A few weeks AND several marches.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Verdict reached in George Zimmerman case - Not Guilty
- Thread starter Zep
- Start date
- Status
A few weeks AND several marches.
vas_a_morir
Banned
Hard to walk away on your back. You are taking the wrong approach to this. You are supposed to say "In a fight he initiated by following Trayvon." That's the approved talking-point.
Dispatch tapes were played multiple times in court. Stand your ground on the other hand does not apply. He waived his right to a SYG hearing.
Davey Cakes
Member
Quick, someone tell George to post sarcastic remarks on Facebook about shooting up a kindergarten.
There is absolutely no way DOJ will get involved in this and not just because it would be at least as difficult to prove civil right charges as it was to prove murder 2 or manslaughter.
Shadowhaxor
Member
This country is screwed, the justice system is screwed. When a person can call 911, be told not to do anything and decides to take the law into his own hands with results in him taking the life of another and gets away with it.... well we're all screwed. This isn't the Wild West and people should be accountable for their actions. Whats worse is this now sets a bad precedent that this sort of action is permissible. This isn't the wild west.
Xdrive05
Member
No, feared for his life while he we was getting his ass beaten. Which he possibly did, and we have no way of knowing for sure.
Shadowhaxor
Member
He wouldn't have been fearful of his life if he never bother Martin in the first place. That's the entire argument. If he never left his house, NONE of this would be happening now. The entire case should have been centered on this. He was told to stay in the house but he chose not to. How this important detail was overlooked is beyond me. That shows right there he had motive and the "Stand Your Ground" shit should have been nuked out of existence.
gutter_trash
Banned
19th century values with no honor.
Zimmerman is a pussy
Zimmerman is a pussy
come on, breh... I'm on your side here. being black had zero to do with this. and unfortunately, there's no one to witness who really started shit. what this was self defense and it didn't matter how weak his injuries appeared, only his bitch-ass weak state of mind.
that's not fair, but that's the crux of what happened here according to the laws of Florida.
DragonSworne
Banned
Sho_Nuff82
Member
It's only evidence that he went out of his way to confront the young man "trespassing" in his neighborhood, when a calmer voice was telling him he probably shouldn't.
ErnieMcCracken
Member
With a gun being found on Zimmerman, yes.
Joel Was Right
Member
The NAACP has filed a petition following the verdict (currently at 130k signatures) for the DOJ to open a civil right's case against Zimmerman
innocent until proven guilty
The whole thing with GZ fearing for his life during the fight and shooting in self defense only applies to a very short time frame.
When you look at context, the situation was needlessly created by GZ.
One could argue that TM feared for his life when GZ kept following him, confronted him, and possibly flashed his piece. We simply don't know the detailed sequence of events.
What we can ascertain is that GZ is responsible for what happened. It's incredibly disheartening to think that he could be considered justified in following and stalking...after being told to not do so.
When you look at context, the situation was needlessly created by GZ.
One could argue that TM feared for his life when GZ kept following him, confronted him, and possibly flashed his piece. We simply don't know the detailed sequence of events.
What we can ascertain is that GZ is responsible for what happened. It's incredibly disheartening to think that he could be considered justified in following and stalking...after being told to not do so.
DragonSworne
Banned
That's not how it works for self defense claims. Well, in every state beside Florida...
out of curiosity, why exactly was the manslaughter charge thrown out?
George Zimmerman,not guilty: Blood on the leaves - New Yorker
What a damn good article.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...-not-guilty-blood-on-the-leaves.html?mobify=0
What a damn good article.
I have no idea. I didn't really follow the trial.
What I'm most curious about is how much the defense focused on justifying GZ's pursuit and getting out of the car against advice from dispatch. In other words how well they portrayed TM as worthy of suspicion.
DragonSworne
Banned
I would like to know this as well.
It seems like it's not manslaughter because Zimmerman didn't kill Martin by accident... He did it on purpose but the jury did not see enough evidence to say it was a beyond a reasonable doubt he didn't do it in self defense...
Florida laws are so messed up.
Agreed. Innocent until proven guilty, sure. But once the act of murder is confirmed, the burden needs to shift to the killer to prove what they claim is true.
Florida law on this is ridiculous.
gAg CruSh3r
Member
Because he thought he could take the law to his own hands and bring a gun to protect himself against some punk ass kid. This is so messed up that the law and ethical choice lost.
Vicetrailia
Banned
They hardly did. The focus of the defense was fulfilling Zim's claim of self defense. So they focused on the confrontation.
O'Mara said something about Zim making the correct moral choice. That taints O'Mara and makes me lose respect for him.
CornBurrito
Member
The only good thing about this ruling is it lets me know who to avoid on Facebook and in real life. Seriously, there are some people celebrating the kid's death, and some saying that they'd have done much worse to Trayvon. -_-
Self defense claims allow you to escape murder 1,murder 2 or manslaughter( or any other violence related charge). If the jury believed his self defense claim was valid by the law they can't find him guilty of any of these charges. They could have made an emotional compromised decision and given him manslaughter but the defense attorney O'mara hammered the law into them in the closing remarks specifically to prevent this.
