retreat. So in that case, I would have to retreat upstairs and can only fire in self defense if the intruder pursues me and corners me, leaving me no choice.



Except that this is common property. So an even better analogy is that you have been asked by your neighbor to watch his house while he's gone, and you see someone breaking in. You absolutely have a right to confront that robber, and it's probably smart to do so while armed. If the robber is stupid enough to assault you, then you have the right to shoot him.

You seem to want to make it so that everyone must just let someone committing a crime get away with it. But that is *not* how our legal system works. You are absolutely empowered to protect yourself and property that is yours or under your protection. And as long as you take legally reasonable actions in doing that, you can't be charged with a crime. Certainly, merely approaching someone you suspect of committing a crime is *not* a crime itself and is not an action which justifies someone taking some kind of violent action against you.



You could say that of any situation. There could be a mugger waiting outside my door. So I should never leave my house, and if I do, and I'm mugged, I can't defend myself because I caused myself to be mugged by walking where the mugger was? That's absurd! And if I carry a weapon because I think that there might be a mugger outside my house, I'm somehow responsible for him assaulting me and can't use it in self defense? That's even more absurd.




Sigh. You're spinning off in all sorts of directions. Answer one question: Does Zimmerman following Martin give Martin a legal justification to assault Zimmerman? Yes or no.

Assuming the answer is "no", then it does not matter that Zimmerman followed him. As I've been saying over and over, that fact has zero bearing on Zimmerman's claim to self defense. The *only* thing that matters is whether Martin or Zimmerman initiated the physical confrontation. Since we don't know the answer to that, we can't assume that Zimmerman did. Thus, there's no evidence to prove that his action was not self defense. Case closed.

Edited, Apr 4th 2012 8:07pm by gbaji

Read it again. My scenario starts with someone suspecting that someone might be committing a crime. Exactly like Zimmerman merely suspected that Martin might be committing a crime. In both cases, you don't know, so you take an action to find out. And in both cases, if after encountering the other person that person assaults you, you absolutely can defend yourself. Arguing that it's your fault because you caused the confrontation is absurd.



Sure. And if we had witnesses who reported seeing Zimmerman on top of Martin, beating him senseless and then pulling his gun and shooting him, you might have a point.



Correct. Which means that Zimmerman is not justified to tackle Martin and hold him for police, or just walk up and shoot him, or in any other way assault him. He *is* justified to walk up to him and ask him what he's doing though.



And neither of those actions justified physical violence. I think we're in agreement there. My point is that we know that physical violence did occur. So someone stepped outside their legal justification. We don't know who that was, so we can't make *any* assumptions about it. And in the absence of that knowledge, we can only look at the parts that witnesses saw and which can be verified via physical evidence at the scene. And that gives us a nearly textbook example of a case of self defense.

Again, if you can't shoot someone in self defense in the situation the witnesses saw Zimmerman in, then when can you?


It does not matter that Zimmerman followed Martin. All that matters is whether there is any evidence to show that Zimmerman initiated the physical assault. And the answer to that question is: No.




Except that it does. Unless you're arguing that the law should work in such a way that we arrest and charge people for crimes for which we have no evidence? I hope you're not arguing that. So if you aren't, then what evidence is there that Zimmerman's choice to pull the trigger and shoot Martin was *not* self defense?

If all you've got is "he followed Martin through the complex", your case will be thrown out by the first judge you come to. And he'll probably give you a stern talking to about not wasting the courts time. This is something the prosecutor knows, but apparently a whole lot of people on the interwebs don't.

You're right in that after encountering the other person while they're committing a crime and that person assaults you as a result in their attempt to escape, you absolutely can defend yourself. You can't so much use self defense (And, you know, lethal force) if the forensic evidence shows that the person wasn't in your house but just walking around, and you chased them down and they were the one who were defending themselves and ended up losing. I read it again, including your new explanation, and it's still wrong. See, if someone is in your house without your knowledge, that's a crime. It's called trespassing, though it could be upgraded to breaking and entering depending on the circumstances of their entry. Larceny if they'd picked up something prior to being shot. Even if you know who they are, and they're not legally living there, then they are trespassing. There's really no question or debate about that, though I'm sure you both'll each find ones on opposite sides that make no legal sense. At that point, seeing as a crime has already been committed, you'd have your self defense argument. The difference here is that in the Martin/Zimmerman case "being suspicious" isn't an automatic commission of a crime in, well, pretty much any state I can think of, so the argument you made isn't analogous to the situation at all. You can't say the Martin/Zimmerman case was self defense unless you know what lead to the need of lethal force. There's, at best, circumstantial evidence of it. Breaking into a house? Plenty of forensic evidence.

See, in your scenario there could be only two outcomes: Either someone was there without the homeowner's knowledge, and therefore a crime was occurring with or without their need to even investigate themselves (IE: Trespassing), or no one was there and nothing would have happened. Legally there is no third outcome. Except it doesn't. What evidence is there that Zimmerman's choice to pull the trigger and shoot Martin *was* self defense? And by evidence, I don't mean circumstantial or anecdotal evidence. I mean forensic evidence.If "A bloody nose" and "kid who admitted to only seeing parts of the scene" was your case, it would also be thrown out by the second judge. Any lawyer would easily say the bloody nose came afterwards and could be self inflicted and that the witness with the dog didn't see anything that would make lethal force necessary and that he was just filling in the blanks. Not the first judge because the first judge you see in a murder case has nothing to do with anything involving evidence and just points out how little you really know about the criminal justice system. See, the first judge you see is during the Bail Hearing, which takes all of thirty seconds. I know you've seen Law & Order, it's evident in your law knowledge, so you should know that. The first judge doesn't have the authority to throw out cases, especially murder cases.

But to the point: Neither case would survive litigationApparently "a whole lot of people on the interwebs" don't know the difference between a prosecutor and a defense attorney either. But hey, if ya want to sound smarmy you sure gave it the ol' college try.

Edited, Apr 5th 2012 12:28am by lolgaxe