There is not much for me to say about the verdict. I feel about the same way I did when OJ was aquitted-shock that it happened, and no surprise that it happened exactly the way it did in Florida. Florida's gun laws suck-and the "stand your ground law" that Zimmerman based his defense on, is poorly written and unevenly enforced.
The two key issues of the case for me are: 1) Zimmerman followed Martin-after he was specifcally advised not to. In essence he picked a fight he didn't have to pick-and could have left to trained law enforcement officers. 2) Despite the opinion of the jury, the case for self defense here was weak at best. Because Florida's law is written so poorly-and has a lot to do with determining Zimmerman's mental state-logical burdens of proof would not and could not be met:
Contrary to popular misconception, the burden of proof lies on Zimmerman to demonstrate that he acted in self-defense, not on the state to show that he didn't. "Innocent until proven guilty" only applies to culpability for the offense in question, and no one has argued that Zimmerman didn't pull the trigger that ended Martin's life. While someone who has committed a violent crime obviously has the right to defend himself, we set a dangerous precedent if we automatically give the benefit of the doubt to the murderer instead of the victim. Not only does the victim lack a voice to present his or her side of the story, but any murderer who has been caught will naturally be inclined to argue that his or her actions were somehow justified. Because a murderer's word is obviously suspect, and because murder is not an offense which we can afford as a society to sanction without the strongest of all possible reasons, we must demand that one who is known to have taken another human life establish beyond any shred of doubt that he or she had good reason to do so — and punish them, for the sake of protecting the sanctity of human life, if their culpability can be established and their justification cannot.
Zimmerman never convincingly proved that his life was in danger. His bloody nose and the scrapes on the back of his head do suggest that he and Martin were involved in a physical altercation of some sort, but had he had his head smashed against the pavement several times (as he claims), he would have sustained far worse injuries than that. As the evidence stands, all we know for certain is that he and Martin had a fight, which does not translate into justifiable cause for thinking his life was in danger. If, for example, two men are involved in a barroom brawl, and one pulls out a gun and shoots the other, the killer shouldn't be exonerated simply because both parties were equally engaged in the act of violence; he is only justified if he can prove that he had good reason to fear the other party would have killed him if he had not acted first. A charge of manslaughter may be substituted for a more severe account, but it is ludicrous to claim that he should be entirely acquitted. Similarly, Zimmerman simply fighting with Martin does not justify Zimmerman killing Martin precisely because the only sound evidence that could have proved his life was in jeopardy — the severity of his bodily injuries — failed to meet that standard of proof. In short, there is no good reason to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman had to end Martin's life.
What's probably more troubling are the reactions of the brain damaged individuals who inhabit the Liar's Club and those of the totally deranged at "Breitbart's Mausoleum". It is the reaction of the learning impaired at of these locations that make one ashamed of the human race in general-and Americans in particular. If you want some real evidence of the decline of American civilization and the corrupting effects of a fake news organization like Fox News-just read some of the comments there. Then take several showers to wash the filth off of you.
Matthew Rozsa summed it up well-its time for a "J Accuse" type letter to the country as a whole:
Yet millions of people have ignored the facts, and the rather basic logic that can be applied to them, because they want to take his side. Even before the photographs of Zimmerman's injuries were released, or before Martin's character was smeared by Zimmerman's defense attorneys, these same people were scrounging around for ways to defend Zimmerman and condemn the child whose life he took. For all of the talk of political correctness inconveniencing white people, the primary beneficiaries of braindead etiquette are the racists who are allowed to spew their bile and then hide behind disclaimers of their own so-called "color blindness."
I say enough. And I add to that disgust the following:
I accuse George Zimmerman of being a common murderer, for the reasons explained before.
I accuse Zimmerman's defenders of believing that Trayvon Martin deserved to die because he was a black male.
Some of them undoubtedly have deluded themselves into thinking that they aren't racist; others, just as certainly, know that they dislike black people but lie so as to avoid the stigma of being labelled a "racist." All, however, are basing their opinions on the fact that Martin was black. If both men had been white, these same people would never dream of arguing that a heavyset adult male with a firearm could be defended for stalking an unarmed child and killing him. These same people, whether they admit it or not, would rightly dismiss his claim to have acted in self-defense once the aforementioned evidence was presented to them. Because Martin was black, however, they readily bought into the stereotypes our society teaches about African American men, and formed their opinions accordingly.