Manslaughter by act is exactly like murder 2 sans the presence of depraved mind. It is an intentional act and subject to the same self defense justification as murder.
I would assume that if he wasn't physically attacked and then laid the guy out, he'd probably get manslaughter? The issue here is if you can prove it wasn't in self defence.
great piece, for sure. and his defense attorneys are real scummy pieces of shit. I hated watching them defend this asshole for the last two weeks
Once again guys, Zimmerman did not have to pursue and kill Trayvon because he had no authority.
Xdrive05
Member
In a trial where you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that GZ killed TM while not fearing for his life, all the evidence showing him getting his ass beaten makes that awefully difficult.
Not saying it's right, but the verdict does make sense given the rules, the charge and the evidence provided.
GZ still should be accountable for his negligence that led to all this, which is a lot more clearly proven than whether or not he thought his life was in danger when getting beaten and shooting TM.
Justice for TM is not going to happen as long as the law allows GZ's negligence as a gun owner to go unpunished.
entremet
Member
He did kill Trayvon. That is a fact!
Raptor2155
Member
Unfortunatley significant portions of the south still think it is.
But the confrontation wouldn't have happened if...
ah, it's probably been discussed ad nauseum. Nevertheless I don't see how a self defense argument can be presented without considering what led up to those seconds where GZ was losing the fight.
It's like if I walk down the street, follow and harass someone, and piss them off to the point that they feel threatened by my behavior...especially if they see I have a weapon. They can either run or fight. If they run they might get shot anyway. If they fight they can subdue me. So, they fight. Then I shoot them.
What a clusterfuck.
Sounds like the $350,000 George Zimmerman Legal Defense Fund served its purpose and the defense was just too damn well prepared for the prosecution.
DragonSworne
Banned
That's a lot money wasted for a man who is going to mess up again and go to prison. His track record will catch up to him.
Well it was a neighborhood that had a rash of burglaries commited by black males. They asked the jury to put themselves in the position of how they would have felt if the neighborhood they lived in was being robbed over and over again and they kept getting away. This is not my feelings, this is the defenses position. That's why they said as a neighborhood watch guy he suspected another thug in a hoodie up to no good.
Which is something I have thought about. There is a whole mess of actions that led up to this tragedy. Some of which is these previous crimes committed by these guys that created a atmosphere so a black man can't walk through a neighborhood without being watched. If it had been a crime free neighborhood it's most likely he would have got back from the store and no one would have paid attention. But maybe not. Who knows.
Joel Was Right
Member
That may be so, but this case was never restricted to the confines of one specific community; this attained national/international attention. And not because purely that Martin died, but because Zimmerman felt suspect towards Martin arguably just because he was hooded and because he was black; a racial stereotype many Americans past and present are familiar with.
For the Martin family, this was never about race but from a national perspective, consistently alluded to in the media, ethnicity was the fundamental drawing point. Regardless what they verdict may have been, accusations of racial bias would have immediately followed.
That's the problem. There is no evidence that he did anything but follow. Everything else is speculation. Not evidence. Now his state of mind and all that can be argued......but that's was the states whole case? Not good.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of legal expert, but I'm not sure I agree. My main takeaway was that the deck was stacked against them from the start, as is often the case given the burden of guilt required to convict when there's a lack of hard evidence in your favor.
In your opinion, what would a team of crack attorneys representing the state have done differently to secure the conviction given the evidence they had?
Which is the case here. Taking out the racial component this case is very mundane, but race is constantly injected despite zero evidence of it, and even evidence against it.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
While I do think the stack was against them the entire time, and that the bigger issue in this case is Florida's law, the Prosecution did a very half-assed job. They never really attacked the inconsistencies and holes in Zimmerman's story.
How did he get his gun if Trayvon was on top of him and his holster has it behind him?
Beat on sidewalk, then why was the shooting on the grass?
Why no grass satins on Zimmerman's clothes?
Why no blood on ZImmerman if he shot someone who was on top of him?
They focused on Zimmerman getting out of his car and following Trayvon, which while stupid, is not illegal.
Joel Was Right
Member
One thing that surprised me was the lack of variation amongst the jurors. All women. Other than one hispanic, the rest were white and most were 50 or above.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
I don't know if your actually reading my posts, but even if you don't have a legal obligation, the fact that someone is telling you "no, you don't have to do that", you do it anyway, and you end up in a fight in the middle of the street, says a lot about your state of mind.
Totally ignoring the idea of race in the trial itself, are you honestly suggesting that Zimmerman would have trailed and confronted a white youth walking through his neighborhood with a soft drink speaking on a cellular phone? Are people really this naive?
Innocent of Mansalughter and Second degree murder is not the same as innocent of murder. Everyone knows he killed him and no one is denying it. But it doesnt change the fact that hes innocent of the charges until proven guilty.
- Status