I don’t thinking has anything to do with it. The charge falls under the basic section.
The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree
The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree
To prove 2nd degree murder, the key elements are that it was the result of an act "imminently dangerous", and "evincing a depraved mind". Just the act of Zimmerman shooting Martin does not meet that standard.
What Vendome was suggesting, and what I was responding to, is the fact that Aggravated Stalking is one of the acts considered "imminently dangerous" to qualify it as 2nd degree murder. My point is that I don't see how they would qualify what Zimmerman did by following Martin as Aggravated Stalking under the terms of the statute for that crime. If no other crime was committed by Zimmerman that lead up to the shooting (assuming no self-defense claim was available), the most they could charge him with is voluntary manslaughter.
Self-defense is not “unlawful killing”, so to have a prayer of proving 2nd degree murder they’d have to prove that Z wasn’t acting in self-defense. And they’d have to have something to refute the 911 call, the testimony of all the witnesses, and Zimmerman’s injuries.
I don’t know what evidence would be able to do that.