Finally, I accuse our society of systematically targeting African Americans using the same logic employed by Zimmerman, his supporters, and the Florida jurors.
Good grief Skippy. Zimmerman most assuredly DID NOT base his defense on stand your ground. His lawyers argued self defense. Read a real news service.
Zimmerman doesn't have to PROVE anything. His lawyers only had to convince a single juror that there was reasonable doubt about what the prosecutors were trying to prove. They worked too hard and convinced all of the jurors that the State's case was nothing but shit from the outset. Too bad the sacks of shit you consider news miss the most obvious facts in the case and the law.
Oh really? So Zimmerman does not have to prove that he knowingly disregarded the advice of the 9-11 dispatcher, knowingly profiled someone who had committed no crime-and picked a fight that he didn't have to start?
See I think the distinction in the defense is meaningless-it was an avoidable tragedy. At the least Zimmerman is guilty of manslaughter.
More importantly, it has set a rather bad precedent-allow hordes of would be Zimmermans to drive the streets of America-armed and ready to beat back all the punks out there.
There will be a long, lovely ride surfing the strange and wonderful celebrity that will befall him now because he stood up to the people who defend the rights of assholes and fucking punks to walk in their hoodies through neighborhoods where they don't belong, according to him, George Zimmerman, American hero.
The reason ZImmerman is off is because the prosecutor forgot that old Greek myth of Icaraus. They flew too high and forgoet their wings were made of wax and they came crashing down. Instead of presenting a case of manslaughter, focusing on the fact that Zimmerman was told to stay in the car and his actions caused Martin's death, they bowed to political pressure and tried to go for murder. If the jury would have found him guilty, then they would be brought up as shining examples of how our system works. But because they voted NG, based on the evidence that was brought before them, they will be vilified.
I have a unique perspective on this case. As a Black man I can understand the people's protest, but I think that they are protesting the wrong thing. Over the 4th of July weekend some 60 people were shot, 9 killed by guns. Hate to say it but 90% of these were Black on Black, and even with the gun laws in place, the shooters are not able to buy guns yet they still have them to use. My unlce who lives in Chicago, a law abiding man who is by no means a "ghetto dweller" does not abide by the strict gun laws there because it puts him, a tax payer and law abiding citizen at risk while the bad guys run with impunity.
What this case brought out was that the prosecutors put Treyvon's friend on the stand, who was on the phone with him while ZImmerman was chasing him. She gave details, and whether you liked her presentation or not, she was part of the process. How many of those shootings in Chicago will have a witness to identify the shooters or what was going on at the time? Probably very few. It seems the people in those areas know who is doing the shooting, but not cooperating with the police to bring them to justice. But when it is a racial outsider, everyone is willing to jump in. Those rallys that have been going on in LA, NYC, Oakland, need to not focus on the Zimmerman verdict, but rather on stopping the violence against Black on Black crime. I am more likely to get killed by another Black person than a white, and the media is afraid to say it. O'Reilly did a piece on this same issue a few days ago, and as you know, the Black bloggers and websites had a field day with calling him and Fox news for being racist, when in all honesty he wasn't. He was just pointing out hte facts.
This case has been divided among ideological lines that people are not seeing it for what it really is. Not all conservatives took the GOP/Fox agenda. People like Micheal Save, KFI's John & Ken and others saw it for what it was, a guy who took it upon himself to take the law in his own hands, and he got his ass whupped and he pulled out a gun. Manslaughter at best. But because MSNBC, CNN, Sharpton and the other race baiters came down against Zimmerman, the other side had to come out for him.
But of course the root question remains-namely why is America so fucked up that Zimmerman feels like he needs to shove a pistol down his pants for a trip to Target? (What he claimed he was doing at the time he started following Zimmerman). Also you forgeting that part of this case and its associeted outrage is that the Sanford police were not going to charge Zimmerman with anything and let him have his weapon back so he is free to do it again.
The clear solution now is a civil suit desigend for the purpose of stripping that fat fuck Zimmerman of every penny he has. Or will have.
