As if the George Zimmerman acquittal is not galling enough already. I wonder if there was a secular jury, if we would have had the same result? At least they wouldn’t be pointing to an invisible deity hoping to absolve themselves of responsibility for justice for Trayvon Martin. And I quote…
“George Zimmerman got away with murder, but you can’t get away from God. And at the end of the day, he’s going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with,” Maddy said. “[But] the law couldn’t prove it.”
That’s right lady pawn your responsibility for justice for Travyon Martin, and his family, and the community off on your god. I want to yell at the screen.
“You don’t really know if anything will actually happen to Zimmerman after he dies. No one does!”
Let’s play Devil’s Advocate here, what if there is a god?
1. If that god was concerned about justice then it wouldn’t have an excuse for why people are still dying because of the color of their skin. While we are at it; how about the millions, who have died because of religion?
2. But if we can conveniently forget what we don’t want to know, let’s just say that this god does care about justice. How do you think it would feel about someone that might have done something just, but pawned responsibility for that on the afterlife? How do you think that god will feel, if it cares about justice, not just about how many more blacks have died without justice, but how many more will die as a result of this ruling and further abuse of Stand your Ground Laws?
• Defendants claiming “stand your ground” are more likely to prevail if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white.
and
• The number of cases is increasing, largely because defense attorneys are using “stand your ground” in ways state legislators never envisioned. The defense has been invoked in dozens of cases with minor or no injuries. It has also been used by a self-described “vampire” in Pinellas County, a Miami manarrested with a single marijuana cigarette, a Fort Myershomeowner who shot a bear and a West Palm Beach jogger who beat a Jack Russell terrier.
If I still felt any sort of sympathy for her being on the jury in a tough case, it’s gone after reading this (Bold emphasis mine)…
“It’s hard for me to sleep, it’s hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin’s death. And as I carry him on my back, I’m hurting as much [as] Trayvon’s Martin’s mother because there’s no way that any mother should feel that pain,” she said.
At least your child is still alive, don’t thank god or the state of Florida for that.
Are you convinced that “reasonable doubt” was impossible? Are you convinced that with what the jury was shown, no reasonable person could assume “self-defense”? Or is “self-defense” simply not sufficient justification to cause someone else’s death?
Are you not convinced about any of these things? As far as I’m concerned, I do not see how any reasonable person could assume “self-defense.” While I did not follow the case as closely as others, my understanding is that Zimmerman profiled and pursued Martin against the advice of a 911 dispatcher. It’s on the recording of the call from what I understand. By what bizarre definition of “self-defense” is one allowed to provoke a fight and claim self-defense once they either are or just claim to be getting their ass kicked?
I would also say that while self-defense can be sufficient justification to cause someone else’s death, it should not be a simple “Get out of jail free” card. In other words, you seem to be presenting a false dichotomy here that it is either always sufficient or never sufficient. It is sometimes sufficient (in my opinion), but I do not, even if Zimmerman had not stalked Martin, find it sufficient for this case.
I don’t think the jurors “assumed” self-defense. I assume they acted on what they were told in court. I don’t know where you got the “profiled” part of Zimmerman’s actions. I think that’s an assumption. And so is the type of profiling being ascribed: purely racial. Now, it may be that Zimmerman followed Martin purely because of his race, but was that evidence shown to the jury? I don’t think so.
Also, regarding the “provoke a fight” idea, how did you reach that conclusion? If Martin felt threatened by Zimmerman, isn’t it Florida’s “stand your ground” laws that did not require him to escape the scene and call the police instead of taking direct action? Martin could have called 911 himself to report a man following him and feeling threatened. But we don’t know what Martin did or why he did it, and that’s tragically unfortunate. What is the jury to do in such a situation?
Witnesses testified to seeing Zimmerman on the bottom getting hit by Martin. Zimmerman described to police Martin jumping out of the bushes and throwing the first punch. Without some contradictory evidence indicating how the actual confrontation started and progressed, what is the jury supposed to do?
