The fact that he got out of his truck and started to follow on foot while armed, and having the police on the phone at the same time is the evidence of his stupidity. When you carry a gun, your primary responsibility is to DE-escalate a situation before you have to pull the weapon. By getting out of his truck, he escalated a situation to which he was bringing a weapon. That alone is grounds for claiming absolute stupidity. Whether he was the first to engage Martin or not, he FORCED the confrontation by following him. If you were alone on a street, and someone pulls up behind you, gets out of his truck, and then starts following you, are you going to keep going, or are you going to turn around and confront the threat? Make no doubt about it, in Martin's mind, Zimmerman was a threat, purely based on what I said above and it has nothing to do with Zimmerman as a person. That doesn't mean that I think the shooting was illegal, or even immoral. What it does mean is that his stupidity put him in a spot where he had to make the choice to take a life. You simply DO NOT get out of your car/truck unless a crime is being committed against another person and you have to protect life. I don't care if he's breaking into a house. Your on the phone with the police. Giving them a running dialogue, snap pictures even with your weak side hand and your firearm in your strong side hand just below the window incase the person comes to confront you in your car. Of course, then you can simply push the gas pedal.
Yep, and I'll take it one more step, most people, IMO didn't even make up their mind based on what they heard in the first place. I think it went more like one of these kinds of thoughts . . . . . . Wait, he's black and the shooter wasn't? It's murder, period! . . . He's black in a gated community? It's justified. . . . A gun was used? Guns are evil, it's murder. . . . A gun was used and the guy's claiming self-defense? It's justified! IMO, those four cover the reason about 90% of the people have chosen a side, evidence be damned.
And then there are some of us who recognize our bias but are trying to look honestly at the evidence keeping that bias under consideration. Despite the tendency to want to see an equivalency, in reality it has to be a false equivalency, because the evidence does point one way or the other. So either one side is looking at the evidence correctly due to chance, or they are actually looking at the evidence objectively. It's a dilemma for a critical thinker. Since you know about confirmation bias, how do you know when you are looking at the evidence objectively? Spoiler You know because you understand the techniques one uses to think critically to evaluate the evidence.
Yeah, but each says they're being objective. I was corresponding earlier today with an attorney who teaches criminal law, and who I know is good at what he does and is an objective guy. His assessment so far (and he did qualify it as 'so far') is that the defense is "smashing" the prosecution on this case. Based on the standard for criminal conviction, I haven't seen anything that makes me disagree with that. So when others take the view that the evidence presented at trial is just all going against Zimmerman and there's no problem finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it's hard to see that as being based on an objective evaluation of the evidence. Or, rather, it could still be based on a degree of objective valuation, but it would have to be coupled with a misunderstanding of the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard, which is a point I made above.
I should add, with respect to my post above, I'm talking about the second degree murder charge. I don't think any reasonable person can find that the evidence so far proves second degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. If nothing else, the level of intent hasn't even been close to being proven.
So far, the police witnesses have been those called by the prosecution. Only, they seem to be helping Zimmerman's case. Who's going to impeach them or try to paint them as incompetent? Not the defense. Is the prosecution going to impeach its own witnesses? I doubt it.
I've been pondering the rationale for second degree vs manslaughter and I think now I see why the prosecutors chose the charges they did. It appears GZ shot in anger and revenge for the 'punk' getting one or two punches in. It doesn't appear (so far, and I will wait for the evidence to play itself out) that the shooting was negligence during a struggle. The prosecution seems to be calling all the defense witnesses. What do you think might be left? Perhaps some medical examiner will be called to refute the state's ME? As a medical professional that listened to both the PA who examined GZ and the ME's testimony today, if they call some 'expert' up there to refute the findings, it's going to be a paid shill. I've seen a lot of injuries from people who were seriously beaten, the ones that ended up actually hospitalized. There's no question GZ's injuries were NOT serious. It's not likely these two medical professionals were lying for the prosecution. They were both professional and precise and their conclusions were correct based on the condition of GZ apparent in multiple videos and photos. So instead of going with GZ's claim of fearing for his life, think about what a reasonable person would believe under the circumstances. His injuries were minor. You can assume, 'well, we weren't in GZ's head'. Or you can ask yourself, what would a reasonable person believe? The police were on their way, GZ knew that. The physical evidence is clear, he was punched once or twice. You can make up all kinds of imaginary scenarios, but the physical evidence doesn't lie. People lie. And eye witnesses make mistakes. Is it reasonable to kill someone because they punched you? Add to that, when you knew the police were on their way? Reasonable doubt is not assumed because someone can make up a fictional story the evidence doesn't support. And I can't see that self defense is legit just because a person was paranoid. If that was the case then all the mentally ill paranoid people who kill because they believe in a threat should be pardoned and released. The standard is not, did the defendant say he believed was afraid? I'm pretty sure the standard is, would a reasonable person reasonably believe their life was in danger given those circumstances?