I'd also take issue with your take that it is an either or thing: focus on Florida's fucked up gun laws or take on black on black violence. Its not an either or thing-its why is America fucked up on both things. Adn why does America have so many damn guns that consequences of crime are always so tragic?
You should not be troubled that George Zimmerman "got away" with the killing of Trayvon Martin, you should be troubled that you live in a country that ensures that Trayvon Martin will happen. Trayvon Martin is happening again in Florida.
Skippy, Maurice just wrote that his uncle carries an illegal gun in Chicago-murder capital of the US and you got nothing to say about that. Probably because the only people carrying guns in Chicago are the killers, the police and the politicians. Up until this month NOBODY could legally carry a gun in Chicago – the gunshot murder capital of the US. There's something like 70 black people SHOT every WEEK in Chicago. Where are you on that?
Zimmerman didn't have to comply with some idiot 911 operator. What idiot thinks that's the case? When you're getting violently attacked and the operator tells you to stay on the line, do they prosecute you for letting the phone disconnect?
In a gross miscarriage the Judge allowed the prosecution to submit that Zimmerman be found guilty of manslaughter. The Defense's entire case had been designed to find him innocent of murder and here the judge decides in the last hour to allow the jury to consider the lesser charge of manslaughter that the defense never had a chance to argue / defend against.
The civil suit is already in the works. It was placed on judicial hold while the criminal trial was ongoing but now Zimmerman is going to get $40,000,000 from the fucksticks at NBC because they tried to race bait morons into believing a black and hispanic man was a racist by 'editing' the 911 call.
Curtis, I'll ask you several questions. How much black violence would there be if drugs were legal? What woudl the crime rate be if we had a reasonable job market and reasonable salaries-and Walmart made 50% less profit each year? How about if we had good housing-a la the HDB scheme in Singapore-with the governent actively enforcing cleanliness standards, and 90+% ownership?
Economics plays a huge role in the type of crime Maurice suggests-more importantly it is not an excuse to ignore the outrage perpetrated by Zimmerman. Neighborhood watches are not supposed to enforce the law-they are to report suspicious activity to the police. When I was in Alabama-our neighborhood had a try at neighborhood watch. it fell apart when it became apparent to most of us that it was just an excuse for fat busy bodies like Zimmerman to tell us what to do with our houses and yards.
The Martin verdict may well be legally justifiable but I have less enthusiasm for the overall message, which boils down to make sure you kill the other guy first.
it’s not just Florida. It’s a sickness at the heart of this country, which is ass-deep in guns from coast to coast. It’s a putrification of the soul that would allow a Zimmerman to put words from a Dirty Harry script into the mouth of the kid he just killed: “You’re gonna die tonight, motherfucker!” “You got me!”
The laws in this state are particularly fucked up because, thanks to the tireless efforts of the NRA, they were designed to specifically remove the “duty to retreat.” But please don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a Florida problem.
Remember that 20 mostly white children were gunned down in affluent, civilized Connecticut. So far, despite the tireless efforts of their families, President Obama and Vice President Biden, not a damn thing has been done to address it.
This is an American problem, this obsession with guns, this fixation on dispensing hollow-point justice to “the other,” and it will take the combined efforts of all of us to change it. We have to try.
I would have voted guilty based on the common sense notion that Zimmerman was the aggressor. Martin didn't follow Zimmerman, Martin didn't disobey police instructions, Martin didn't leave the safety of his vehicle. Zimmerman was in control of the situation, which makes Zimmerman the aggressor which makes the idea of self-defence moot.
As for the verdict rendered, well I might not like it but the jury system is intended to deliver justice as understood by the local community – your peers. Clearly, the jury there in Sanford felt that Zimmerman's behaviour was not criminal.
There's one thing I'd like to mention that I haven't yet seen. Zimmerman is incompetent. I suspect his weapons training came from watching a Law & Order marathon. No competent person would have let Martin within 12 feet, much less get his head bashed into the pavement before drawing his weapon. Zimmerman needs to have mandatory weapons training, as he is clearly a danger to himself and others in his current condition.
Finally, Zimmerman now has carte blanche to shoot anyone. Look at all the morons who have threatened to shoot him. If his claim of self defence was spurious with Martin, it won't be with the next one.
What a mess.
Skippy. Good question.
