Are you saying that a mortician is not qualified to recognize bruising? Out of curiosity, do you know what a mortician's job is? It sounds like you're treating Zimmerman's testimony as fact. Isn't that jumping to conclusions?
You mean according to Zimmerman. Good God people, is it possible for anyone to look at this case objectively? Wait until the claims and facts are validated. Zimmerman claims Martin slammed his head repeatedly into the sidewalk. He says he has welts and lacerations to prove it. If that's true, the EMT will verify and as far as I know the EMT and Forensics experts have not released their reports yet. Yes, everything GZ says could very well prove to be a lie. We can't verify it is a lie, we can't verify it is truth. Wait. Until. The. Forensics. Are. Released. Please.
Sounds like you don't know what the word "objectively" means. A lot of us are being objective. We're basing our opinions on the available evidence. It's fine if you want to wait for more evidence before forming your personal opinion, but that doesn't make you any more objective than us.
my guess is if the stand your ground statute proves a non-starter, rather than go to a trial, zimmerman will plead down to manslaughter. then he will make a remorseful statement, do his time, and hopefully, be able to resume his life with some hope of dignity. if he were to get off, the outcry would be huge. i hope the frustration would then shift to the stand your ground statute and not zimmerman.
a couple of simple questions for the people here who thinks Zimmerman is innocent of any crime in his shooting of an unarmed teen: 1) if you were a member of the neighborhood watch, will you bring a gun? 2) if you own a gun and always bring it, will you volunteer to be part of the neighborhood watch?
No. People are claiming things as fact, that are not fact. They are claiming they know why/where Zimmerman confronted Martin. They are claiming they know Zimmerman attacked Martin. Or that he was following Martin after he was told not to, which has yet to be confirmed. Looking at something objectively means looking at the FACTS without bias. The majority of posts here have not demonstrated a clear and objective POV. They are all based on what they say happened, but they don't have anything to prove that things happened the way they say. Objectively - uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices.
1) He was not on watch. 2) Personally, no. I don't think your supposed/allowed to on duty. If I was on neighborhood watch, and guns were allowed, yes I would bring a gun. Would I pursue a criminal though? No. If Zimmerman pursued Martin, thinking he was a criminal, he was making an incredibly stupid mistake, but it was not illegal. We all know that the smart thing to have done would have been to either: a) Call the police and let it be (probably hard to do when you are a neighborhood watchman and you feel your neighborhood could possibly be at risk). b) Not to bring a gun c) To have never gotten in an altercation with Martin. We still can't confirm that Martin attacked Zimmerman, or the other way around. That is the crucial key to the puzzle. If they investigators have a good idea of who started it, than the rest of the puzzle starts to fall into place.
we don't have all the facts but the prosecution does. why are any of you trying to make an assumption of guilt or innocence? let our justice system work.
That's what I am saying. But so many were quick to jump on Zimmerman I felt it was only fair to defend his side to show that there is just not enough information known yet to make a clear headed accusation. Let the state prove he is guilty. If he is than he'll likely go to jail. If not, he will likely be set free. Let's hope the justice system works this time.
Dunno. I would assume it would help. If the rules of the nightwatch are to not carry a firearm or other weapon, than it wouldn't hurt his case to have been off duty. If he was ON duty with a weapon I think it would hurt his case. I would assume some lawyers here would be able to answer that.
No race baiting in the first two cases. And of course OJ's verdict was a racially tinged response to the Rodney King case. It's not the pre-trial publicity per se, it's the mob rule that is the problem.
If Zimmerman walks are we ready for another riot America? Does any of you still remember the 92 LA riot? I've lived through a couple of them when I was in Miami: Overtown and Liberty City. I thought after we elect Barry we would have a post racial society, "ebony and ivory, living together in perfect harmony" Post racial society my ass!
I have no problem if he walks after the trial. I think there is a fair chance he will walk, I would put it at 60-40 for him to go to jail. All you can ask is a fair trial, but to say he should not even stand for trial is unjust.
I pray that it will not happen. It can potentially lead to a riot similar to what happened in LA in 1992.