Earlier you posted that you think it is a reasonable action to punch a man for following you. If that is true, why would shooting somebody for straddling you and punching you be any less reasonable? Do you think it is reasonable for somebody getting beat up to correctly assess the damage that is being done to them? And did the defense not get the ME (with ties to Corey) to admit that he could have been punched more than once or twice.
Is that what you think, anyone who is in a fight has a right to shoot the guy who gets a punch in? Zimmerman, according to the evidence, was hit once, maybe twice at the most. How is that justification for killing someone? I'm sorry, I do not get your view of the world. As for the cross exam, do you know what it means to be hit so mildly not even a bruise is left?
Zimmerman may have gotten punched once or twice, but he couldn't have known if the punches would stop or not. So he had the right to protect himself.
No, that is not what I think and that is a weak arguing tactic you are using. I called into question your line of logic stating it is ok to physically attack somebody for following you. I do not believe either action is justifiable. You are willing to forgive Martin for acting on a "feeling" and will not do the same for zimmerperson. Just because the wounds were not life life threatening in reality, does not negate the feelings a person can have while receiving them. I am observing a case where a man is being charged with murder 2. I do not agree that the punishment matches the crime according to evidence shown. You, as I form my opinion from your posts, seem to have found zimmerperson guilty and place the onus on the defense to prove innocence regardless of the charges.
Really? Cops on the way, guy hits you once and you think you have to shoot him or you're going to die? Not only is it not credible, Zimmerman must have known one or two punches wasn't going to make a self defense case, otherwise why embellish to such a degree? Which is it, Martin was pummeling Zimmerman with dozens of blows, smashing his head over and over into the concrete, or Zimmerman got punched a couple times and had no way to know the next punch wouldn't be fatal?
Like I said before, Zimmerman didn't know if the punches would stop or not. He can argue that he felt his life was threatened and shot as a result. Honestly, I don't see why he had to embellish anything. Saying something like "I felt threatened and shot in self-defense" is a perfectly acceptable defense in Florida (whether or not that's a good law is a separate issue).
Most of us likely formed an opinion before hearing much about the case. Stereotypical thinking goes into such initial impressions. I see an innocent kid killed by an overzealous jerk with a gun. I'm well aware of that initial bias. Other people see a gang banger attacking a man protecting his neighborhood and justifiable self defense. I don't know where your initial bias fell, Garball, but I'm guessing you have some stereotypical beliefs about both Martin and Zimmerman. Those initial impressions are unavoidable, our experiences create an ever growing foundation that all new information comes into. And it's a natural brain function that we look for information that supports our existing beliefs and we tend to discount information that doesn't. It's called confirmation bias and in order to think critically one needs to consider that confirmation bias when evaluating new information. One needs to make an effort not to let that confirmation bias affect one's critical analysis of the evidence. Here your confirmation bias about what I've said is evident. I didn't say it's OK to attack someone for following you. You are doing what humans do naturally, you are taking the facts and making them fit your existing foundation. In this case that foundation is full of false conclusions about me and my beliefs. Martin and Zimmerman "acting on a feeling" is a false equivalency. There is evidence that Z followed Zimmerman. Apart from the last couple minutes, that fact has not been questioned. OTOH, the evidence contradicts Zimmerman claiming he was being pummeled with dozens of blows and his head repeatedly smashed against the concrete. Instead the evidence is that Z considerably embellished the threat. Now that the evidence refutes Zimmerman's story, (pummeled and bashed over and over), confirmation bias shifts to saying 'but he believed his life was threatened'. That's how confirmation bias works. When the evidence conflicts with your conclusion, you shift to something else that confirms your bias. If the evidence contradicts the 'life at risk' belief, change it to 'believed his life was at risk'. Those are not mutually exclusive except for the fact one is more understandable and one is more of a stretch. The evidence no longer supports the threat existed, so now it's only that Z could have believed. As I said, you opinion from my posts distort my actual opinons, but I digress. Tell me what the prosecution needs to prove that Z did not fear for his life? What's your standard for any case when someone says they feared for their life and no one is left to refute that claim? If your standard is that one can never say beyond doubt what a person was thinking, how can anyone ever be convicted of an unwitnessed murder? The physical evidence refutes Z's claim he was being pummeled and his head repeatedly bashed into the concrete. Now what? Use confirmation bias and switch to saying he could still have believed or counter the tendency for confirmation bias and consider the evidence that he's lying?
