George Zimmerman Trial

[Redbar]

Ok...makes sense.

Whew.

 

[GoIrish41]

Ok...makes sense.

See Pat? Brian agrees that you are a jackass too. Or at least he believes that a perfect stranger might find you to be a jackass the first time they hear from you. LOL

 

[IrishLax]

So how long have you been afraid of Black People?

best ... first ... post ... ever

Endorsing a Bama fan who got banned on here previously? Not exactly a "first post".........

 

[GoIrish41]

Endorsing a Bama fan who got banned on here previously? Not exactly a "first post".........

Didn't know he was on before or got banned ... and obviously I didn't know he was -- gasp -- a Bama fan. The post was funny either way.

 

[Bishop13]

Endorsing a Bama fan who got banned on here previously? Not exactly a "first post".........

This IS my first time, Nick Saban is an arrogant prick, and the thought of Tommy Rees with a week arm and no legs as Starting QB makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

 

[4irishnation]

This IS my first time, Nick Saban is an arrogant prick, and the thought of Tommy Rees with a week arm and no legs as Starting QB makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

Week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEC SEC SEC

 

[Booslum31]

Week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEC SEC SEC

Now THAT is funny!

 

[Bishop13]

Now THAT is funny!

That IS funny actually. lol

 

[NDWorld247]

Endorsing a Bama fan who got banned on here previously? Not exactly a "first post".........

What happens in this situation? Does he just get banned again or given a second chance?

 

[Andy in Sactown]

Report his post, as I did, then a mod will run an IP check and the account will be banned.

That is until Bishop2555 registers and writes his "first post".

Bad troll is bad.

 

[GoIrish41]

What happens in this situation? Does he just get banned again or given a second chance?

I think it is simply a matter of disavowing his support of Bama and endorsing ND as the greatest team in the history of humankind and he gets a second chance.

 

[Andy in Sactown]

This IS my first time, Nick Saban is an arrogant prick, and the thought of Tommy Rees with a week arm and no legs as Starting QB makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

Misdirection/disassociation (prick comment) followed by a blatantly backhanded "fear" as a "ND fan"

Last time he held to troll form of really, *wink* being a ND fan. That is until he said **** it one day and just when all Harvey Updike and earned his perma-ban.

Just a really bad troll, no need to try to reform.

 

[T Town Tommy]

This is obvious nonsense. The best analogy I can think of is if you are against bullying, so you see some big a-hole beating on a helpless person, and you say to yourself: "self, I cannot interfere with this because then I would be bullying the bully and bullying is wrong." All of these things require value judgments, and no good definition of tolerant would require someone to excuse bigoted behavior in the name of tolerance. You and I may have different values, but that doesn't mean my values don't exist. This is the kind of anti-intellectual nonsense that generally damages the discourse.

Thanks for proving my point Rhode Irish.

 

[Bluto]

*Yes, it was asked, no he did not have that right.

Why not? Some dude with a gun was stalking him.

Opinion: Did Trayvon Martin die for 'standing his ground'? - CNN.com

 

[BobD]

With how far we've come, it's amazing how far we still have to go when it comes to racial issues.

 

[BobD]

Anyone else catch the "show of hands" poll about the outcome of the trial on a CNN studio audience? By a huge majority they voted for manslaughter.

 

[HereComeTheIrish]

Anyone else catch the "show of hands" poll about the outcome of the trial on a CNN studio audience? By a huge majority they voted for manslaughter.

He's gonna get something because there's a dead kid, but it ain't Murder 2 or 3 or whatever it is now.

Manslaughter or he flies away.

 

[Rhode Irish]

You sound like one of Zimmerman's prosecutors. Yes it is impossible because "stand your ground" is a defense, so TM would have to have been charged with something.

If the story you guys want to believe is true, he probably would have been (you know, if he hadn't been shot to death first).

 

[BobD]

It is wierd to see state prosecutors say "he shot a 17 year old child" when usually they are trying to charge them as adults.

