Trayvon Martin.

Please, you attack my background without addressing *my* arguments. What's all the more amusing, Is your background, rb.

I'm simply correcting a members rather incorrect interpretation of the law. The police work was still shoddy.

I suppose I can point out that a theoretical musician wouldnt t know much about law enforcement, or the criminal justice system. Especially one who works I n a university and mostly in the abstract realm of the ivory tower.

 

let me make it simple for you, ace. you may have noticed that there is a political problem that's emerged about these laws from this case that runs quite beyond this case. i think there are levels to that which are justified, and i've made the argument in the thread. turns out that folk who tend to support these laws do not want to address the levels of political questions that are justified, and instead retreat into a defense of the law on technical grounds (which is interesting in itself, btw). you are trying to do a different move, which is to act as though you can separate the law altogether from the situation that it structured. i know why you're doing it, but i don't buy it at all. but one thing these lines of argument have in common is damage control. people who support this kind of law are trying to take over how this problem is framed. i haven't seen much push-back from the gun club yet about this particular case apart from here because i'm more interested in other things at the moment, but i expect this is anticipating how the larger defenses are going to go.

what's good about the debate is that no-one has yet gone to the barrel's bottom with geraldo, who argued this morning that if you're wearing a hoodie you're asking for it.

 

I'll address the rest of your points whrn I am near a computer.

 

kirstang....wait.....a minute ago you were whining about an ad hominem.
now you're trying to exclude my position from the debate by making shit up about my background?

that's hilarious.

do you know what an ad hominem argument is?

 

These laws emerged from the political problem. A political problem most want to tap dance around, I might add.

The law in question is not a legitimate defense in this case. The law in question is only relevant because of a corrupt police investigation. The law as written has more to do with protecting gun owners from over zealous prosecution based on a anti-gun agenda than other social problems.

Because I know the difference between using a fire arm in self-defense and when using it is a crime.

I want justice. I want a person I think is a murderer arrested and convicted. I think others are using the law as a diversion, including the local police department who failed to do a thorough investigation when they had an obligation to do so. I think we will see that local police attempted to reconstruct evidence to support their initial claim. Who knew, anyone would give a shit about Trayvon???

 

A blogger that happens to be a professor at George Washington. Certainly better credentials than an anonymous forum participant saying so. But I personally have no interest in comparing CVs, so suit yourself.

As for the claims particular to this case, the police claims both that there is at least one witness who claims to have seen Martin on top of Zimmerman, and that Zimmerman had blood on his nose and back of the head, and grass stains on the back of his shirt. In this situation, then, things seem to be in dispute sufficiently that there is a lot of leeway in making decisions regarding charges and arrests, even if we all agree that Zimmerman started it, that police conduct was shoddy, and that Martin should have never been killed. And this leeway is created because the law explicitly allows for people who initiated conflicts to use it as a defense (And this is without getting into all the "presumptions" outlined in the law). Is Martin on top of Zimmerman enough to make him unable to retreat? Are the injuries, poorly documented as they were, enough to show a reasonable fear for one's life?

Now, we then get to Roachboy's point, which is the formalistic defense of this law by excluding every clearly problematic judgement call made based on this law as a bad judgement unrelated to the law as written itself. A sort of legal "no true Scotsman" argument. So Greyston Garcia can chase the unarmed guy who stole his stereo for over a block and stab him to death and be immune, Erica Felder can start an altercation with an unarmed guy, and when the guy reacts and tries to grab her purse she can stab him and be immune, Alcisviades Polanco can repeatedly stab an unarmed guy over a traffic dispute and be immune, and if we disagree with those we can just claim that that was not because of the faulty law, but the faulty judge/prosecution/police.

I think it is quite uncontroversial to say that the florida law goes way beyond most other stand your ground and castle doctrine laws, and that there is a large degree of discretion here.

 

I think that armchair lawyering can be fun, but it seems like the way this law has played out in the actually-existing Florida legal system has been more in line with dippin's interpretation than KirStang. And while I expect to be dismissed for this opinion on the grounds of being a simpleminded layman in matters of law, I think the proof is in the pudding (see dippin's references to people who unnecessarily escalated situations and got away with killing mofos).

It seems like it's really easy to get away with murder in Florida right now, which is great if you're a paranoid racist.

 

Just stooping down to your level, champ

Just stooping down to your level, champ

 

ok. so let's move from one example of someone unable to back away from narrow matters of technical infotainment that enable him to pretend to exclude others from debate (off with their heads!) in order to avoid taking on the more difficult, complex matters that swirl around this unfortunate matter and on to a piece by roxanne gay, not as anything definitive, but as a well-written and interesting perspective about how other people avoid taking on the difficult, complex matters that swirl around this whole unfortunate mess.

A Place Where We Are Everything - The Rumpus.net

 

Okay, instead of getting personal and going back and forth and degrading into a sham of a thread instead of one of true relevence.... I have a question.

Is the 9-1-1 tape Hannity playing accurate? If so, there are some very good points to be made and Hannity, as much as I hate the man's views, may have hit on some, as he is also a true Lawyer.