And yet he did embellish, which suggests he didn't believe his life was threatened from a single punch or two. Defendant claims he was being pummeled and his head smashed against the concrete. The evidence pretty much proves that's a lie. He wasn't in a struggle for life, he was punched once or twice and the cops were on their way. Now the argument switches to one or two punches made him fear for his life. The alternative hypothesis is, one or two punches pissed him off and he got even.
Or perhaps he thought he could strengthen his case, though he didn't need to. We can't know for sure.
But reasonable doubt is not the same as no possible doubt. On another note, this is bizarre: Zimmerman Prosecutor Angela Corey Criminally Indicted By Citizens' Grand Jury For Allegedly Falsifying Arrest Warrant And Complaint. Before anyone gets too excited or self righteous, a 'Citizens' Grand Jury is no more than a bunch of people calling themselves a jury. In this case it's a heavily weighted group with right wing extremist views.
No Zimmerman DNA on Martin's hands. It supports the evidence there were not repeated punches, but more importantly, if you put your hand over someone's mouth and nose, remember Z said he couldn't breathe, not just that M tried to get to his mouth, because there is saliva and mucous in more mouth and nose, DNA transfer would be expected. Dry skin to dry skin, less transfer, but had Z been hit repeatedly in the bleeding nose, again, you'd expect Z's DNA on M's hands. Would the rain have washed it all away? Not likely, first M's hands were under his body and after CPR police covered the body. A trace could be washed away, but given Z's story, this just adds to the other evidence the pummeling and smothering did not happen.
How am I misquoting you? I have/had no bias towards anybody involved in this case. I do care what implications and precedence a nationally publicized case such as this will have on future laws. Your assumption that everybody has a bias in not fair. I am glad that you admit your beliefs be them right or wrong, but they are not conducive to how the judicial system is supposed to work. You are declaring guilt, in this case murder 2, on a man before the trial
Sorry, GC, but that phrase betrays an severe bias. Why can't it be "weighted with conservative views" or the like? The use of "extremist" is pejorative at best.
I suppose it was wishful to think I could get through to you with a careful breakdown of bias, I should have known better. Let me try a summary of what I already posted. If a person says "caused" or was "at fault" and you paraphrase that back as "deserved" you have seriously misquoted that person. If you claim a person says they are arguing it's OK to attack someone for following you, and that person never argued any such thing, you have seriously misquoted that person. And when said person, (me), tells you your interpretations do not and never did reflect my arguments, and you simply repeat your misquotes and claim, "you don't get it, why aren't those interpretations right," I don't know how better to explain it to you. Caused and at fault do not equal "deserved." Please ponder that a bit before just repeating yourself. My argument has nothing to do with "OK to attack or not attack". My argument is based on Zimmerman's story not matching the physical evidence. Please, think about that before repeating your straw man argument that I am basing my argument on 'who deserved what'. It's not an insult. It's a fact due to how our brains work. That's how we evolved. It's your neurobiology and much of the time it's a very beneficial feature. It allows you to see a tree species you've never seen before and recognize it is a tree. It allows you to recognize a cat you've never seen before is a cat. That would be 'tentative' guilt. I am open to some new smoking gun I've not heard yet. I just can't imagine at this point what that would be. But I'm not ruling out at this point that it's possible. There is a smoking gun here that is undeniable, Zimmerman has significantly embellished the beating he was supposedly getting. I can't square that with, "yes, but he still could have believed." If he had pled insanity, claiming he was hallucinating the beating, then his assessment of the situation might fit the evidence. But short of hallucinating, how do you go from a couple punches to multiple blows and head pounds? Zimmerman hasn't said, he hit me twice and I feared for my life. That's not been Z's claim. And Z's claim is not supported by the physical evidence. Though I have cited other reasons Z's story of being ambushed also doesn't fit the evidence, that doesn't even matter. Even if Martin had attacked Zimmerman, that wouldn't change the fact Z is lying about the level of assault he was under. He shot someone who hit him. He didn't shoot someone who was beating him within inches of his life. He killed an unarmed kid minutes before the police Z knew were on their way arrived, because the kid hit him. That's not an innocent man no matter who started the fight.