1. There'd be just as much black violence.
2. Crime rate in an environment which actually nurtured rather than destroyed job growth would be about the same as now. Who do you think would employ all the gangbangers? To do what? Some people have made themselves or been made functionally unemployable by anybody. Walmart just gave up on building 6 stores in DC because the city government conspired to unfairly single out and punish Walmart–just like you would if you could. So, no 900 jobs for youth there.
3. We do have good housing standards but we cannot got the government to obey the law much less stick to the rules and adminster policy fairly and evenly and uniformly. When they did this in the housing area it was rightly called racism. I was an Army brat. The Post made damned sure that people abided by the rules or they were tossed off base. Even so, a lot of people could not seem to follow the rules and got tossed out of housing.
4. Crime? Maurice admits that his uncle breaks the law and carries an illegal gun. At leasst Zimmerman was licensed and legal to carry his gun and I would take issue with Buck about not letting a man I was going to attack within 12 feet if I carried a pistol. The fact that Zimmerman did let him within 12 feet and didn't pull the gun until his head was being bashed in shows that he had no expectation of violence. The kid cought him unaware. Kind of like the cops who blow apart a 6 year old by mistake. No, strike that. Cops pull their guns when confronting 6 year olds.
When I arrived in my first neighborhood in San Diego a long time ago the cops asked themselves in and told us that it would be a goodness if any burglars caught breaking in were dead on arrival.
I'll go deeper after I get back from a cheerful movie.
A brief reprieve to change clothes.
Finally. Consider that kid was not shot in the back like the cops do it all the time. He was not shot down from a distance of 12 feet like the way cops shoot at dogs and little kids. Nope. He was close enough to touch.
Who escalated to violence? The guy with the gun would have behaved differently if he ever meant to use the gun as anything but a last resort. That tough 17 year old punk decided to beat up a pudgy white cracker that was annoying him. Last mistake he made.
Skippy,
Let me answer some of your questions. There was a study down on elephants. When the older bull elephants were removed from the herd, the younger ones were apt to act in a manner that one could say that didn't fit into the herd's norms. Once the male bulls were returned, the guidance that they brought to the herd somewhat calmed the younger males down and society returned to normal. Same could be said in many of the Black and poor communities. When LBJ started the "War of Poverty" it put the Black family in crisis. Money could not be received if there was a male of working age in the house. For a funny look at this, look at the old movie called "Julia" starring James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson made back in the late 60's. It pretty much sums up in a nut shell on what happens when you disrupt the family. My parents and their families grew up poor, and that uncle I mentioned had to work his way out of the cotton fields to go to college. So there has been poverty in the Black communities, but there wasn't as much violence as there is now.
Wal-Mart and their policies are not the cause. The next time you go back to the USA, go to the local Wal-Mart. You will notice, that the Wal-Mart is not so much in the "Hood" but in the border areas. They don't set up shop in high crime areas simply due to costs. Managers at those stores and other grocery stores get bonuses based on the amount of loss they prevent. Sad to say in some Black inner city areas, the crime is high because there is not a respect of ownership in regards to other people's property. Grocery stores and other stores can't be in the inner cities in many cases since they can't afford the higher insurance costs due to the crime rates. Also, the missing jobs can also be traced back to NAFTA (signed by Slick Willie). I can show you directly where jobs were lost from plants my families used to work for when soon after NAFTA was enacted, those same plants moved down to Mexico.
Housing, it goes back to what I mentioned earlier in this post about respect of ownership. ONce again looking directly at my family, I have a very close relative that is eligible for Section 8 Housing. So far in the past year, she has moved into 2 different homes, after she and her "hooligans" have destroyed the homes that they were in. We are working now to try to make repairs on the family homestead that was allowed to go into disrepair by said individual. You would think that they would have had a bit more respect for at least that dwelling, but when you know you have a voucher that can take you anyplace you want (at about $900/month) you get the attitude of not worrying about what you damage, since all you have to do is just move on to the next.
Legalize drugs, not the answer. The junkies I know don't have jobs. They make their money to buy drugs by stealing and doing other things illegal. What makes you think that once drugs are legal, that they will then find legit ways to get money to buy drugs? All legalizing drugs will do is to put a tax on the profits from crime. I have known people with no jobs, yet they can get the money for a "hit" daily. One thing you will not see in many poor areas, empty cans laying around.