Should the jury be allowed to assume facts not in evidence to balance the scales because the victim can’t speak out, or because he was a minor, or because the President is watching? There are a lot of options for new laws that might put the next Zimmerman behind bars, but this jury had little wiggle room. Maybe a form of homicide for “causing the death of another person after following a suspicious person while carrying a firearm”?
Does the “stand your ground” law not apply to Martin as well? He was being followed by a dude with a gun; is he not allowed to “stand his ground?”
The jury’s job is to be skeptical of firsthand accounts that aren’t independently corroborated. And for the record, I’ve heard wildly conflicting accounts of what those witnesses actually testified about.
If being black and wearing a hoodie counts as “suspicious,” then I’d never get off the phone with the police.
The way I understand the law is that it’s entirely possible that you could have two people shooting each other and both claiming stand your ground as a defense (assuming they both lived).
In other words, Martin could well have been within the law to “stand his ground” by attacking Zimmerman if he perceived him as a threat, but Zimmerman could have used the same law in defending his actions against a physical attack by Martin.
Yes, Martin had the right to stand his ground. Perhaps because Martin chose (at least that was the claim by Zimmerman) to stand his ground, Martin shares some of the blame. If a conviction could be found by find someone “at least 51% at fault”, Zimmerman would have probably been convicted. If there was video or even testimony that indicated Zimmerman approached Martin with gun drawn or pulled the gun in response to a verbal threat, maybe the jury would have no reasonable doubt.
“Wildly conflicting” eyewitness accounts raise doubts.
I have called the police multiple times while walking through the local park at night when I see all manner of suspicious or illegal activity. I call the police if I see people drinking alcohol in the park. If I see a kid jump the fence to the pool, I call the police. If I see a kid shooting an airsoft gun not on private property, I call the police. If I see a person in a hoodie exit his car and walk to a dark corner of the park behind one of the buildings, I call the police. All sorts of characteristics are taken into account when I call the police. Sometimes they ask me to describe the person, their attire, skin, hair, and eye color, race, height, build. Just because it happens to be a red headed white girl in a tutu doesn’t mean I was profiling.
Under the decision that was rendered a person who deliberately ran into GZ in a public place would be justified in shooting him on self defense grounds since he is known to carry a gun and therefore your life is threatened.
I hope this is not what the citizens of Florida intended. Since in the absence of information on who is carrying a gun anyone could be assumed to be armed and dangerous and therefor you are reasonably engaged in “Self Defense” if you shoot someone on the suspicion of intent to harm or if they “might” react badly to aperceived insult.
BobT
“Under the decision that was rendered a person who deliberately ran into GZ in a public place would be justified in shooting him on self defense grounds since he is known to carry a gun and therefore your life is threatened.”
Good luck with that. I’d recommend not working out the details in a public forum.
I don’t know, from what she said, it seems like she was convinced that he did it but something about the law told her that a murder shouldn’t be convicted.
Might not be her fault, but something is rotten.
It’s probably that in Fla, like Texas, you can persist and engage in a conflict, either directly or by baiting, and if the other person does anything, then you are allowed to use lethal force if the powers that be agree that you could have been, plausibly, scared. Which is really just an appeal to the racism and sexism of your local zeitgeist.
Or that a forcible felony (like theft) was taking place. So in Texas, you can hire an escort to accompany you to a social function, pay her, and then demand sex as she tries to leave. If she doesn’t violate the law and relent to your demand, you are allowed to shoot her. Because she stole your money. Because you thought you were paying for sex. Which is also illegal. … That happened in San Antonio. http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Jury-acquits-escort-shooter-4581027.php
Self Defense, yeah. That’s what Zimmerman did. He stalked, intended to engage with, brough the only weapon into the conflict, and was the only person to use said weapon. But he was the guy playing ‘defense’.
Right.
I have to say, that unless you’ve personally viewed all 9 hours of the court footage (which is freely available on YouTube for public scrutiny, BTW), then you have no business holding a strong opinion about this case. You simply don’t know all the facts. For example, Zimmerman was never “advised” to leave. He was simply told “we don’t need you to do that” (google it and see for yourself!) Is that advise? Bravado? Something else? Does it absolve him? Probably not, but it goes to show how the media has brazenly distorted the facts of this case.