This may be a bad example, but if say an off duty Missouri City officer sees soemthing suspicious in Houston, calls it in and then continues to keep an eye on the suspect until backup arrives, is he on duty? Cops and neighborhood watches are completely different, but I hope you get what I am saying. We still don't know for certain if Zimmerman continued to pursue Martin on foot, or if he was returning to his car after he stopped following Martin. Because we do know he at one point was following Martin, we just don't know for certain, at this point, if he continued or stopped when told it was not necessary. By the way, I don't think dispatchers are officers. I called a dispatcher recently to file a report and they told me they could not take my report because they were not officers, they were just representatives of the police department. Not sure about that though. Even if they were. He was not told NOT to follow him. He was told it wasn't necessary. If he continued to follow him, does that necessarily mean he attacked Martin? No. I think it is entirely plausible that Zimmerman did in fact procede to follow at a distance, and when Martin noticed he approached Zimmerman and very likely could have started a confrontation fearing for his own life. I was discussing this earlier with some people. They kept saying why would a 17 year old attack a grown man...I've seen 14 year olds attack grown men. Young people don't always use their heads. Clearly adults don't either, but it's also very likely that Martin was nervous, did not know the area, and found it a better idea to approach Zimmerman to protect himself if he felt he was in danger from behind. You can say that if only Zimmerman didn't have a gun this would have never happened, but you can say that any time someone is shot. He had a right to have a gun. He had a right to pursue Martin. He wasn't breaking the law until the met and had an altercation, and even then we don't know if he broke the law because we still don't know how Martin was shot, or what evidence there is to refute/support Zimmerman's claims of self-defense.
Pretty much every zoning codes require the number to be on the front so it is easy to determine what the address is. Further most zoning codes require the address to be well lit. I don't know Sanford's zoning code specifically but given this was a relatively new development I would be shocked if they put the numbers on the back. Also this was a development that was well known to Zimmerman. It's possible that he couldn't see the numbers and decided to walk around but that strikes me as highly unlikely for someone who had lived and patrolled there for years. It certainly showed questionable judgement on the part of Zimmerman. That is faulty logic that assumes that both are acting with equal knowledge. Martin wasn't aware of Zimmerman initially but Zimmerman was aware of Martin and considered him suspicious. Martin didn't live in the complex so it makes sense that he wouldn't be as familiar with the complex as Zimmerman. Zimmerman's actions are based upon his determination of Martin as being suspicious. Martin's actions are determined by him trying to find his way back from the store to his Father's house. And I have not based it on race. Now if it is an accident such as the gun accidentally discharging that is an interesting possibility but one that I don't think either side as put through. If you are talking about it as an accident of circumstance, wrong place wrong time, yes that I think there is a good argument for that but that doesn't rule out manslaughter or 2nd degree murder. In terms of either a negligent misjudgement of the situation (which I think is the most likely) or a crime of opportunity where Zimmerman was angered / offended by Martin and the opportunity just happened to come up (something I think is less likely). As has been noted the reasonable person standard isn't wholly dependent on the state of mind of the person claiming to act in self-defense. It's been brought up here a few times in this thread but FL has precedents where someone made that argument but was still convicted. As for following the dispatchers instructions that doesn't seem to add up with that the dispatcher told him to cease his pursuit and the above unlikelihood of him walking all the way around a building just to look for the building number. I myself am willing to believe though that he was in the process of heading back to his car when the confrontation happened. I posted a whole scenario back several pages before which I will see if I can find the link and post it. That both he and Martin misjudged where the other was an they ran into each other, your accident of circumstance. That said that still doesn't automatically lead to self-defense. Yes. Zimmerman says he is following Martin and the dispatcher tells him to stop. Why would the dispatcher tell him that if that wasn't the case. Further that contradicts your own argument above that he had broken off pursuit and was looking to see where he was. Also if we except Zimmerman's defense that Martin attacked him why would Martin do that if he wasn't aware that Zimmerman was pursuing him? Witnesses state that Zimmerman was wearing a red jacket /shirt which can be seen in the video of him in the police station. Blood stains, especially dry don't look like clothing dye. If they were rolling around then Martin wouldn't be in the process of bashing Zimmerman's head in. It is impossible to bash someone's head on the ground when they are on top of you. Based on the evidence that we have I feel very confident in how I have outlined the situation. There is enough evidence to show that Zimmerman didn't shoot Martin while Martin was in the process of bashing his head in. There may be other evidence that contradicts that but I am not sure what that would be. The only issue that I see that will exonerate Zimmerman is how the jury determines reasonable fear.
I agree with you that justice must prevails. The way it is being handled is completely absurd. You have the media, the race pimps, the Black Panthers all had their hands in the cookie jar. If they have enough evident to charge Zimmerman with a crime than let us do so, not because of the pressure from all those groups that try to cash in.
Are you saying then that OJ didn't get a fair trial? That's an interesting argument to make since he was exonerated. Also the subject wasn't the verdict but the media distortion and misstatements of which plenty were made in the OJ case.
