Asks others to remain rational and not jump to conclusions, immediately assumes the worst about the president based on...nothing. Getting too easy to pwn you tex, do a better job of playing your calm and rational character.
You seem incapable or unwilling to understand that the individual mandate doesn't force you to buy anything.
Coincidence..... you can do better than this... find a picture of Obama wearing the Trayvon t-shirt and you will have a point.
Those are possible but if they don't necessarily match up with the evidence we have. If we take all of the testimony and physical evidence that is publicly known, and presume that everyone is telling the truth as they see / hear it, I think the most plausible is that Zimmerman did believe he was going back to his car and due to circumstance he ran into Martin. If we take Martin's GF's testimony that Martin was deliberately trying to get away from Zimmerman that makes sense. That is a sound strategy from Zimmerman's defense point of view. I would further emphasis that Zimmerman was retreating to his car. Even though that is not needed under FL law that helps support that Martin was the aggressor. Likely would but in addition to Martin being unarmed add the testimony that Martin was trying to avoid Zimmerman and also the positions of Zimmerman and Martin were witnessed immediately following the shooting. It is pretty clear that Martin had punched Zimmerman knocking him to the ground but that Zimmerman is seen standing over Martin's body does indicate that Zimmerman shot Martin when Martin wasn't directly over him. Whether Martin was going to or did bash Zimmerman's head it doesn't seem like at the moment he was shot he was in position to do so. I am not a lawyer so I can't judge how easy this will be but I agree it doesn't appear to be a slam dunk either way. I assume the past of both will be provided for character value. In that case if both the fact that Zimmerman had been arrested for his interfering with an officer, and that Martin had been suspended for drug possession I think that may not work in Zimmerman's favor. While it can be shown that Martin was a bad kid who did drugs Zimmerman is also shown to be a hot head who ignores authority.
Actually yes the police in an investigation should essentially be nothing more than recording the evidence they find and not making on scene value judgements. Keep in mind it is a crime for police to tamper with deliberately ignore evidence. It is a violation of due process for police and prosecution to withhold evidence.
They record all the witness accounts but they also make a value judgement on the credibility of those accounts. It is all over police reports.
Sure they can make a value judgement but that is different than correcting and altering a witnesses testimony, or deliberately ignoring evidence. Police evidence is meant to be open to all parties in a case and as such they are required to record evidence without bias.
I agree with you to a point, however officers at the scene have to make judgment calls. That is to say they have to decide who to interview, how in depth to get into their testimony and how far they should canvas the area. I suspect that there is still some key information missing in this case. Some of the supposed information is inconsistent and honestly does not pass the smell test. This is a good case for someone to follow if they want to see how our criminal system works. My guess is that up to half of the known evidence will be barred from trial as either irrelevant or the probative value outweighed by the prejudice. Honestly, the fact of Martin's past transgressions should be barred, unless there are violent episodes (beating a bus driver).
sorry, I thought you said they couldn't make value judgement since we don't have the police report, we really have no idea what they wrote
If they bring up race as a motive why would Zimmerman not say he looked like a drug user which is backed up by exactly what he said on the 911 call?
Yeah if it is true that they told a witness to alter testimony then they should be taken to task. (Not sure what the legal rules are, charges? Just fired?)
I doubt that the DA would have the manpower to do what you suggest is SOP. And if that's all you want the police to do, then there is no need for trained detectives - just hire some secretaries from a temp agency to conduct the interviews.
Good question. It depends honestly on the quality of the Judge. A strong Judge will make a call right out of the box that the issue of race will or will not be allowed. If it is not allowed then the past of Trayvon will not come in, as his transgressions are not violent and related to the event. However, if the Judge allows the plaintiff to argue race played a factor, that Zimmerman is a racist, and the police department is corrupt.... then the door is open for Zimmerman's team to attack Trayvon. As a lawyer I think that people sometimes do not realize how important a Judge's rulings can be. Look at the OJ trial, Judge Ito had no clear rules or protocol and both sides walked all over his rulings.
As individuals they are free to have an opinion just like a stenographer is free to have an opinion about what they are recording. They can't allow that opinion to affect their evidence collection. For example if a cop is investigating a shooting and one witness says "I saw the shooting and the suspect didn't do it" A cop can't just pass on taking that statement because he feels the witness isn't credible. That would essentially be withholding evidence. Or as reported by one of the Zimmerman witnesses correct the witness statement by saying "You did see the suspect do the shooting." I haven't seen the complete report but here is the link for the on scene report. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/investigation/docs/Twin Lakes Shooting Initial Report.pdf
Obama is such a genius. His campaign was selling hoodies in 2008. They sold them 4 years before the Trayvon Martin incident even happened. That's really getting ahead of the game. With business instincts like that this nation could really use him as its leader. Of course Romney who's campaign now sells hoodies as well wasn't able to predict the marketing 4 years earlier like Obama was. He sucks. http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-hoodie-sale-leads-to-questioning-2012-3 And from the same article. Man! Only an idiot would jump on this without waiting to get all the facts in the case.
We keep hearing this, but we have not heard the police side of this story. The witness could be totally lying or misinterpreting what happened. It may have been that the police, aware of testimony that said Martin was the aggressor. sought clarification from this witness about who was on top of whom. This witness could have interpreted that effort at clarification as attempt to change her testimony. Once again, we don't know and we have been given only one side of this story.
I don't think you understand what evidence gathering means. Trained detectives do interpret evidence but the primary goal is to get a full understanding a crime scene. Most people aren't trained to look for things like blood spatter and other clues. Anyway following your reasoning as I noted in my above post a cop could just choose to ignore or withhold evidence that doesn't fit the narrative that they think is correct. That is clearly a violation of due process and doing things like that have invalidated cases.
