17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?

BTW, since when has a guy of Mr. Martin's size been a "kid"? Based on photos, I'd not call Mr. Martin a "kid".

17year olds are minors all around the nation. Zimmerman did outweigh him by 23 pounds, and had been working out taking self defense classes. His age at the time as 28. Zimmernan gained 130 lbs between the incident and the trial, that helped him fit a 'softie' scenario. Still the whole thing rested on his word, that he was not the aggressor in the incident. Yet he got his wife to lie about their finances to the court, at a bond hearing. Martin is on the far right in this photo. Yes he is tall, but a 159lbs, that's still a beanpole.

Yes, minors in legal sense, but frankly, 159 lbs is not a little for a supposed "kid". As for Zimmerman, I have seen only photos of him from the time of the incident, not from the trial. And frankly, I don't much trust U.S. trials, they concentrate too much on how things look, not on how things are.

BTW, a certain Napoleon graduated as an artillery officer when he was 16.

Kid or not a kid, doesn't matter. The fact is no one would have been killed had Zimmerman not been "patrolling" the neighborhood armed with a gun. Guilty or not guilty, doesn't matter. The fact is Florida's citizens are less safe because of its lack of adequate firearm regulation and its inane stand your ground laws.

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Originally Posted by Trilisser

And frankly, I don't much trust U.S. trials, they concentrate too much on how things look, not on how things are.

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What rule of criminal procedure or evidence do you object to? The entire purpose of a trial is to allow the production of evidence that will enable the jury to re-construct what happened. It's not an easy process as the complicated rules of evidence indicate.

Do you think our rules of evidence allow evidence to be admitted that is not reliable enough? Do you think the rules of evidence are too preclusive? Do you think opening and closing arguments should be reined in? And if so, what should be the permissible scope of opening and closing? Or should we do away with opening and closing altogether and only allow the examination of witnesses? I'm afraid what you're saying is very vague.

And maybe if Napoleon hadn't entered artillery school so early he wouldn't have developed such a complex.

TEAhadists think of this a lot...

Broncofan, first and foremost, the quality of available defence lawyers should be equal to all. In other words, the lawyers, post graduation, should be pooled in a "defence pool" from which they would be given their assignments and they should be paid by the state/federation. In addition, prosecutors should be also randomly selected from a pool of prosecutors.

Second, the opening and closing arguments should be deleted.

Third, character assassinations should be banned while cross examining. The questions should be strictly about the facts of the actual case.

Fourth, jurors should be screened more carefully to weed out any racial/feminist activists (of any race).

I once watched a documentary about a murder vs. self defence case held in Las Vegas. One of the prosecutors "witnesses" was a black gangsta with a serious drug problem. Once he did not appear in court due to being in hospital in rehab. When in court, he gave the impression of a total moron with an IQ on 50. In fact, the prosecutor's eye witnesses were all along that line. Now, the defendant was facing 25 to life. And the verdict rested substantially on the statements of witnesses who were incompetent to say whether it was day or night! Yet, the prosecutor's main concern was winning the case, not that justice be served. Luckily the defendant (a Hispanic guy) won the case.

It sounds like what you're suggesting is that we do away with the adversarial system of justice.

On cross-examination you're allowed to question expert witnesses for bias. You are allowed to ask them how much they have been paid, whether they've ever said something different from what they are now saying. You seem to think that if you don't allow impeaching questions the truth comes out by itself. But what actually would happen is that you would have two opinions on every issue and the jurors would have to choose between them without hearing either view challenged. One effective way of challenging those views is to ask tough questions. If the questions are truly irrelevant they will be excluded. But if you cannot ask someone who stands to gain financially from the verdict what their financial incentive is, and they are the only witness to some event, you effectively bolster their opinion by allowing them to offer it without being challenged.

If you don't have opening and closing, you don't actually have a coherent way of synthesizing the evidence. In closing, the attorneys are merely arguing inferences that are either within the scope of the evidence or could be drawn from the evidence. Without having a closing, the average juror would not know the significance of every answer being given on direct and cross. This is simply because there's a limit to what can be gleaned from questions you did not anticipate for a case you knew nothing about before trial. This may sound condescending but it's not. If you've ever watched a trial, the information you get during questioning is scant, and it is difficult to put together without knowing anything about it previously. Imagine if you're a defendant and your attorney can't even make an argument based on the evidence to exculpate you. To me, that would be a frightening prospect. You also think he should be shackled when questioning witnesses.

A prosecutor does actually have more obligations than a defense attorney, including the requirement they turn over Brady material, and that they believe there is probable cause to proceed. But if they needed to be certain every defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before going to trial, again they would be weighing the evidence themselves before adducing it at trial, where the alternative is that it is provided to the jury and they can consider it. You seem to think that if you do away with a good portion of the trial or soften its adversarial aspects that somehow the truth magically appears. Instead, you are only eliminating effective, albeit indirect ways of ascertaining the truth. The truth, if it does emerge, is usually only going to do so piecemeal

Jurors are subject to questioning during voir dire. They are often questioned about all sorts of biases. It would not be feasible to perform background checks on every juror in every case. But racial bias is disqualifying.

Finally, if a defendant really does have an iq of 50, he can be found either not criminally responsible or not competent to stand trial. If he is convicted, he often has at least one mandatory appeal of the final verdict and it can be heard on cert by the state supreme court. There are all sorts of other post-conviction appeals he can file as well upon the discovery of new evidence that tends to exculpate him.

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Originally Posted by Trilisser

I once watched a documentary about a murder vs. self defence case held in Las Vegas. One of the prosecutors "witnesses" was a black gangsta with a serious drug problem. Once he did not appear in court due to being in hospital in rehab. When in court, he gave the impression of a total moron with an IQ on 50. In fact, the prosecutor's eye witnesses were all along that line. Now, the defendant was facing 25 to life. And the verdict rested substantially on the statements of witnesses who were incompetent to say whether it was day or night! Yet, the prosecutor's main concern was winning the case, not that justice be served. Luckily the defendant (a Hispanic guy) won the case.

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I see a witness had an iq of 50. What you're suggesting is that they cannot be asked what their incentive is to testify the way they are. They cannot be asked whether they have been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty. Or whether they have been offered a deal by prosecutors to testify the way they did. Without vigorous cross-examination of their background, you would be literally allowing anyone to get on the stand and confabulate, often in sensational and self-serving ways.

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Originally Posted by Trilisser

Fourth, jurors should be screened more carefully to weed out any racial/feminist activists (of any race).

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I realize this is my third post in a row, but I just noticed this. I thought it was a language thing.

But you're not saying racists and sexists should be kept off juries but that those who are concerned about racism and sexism should be?

I love how you include in parentheses (of any race), so that people don't forget the groups you're really talking about. Because I'm unclear. Who are you talking about?

You don't seem to be offering any sort of legal solution as the issues you address may help you get the outcome you want in one case but actually be harmful in another. For instance, you want to do away with what you refer to as character assassination on cross, but then you complain about a "black gangsta's" testimony. You're not suggesting the court should hear a motion to exclude his testimony because you don't like what he will say? You do seem to be suggesting that the defense attorney should not be allowed to probe for bias. For instance, did he and defendant have an argument a week prior? etc.

In fact, your objections to him are actually character assassination and would be excluded at trial. But asking him if he has some reason to testify falsely is not the same thing as denigrating him generally and saying he has a low iq.