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Thread: George Zimmerman FOUND NOT GUILTY in 2012 FL Slaying of Trayvon Martin

  1. #501
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Defense rests in George Zimmerman trial

    When jurors begin deliberating in the racially charged murder trial of George Zimmerman, they will also be able to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin.

    The defense, which claims Zimmerman killed Martin in self-defense, finished its closing arguments Friday morning, a day after the prosecution spent two hours summarizing its case.

    Prosecutors reserved one hour of the three they are allotted for rebuttal once the defense concludes. After that, the jurors will begin deliberating.

    "A teenager is dead. He is dead through no fault of his own," prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda told the jurors during closing arguments. "He is dead because a man made assumptions. ... Unfortunately because his assumptions were wrong, Trayvon Benjamin Martin no longer walks this Earth."

    Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder, but the jury will also be allowed to consider manslaughter. But because of the way Florida law imposes sentences for crimes committed with a gun, the lesser charge could also carry a life sentence.

    Judge Debra Nelson's ruling to allow consideration of the manslaughter charge came despite the objections of Zimmerman's lawyers. The six jurors will have three options for their verdict: guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter and not guilty.

    Zimmerman attorney Don West had argued an all-or-nothing strategy, saying the only charge that should be put before the jury is second-degree murder.

    "The state has charged him with second-degree murder. They should be required to prove it," West said. "If they had wanted to charge him with manslaughter ... they could do that."

    To win a second-degree murder conviction, prosecutors must prove Zimmerman showed ill will, hatred or spite -- a burden the defense has argued the state failed to meet. To get a manslaughter conviction, prosecutors must show only that Zimmerman killed without lawful justification.

    Allowing the jurors to consider manslaughter could give those who aren't convinced the shooting amounted to murder a way to hold Zimmerman responsible for the death of the unarmed teen, said David Hill, an Orlando defense attorney with no connection to the case.

    "From the jury's point of view, if they don't like the second-degree murder -- and I can see why they don't like it -- he doesn't want to give them any options to convict on lesser charges," Hill said of the defense attorney.

    Under Florida's laws related to gun crimes, manslaughter could end up carrying a penalty as heavy as the one for second-degree murder: life in prison.

    It is standard for prosecutors in Florida murder cases to ask that the jury be allowed to consider lesser charges that were not actually brought against the defendant. And it is not unusual for judges to grant such requests.

    Prosecutor Richard Mantei also asked that the jury be allowed to consider third-degree murder, on the premise that Zimmerman committed child abuse when he shot the underage Martin. Zimmerman's lawyer called that "bizarre" and "outrageous," and the judge sided with the defense.

    As the nation awaits a verdict in the trial, police and city leaders in Sanford and South Florida say they have taken precautionary steps for the possibility of mass protests or even civil unrest if Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, is acquitted, particularly in African-American neighborhoods where passions run strongest over the case.

    Zimmerman, 29, got into a scuffle with Martin after spotting the teen while driving through his gated townhouse complex on a rainy night in February 2012. Zimmerman has claimed he fired in self-defense after Martin sucker-punched him and began slamming his head into the pavement. Prosecutors have disputed his account and portrayed him as the aggressor.

    During closing arguments, de la Rionda argued that Zimmerman showed ill will and hatred when he whispered profanities to a police dispatcher over his cellphone while following Martin through the neighborhood. He said Zimmerman "profiled" the teenager as a criminal.

    "He assumed Trayvon Martin was a criminal," de la Rionda said. "That is why we are here."

    The prosecutor told the jury Zimmerman wanted to be a police officer and that's why he followed Martin. But "the law doesn't allow people to take the law into their own hands," de la Rionda said.

    De la Rionda's two-hour presentation also included moments when he seemed to appeal to jurors' emotions by showing a head shot from Martin's autopsy and a face-up crime scene photo of Martin. Several jurors looked away.

    The prosecutor also repeatedly asked why Zimmerman left his truck the night of the shooting.

    "Why does this defendant get out of his car if he thought Trayvon Martin is a threat to him?" de la Rionda asked. "Why? Because he had a gun."

