And you’ve put your finger on it.
However, remember there will be an attempted lawsuit by Crump and gang. Zimmerman WILL need to justify his actions to avoid liability in that lawsuit.
I don't know if that claim to Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law is factual, or if acquittal of any/all charges restores your protection in Florida. You'd think that it would be.
It ought to be, shouldn't it? Just because some Nifong-like district attorney running for re-election charges you with murder and loses their case against you shouldn't mean you're rightfully exposed to a civil suit all of a sudden. What, is the DA some righteous kamikaze pilot destroying the reputation of their public office on behalf of some third-party trial lawyer? Sounds like horsecrap to me.
Anyway, I think that if Zimmerman prevails against the criminal charges and by some means the civil suit against him goes forward, there might be a lot of lawyers interested in his case on procedural grounds that no grand jury was ever convened to hear the case against Zimmerman and that acquittal still exposed him to a civil trial -- and those lawyers might be eager to see him prevail again for a great number of reasons not having a whole lot to do with his case. Precedent like that could slither its way into completely unrelated areas of case law which might make a great number of legal sphincters pucker. Product liability, for instance.
If I was Zimmerman -- and I'm glad I ain't -- I'd have already quietly made some kind of contact with Alan Dershowitz who is obviously interested enough to be warming up in the bullpen... "Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope..."
There's another element of the potential outcome of this case centered on the things I've opined above which bother me a lot, but I don't want to state it openly. I'm not at all ready to talk about it yet.