Skippy, a lot of people like you, tend to see problems from the "academic" viewpoint, and that is nothing wrong. But in some cases, you have not seen the "real world" in regards to what is really going on. I know I can't speak to you on the ins and outs of being married for a long time since you have that perspective I don't, but I can tell you that some of the solutions you are suggesting just will not work. They are good, but you are taking out the key factor, the human condition.
Skippy, if anyone knows about early American history you do and the plight and sorrow of newly arrived immigrants. The incredible poverty, the crime, the absence of law and order etc etc.
they indeed were the dregs of the world,coming from landless peasants or oppressed minorities and yet, after a generation or two, MANY, not all made enormous progress, politically, economically and so why, despite the civil rights movement, welfare, the right to vote, affirmative action, African Americans are STILL mired in poverty and hopelessness?
And just one more thing…jasmine rand is hot…
Skippy,
I mentioned my uncle in the Chicago area and let me explain further. He has a son who took over my uncle's (my unlce's brother) law firm in the Chicago area. They live in the Southside. Not all of the Southside is like Kabul. The area where the Obama's have their home is righ around the corner from some projects. My cousin has two kids, and they can't go outside and play, and have to go over to my uncle's (their grand dad) just because he doesn't want them to be hit by a stray bullet, like some of the killings that have occured. He has a gun, and was not going to let the city council, who do have the right to carry conceal, tell him how to defend his family.
The problem as I have stated earlier, and what you have hit upon in a previous post was the "law of unintended consequences." Back in the 90's HUD went through and started to destroy the Cabrini Green and other high rise projects. They began to replace them with smaller units, and also to spread the poor around to other working class areas by using the Section 8 vouchers. The end result, once where you had high crime concentrated in one local area, now you have it spread out among a larger area. Funny though, they didn't send people to the west side of Chicago and other higher property value areas. Just entrenched it among the working classes in the Southside. Add to it the downturn in the economy and you get the problems you see today. Yet, supposedly they had a great community organizer that was working on solving those problems.
Jobs are the key to many of the problems. But there is no job base there. Why would you invest in a company or facility in an area where crime is high and your employees are subject to facing crime just going to work?
Curtis, there is no reasonable definition of competent which fits Zimmerman's actions. In fact, it's rather difficult to pick out any one thing he did that night that was right. The man is pitifully incompetent.
Maurice, excellent description of poverty and the 'it ain't mine' syndrome. I live in a ZIP code where the average house sale last quarter was just shy of $45k. Almost 70% of the residents rent. Average adjustrd gross income is a tad over $18k. I can confirm every word you wrote is true, even for my rust belt small city. I'd add one thing: It's not black and white. Below a certain income level, most people give up on civilisation. Not all, but very, very many. Jobs make a huge difference.
Buck,
You are correct on the jobs issue. This whole mantra about illegals doing jobs that native Americans will not do is simply bogus. If they paid better (and I am not talking about $60K plus) but actually paid better wages, or didn't just cut people off support if they need it, there would be a different story. I mentioned about my uncle in Chicago and how his son took over my other uncle's law practice. A funny story about him and work. When he was in college back in the early 40's, he ran out of money for school. He went to see the Dean, and he told him if he worked at picking cotton for the next few days, he would give him a job. My uncle picked over 500lbs of cotton, and the Dean was impressed. He gave my uncle a job as a valet. The man he was the valet for was W.E.B. Dubois.
I tell that story because as you mentioned, jobs are what helps to keep the problems down. When someone works for something, they tend to value it more. My relatives who have the Obama phones and other government benefits, who do not work don't appreciate what they really have. As soon as it breaks, they go get another, while I am still using an old model phone, they have the latest and greatest, and yet no job. Yet we are told that flooding the market with more unskilled will make America better. If they think so, then they need to go back and look at what happened when NAFTA which was supposed to make things cheaper for us in the US and see the effects.
Sharpton and others have called for marches on 100 cities to protest this. I think the first stop they need to make is Chicago, and start off on the Black on Black violence there first. Then they can start to bring up this case. I don't see this as a Black vs. White, just an idot who got the system to work for him.
