Posted on 07/13/2013 6:07:06 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
In Florida, manslaughter is a category-one lesser included charge for second-degree murder with a depraved mind. See (below) the chart of lesser included offenses and the standard jury instructions provide by the FL Supreme Court.
Category one means that the lesser included crime is necessarily included in the jury instructions unless the Prosecution specifically asks that it be excluded. They did not in this case. The Defense asked that manslaughter be struck from the jury instructions, but the Prosecution argued against striking it.
Category two means that the possible lesser-included crimes may or may not be included depending on the accusatory pleading and the evidence presented. Third degree murder is a possible included lesser for second degree murder with a depraved mind. The prosecution argued for it to be included in the jury instructions, but the judge decided there was not evidence to support it.
http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/jury_instructions/chapters/chapter7/p2c7s7.4.rtf
http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/jury_instructions/chapters/chapter33/schedlesserincludoffens.rtf
Jury Response: What do you mean by specific question?
Play Monty Python for awhile.
If the jurors reasonably and unanimously concluded that Murder 2 was never proven beyond a reasonable doubt, I’ve got to believe that someone in that group of 6 believes manslaughter has not been proven either. There’s no way to know for certain based on evidence and what little was known to make a determination that Zimmerman did not act in self-defense. It isn’t there. It’s never been there. There’s a lack of facts/evidence and many assumptions on both sides. When it’s not clear cut and a determination can’t be made, the tie has to go to the Defense since the burden of proof is on the State.
This could be headed for a hung jury.
If it is a hung jury - MOM will be filing a motion for judgment of acquittal
It could be granted
I believe I heard 10 to 30 yrs. Up to the Judge.
In the good way, always.....I know reading things can at times be taken the wrong way but rest assured I meant it in the best way possible. May God bless you and yours always....
Heheh...my law studies at the Holiday Inn Express were long before that new language. We were still talking about Melba Toast in my day (Melba was the bartender in the cocktail lounge...and what a cutie she was).
You deserve hardship pay.
They may just have one juror insisting on manslaughter while the rest want to acquit. This upcoming question may be for the benefit of that one juror.
Placemark.
wanabe lawyer may limit intent to “just pulling the trigger is enough.”
From the CNN evidence tampering story
“When it takes (defense atty) six months to get a color picture of my client, when the first one I get is a black and white, when I look at it and go, ‘This is off a cell phone; cell phones don’t take black-and-white pictures,’ and I ask for a color copy, that takes two months,” defense lawyer Mark O’Mara said Wednesday in an interview with CNN’s Martin Savidge.
“And then I get a pastel-colored color copy of it, and it takes me to file a motion and have a hearing set before I get the actual .jpeg, no, that’s frustrating. That should not happen. I’ve done this too long to make believe in my own mind that that’s happenstance.”
O’Mara said he learned about the missing information months after he was to have received it. “The only way that we really found out about it ... and the only way that we really found out about the intensity of the failure to give us information was when a person from their own office, a whistle-blower, came forward and said, ‘I gave them that information in the middle to end of January’ and we didn’t get it until June 4th.”
He said he was “beyond” shocked. “It could have derailed the trial,” he said.
The defense said it did not get the complete report until a few days before the trial. O’Mara and co-counsel Don West argued that they needed more time to go through the information found on Martin’s phone and asked for a delay, which was denied.
Judge Debra Nelson said before the trial that the possibility of sanctions — requested by the defense — would be addressed after the verdict.”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/13/justice/zimmerman-it-firing/index.html#disqus_thread
If GZ intended to kill TM he would have shot him TWICE.
Question for legal experts: If there is a hung jury, what are the odds the state will or will not re-try?
This is what I’m hoping for!
>>>>...senseless bundles of raw emotion...<<<<
I fear everyone on this thread is thinking that about me right about now! It’s not true! Okay, once in a while, maybe.
Judge Alex said last night on Piers Morgan's show that he thought GZ pulled the gun on TM and TM was defending himself. I have yet to hear Tennis say anything that stupid yet. He did say, based on the evidence, GZ should, and would be acquitted.
(s)guns are scary, pulling trigger is intentional.(/s)
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