    Later, when he straddled a foam mannequin to dispute Zimmerman's account of how the struggle unfolded, the entire back row of jurors stood. One juror even stepped down to get a better view.

    De la Rionda implored jurors to believe the account of Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with him moments before the shooting and said she heard him yelling, "Get off!" The prosecutor asked jurors to discount her "colorful language," and he put a twist on a quote by the Rev. Martin Luther King to persuade them.

    "She should be judged not by the color of her personality but by the content of her testimony," de la Rionda said.

    http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content...U1iFEniUg.cspx
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  2. #502
    Member Member Cryptic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JT View Post
    We've been over this before. There is no all-encompassing "duty" to avoid confrontation. You do realise, don't you, that you can't invent new law when you don't like the current law?

    Amusingly, had Martin survived the shooting, the reductio of your argument would be that Martin was guilty on common enterprise grounds of his own attempted murder or assault with a deadly weapon. Try figuring that one out.
    Though it is not all encompassing (exceptions were given for homes, palces of work and cars) and other exceptions were given in regards to criminal demands, the concept did / does exist in American law prior to SYG.

    http://www.volokh.com/2012/04/03/the...y-and-liberty/

  3. #503
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
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    Two things:

    (1) Prof Volokh is quoting the Model Penal Code, not any real law which is or ever has been in force in the State of Florida.

    (2) This case has nothing to do with SYG. Zimmerman is claiming a defence of plain old self-defence, which is effectively a common law right. He lawfully followed Martin not expecting to be attacked. Only once he had been attacked could he lawfully use force to defend himself. Trayvon was on top of him and thus he could not have retreated regardless of whether or not the law imposed such a duty upon him.

    He's going to walk...
    "I have adopted the Italian way of life... I may stab you!"
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  4. #504
    Senior Member Member Johnya's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cryptic View Post
    Lets say you are walking home at night and a man starts to follow you in his car. You have never seen this man before, you have no idea who he is, nor what he wants. Not wanting trouble, you try to leave the area. Now, the stranger jumps out of his car and starts to run after you...
    If the stranger did not touch me, there would be no reason to defend myself. As I understand it, Mr. Zimmerman was grabbed/punched and on the ground when he defended himself.

  5. #505
    Member Member Cryptic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JT View Post
    Two things:

    (1) Prof Volokh is quoting the Model Penal Code, not any real law which is or ever has been in force in the State of Florida.

    He's going to walk...
    Though not law, the MPC is held as a model by many states. The concepts of the MPC, including the general, but not all encompasing duty to retreat, are probably interwoven with U.S. judicial thought:

    'The MPC is not law in any jurisdiction of the United States; however, it served and continues to serve as a basis for the replacement of existing criminal codes in over two-thirds of the states.[3] Many states adopted portions of the MPC, but only states such as New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Oregon have enacted almost all of the provisions'

    As for Zimmerman walking....

    If the trial was a theoretical classroom discussion on technical aspects of the written law (Roman style?), or the jurors were computers, I would agree with you - Zimmerman would walk and walk quickly.

    But, the jury is going to unconciously apply some Common Law type principals on how they interpret and apply the written law. My guess is that those principals will include:
    -A duty to avoid initiating unecessarry confrontations / duty to retreat
    -If you kill somebody after engaging in an unecessary confrontation, you have a higher burden of proof in showing that it was truly necessarry.

    You may well say that 'A' and especially 'B' ('B' might not even be a Common Law principal) are fuzzy applications of principals that are not material to the case, but the jurors are not computers.

    In the end, Zimmerman gets convicted of Manslaughter.

  6. #506
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    It's really a shame the Seminole County Sheriff's Department has to hold a Post-Verdict Security News Conference to encourage people not to act like complete idiots!
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #507
    Senior Member Member Johnya's Avatar
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    Agreed, Heidi. It is a sad state of affairs to know that the press conference was actually needed.

  8. #508
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    George Zimmerman trial jury deliberations begin

    Six anonymous women began deliberating on Friday whether to convict George Zimmerman for the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that has captivated and divided the U.S. public for the past 16 months.