 

[Rhode Irish]

This does a good job of summarizing my take on all of this. Just skip to paragraph 5 if you're not interested in the preamble.

Will George Zimmerman Get Away With Murder?

Trayvon Martin was murdered. George Zimmerman murdered him. The jury may or may not see it that way; juries get a narrow and complicated view of things, and sometimes they get things wrong. But outside the jury box, there's no excuse.

If you want to get into a technical argument that it's only murder if it's "unlawful," and that if this trial by jury fails to produce a conviction, then the killing is not unlawful and therefore is not murder—well, presumably you also would argue that O.J. Simpson did not murder his wife. But why are you trying to make the argument at all? Why do you want to believe that an armed man shooting and killing an unarmed 17-year-old boy is lawful? What makes you think this way?

Some people think this way because they are pure, conscious racists. They hate and fear black people, and they know that they hate and fear black people, and so they are glad that a 17-year-old black person was killed in this situation. They may reject the actual term "racism," but they are remarkably open about the fact that they believe that black people are inherently dangerous and criminal, and that a black teenager is going to be a dangerous predator, and that at worst George Zimmerman merely activated Trayvon Martin's latent predatory nature.

There are quite a lot of these racists, the simple kind. One particularly frothing one has sent us at least three different emails with a photo of what he claims is the real Trayvon Martin. It's a photograph of the rapper Game, who is almost twice Martin's age, with a beard and facial tattoos. We have pointed this out, and the emails keep coming. The message is that the liberal media have lied to the public, showing photos of a baby-faced Martin when he was secretly a brawny, scowling thug. Now it's a matter of record what Martin really did look like on the night he died. (But someone who did look like Game would also not have forfeited his own right not to be shot dead.)

These people are horrible and repugnant and backwards. If you subtract the part about armed vigilantism, though, their philosophy that all young black men should be dealt with as criminals is the operating policy of the mayor and police commissioner of New York City. And that same racism infects the more respectable—and more disturbing—argument about why George Zimmerman ought to go free: that, sadly, we just can't really know what happened that night. The case is too murky and confusing. Upsetting though Trayvon Martin's death may have been, there's not enough evidence to overcome the presumption of innocence. Under our system of justice, we have to accept it as a terrible mistake.

Behind these preemptive apologetics is the idea that this case is somehow unusually tricky, that it falls in some blind spot of criminal law. It's not, and it doesn't. One person, armed with a gun, got in a fight with another person and shot that person dead. This is not a difficult scenario. It's second-degree murder.

What is reasonably in doubt? Other criminal defendants argue that the police have the wrong guy, that they weren't at the scene of the crime, that they didn't have a weapon, that they didn't do the killing. George Zimmerman was there. He brought a gun, which belonged to him. George Zimmerman used George Zimmerman's gun to shoot Trayvon Martin dead. There is not a shred of dispute about these facts.

So we get a self-defense case, because self-defense is what a killer claims when no other claim can possibly work. George Zimmerman shot an unarmed teenager, who had been minding his own business, because he had no other choice. According to whom? To George Zimmerman. Stripped to the basics, here's Zimmerman's defense: Nuh-uh.

Specifically, according to Zimmerman, here is what happened: Trayvon Martin attacked him, without provocation. Martin overpowered him. Martin began beating him, with the intent to kill him, and was on his way to succeeding.

No one but Zimmerman says Martin was the aggressor. No one but Zimmerman says Zimmerman was hopelessly losing the fight. No one but Zimmerman says that, of the two of them—the adult with a lethal weapon and the minor with a package of candy—Martin was the one who was too dangerous to live.

The only person who could directly dispute this story, point by point, was left dead on the grass that night. Zimmerman puts movie-villain dialogue in Martin's mouth. Zimmerman describes the one-sided savagery of the beating. Trayvon Martin isn't around to supply his own point of view.

Why should we believe Zimmerman about any of this? Or—more to the point—all of it, because without every part of his story, his defense collapses. He pursued Martin. He shot Martin. According to him, in between those events, the teenage boy turned into a werewolf, an unstoppable savage would-be killer, and the armed neighborhood watchman became his helpless victim. If it didn't happen exactly that way, Zimmerman has no defense.