Finally, I accuse our society of systematically targeting African Americans using the same logic employed by Zimmerman, his supporters, and the Florida jurors.
It is more like Blacks are targeting each other and not our society in general targeting Black Americans. Almost 90% of Black murder victims were killed by other Blacks. That's not the USA in general but a Black on Black, isolated issue. Zimmerman was not a "night rider" with the KKK, but a guy without a clue doing something he was not skilled to do.
My little sister went to U. of Chicago and lived off campus in Hyde Park. I would visit her when the navy sent me from California to Department Head school and on the way back to San Diego. She took me to Ed Debevics at Kabrini Green. One of my OTs was raised in KG and I've never met a smarter or nicer girl. Mike Royko wrote excellent columns about city government laying waste to the city long before they ripped down KG but the one I most remember was his column on the urban renewal movement where the city and HUD decided to knock down Skid Row and spread that population around where it slowly finished the destruction that the de-Institutionalization movement had begun and laid waste to larger parts of the city. In Memphis they did the same thing and knocked down public housing as it was and spread the evil out to the working class neighborhoods that had been fine. Now all are struggling with rampant crime. It's the mindset of people who cannot work, and will not work and, don't need to work because people like Skippy believe they have a right to all my money.
I'm not here to support Zimmerman and I have zero appreciation for the police but I don't think Zimmerman reacted or acted in any way incompatible with anybody that confronts an angry young black man. You pretty much do that at risk of your own life. I wouldn't do it without a gun either. Odds are up here in Cleveland the other guy has a gun and half a dozen of his friends that you probably didn't notice are behind you.
I don't have a concealed permit, never asked for one, and only carried up north in the Middle East.
Maurice,
I accept the fact that some portion of people ( of all races) are unsalvagable-but that said there are folks I think can be saved out side of that number. But we are really talking apples and oranges here. Zimmermans case is about a specific case where a man should have acted with more prudent judgement and failed to. As a result a person is dead.
Re: Black on Black crime
There’s no such thing as “black-on-black” crime. Yes, from 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by black offenders, but that racial exclusivity was also true for white victims of violent crime—86 percent were killed by white offenders. (“white-on-white crime”). Indeed, for the large majority of crimes, you’ll find that victims and offenders share a racial identity, or have some prior relationship to each other…. in general, is that it’s driven by opportunism and proximity;
Now I will accept there are cultural issues at work in both sides white and black that need to change, and I think in that regard, the "diversity" mantra didn't help at all. Assmiliation into an American society would be much much better. But there has always been crime-Irish on Irish and lets remember the Sicilians shall we?
Skippy,
A man died yesterday in Cleveland who had been attacked by 3 Black males because they were bored. He had been in the hospital for over a year and finally died of his wounds. Not much was heard about that until I read it on Michael Savage's website. Yet in 1998, a Black man was lynched by three whites in Jasper TX, one of the killers knew the Black man, and yet this case ws used against Bush in his 2000 election from the far left They accused Bush of implicit racism since, as governor of Texas, he opposed hate crime legislation, since two of the culprits were getting the maximum punishment, the death penalty. Also, when Bush didn't attend his funeral due to a prior commitment, he was also labeled a racist.
The NAACP, Sharpton, Jackson et al all marched in Jasper, but none did the same for this guy in Cleveland, nor the many other Blacks who are killed by other Blacks. Just like the sexual assualt cases that get the headlines when there is a male vs female, the press and activist groups really like to dig into a story when it fits their agenda. I agree, Zimmerman should have been found at least guilty of manslaughter and if Trayvon had a checkered past that was still not an excuse to be shot on the streets.
I am for the "stand your groud" laws, but they need to be adjusted. Zimmerman started the fight, and he was loosing, and then he pulls out a gun. I don't see that as a case of standing your ground. Now if he were minding his own business, and was the one attacked first, then I can go with the verdict. But the 911 tapes show otherwise. All this does is makes it a legal precent that if you are getting your ass kicked in a fight you started, you have the right to shoot someone because you feared for your life. Not what the stand your ground laws were intended to do.
Maurice,
I'd agree with you if the police who gun down innocent victims face exactly the same penalty and the very real threat of jail. As it is, it is every man for himself when the gloves come off. Why are police allowed to be above the law?