Finally, bear in mind that there is a difference between “not guilty” and “innocent.” Maybe Zimmerman acted poorly, but do we have sufficient evidence of this to put him in prison for 20 years? Is there a reasonable doubt? Apparently so. The courts did their job exactly as they were supposed to. So please, get over it, guys.
Telling people to “get over” a gross miscarriage of justice, “stand your ground” law or no law, is contemptible.
There was a lesser included charge of manslaughter. Clearly second-degree murder is impossible to prove, but if stalking a teenager to the point where he feels the need to protect himself only to kill said teenager in the process isn’t manslaughter, then I’m not sure what is.
When the dispatcher says ” Yeah, we don’t need you to do that.” That also means do NOT stalk, chase, starting a fight and kill him. Why in the hell would someone need to be told not to chase after a random stranger at night! I think that using a tool of instant death in a fight you started has major responsibility. But no! you can do that and walk free, just like the police wanted at the start. You don’t see anything wrong with that James? That kid was doing NOTHING WRONG and now he is dead. You think we should just “get over it”?
The problem here is that prosecution was unable to prove that Zimmerman started the actual fight.
I believe that Zimmerman’s defense was effectively that he was returning to his truck (per the dispatcher’s instructions) when Martin jumped him which initiated the physical confrontation justifying the use of deadly force.
Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t, but given the lack of evidence to the contrary, then the benefit of the doubt goes to the defendant, does it not?
I hold the opinion that it doesn’t matter whether or not Zimmerman “started” the fight. As soon as he left his truck to pursue Martin with a deadly weapon, he gave up any claim to self-defense. Otherwise any stalker could kill their target with impunity if the target got creeped out enough to physically resist.
Furthermore, deadly force is not justified in this kind of scrum anyway. You can’t just shoot or stab dudes in bar fights, let alone a situation like this. Zimmerman is not athletic, but he outweighed an unarmed teenager by about a hundred pounds. There’s some “eye of the beholder” aspect of fearing for your life, but there needs to be at least some evidence to back it up.
“As soon as he left his truck to pursue Martin with a deadly weapon, he gave up any claim to self-defense.”
What if Zimmerman did not have a deadly weapon and still killed Martin?
“but there needs to be at least some evidence [of mortal fear] to back it up”
Do you mean, other than your own statements?
I understand that people have differing opinions on whether what Zimmerman did was justified, but that is not the topic of the OP.Someone on Aron’s facebook is one of the few people discussing the OP.
This is his post on it…
“but that is not the topic of the OP”
Ok. What’s the topic of the OP? I hope it’s not that there’s a correlation between religiosity and stupidity, because that is one dead horse.
The OP is about how ineffective god beliefs are in matters of human justice.
Her statement that she hurt “as much as the Martin family” was just plain offensive. There is NO WAY she could have that much hurt. And if she felt so strongly that Zimmerman was guilty, why didn’t she stand up to them?
It was probably hard for her to stand on her own and hang the jury on the manslaughter issue.
Adding to the options in the OP…
3.
If leaving justice to god truly is sufficient, what is the point of the entire justice system? We may as well save a lot of money and simply scrap the police force and courts entirely and let god handle the whole lot. Think of the money being saved!
4.
If leaving justice up to god is not sufficient, isn’t that a bit of a red flag regarding your belief in him?
This entire Trayvon Martin / Stand Your Ground / Florida bullshit has me all out of sorts lately. To think I used to contemplate a visit to america!
“what is the point of the entire justice system? ” That’s an interesting question. Since the law is made by the lawmakers – does such sentence pleases them? I’d bet that yes, it does, as it makes thugs more afraid to engage in fist fights.
A criminal law is after all about scarying dangerous types away from what they would like to do: beat up others, rob, rape etc. It’s sometimes done in a primitive way – “if you do X we will do doing Y to you”. Lawmakers can achieve this state either by costly way of using police, paid directly from the budget they manage, or they can terrify thugs by making them realize what can happen to them from the hands of ordinary citizens. The second opiton costs nothing.
