George Zimmerman Trial

[AQUAMAN]

I think everyone has heard about the trial of Mr. Zimmerman in Sanford, Fl.. The second degree murder charges look like they aren't going to fly. So what does the prosecution team do now? Since the defense team has now rested their case? Well, they now want to change the charges to get some sort of conviction, any conviction, and all for public injustice, not true justice. The prosecution now insists that a lesser charge of 3rd degree murder, manslaughter, and child abuse also be put in the mix. How the judge can let this happen after the trial is over, is ridiculous to me. But, in this day and age, with all the injustices happening around us daily, ok, why not, right?

[Dave]

Speaking for myself and no one else, I'd try to remove myself from the situation and leave if it was possible... not get into a fight with said person if it was at all possible.

[AQUAMAN]

Right Dave, that's an important point. I think Martin was not the type to back off from a perceived threat. In fact, I think he was the type that enjoyed the rush of a fight and was good at it, and wanted to show his bravo manhood could overcome anyone in his path. He was lurking around suspiciously, and was seen by an off-duty neighborhood watch captain, yes armed, probably due to being in a well known bad neighborhood to begin with. When GZ started to follow, he then changed his mind and started to return to his car, just as he was told to. That's when Martin saw the opportunity to jump GZ, perhaps steal his gun, perhaps use the gun on GZ if easy enough, then run away. His new found arsenal would now qualify him in his peers eyes as the gangster type he wanted to achieve. There is nothing cut and dried in this whole story, but the facts are facts. Facts are what the jury intensely studied, and came to the end conclusion of not guilty. To continue to make suggestions to the contrary of the facts, is nothing but pure speculation, for the sake of spinning the story into what some want the facts to be, not what they really are.

[Willy]

"maybe Zimmerman flashed his gun at Martin when they initially met face-to-face that night, and maybe that is why Trayvon attacked him." Are you serious Eye?  I don't know anyone who would attack a person who pulls out a gun. The most obvious reaction would be to back away or run.  The most obvious scenario is that Martin did not know Zimmerman had a gun and he jumped on Zimmerman when he had the chance and started to beat him. That's when Zimmerman pulled out the gun and fired. Remember he was yelling for help before he shot. If Martin would have gotten off when Zimmerman yelled for help he probably would be alive today but it appears he wanted to teach the "cracker" a lesson.

[AQUAMAN]

Comprehending opinions becomes dicey when the opinions conflict with realities, facts, and previous statements of some posters. This attachment is also hard to comprehend, but it's a fact of life.

[Lisa O'Brien]

If I am  confronted  with a gun - I wold back away or do whatever he told me to do - I certainly wouldn't engage in an altercation with the gun man.

[AQUAMAN]

Good post Lisa, I totally agree, unless I too am carrying, but, I'm not......yet?

[XLFD]

EyE,

From the sources I've read, such as this, Neighborhood Watch groups do not forbid their members from carrying weapons.  Although they are expected to 'observe and report', they also do not specifically forbid its members to keep track of what they're watching.  Here is a sample 2012 Florida NW groups handbook, and see whether you can detect what you claimed.  They are told not to play policeman, but they can and should be able to defend themselves.  It is not illegal to walk behind someone on a public sidewalk.

[easymoney]

Is this still America?

By: Thomas Sowell
7/16/2013 06:00 AM

RESIZE: AAA

Print

There are no winners in the trial of George Zimmerman. The only question is whether the damage that has been done has been transient or irreparable.

Legally speaking, Zimmerman has won his freedom. But he can still be sued in a civil case, and he will probably never be safe to live his life in peace, as he could have before this case made him the focus of national attention and orchestrated hate.

More important than the fate of George Zimmerman, however, is the fate of the American justice system and of the public’s faith in that system and in their country. People who have increasingly asked, during the lawlessness of the Obama administration, “Is this still America?” may feel some measure of relief.

But the very fact that this case was brought in the first place, in an absence of serious evidence — which became ever more painfully obvious as the prosecution strained to try to come up with anything worthy of a murder trial — will be of limited encouragement as to how long this will remain America.

The political perversion of the criminal justice system began early and at the top, with the President of the United States. Unlike other public officials who decline to comment on criminal cases that have not yet been tried in court, Barack Obama chose to say, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

It was a clever way to play the race card, as he had done before, when Professor Henry Louis Gates of Harvard was arrested.

But it did not stop there. After the local police in Florida found insufficient evidence to ask for Zimmerman to be prosecuted, the Obama administration sent Justice Department investigators to Sanford, Florida, and also used the taxpayers’ money to finance local activists who agitated for Zimmerman to be arrested.

Political intervention did not end with the federal government. The city manager in Sanford intervened to prevent the usual police procedures from being followed.

When the question arose of identifying the voice of whoever was calling for help during the confrontation between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, the normal police procedure would have been to let individuals hear the recording separately, rather than have a whole family hear it together.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

When the city manager took this out of the hands of the police, and had Trayvon Martin’s family, plus Rachel Jeantel, all hear the recording together, that’s politics, not law.

This was just one of the ways that this case looked like something out of “Alice in Wonderland.” Both in the courtroom and in the media, educated and apparently intelligent people repeatedly said things that they seemed sincerely, and even fervently, to believe, but which were unprovable and often even unknowable.

In addition, the testimony of prosecution witness after prosecution witness undermined the prosecution’s own case. Some critics faulted the prosecuting attorneys. But the prosecutors had to work with what they had — and they had no hard evidence that would back up a murder charge or even a manslaughter charge.

You don’t send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like “shooting an unarmed child,” when that “child” was beating him bloody.

The jury indicated, early on as their deliberations began, that they wanted to compare hard evidence, when they asked for a complete list of the testimony on both sides.

Once the issue boiled down to hard, provable facts, the prosecutors’ loud histrionic assertions and sweeping innuendoes were just not going to cut it.

Nor was repeatedly calling Zimmerman a liar effective, especially when the prosecution misquoted what Zimmerman said, as an examination of the record would show.

The only real heroes in this trial were the jurors. They showed that this is still America — at least for now — despite politicians who try to cheapen or corrupt the law, as if this were some banana republic. Some are already calling for a federal indictment of George Zimmerman, after he has been acquitted.

Will this still be America then?

[Willy]

Good article easy

[AQUAMAN]

X, nice point/counterpoint. Thanks. Easy, you put the cherry on top of the sundae, it's a great tribute to America, or what we hope it still is today. But, will the Feds. tear this down now? It's really a States' issue, not a Federal one to begin with. If anyone in the Fed. Gov't. can admit to that now, after the fact of innocence, it will be a miracle. Otherwise, methinks they may carry this dead herring on to the next stages of hysteria. And to me anyhow, that's a shameful act. Thanks.

[Brian Carlson]

Even Jimmy Carter thinks the jury made the right choice:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/jimmy-carter-on-george...

 

[Dave]

Regarding page 2.....If George Zimmerman was heading back to his vehicle and was attacked by Trayvon Martin then this is a moot point.

Regarding page 14.... we don't know if Zimmerman was taking a risk here, he could of quite possibly simply been trying to be within sight of Martin, where he wouldn't be at risk.

As noted before, we don't know what happened and we are both speculating. We can speculate until we are blue in the face and we still wont know what happened.