    After presiding over 12 days of testimony and two days of closing arguments, Seminole County Judge Debra Nelson turned the case over to a jury sequestered since the trial began last month. They broke for the day without reaching a verdict.

    They will try to settle a case that has dominated U.S. media, sparked street demonstrations and raised questions about race and guns in America.

    Jurors must reach a unanimous verdict on either second-degree murder, manslaughter or acquittal. A deadlocked jury would result in a mistrial, possibly leading to the whole courtroom drama unfolding once again.

    Two hours into their meeting, which started at 2:30 p.m., they asked the judge for a full inventory of the evidence. They broke deliberations for the night at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time without issuing a verdict and will continue at 9:00 a.m. EST on Saturday.

    The judge will allow them to set their own working hours

    Zimmerman, 29, says he shot Martin in self-defense after he was attacked on the rainy night of February 26, 2012, in the central Florida town of Sanford. Prosecutors contend Zimmerman was a "wannabe cop" who tracked down the teenager and shot him without justification.

    Zimmerman's family appealed for calm, whatever the verdict, saying they had complete trust in the U.S. justice system.

    "As we await a verdict we will remain hopeful and ask for the public to remain peaceful no matter the outcome," they said in a statement to CNN. "The judicial system has run its course, pray for justice, pray for peace, pray for our country."

    It all began when Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator, called police to report a suspicious person in his neighborhood. That turned out to be Martin, a guest in the home of his father's fiancée, who lived inside the gated community.

    A fight ensued, and after Zimmerman suffered several head injuries, he shot Martin once through the heart with a Kel Tec 9 mm pistol fully loaded with hollow-point bullets.

    In closing arguments on Friday, lead defense lawyer Mark O'Mara attempted to shift the blame to Martin, saying he was the aggressor who attacked Zimmerman after lying in wait.

    To convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder, which could lead to a sentence of life in prison, the jury must find he acted with ill will, spite or hatred.

    Six anonymous women began deliberating on Friday whether to convict George Zimmerman for the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that has captivated and divided the U.S. public for the past 16 months.

    After presiding over 12 days of testimony and two days of closing arguments, Seminole County Judge Debra Nelson turned the case over to a jury sequestered since the trial began last month. They broke for the day without reaching a verdict.

    They will try to settle a case that has dominated U.S. media, sparked street demonstrations and raised questions about race and guns in America.

    Jurors must reach a unanimous verdict on either second-degree murder, manslaughter or acquittal. A deadlocked jury would result in a mistrial, possibly leading to the whole courtroom drama unfolding once again.

    Two hours into their meeting, which started at 2:30 p.m., they asked the judge for a full inventory of the evidence. They broke deliberations for the night at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time without issuing a verdict and will continue at 9:00 a.m. EST on Saturday.

    The judge will allow them to set their own working hours

    Zimmerman, 29, says he shot Martin in self-defense after he was attacked on the rainy night of February 26, 2012, in the central Florida town of Sanford. Prosecutors contend Zimmerman was a "wannabe cop" who tracked down the teenager and shot him without justification.

    Zimmerman's family appealed for calm, whatever the verdict, saying they had complete trust in the U.S. justice system.

    "As we await a verdict we will remain hopeful and ask for the public to remain peaceful no matter the outcome," they said in a statement to CNN. "The judicial system has run its course, pray for justice, pray for peace, pray for our country."

    It all began when Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator, called police to report a suspicious person in his neighborhood. That turned out to be Martin, a guest in the home of his father's fiancée, who lived inside the gated community.

    A fight ensued, and after Zimmerman suffered several head injuries, he shot Martin once through the heart with a Kel Tec 9 mm pistol fully loaded with hollow-point bullets.

    In closing arguments on Friday, lead defense lawyer Mark O'Mara attempted to shift the blame to Martin, saying he was the aggressor who attacked Zimmerman after lying in wait.

    To convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder, which could lead to a sentence of life in prison, the jury must find he acted with ill will, spite or hatred.

    The hateful person that rainy night was Martin, not Zimmerman, O'Mara told the jury.

    "The person who decided this was going to continue, was going to become a violent event, was the guy who didn't go home when he had a chance to. It was the guy who decided to lie in wait," O'Mara said.

