[zencycler]

The reason Zimmerman has no duty to retreat under his circumstance is that he cannot retreat. He is being restrained despite efforts to free himself. "Retreat" is not available to him, at that point. Even if there was a duty to retreat (there isn't), he would not have to overcome a contention that he had an opportunity to retreat and did not take it.

I think this can be easily overcome. Just before he was restrained, Zim reported that Trayvon approached him and said something like "You got a problem". Zim chose to respond instead of running away. Then, when Trayvon lunged at him and said "well you do now", again, Zim tried (unsuccessfully) an unarmed defense of this assault rather than running.

[txrangerette]

Sorry, I don’t understand your points.

Having no duty to retreat is a GOOD thing, not a thing that has to be “overcome”. ??

When Martin suddenly appeared and asked “you got a problem?”, Zimmerman had no reason to try running away, because he had no way to know Martin was going to deck him and jump on top of him the next second.

When Martin was on top of him and beating his head into pavement, Zimmerman wasn’t trying an unarmed defense. He was simply helpless in terms of getting up and running away. And by that time, since he was being attacked with potentially deadly force, he had no responsibility to try running away, even if he could. (which he couldn’t).

I’m not being deliberately dense to your points. I truly don’t understand what you’re trying to say about “no duty to retreat” vs “duty to retreat”.