Alan Dershowitz is behind this particular "Citizen's Jury", and the concept behind these juries is akin to people who declare the IRS illegal and claim they have the right not to pay taxes. What I quoted essentially said, not trusting the actual justice system we are declaring the Constitution gives us the right to this vigilante offshoot. Dershowitz is a NeoCon Zionist (despite claiming he's both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian) who sees anti-semitism everywhere he looks. He believes leftists run all the universities and he's gone after and specifically harassed professors he deemed were communists. He's a favored personality of Fox News and FrontPage Mag, a known right wing web site. I said right wing extremist because that's what such views represent, I didn't make the charge lightly. How do you figure they aren't? I'm listening.
Simple. Because I do not believe those things that are different than me are "extremist." "Right Wing Extremist" in this country has been linked to (though it's wrong) Naziism, white-pride neo-nazis, White-christian separatist movement, etc. Are you tell ing me that you Dershowitz is associated with one of them? Oh, and by the way, Dershowitz is right about the Universities. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edl-24notebook-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 4-1 liberal and 6-1 liberal in graduate schools. That works out to 75% of all faculty being liberal, and 83% of graduate faculty. So yeah, he's right. Let's put the shoe on the other foot, shall we? Al sharpton sees racism everywhere he looks. He took up Tawana Brawley's defense and accused the prosecutor of participating in the rape. All of which was wrong He led a march of 400 protesters through the neighborhood in New York after a Hasidic Jew caused a car accident that killed a seven year old child. He led that march as racial tensions were spiking, which ended in a riot that lasted for 3 days and a rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum being killed by a group of young black men. He's made outlandish statements, and done outlandish things based on his politics. So, is he a "left wing extremist?" What about Jesse Jackson? Or is it just wrong to see anti-semitism wherever you look, but not racism against blacks? And, how, exactly, does being a guest on Fox news make you an extremist? It doesn't, except if you believe that anyone that holds a view that is on the right side of politics is "extremist." From your sentence, I again get the impression that you do. It's funny that the more you try to show you're not bias, the more your words betray that you do have a strong bias. The fact that you adamantly believe "extreme" belongs before "right wing" simply because he says the same thing about American Universities that democrats running studies have said, believes that antisemitism happens (it does) and shows up on fox news. Oh, and let me point out one other thing. Go back to that website, and look at the articles . . . he's not a favored personality." Articles that are about him are pulled from the Jerusalem post and other news sources. Equating what you have said to others, Obama then is an extremist socialist dictator, since Hugo Chavez said he'd vote for Obama, right? (Oh, and did you realize that he was also featured on Huffington Post?) BTW, sourcing AlJazeera, that uses phrases like: "Raving aplogist for Israeli Crimes" Israel is engaged in "anacharonistic colonial exploits, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid" "arsenal of illogic" and here's a great one, "As long as Harvard refuses to pull its own Soviet Union and enact a Great Purge, Dershowitz enjoys a substantial perch" does little for credibility of not being biased. Especially when the piece is being put out as "news." Rather than an op-ed.
That other people are extremists doesn't change the fact people claiming the right to their own court system, separate from the established legal system, are extremists. Sharpton is less extreme than he used to be, but I'm not sure why you equate my beliefs with his. And, there are three things I don't debate on forums because due to some people's emotional attachments, such debates are a waste of time: abortion, male circumcision and the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
