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Martin may have been very reasonably been within his rights to stand his ground against Zimmerman and defend himself against a guy that might have been meaning to do him harm. He has been following him down a dark alley after all. So Martin attacking Zimmerman to stand his ground could have been lawful.

 azazel the cat wrote:

LordofHats wrote:From where I stand Zimmerman incited the incident by behaving recklessly, pursued another human being with no provocation and through whatever following events killed him. Had Zimmerman not chased Martin in the first place no one would have died and no crimes would likely have been committed. It all goes back to Zimmerman's questionable conduct and imo what he did was vigilantism and should be illegal by law and Martin's subsequent death should be some kind of murder or manslaughter charge.

My sentiments exactly. I fail to understand how "stand your ground" / "no duty to retreat" can be extended to "pursue the offender".

It's not, SYG is not involved in this case nor is it relevant to Zimmerman's defense.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

LordofHats wrote:From where I stand Zimmerman incited the incident by behaving recklessly, pursued another human being with no provocation and through whatever following events killed him. Had Zimmerman not chased Martin in the first place no one would have died and no crimes would likely have been committed. It all goes back to Zimmerman's questionable conduct and imo what he did was vigilantism and should be illegal by law and Martin's subsequent death should be some kind of murder or manslaughter charge.

My sentiments exactly. I fail to understand how "stand your ground" / "no duty to retreat" can be extended to "pursue the offender".

It's not, SYG is not involved in this case nor is it relevant to Zimmerman's defense.

SYG was his initial claim to innocence and continues to be touted about by his supporters despite its hollowness. Without it I'm not even really sure how he can justify his actions legally (the killing that is).

From a shooter point of view. Z is justified.
From the emotional side of me....what's little left....Martin is not a victim but "Bystander". Why didn't Martin call 911 but choose to confront...supposedly....Z.....Attacked Z...M supposedly went for the holster weapon....now...was the weapon out of the holster or was still in the holster when it happen when fired......

The LA Riots going to go "Domestic incident" status in a month either way the jury decide......I'm going with a "Hang Jury" or "Jury Deadlock"

You can have self defense without SYG.

and SYG was not his initial claim, nor was it the reason for his initial lack of arrest. SYG's invoking has been done by more by the papers then any one else and they are completely wrong.

 LordofHats wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
A gated community is private property, it is not a public space.

Zimmerman is not the owner of the property and Martin was staying in that community at the time. He had every right to be there and Zimmerman had no grounds on which to suspect him of anything. EDIT: Martin on the other hand imo had a very reasonable and legally justifiable reason to fear Zimmerman.

In the end it really does come down to Zimmerman's questionable reaction toa guy just walking down the street.

No grounds? Zimmerman was a member of the community watch, he had been for a while. The community that owned the property recognized and accepted it, it was his duty to keep an eye out for "suspect activity". He also owned a house in the community, making him a part owner of it. Add to that dozens of break ins and attempted break ins in the previous couple of months, and a stranger who resembled someone who just a few days before he'd witnessed trying to break into one of the houses, and he had no ground to suspect him?

I'd hate to see your criteria of having any reason to have suspicion.

 djones520 wrote:
I'd hate to see your criteria of having any reason to have suspicion.

Being stabbed.

*Not a threat*

Being stabbed.

Clarify. That's to open ended

I just want to ask one question. Who here does not think that when your head is being repeatedly slammed into a concrete sidewalk, that you do not have reason to fear for your life?

How ever the altercation started, it does not matter. Martin elevated it to the point of Zimmerman feared for his life. Martin was a short run from the house he was staying in (he was shot 70 meters away). He could have easily avoided the confrontation. Instead he approached Zimmerman, a fight occured, and the end result was Zimmerman shooting him after being brutally beaten. Other then the gunshot wound, the only injuries the autopsy reported on Martins body was bloody knuckles, which indicates he was the only one doing any fighting.

So you can make whatever BS excuses you want about "profiling", but the facts of the matter were Martin had no reason at all to confront Zimmerman. He could have continued on his way to his house, and the matter would have ended there. He didn't though. He attacked Zimmerman, and ended up dead for his efforts.

djones520 wrote:No grounds?

Unless walking down the street while wearing a hoodie and 'looking' like you don't belong somewhere is grounds to believe someone is committing a crime, yes. He had no grounds for very irrational behavior.