High-profile cases have a way of passing backwards through a telescope, squeezing down to their tiniest point. Rodney King was beaten to a pulp by a gang of cops, and the Rodney King brutality trial turned into a question of whether this or that particular sequence of video frames showed him being unambiguously beaten to a pulp. O.J. Simpson slashed two people to death, and the trial pivoted on whether he could smoothly slide a blood-stiffened glove on over a latex glove.

What's the evidence here? Zimmerman had a bloody nose and cuts and scrapes on the back of his head. Nothing remotely close to a life-threatening injury. There was none of his DNA on the hands of the teenager who was supposedly beating him to death. Zimmerman's own account of events kept changing; the physical evidence—the position of Martin's hands, for instance—directly contradicts some of it.

But yes, Trayvon Martin fought with him. Imagine that—imagine this shaved-headed yutz, this mook, this MMA hobbyist with a flashlight and a gun, coming after you in the dark. Why would or couldn't Trayvon Martin fight for his own life?

This is what the real dispute is: do you believe that a 17-year-old black person counts the same as any other human being? The local cops did not, which is why the case turned into a national scandal to begin with. George Zimmerman did not. Trayvon Martin was walking along, heading home from the store, and that was not enough.

Turn the case around: a black teenager goes out carrying a gun, gets in a fight with a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, and shoots him, claiming self-defense. We would not even be discussing the case. The cops would have arrested and charged him. He would already be in prison. Picture anyone else lying dead on the grass—a middle-aged jogger, an elementary-school teacher, yourself. Yes, you. Now you're dead, for no reason at all, and the experts are wringing their hands about how the law can't do a thing about it. If that's how it is, there is no law.

 

[Bluto]

"Stand your ground" could apply to anyone under the right circumstances. But under the facts of this case, TM had no legal right to "stand his ground."


Text of Florida's "stand your ground" law Fla. Stat. § 776.013(3):
"A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

So a guy stalking (which is against the law in most states) and or pursuing you with a gun does not constitute being "attacked"? By the way everyone can now thank the American Legislative Counsel for authoring the law that has lead to this train wreck. If the precident is set that you can blow someone away for punching you even if you provoke them (i.e. sumarily execute a person for aggravated assault) things should get interesting at the local bars in Florida.

 

[NDWorld247]

This does a good job of summarizing my take on all of this. Just skip to paragraph 5 if you're not interested in the preamble.

Will George Zimmerman Get Away With Murder?

So, to summarize, if you think Zimmerman was acting in self-defense, you're a racist. Got it. Thanks for posting.

 

[Bluto]

Apology accepted, move on.

Whatever dude. Way to be constructive.

 

[Golden_Domer]

Why not? Some dude with a gun was stalking him.

Opinion: Did Trayvon Martin die for 'standing his ground'? - CNN.com

So a guy stalking (which is against the law in most states) and or pursuing you with a gun does not constitute being "attacked"? By the way everyone can now thank the American Legislative Counsel for authoring the law that has lead to this train wreck. If the precident is set that you can blow someone away for punching you even if you provoke them (i.e. sumarily execute a person for aggravated assault) things should get interesting at the local bars in Florida.

1. "Stand your ground" isn't at issue in this case, why do you keep bringing it up?

2. In order to have a "stand your ground" DEFENSE you need to be charged with something. The purpose of invoking "stand your ground" is to have a pre-trial hearing to determine whether or not you are immune from prosecution. If one charged w/ a crime were to win a "stand your ground" hearing, then he or she would be immune from prosecution and would not have to go to trial. You can't use "stand your ground" as a sword, because it's a shield. If it was at least a half-credible argument, don't you think the prosecutors would have brought it up?

3. I don't care what "most states" say about stalking. Tell me what the Florida law says about stalking. Even under Florida law, GZ did nothing illegal in "pursuing" TM. And no, "pursuing" does not equate to "attacking," that's preposterous.

