Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Look Bob. Your orginal “by your logic” post to me was one list of idiotic insults. Nevertheless, I responded to each accusation explaining how none of the inferences you drew followed from my logic. I finished that post with a little “by your logic” coda just to give you the flavor of your own medicine. You opened your rebuttal to my response with an insult. That’s okay. But then don’t complain when get an insult or two in return. Every time you post it seems you provide us with evidence that you still aren’t thinking yet.
Perhaps you can explain to us Mr. Genius Software Engineer how it is then that you got so fucked up in your understanding the word "if". When I say "If X, then Y" it doesn't follow that I need to provide a link certifying the veracity of Y now does it? The interpretation might be that if one believed Y were false, then one would have to believe the same of X. LOL
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Quote:
It all goes back to Q of how reasonable the fear of the perceived threat is.
On this we nearly agree. I would say the question is, “How reasonable was the judgment that the situation required the use of potentially and likely deadly force?” The emotional state is irrelevent and in fact may hamper proper judgement.
Quote:
You seem to think that claiming "I was afraid for my life" is a get out of jail free card.
The Florida police department seemed to think so too. Perhaps it has something to do with their interpretation of the SYG law together with laziness and a propensity to prejudge situations based on stereotypes.
Quote:
<Originally Posted by trish
You're assuming there was only one person in the wrong and there was only one offense to be wrong about. If you shoot and and kill an unarmed person when your life is not in danger, then you may be found guilty of murder regardless of who laid a hand on who first.>
Bingo! To which I again remind you... the system is working!
No, the system didn’t work. Only when the media and the general public stepped in did the system shift gears and look seriously into the case.
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
You're playing rhetorical games, Bobvela.
The autopsy reports said that Trayvon had trace amounts of THC in his bloodstream. If Trayvon had just taken three or four drags off a blunt, he would have had a significant THC spike in his blood count, not a trace level residual amount that showed prior use at minimum days earlier.
You don't think Sanford PD didn't want to find drugs on Martin?? It's easier to justify Zommerman's claims with multiple plausible scenarios if they could infer on scene that Trayvon was involved in illicit drug activity.
There was nothing justified about what Zimmerman did, or the spot judgement he made about Trayvon being a potential criminal. THis is what it comes down to and why the majority of the responsibility for what happened after Zimmerman left his SUV is his fault alone. George saw a Black kid walking through this gated community and assumed criminal intent. His judgement call was horrifically wrong and led directly to another human being's murder.
All this crap about analyzing surveillance tape to infer the state of mind or intentions of Trayvon Martin is irrelevant. Nothing Martin did that night justified Zimmerman's violent response, except his skin color, which George Zimmerman decided to criminalize.
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Hi Bobvela,
you make some good points but I still think the verdict ultimately comes down to manslaughter at least. As you say, you cannot know what the result of not acting will be until it is too late. But the law requires self-defense to be proportionate to the violence used by the aggressor. Let's assume the aggressor was Trayvon Martin, something that I don't really believe.
In self-defense cases, the law uses a fairly objective standard in evaluating the degree of threat. That is to say, if George Zimmerman was unreasonable in believing his life was in danger, then he does not have a valid self-defense claim. Someone who is defending himself is not assumed to have only two options; to kill someone or to be completely passive. The right to use deadly force is only justified when defending against deadly force, or in some cases within one's home.
If we were to accept your argument that the reasonableness of Zimmerman's defense depended on what kind of weapon he was carrying, the argument could get somewhat extreme depending on what types of weapons people chose to walk around with. What if for instance Zimmerman was carrying an elephant gun? Would his decision come down to doing nothing to defend himself or firing a weapon fit to bring down a multi-ton elephant at a teenager? His attacker was unarmed and smaller than he was, and while it's plausible that one could have to use deadly force against an unarmed individual, nothing indicates Zimmerman's life was in danger. A physical altercation is not enough. Being the victim of assault is not enough.
Also, in murder cases intent comes in multiple forms. The old criminal law used to use the words specific and general intent. These complicate the analysis a little bit. The model penal code if memory serves uses purpose, knowledge, and recklessness. Purpose is if you do something where your object is to achieve a certain result. For instance shoot to kill. Knowledge is where you do something where you know what the outcome will be but that is not necessarily your aim. For example, you want someone to get out of your way so you shoot at them with the knowledge they will be killed. Recklessness is where you consciously disregard a known risk. For instance, you are aware that shooting at someone is likely to kill them but you don't care. Purpose intent is not required and recklessness is usually made out by a killing that was not complete self-defense (imperfect self-defense argument).
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bobvela
Had Zimmerman not fired
Had Martin not jumped on top of Zimmerman and repeatedly punched him
Had Zimmerman not gotten out of his car
Had Martin not walked by the car
Had Zimmerman not been suspicious of someone walking around in the rain
Had Martin not been smoking pot that night
Had Zimmerman not been on patrol that night
Had Martin not been suspended for school for drug use
Had Zimmerman not been a neighborhood watch volunteer
Had the Martin parents never had Trayvon
Had the Zimmerman parents never had George
... how far back should we go?
This is an important issue as well. In law they try to find cause in fact. Without any limitation, you can go even further back than this. So the limitation is usually proximate cause in tort cases. In criminal cases, you need both an act and intent to be guilty of a crime (except for a limited number of strict liability offenses). If you kill someone using force, and it was not an accident or the result of a lack of capacity, you need justification. Justification is a lot harder to make out than people think.
I remember in crim. law we had this long argument where a very stubborn student insisted that if someone robbed him at gunpoint, then dropped his gun, and ran away, he would be "justified" in killing them. That one is not even close. Some people's intuition may be that he would be, but doing so would be murder. If Trayvon Martin committed assault then this is a closer case than that. But it's still a lot harder than people assume it should be. How far back do you go? In reckless homicide cases, they blame you for behaving in a way that gives rise to the set of risks that led to someone's death. For instance, if you are accused of vehicular manslaughter, you are not allowed to use the fact that you were drinking as a defense that you did not have the requisite mental state. Why is that? Well, you chose to drink and then to get into a car which actually creates a presumption of recklessnes. What if the drink was spiked? Well, then you have a possible defense.
But if Zimmerman cannot plausibly argue that when he fired his gun, he believed his life was in danger (the subjective component) and he was reasonable in believing his life was in danger (the objective component), then we don't need to go back any further. Guilty as charged!!!
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
weed or cannabis does not make you violent.
the report states that the thc in martins system was consistent with someone not smoking weed for 3 days. basically the amount of THC in trayvon martins blood means he did not smoke weed for three days
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yourdaddy
So what??
When has revenge ever been a credible defense in a criminal case??
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yourdaddy
Generally, I don't like responding to a post by saying, "you're an idiot." But in your zeal to put this up here you didn't read the article. THE MAN IS DEAD.
Since when do dead men get tried for crimes? Since when do dead men have lawyers representing them?
More proof that Foxnews consumers aren't actually interested in the news but in their own burning agenda.
Re: 17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yourdaddy
"The officer shot Eugene, but he just kept chewing, Vega said. The officer fired again, killing Eugene."
Attention Fox News Readers: Do not ignore sentences such as this. When trying to post a completely irrelevant article to take attention away from the main issue please get the facts right.
