Posted on 07/02/2013 1:42:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“It’s dangerous for America the way were doing this as a trial in the media with the whole nation as jury.” This observation about the trial of George Zimmerman for the murder of Florida teen Trayvon Martin in 2012 by MSNBC host Touré was as true when he made it, in March of last year, as it is today. Too few, it seems, have taken his advice to heart.
Since the Zimmerman trial began, the instant analysis of the nationally televised case – meriting near wall-to-wall coverage on the cable news outlets – has not been favorable to the prosecution. State witness after state witness has had their credibility impugned or introduced reasonable doubt that Zimmerman’s actions may not meet the threshold necessary to convict him for second degree murder. And as the state’s case against Zimmerman grows thinner, the tone of those in the media who have invested a significant portion of the last 16 months in an effort to indict him in the court of public opinion has grown more caustic.
This phenomenon began on June 28 after the prosecution’s star witness and Martin’s friend, Rachel Jeantel, took the stand to testify that she was on the phone with the deceased teen when fatal fight with Zimmerman began.
Her testimony was nothing short of a disaster for the prosecution. She was combative, she was reprimanded for being contemptuous of the proceedings, she admitted to reversing assertions made in deposition, and she introduced the fact that Martin had racially profiled Zimmerman (disclosing that Martin had used the slur “cracker” to describe him).
It was then that the media commentators invested in Zimmerman’s guilt went on the defense. MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor – one of the first media commentators to don a hooded sweatshirt to protest Martin’s unnecessary murder....
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
So how does that differ from being beaten up? Is that not considered "serious harm?"
Not being an attorney, I'll have to take your word on the case law, but I fail to see how someone attacking me solely because he wants to beat me up doesn't in itself constitute "the commission of a forcible felony."
Which you'll note in (1) doesn't have the unlesses attached that (2) does.
I agree with that. The law penalizes aggression, and it penalizes escalation.
Adding some remarks - you said that Zimmerman would lose his right to self defense if he started the fight. You seem to be implying that he has a duty to retreat, since he (hypothetically, of course) started the fight. If he can't retreat because Martin has him physically restrained, the law is not going to hold him to discharge the duty to retreat. If you start a fight, and your opponent pins you, and your opponent then escalates by holding a knife to your throat, or smothering your with a plastic bag, etc., you are not held, by the law, to take "death" because you started a fist fight. You can't retreat. You can use deadly force in self defense if you are in fear for your life.
If you can't retreat, it doesn't apply.
"the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant"
The evidence couldn't have anything to do with it right Sherm? Watch the trial here get it unfiltered.
Bumper to bumper coverage. No Comments, no commercials
The prosecuting attorney has been indicted for falsifying arrest records.
I’d say that should complete the implosion and end this circus court.
Is that the “Citizens Grand Jury” story making the rounds today? LOL!
The test the jury applies, using their sense of "reasonable," is that in order to use deadly force, a person must reasonably fear serious injury or death. There is no bright line, but a shoving match, slap boxing, maybe even punches to the gut would not meet that threshold.
But, if a victim of a beating is rendered helpless, and the beating goes on, it's likely a jury will find that the person being beating reasonably fears serious injury or death. The test isn't extent of injury, it's "put yourself in that predicament, and consider what downside you would fear occurring."
Here is a case that attempts to clarify when 776.041(1) applies.
Giles v. State, 831 So. 2d 1263 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002)
The instruction is normally given in situations where the accused is charged with at least two criminal acts, the act for which the accused is claiming self-defense and a separate forcible felony. See Marshall v. State, 604 So. 2d 799 (Fla. 1992)(holding that section 776.041 jury instruction was proper on claim of self-defense to charge of felony murder where underlying felonies were burglary and aggravated battery); cf. Perkins, 576 So. 2d 1310 at 1311. Here, by contrast, Giles committed [*1266] only one act, the alleged aggravated battery.
When this trial is over you will have exactly Zero proof that Zimmerman started this fight and you know it, so why introduce your feelings here?
Bring it on. I'm armed all the time now.
Right, duty to retreat only attaches if it is possible to do so.
And just to keep focus, what prompted me to post at all was this contention of yours.
If Zimmerman assaulted Martin, a felony, he cannot later claim self-defense if he is losing a fight he started himself.There are so many permutations of scenario that it's difficult if not impossible to probe them all "in a vacuum," without a specific scenario to analyze.
I simply wanted to correct the impression that starting a fight results in losing the right to self defense. Starting a fight makes you a criminal, and you can be charged with that. But depending on how the fight evolves, the person who started it may regain the right to use force in self defense. Being trapped and beaten, and submitting to an assailant who shows no sign of letting up, if it creates a fear of serious injury (a jury will sort it out later), justifies resort to deadly force to save your hide. Your assailant presumably could have let up, and chose not to.
In other words you feel compelled to get on a forum and state opinions pretending to be facts, when in fact you are talking out your white cracker azz.
That’s a pretty meaningless gesture in Sanford, because it has a relatively small black population (15,000), they are middle class, and it is a suburban area. Three things that strongly go against rioting.
Importantly, Florida has the second highest number of blacks among US states, but they are spread out over a wide area, with some areas of poverty, but nothing very concentrated.
When I was 17, I was in basic training.
Are you two on purple drank? Zimmerman is the defendant he is required to prove nothing. I hope neither of you have bar privileges.
Trying to interject into this thread what Zimmerman must prove is a cheap progressive tactic.
I guess the only way Zimmerman could prove that he was in danger of losing his life is, if he had actually lost it. I guess we really do need lawyers, else we could never understand that.
I think very much the same. Is the jury predominately female?
Don't need to look very far as to why lawyers spend a good bit of time looking for jurors who have not been influenced by the media's portrayal of the defendant.
So is GA. We will be Locked and loaded on the night of the verdict.
“I think the MSM and the Admin have been spoiling for a nationawide race riot from the start on this....Given the low information anture of the populace, they may get it....”
The 120-lb. purse-carying wimps in the media really, really hope and believe that the 400-lb federal squishes, farting and squatting behind desks, can run onto a battlefield and out maneuver and out shot hunters and combat vets who can hit a target at 500 meters.
This is farce.
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