If so, then according to the tapes Zimmerman repeatedly said he thought the guy was "black"... indicating to me it seems racially motivated. Point 2, Zimmerman was told by the 9-1-1 operator NOT to follow the man yet, Zimmerman not only ignores that but states, "they always get away" on the tape. This would indicate that Zimmerman seemingly was out for blood and was not going to stop until he got his "man". So, listening to the tapes and Zimmerman's own words ON the tape, sounds like this was not only racially motivated but a case where he was not "standing his own ground" but hunting down someone he believed was a criminal because of the man's race and what HE (Zimmerman) wanted to believe in his own mind.

I would argue, this should be heavily investigated as a race inspired hate crime. I'm sorry, IF I'm Trayvon, minding my own business and some guy looks at me funny, I'm looking back at him the same way... IF said man chases me, I'm running from the guy also, IF he catches up to me, I'm going to defend myself, "Stand My Own Ground". So, there could be the argument that Trayvon himself was more "right" to follow that law than Zimmerman, who claims he was .

I personally think given the circumstances and the tapes, along with the neighbor's tape and the fact Trayvon was talking to his girlfriend scared of the man following him.... then Zimmerman is guilty of cold blooded murder.

 

That is my interpretation as well.

Consider some stats:
In the first five years the law was in effect, it was invoked 93 times (19/yr). In the last year and a half, it has been invoked at least an additional 37 times (24/yr)

More than 70 percent of the 130 cases involved a fatality. In the majority of the cases, the shooter (or stabber) did not face a trial.

50 were never charged​

9 granted immunity by a judge​

9 were dismissed​

10 pleaded guilt to a lesser crime​

many others still pending​

Yes, better than a 50 percent chance you will get away with murder.....justifiable homicide. Justifiable homicides reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have increased threefold since the law went into effect.

​

Is it in part a result of prosecutor discretion not to prosecute or judicial immunity as a result of the law being so broad and ambiguous? I would suggest that is the case.

But I'm just a layperson concerned about senseless killings that can, IMO, be prevented with tweaks to the law.

​

 

Right, let's ignore how the law actually works, and cite a article that talks largely about emotional reactions he's having to the situation.

Really?
--- merged: Mar 23, 2012 at 6:01 PM ---

Dux, did you have a chance to see that Ohio shooting where a drug addict and his friend ganged up on someone pumping gas? The victim ended up grabbing a gun out of the glove compartment and shooting one of his two assailants. Would you agree, or disagree that he should not have been arrested and should not have to go through the terrors of trial just to absolve himself?

I'm thinking this may involve a larger matter of believing in justifiable homicide or not.

 

We've all got it wrong. It isn't guns, racism, the SYG law, the police, or even the shooter himself who's to blame for this tragedy. According to Geraldo Rivera, it's the Hoodie's fault.

Geraldo Rivera: Trayvon Martin's 'Hoodie Is As Much Responsible For [His] Death As George Zimmerman' (VIDEO)

Oops. It appears that I went to the bottom of the barrel. Sorry roachboy.

 

There are many cases of justifiable homicide that I would certainly not dispute.

But I am concerned with what I believe is a law in Florida that is too broad (broader than other SYG laws) and ambiguous, with too much discretion allowed to police and prosecutors to "justify" the act and you have not convinced me otherwise.

Repeat: Justifiable homicides reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have increased threefold since the law went into effect.

 

According to the Sanford Policed Department, this was a justifiable homicide. But I bet that, like, never happens anywhere else.

 

That's interesting--but it may have been an intended consequence of the law? I have a case that's likely going to use SYG after we finish deposing the last witness.

I'll just put my experience here: I see a lot of really silly battery cases, and the state is a 50 ton freighter that frequently bulldozes laypersons. SYG is an effective tool for me to show that someone acted reasonably in response to provocation.

With respect to prosecutor discretion--their job is not to raise SYG. If that file hits their desk, it is their job to beat SYG. A prosecutor isn't going to sua sponte claim SYG, and neither is the court.

Look at the figures you cite: 130 SYG defense cases, and ONLY 9 successfully obtained SYG immunity. 121/130 were resolved on some other grounds, not necessarily SYG, correct?

 

But how many of these incidents have never even made it to court? How many, claiming SYG as a reason for shooting, were absolved at the scene by the responding officers, as in this case?

It boggles my mind how police officers can show up, find someone lying dead on the ground with the shooter there admitting to killing the person, and let the shooter walk away based on what appears to be little more than his word that he shot in self defense. Did they try and find witnesses before letting him go? Did they ID the shooter and check for any warrants or prior arrests before letting him go? What about the weapon? Did they confiscate it as evidence or let him tuck it back in his waistband? Did they check to make sure he had a permit to carry it? Did they bother taping the area off as a crime scene or just have the dead boy carted away as if nothing of any significance had happened? What's the standard protocol in FL when someone ends up dead at the hands of another person?

How often is this sort of thing happening?

 

50 were never charged.

A three fold increase in justifiable homicides in Florida in six years should be addressed as a public policy issue and that means, in part, taking a serious look at this law w/o that review and perhaps modifications being vilified as an attack on Second Amendment rights.

 

Do you realize that you posted statistics and drew conclusions from those statistics without a review of the details in each case? I think every homicide case should stand or fall on its own merits, general statistics without the benefit of large numbers have little to no value. Are you suggesting there is some expected or acceptable ratio of convictions from self-defense cases? If 100% of self-defense claims are actual self-defense, so be it. If the opposite is true, that is fine as well.