Zimmerman was a member of the community watch, he had been for a while. The community that owned the property recognized and accepted it, it was his duty to keep an eye out for "suspect activity".

The head of the home owners association n has stated since the shooting and in court that the community never asked for or explicitly approved of the Neighborhood watch and that he personally didn't feel one was need. Zimmerman created the watch under his own initiative and had no explicit approval from anyone other than himself for it to exist. He has contradicted Zimmerman's own statements to others that he had gotten approval from the HOA to start a neighborhood watch.

a stranger who resembled someone who just a few days before he'd witnessed trying to break into one of the houses, and he had no ground to suspect him?

The head of the neighborhood watch training program offered by the Standford Police department has testified that Zimmerman's behavior and conduct was counter to what the neighborhood watch instructs its members to do. I'll take her word for it when she testifies under oath that she feels Martin did not constitute a threat and that Zimmerman's proper course of action was to call a non-emergency police line and wait.

I'd hate to see your criteria of having any reason to have suspicion.

Hindsight is a bitch. Say Martin had been the perpetrator of the break-ins? This probably would have just blown over in a few weeks. But he wasn't and really instead of saying I have some absurd criteria for reasonable suspicion you should question whether society should allow private citizens to single others out on flimsy grounds that would never stand up in a court and to operate on those grounds in an irrational manner.

d-usa wrote:You can have self defense without SYG.

My understanding is that Zimmerman finds himself in a position directly calls for it. His legal recourse to avoid a murder charge is to argue that he had a justifiable reason to kill Martin which is what SYG laws were written for.

SYG was not his initial claim

My bad. I was under the impression he'd claimed it when the case first hit the news.

All SYG laws really do is remove a "duty to retreat" component from self defense laws. It's not really applicable in this case.

 djones520 wrote:
I just want to ask one question. Who here does not think that when your head is being repeatedly slammed into a concrete sidewalk, that you do not have reason to fear for your life?

It would have baring had Martin also not had reason to fear for his life and had Zimmerman not created the situation in the first place.

How ever the altercation started, it does not matter.

It does actually as it goes both to Zimmerman's reasonability in his actions and whether or not Martin could have had a justifiable reason to attack him.

Martin elevated it to the point of Zimmerman feared for his life.

Zimmerman did the same thing.

He could have easily avoided the confrontation.

So could ZImmerman.

Instead he approached Zimmerman.

And Zimmerman pursued Martin.

So you can make whatever BS excuses you want about "profiling", but the facts of the matter were Martin had no reason at all to confront Zimmerman.

Zimmerman had no reason at all to pursue Martin in the first place. You can make whatever BS excuse about self-defense but it's kind of bizarre to create a dangerous situation and then claim self-defense. Look at it from Martin's perspective. He's just walking down the street and there's a guy in a truck following him. The truck can outpace him easily, its the middle of the night, and he has no idea who Zimmerman is. He leaves the street and Zimmerman leaves his truck and pursues him. Martin had a cause to fear for his life.

That's kind of the problem here. The excuses given to justify Zimmerman can be reversed completely at will to equally apply to Martin. Had Zimmerman died instead I expect Martin would be standing in court today giving the same excuses.

Wendy Dorival, the former coordinator of the Sanford Police Department's neighborhood watch program, testified Tuesday how she had worked with Zimmerman to set up a watch program in his neighborhood, The Retreat at Twin Lakes.

When asked by prosecutor John Guy if neighborhood watch participants should either follow or engage with suspicious people, she answered "no."

"They are the eyes and ears of law enforcement," said Dorival. "They're not supposed to take matters into their own hands."

But Dorival said she was impressed with Zimmerman's professionalism and dedication to his community and asked him to join another program, Citizens on Patrol, which trained residents to patrol their neighborhoods. He declined.

"He seemed like he really wanted to make changes in his community, to make it better," Dorival said.

The president of Zimmerman's homeowners association also testified that Zimmerman was in charge of the neighborhood watch program started in his townhome complex. He said Zimmerman was the person who went through a class offered by Sanford police to get it started.

Hey there Lordofhats

Donald O'Brien said he also attended a neighborhood watch meeting led by Zimmerman and it was O'Brien's understanding that participating residents "were supposed to stay away" from suspicious activity and "call the police."

"Do not get close to anybody," O'Brien said of what he understood about neighborhood watch. "Stay at a safe distance and call 911. Let the police handle it."