    COMPROMISE VERDICT

    The jury can also opt for manslaughter, which has a lesser burden of culpable negligence. That carries a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

    Earlier, O'Mara warned jurors against filling in holes in the prosecution's case, cautioning against making presumptions and assumptions.

    Yet he invited them to form their own conclusions about Martin, particularly in the four-minute gap that O'Mara said passed between Zimmerman's losing sight of Martin and when Martin attacked.

    He dramatized that length of time by pausing for four minutes, leaving the courtroom silent.

    "Four minutes. You get to figure out what Trayvon Martin was doing," O'Mara told the jury. "Four minutes to do what? To run home. To walk home."

    Prosecutors had one final rebuttal, when John Guy told the jury, "The defendant didn't shoot Trayvon Martin because he had to. He shot him because he wanted to. That's the bottom line."

    At the time of the encounter, Martin was on the phone with a friend from Miami who testified that she heard him ask, "What are you following me for?" Guy contended it was Martin who then feared for his safety.

    When police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman, believing his account of self-defense, it provoked demonstrations, first in Sanford's black neighborhood of Goldsboro, where people accused Zimmerman of racial profiling and demanded his arrest.

    Protests spread to small towns and big cities across the United States, prompting celebrity tweets, cable news shouting matches, and scrutiny of Florida's Stand Your Ground self-defense law, which police cited in letting Zimmerman to go free.

    The case drew the attention of President Barack Obama, who said, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

    After the Sanford police chief stepped down the normally assigned prosecutor recused himself, the governor appointed a special prosecutor, who charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder 45 days after the shooting.

    In Sanford, officials said on Friday they were prepared for a possible return of the impassioned demonstrations that arose last year but expected calm.

    "We will not tolerate anyone who uses the verdict as an excuse to violate the law," Sheriff Donald Eslinger told reporters.

    http://my.chicagotribune.com/#sectio.../p2p-76644599/

  9. #509
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cryptic View Post
    Though not law, the MPC is held as a model by many states. The concepts of the MPC, including the general, but not all encompasing duty to retreat, are probably interwoven with U.S. judicial thought:

    'The MPC is not law in any jurisdiction of the United States; however, it served and continues to serve as a basis for the replacement of existing criminal codes in over two-thirds of the states.[3] Many states adopted portions of the MPC, but only states such as New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Oregon have enacted almost all of the provisions'
    Yeah, it's such a great model that no state has ever adopted it wholly and unreservedly. Stop quoting Wikipedia to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cryptic View Post
    As for Zimmerman walking....

    If the trial was a theoretical classroom discussion on technical aspects of the written law (Roman style?), or the jurors were computers, I would agree with you - Zimmerman would walk and walk quickly.

    But, the jury is going to unconciously apply some Common Law type principals on how they interpret and apply the written law. My guess is that those principals will include:
    -A duty to avoid initiating unecessarry confrontations / duty to retreat
    -If you kill somebody after engaging in an unecessary confrontation, you have a higher burden of proof in showing that it was truly necessarry.

    You may well say that 'A' and especially 'B' ('B' might not even be a Common Law principal) are fuzzy applications of principals that are not material to the case, but the jurors are not computers.

    In the end, Zimmerman gets convicted of Manslaughter.
    Wait a minute. Are you saying that you think the jury should convict Zimmerman of an extremely serious criminal offence even though, as you clearly acknowledge, he acted lawfully?

    Just what are precisely these "Common Law type principals [sic]" of which you speak which allow somebody to be hung out to dry? I can't believe you had the gall earlier in this thread to reject my accusation that you were interested in nothing more than a Star Chamber trial.

    Classic...
    "I have adopted the Italian way of life... I may stab you!"
    — Heidi

    "You make the British Lion seem like a declawed, toothless, neutered fat tabby with the mange."
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    "Maybe you think your being clever."
    — Weidmann1939

  10. #510
    Senior Member Member nmiller855's Avatar
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    tonight's 20\20 is supposed to have a small segment comparing this case to the one of my relative was shot and killed.

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