>> In situations that do NOT involve a reasonable fear of death or serious injury
Thanks for the cite. However, if you go back and carefully read my post, in my example I qualified that the hypothetical “victim” did indeed fear for his life.
Back to the case at hand — as I recall there is either case law or it’s written into the law, don’t remember which, that actually RECEIVING significant injuries goes a long way towards justifying FEAR of receiving serious injuries. Right? And that describes Z. Right?
The inquiries are always fact specific. There is a Fla appellate case where a person was justified in shooting at a person who was throwing beer bottles at him from (I'm guessing) 15-30 feet away. None of the bottles hit the shooter. An obvious case where no injury is required is somebody pulling a gun or a big enough knife (or some varieties of garden implements too, I would say) accompanied by words or actions that indicate use of the gun or other "thing" was imminent.
Being on the receiving end or overwhelming force for one second (knockout king) probably doesn't justify resort to deadly force. If the attacker backs off, the damage is done, and you cannot (legally) get revenge with force, at all. But if the attack persists, shows no sign of letting up, then your state of mind is not of revenge but is of "make it stop!" I would think that having a number of injuries would go to proving that the attacker(s) were not letting up or abandoning the attack. Zimmerman has evidence of this by eyewitnesses and his injuries.