The jury must decide whether Zimmerman shot and killed the 17-year-old African-American teen in self defense, or if he stalked the youth and provoked the deadly 2012 confrontation.

Zimmerman could face life in prison if convicted on the second-degree murder charges.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/25/prosecutors-want-zimmerman-non-emergency-calls-to-police-admitted-in-murder/#ixzz2XHB6lP9k

Wait....its from Fox so its unreliable. Did not Z say he was walking back to his vehicle after he lost M in the dark?

edit

Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors pushed to introduce recordings of non-emergency calls Zimmerman made to police over an eight-year period.

Zimmerman, 29, called the police close to 50 times over an eight-year period to report such things as slow vehicles, loitering strangers in the neighborhood and open garages.

Prosecutors want to introduce recordings of five of those calls, saying they are indicative of Zimmerman's overzealousness in pursuing people he considered to be suspicious - and of his state of mind on the night he shot unarmed teen.

Judge Debra Nelson delayed ruling on the matter.

5 of 50 calls in a eight year period....I'm banking "No Go"


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/25/prosecutors-want-zimmerman-non-emergency-calls-to-police-admitted-in-murder/#ixzz2XHBtS3wy

Did not Z say he was walking back to his vehicle after he lost M in the dark?

As I understand it Martin went down a back road or alley off the main road. Zimmerman, afraid to lose the suspect left his vehicle and pursued him. He didn't find Martin when he did an initial search and was turning to leave when Martin attacked, having apparently having first walked past him.

So that's a "yes" but not 110% yes being no other witness

 Jihadin wrote:
So that's a "yes" but not 110% yes being no other witness

Selene Bahadoor has testified to seeing an altercation from a door in her house but that she can't identify who was involved or what happened. I don't think her testimony has affirmed or disproven Zimmerman's version of events.

I know. I just read her part. Its going to come down to Z testamoney and the intitial police report I bet. He's going to walk. Either way we all lose. Even if he goes to prison.

 djones520 wrote:
I just want to ask one question. Who here does not think that when your head is being repeatedly slammed into a concrete sidewalk, that you do not have reason to fear for your life?

How ever the altercation started, it does not matter. .

Of course it matters. If Zimmerman started the fight, then Martin had every right to beat Zimmerman to death and then claim to to police that a strange man attacked him, he was in fear for his life, and that he had the legal right to use lethal force - that he was standing his ground. See how that works both ways?

 Jihadin wrote:
I know. I just read her part. Its going to come down to Z testamoney and the intitial police report I bet. He's going to walk. Either way we all lose. Even if he goes to prison.

I'm not so sure. I could see a jury convicting him simply out of fear or retaliation (I think there was a post a page or two back to that effect). Or they might not buy Zimmerman's story. Looking at his background I think he's a liar who thought he'd could bring in a criminal and be a hero and I imagine the prosecution wants to paint him that way.

Did Martin actually go for Z weapon while Z was on his back? Its not like Z walked up on Martin and put a round into him GP style. From the description of the wound M had a sucking chest wound FYI

edit
Its like everyone forgetting the "Fight" in which a shot was fired bit.

Chongara wrote:

 tigonesskay wrote:
The thing that bothers me is why didn't zimmerman just take down IDing infomation gave it to the 911 dispatcher and let the police do their work? Martin wasn't comiting a crime. This whole case is going to come down to who struck who first.

This is like asking a hunter "Why didn't you just take a photograph of the deer?". He isn't out there to document stuff, he's out there to shoot.

Although the suspicion was already forming in my mind, I was initially drawn in and intrigued by your first sentence. "What kind of fascinating answer might he have to this rhetorical question?" I thought to myself, while fervently, honestly hoping for something that might sum up the situation and meaningfully deepen my understanding of this trial and the accompanying media circus in a short, easily digestible way. After reading the second sentence, my unfortunate suspicions were disappointingly confirmed: You don't have any idea what you're talking about.


Now, my criticism of your post doesn't have anything to do with the trial really. I don't feel incredibly strongly one way or the other at this point, which is why I was reading this thread. It stems primarily from the grossly sweeping statement your post makes about both hunters and CCW holders.

Because really, we don't really know that much, at least in terms of facts, about Zimmerman's motivations, do we? It seems like there are plenty of people who have a lot of feelings about his motivations. We know he was a neighborhood watch member, and a CCW holder. That doesn't necessarily tell us much. It certainly doesn't tell us what your post seems to imply that it does.

