We do have evidence that he wasn't going to his car, and approached and engaged Martin. The girl who was on the phone with Martin at the time of the incident as phone records and her account verifies.
I'm glad you got to post that article because it was a good read, but what does it have to do with the post you quoted?
mom has filed for trademarks, http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/trayvon-martin-trademarks-769123
They also have evidence that indicates it wasn't self defense. It isn't their job to weigh the evidence and decide whether or not he's guilty. They just need enough to know there is a good chance he could be guilty. It wouldn't be a lie for them to say they had probable cause. Self defense shouldn't even be relevant to the police -- that's for the judge and the jury to decide. If they had arrested Zimmerman, there isn't a court in the country that would have entertained a case of unlawful arrest (whether he's white or hispanic or both) if any complaint was made. EDIT: Didn't mean to respond to bigtexxx. Didn't look at the handle until I hit submit.
But she was not there. Her evidence may suggest that Zimmerman's account is incorrect, but it alone does not prove Zimmerman wrong. Indeed, she could be lying (as I suspect you think Zimmerman is lying.)
So, now the family that tried to control the media's messaging is trying to profit from this? disgusting.
OMG Wow, I didn't include severe bodily harm, which you are probably fearful for your life if you are fearful of severe bodily harm.
He didn't turn his back to 'someone'. He turned his back to a 'criminal'. If Zimmerman was genuinely worried that the suspect was a criminal, he should not have engaged to begin with. We already know Zimmerman's state of mind suggesting just that. What happens after that NOW puts the burden of proof on Zimmerman to prove he fully disengaged. We don't have that proof ...only his personal account. In such a case, No judge would EVER take the defendant's word for it. Zimmerman has to prove he disengaged. We already have proof that he engaged. With the info we have, deadly force was not justified. If you are worried about how you'd handle it, don't chase down suspected criminals.
Sorry, let's clear this conversation up. I don't believe the story that he was walking away. You suggested it is a possibility and said he still doesn't have a right to use deadly force if he was walking away. So, for this conversation, it doesn't matter whether Zimmerman is lying or not. We are strictly working on your hypothetical which was that he was walking away (back turned) and said something over his shoulder and was then attacked. In that scenario does he not have a right to defend himself?
As the accused Zimmerman is given the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Not the other way around. The burden of proof is not legally on Zimmerman. We live in the US not the UK.
Hmmm. I'm less confident it was an execution, now. That said, I'm not going to regret anything I said earlier. I felt like making a judgment, and I did, right or wrong. Some people like waiting for more evidence. Here's more evidence/details. My judgment can change. Fortunately, I'm not part of a jury (but if I was, I'd be forced to see all the evidence anyway), so I'm allowed to pass judgment earlier than usual.
That is possible but the problem is that Martin ends up in front of Zimmerman who is backtracking. That would imply that not only is he following Zimmerman but he is trailing him enough to determine where Zimmerman is heading and able to get ahead of him without Zimmerman noticing to cut him off. That doesn't seem likely given other facts. It seems more likely that Zimmerman lost Martin and got disoriented about exactly how close he was to Martin and that Martin feeling that Zimmerman was very close to him turned to face. That seems more possible given that it was dark visibility may have been limited due to the rain than that Martin was actually stalking Zimmerman and cut him off as he was heading to his car.
I'm not going to make judgements about who was lying. I will say that she has phone records to help her back up the story. For instance most guys who are going to jump another guy from behind won't be talking on a headset for their cell phone at the time. A person who is next door, and hears someone scream, I'm going to kill you, then hears a shot, and the body of the victim fall down, can still be a witness, even though they didn't see the crime. I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, just an example of when a witness can provide testimony and evidence without actually seeing exactly what happened. There are conflicting stories of what exactly happened, but there is enough evidence to arrest Zimmerman.
According to girlfriend he was trying to run away, and according to Zimmerman he came up to him and started wailing on him. Usually I wouldn't try to fight someone a 100 pounds heavier than me.
I just heard an interview with Rep. Dennis Baxley, one of the author's of FL's Stand Your Ground law who again reiterated that he thinks the law doesn't apply to this case. Rep. Baxley also mentioned something else that may apply to the case. FL's self-defense law takes into account proportionality when meeting force with force. While he didn't go into specifically this case he pointed out that deadly force isn't justified unless the threat is proportionate to it. In the case of an unarmed man attacking an armed man while the armed man feels under threat that doesn't automatically justify resorting to deadly force. He did point out that these things are judgement calls made in the moment but IMO that still points to manslaughter in this case rather than self-defense.
Zimmerman is not innocent. He confessed to shooting Martin. NOW the burden of proof is in Zimmerman to prove self defense justified lethal force.