I find it curious that in another post I noted that the all women jury was not emotionally involved with the case as the defendant was not a raped woman but a guy having a fight with another guy (dumb males always doing dumb shit).
And most people don’t like saying ‘he is guilty fry his ass’. So they would let him off since there was no solid conflicting testimony (killing the other person can do that).
I was answered that ‘No way as one of the jury was also a minority so he must be not guilty.’
And Lo! what do we see the minority juror is afraid to take any responsibility (as I observed would happen) and put the problem into the lap of her imaginary sky-fairy friend. Now that is really a great example of rationally evaluating evidence and getting to a conclusion.
I find the juror at the OJ trial much more honest in that she said something like ‘ya he’s guilty but its about time we got one of ours free, you whites have been doing it for years.’ She at least accepted her responsibility.
The theme of the OP notwithstanding this thread reveals an apparent ignorance of the evidence presented in the trial and a misunderstanding of “stand your ground” laws.
“It’s about evidence, not about “what-ifs.” The simple fact is, no matter what some want to believe and no matter how much the brainwashers of the media have twisted the facts, there is no solid evidence to support any theory other than that Martin didn’t like being watched, attacked Zimmerman violently, and was shot in self-defense by the man whose head he had been smashing against the sidewalk with potentially lethal effect.” – Massad Ayoob
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massad_Ayoob
http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2013/07/13/the-zimmerman-verdict-part-1/
is the first of a series of articles that should shed some light on the subject. Included are links to the Florida “stand your ground” laws, statute 776.012, and to articles by attorney Andrew Branca:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/stand-your-ground-the-new-self-defense-doctrine-thats-136-years-young/
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/floridas-self-defense-immunity-law-how-it-really-works/
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/soap-in-a-sponge-the-enduring-myth-that-george-zimmerman-was-told-not-to-get-out-of-his-car/
Hopefully a better understanding will lead to a reduction in blood pressure.
Cheers,
Wolf
That lady should actually be praised by skeptics for the way she thinks: she has a very clear distinction between 2 spheres:
1. Belief – both “got away with murder” and “god”, afterlife etc. are what she places in belief sphere.
2. Proven stuff: eg. “The law couldn’t prove it”. Notice that what is proven or not is the basis of her decision, not beliefs! “But by the second day of deliberating, she realized there wasn’t enough proof to convict the 29-year-old Zimmerman of a crime.”
It clearly contrasts with the way Lilandra processes information about this case – there’s a clear hint of domination of emotions and a stink of PC ideology bias in her writing.
It looks as though Zimmerman and Travon’s Mom were in perfect agreement! Looks like there was no need for a trial after all……God handled it! B29 also belives that Zimmerman “can’t get away from God”. This kinda stuff makes them sleep easier at night I guess.
“At times I feel like I’m a broken vessel. At times, I don’t’ know if I’m going or coming. But I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is using me and God is using my family to make a change, to make a difference,” she said, adding “The verdict is not going to define who Trayvon Martin was. We will define his legacy.”
– Sybrina Fulton
“Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you. You are all that I have. At the end of the day, GOD is still in control. Thank you all for your prayers and support. I will love you forever Trayvon!!! In the name of Jesus!!!”
– Sybrina Fulton
(Excerpt from Hannity Interview)
HANNITY: Is there anything you regret? Do you regret getting out of the car to follow Trayvon that night?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
HANNITY: Do you regret that you had a gun that night?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
HANNITY: Do you feel you wouldn’t be here for this interview if you didn’t have that gun?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
HANNITY: You feel you would not be here?
ZIMMERMAN: I feel it was all God’s plan and for me to second guess it or judge it —–(shaking his head no)
HANNITY: Is there anything you might do differently in retrospect now that the time has passed a little bit?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
if i have just signed up but I really would really like to see a specific letter (Lorelei Lee’s) is there some place i can possibly view it or obtain a copy somehow?
Zimmerman clarified this quote a little later in the interview, saying
Just so everyone is clear.