 Seaward wrote:
No, I think the apparently psychically-inferred statement that Martin committed no crime and did absolutely nothing wrong and it's all Zimmerman's fault and everyone should rally around Martin because HE HAD ICED TEA AND A BAG OF SKITTLES YOU GUYS is cute.

Um, we don't know who did and didn't do anything wrong. That's why we're having a trial. You're the guy who's trying to claim that the very existance of a trial is a great injustice, based on nothing but what your own favourite media sources have told you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Yup. Even further, not sure if you can convict Zimmerman beyond reasonable doubt.

Sure, and I'm not sure either. But then, finding out if you can is kind of the point of the trial

All I know is that Zimmerman was told not to pursue by the 911 dispatcher. He did. And we don't execute thieves in the USA and now thief or not, Martin is dead.

Even if Florida law exhonerates Zimmerman for criminal charges, he should certainly have to pay big time in a civil "wrongful death" suit.

 sebster wrote:
Um, we don't know who did and didn't do anything wrong. That's why we're having a trial. You're the guy who's trying to claim that the very existance of a trial is a great injustice, based on nothing but what your own favourite media sources have told you.

Did you even bother to read what I was responding to? I'll use history as a guide and assume not. I suggest going back and reading the screed Ahtman posted that assures us Martin did absolutely nothing wrong and committed zero crimes. You know, based on nothing but what the author's own favorite media sources have said.

I've said from the start that Zimmerman may well be guilty, but that potential prosecution should proceed organically, rather than being the end result of the screaming mob.

 Seaward wrote:
Ahtman posted that assures us Martin did absolutely nothing wrong and committed zero crimes.

It seems a bit disingenuous to claim someone else hasn't read the article when you clearly show that you also have not, or it would be impossible to think that was what it said. At worst it gives Trayvon the same benefit of the doubt that you seem to only want to apply to Zimmerman, and at best it is showing incidents that don't happen in other cases of shooting are happening here, such as putting up highway signs that say "Trayvon Martin is a ".

 Ahtman wrote:
It seems a bit disingenuous to claim someone else hasn't read the article when you clearly show that you also have not, or it would be impossible to think that was what it said. At worst it gives Trayvon the same benefit of the doubt that you seem to only want to apply to Zimmerman, and at best it is showing incidents that don't happen in other cases of shooting are happening here, such as putting up highway signs that say "Trayvon Martin is a ".

Mind if I quote from it?

"One simple fact seems really hard for people to understand, Trayvon Martin committed no crime. To be even more clear, he did no wrong. He was where he was supposed to be and wasn’t bothering anyone."

Want to try again?

 Seaward wrote:
"One simple fact seems really hard for people to understand, Trayvon Martin committed no crime.

But he didn't commit a crime.

 Seaward wrote:
To be even more clear, he did no wrong. He was where he was supposed to be and wasn’t bothering anyone."

Wearing a hoodie and carrying Skittles isn't wrong, and he wasn't bothering anyone, and really those facts haven't been up for debate. It is after he was confronted by Zimmerman where the problems arise, and is ambiguous. Up until that point he had not, in fact, done anything wrong or illegal.

 Ahtman wrote:
But he didn't commit a crime.

You know for a fact that he didn't assault Zimmerman? Dude, you need to head down to Florida. They're going to want to talk to you.

Wearing a hoodie and carrying Skittles isn't wrong, and he wasn't bothering anyone, and really those facts haven't been up for debate. It is after he was confronted by Zimmerman where the problems arise, and is ambiguous. Up until that point he had not, in fact, done anything wrong or illegal.

Neither had Zimmerman. There's a good chance neither of them did anything illegal the day before the incident, either. Claiming that Martin absolutely did nothing wrong is potentially extremely inaccurate, because he very well may have initiated the physical altercation. He may not have, too. But claiming to know one way or the other is absurd.

 Seaward wrote:

You know for a fact that he didn't assault Zimmerman? Dude, you need to head down to Florida. They're going to want to talk to you.

As has been stated multiple times here and by legal experts, Zimmerman's self defense claim is undermined by his pursuit of Martin.

But claiming to know one way or the other is absurd.

Then why shouldn't we ask Sir Zimmerman with extreme skepticism why he was so sure that he needed to pursue Martin and initiate a completely unnecessary confrontation that resulted in a death? That sounds like an unusual situation that the courts really do need to look at, not just dismiss because a bunch of people cried 'racism.'