4. Why is "stand your ground" a train wreck? As I said in #1, IT DOESN'T APPLY IN THIS CASE. No *precedent will be set by the decision in this case as it pertains to the "stand your ground" law in Florida, sec. 776.013(3), because IT DOESN'T APPLY IN THIS CASE.

tl;dr--"stand your ground" DOESN'T APPLY IN THIS CASE (please repeat this phrase 10 more times to let it sink in a bit). I don't want to hear what some nitwit said in a CNN op-ed about how he erroneously believes the law can be applied.

In conclusion: everyone needs to stop bringing up the "stand your ground" law. Thnx.

 

[JughedJones]

1. "Stand your ground" isn't at issue in this case, why do you keep bringing it up?

2. In order to have a "stand your ground" DEFENSE you need to be charged with something. The purpose of invoking "stand your ground" is to have a pre-trial hearing to determine whether or not you are immune from prosecution. If one charged w/ a crime were to win a "stand your ground" hearing, then he or she would be immune from prosecution and would not have to go to trial. You can't use "stand your ground" as a sword, because it's a shield. If it was at least a half-credible argument, don't you think the prosecutors would have brought it up?

3. I don't care what "most states" say about stalking. Tell me what the Florida law says about stalking. Even under Florida law, GZ did nothing illegal in "pursuing" TM. And no, "pursuing" does not equate to "attacking," that's preposterous.

4. Why is "stand your ground" a train wreck? As I said in #1, IT DOESN'T APPLY IN THIS CASE. No *precedent will be set by the decision in this case as it pertains to the "stand your ground" law in Florida, sec. 776.013(3), because IT DOESN'T APPLY IN THIS CASE.

tl;dr--"stand your ground" DOESN'T APPLY IN THIS CASE (please repeat this phrase 10 more times to let it sink in a bit). I don't want to hear what some nitwit said in a CNN op-ed about how he erroneously believes the law can be applied.

In conclusion: everyone needs to stop bringing up the "stand your ground" law. Thnx.

I kept on telling myself not to click on this thread.

The above post is why. God help us all.

 

[Bluto]

Since you asked

784.048 - - 2011 Florida Statutes - The Florida Senate

Stalking is illegal in Florida. So it would be pretty easy to argue that Zimmerman was engaged in an illegal act that is aggressive by definition and was carrying a loaded weapon, Martin acted in self defense and Zimmerman killed him. Does that sound about right?

 

[JughedJones]

Since you asked

784.048 - - 2011 Florida Statutes - The Florida Senate

Stalking is illegal in Florida. So it would be pretty easy to argue that Zimmerman was engaged in an illegal act that is aggressive by definition and was carrying a loaded weapon, Martin acted in self defense and Zimmerman killed him. Does that sound about right?

It doesn't sound right to some people, at all.

You know why.

 

[Bluto]

Stand Your Ground is a train wreck due to the simple fact that nobody other than attorneys and or the laws authors seem to understand it and that it allows the use of lethal force and because of that some dope thought he was acting within his rights and killed a teenager.

 

[JughedJones]

This law is a train wreck due to the simple fact that nobody other than attorneys and or the laws authors seem to understand it and that it allows the use of leathal force.

Oh, that's where you're wrong. They absolutely know that.

Do you think for a second any minority group had a hand in writing it? If taken to its logical conclusion, this provision takes us to a Wild West style that many have been asking for.

As the gentleman above was alluding to, all it takes is to DEFEND yourself with this idea. The problem is, the other party is dead. You can pretty much smoke anyone you want, with a good lawyer, and claim self defense.

Good deal for some, a death sentence for others.

 

[Bluto]

Oh, that's where you're wrong. They absolutely know that.

Do you think for a second any minority group had a hand in writing it? If taken to its logical conclusion, this provision takes us to a Wild West style that many have been asking for.

As the gentleman above was alluding to, all it takes is to DEFEND yourself with this idea. The problem is, the other party is dead. You can pretty much smoke anyone you want, with a good lawyer, and claim self defense.

Good deal for some, a death sentence for others.

I agree.