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George Zimmerman found Not Guilty


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#1 Fire Blazer

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Posted 18 July 2013 - 06:35 AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-23304198

Screw this

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#2 kirant

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Posted 18 July 2013 - 06:59 AM

I was wondering how long it'd get to be posted here.

To make my own post short, I've copied my information from my Facebook post on it. If you're not even wanting to read that, the points I have are: no good witnesses and the concept of burden of proof. Zimmerman was freed on logic and reasoning, while the prosecution had no case and only lived off innuendo and emotional claims. It sucks, since someone died and Zimmerman isn't probably the angel he portrays himself as...though he's not the racist the news made him out to be either (CNN should get slapped hard for editing the raw recordings to make it a case about race). However, our laws avoid false positives and favour false negatives...in a borderline case like this, we opt to let him go free instead of attempting to push a possible innocent man in jail (and I do use possible heavily)

QUOTE
Wow, the topic of Zimmerman eats up most of my Facebook updates right now. So let's post my updated two cents.

After more investigation into law, the prosecution got the call right. ZImmerman, by definition of the laws looked at by the jury, deserved to be a free man. That isn't to take away from some idiotic decisions: Martin not running away, Zimmerman stalking him, whoever decided to initiate a fight. But, our courts exist to let false negatives exist instead of false positive. And the lack of evidence on both sides, in addition to the claim of self defence by Zimmerman, cause all possible applicable laws to be defined as situations with no punishment to Zimmerman.

Let's consider the charges Zimmerman could have faced. The points for second degree murder, the charge originally defined by the prosecution, are that:
1) Zimmerman intentionally killed Martin
2) Zimmerman killed Martin with malicious intent (in that he presented no clear and present danger from Martin at that time) with disregard to the consequences
3) Zimmerman's actions do not constitute justified homicide or excusable homicide.

Where justified homicide occurs if:
1) Zimmerman was the target of a homicide.
2) Zimmerman or Zimmerman's property was the target of a felony.

And excused homicide occurs if:
1) The homicide occurs within safe events, but resulted in homicide
2) The homicide occurs with heat of the passion reaction to sudden provocation
3) The homicide occurs during a fight with non-dangerous weapons.

With second degree murder, 1) is true. Zimmerman admits to this outright. However, there is no grounds to declare 2) of the second degree murder charge. Yes, race plays a part leading up to the events, but none of those are actual factors in the homicide itself. The act of homicide would begin with Zimmerman intending to kill Martin by shooting his gun. In this case, this would be if Zimmerman shot Martin when he poses no danger...as if he saw Martin in his neighbourhood and shot him because he looked suspicious. Or if Zimmerman pinned down Martin and shot Martin. This did not occur. Every testimony, including those called forth by the prosecution, note that there was a fight. The hoodie Martin was wearing agree with the fairly common consensus between the injuries dolled out (Martin only with laceration on his fists, comments that somebody's head was being beaten against the sidewalk) that Martin was on top. As such, Martin presented himself as a clear threat to Zimmerman. This rules out second degree murder since not all three conditions can be met.

So, ruling out second degree murder, let's consider the lesser charge that was considered: manslaughter. For that to occur, the following conditions must be met:
1) Zimmerman intentionally killed Martin
2) Zimmerman's actions do not constitute justified homicide or excusable homicide.

Where justified and excused homicides were defined as above.

Again, we can confirm 1). Zimmerman openly admits to shooting Martin. However, he claims self defence, which puts 2) into play. The burden of proof to claim self defence is to provide any shred of evidence. He did such, by presenting the fact that he was being creamed in a fight against Martin and that he himself feared for his life. With this, evidence has been presented and the burden of proof shifts to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Zimmerman's actions didn't make him fear for his life or constitute a felony. To prove this, they could:
- Prove Martin was acting in self defence and that Zimmerman initiated a fight. In order for this to occur, the reasons pretty much fall in line with the justified homicide rules. If Zimmerman had starting attacking first, Zimmerman was committing assault and had grounds for Martin to fight back. Their evidence for this consisted of a single phone call. The person who testified can be questioned as to their accuracy, since she has changed her story and has admitted to lying to officials at least twice from my count. This casts reasonable doubt as to how truthful her story is now, especially after some of her comments made during cross examination.
- Prove Martin had no intent to kill and was merely acting to end the fight. We can't prove this since Martin is dead and we know Zimmerman's side, which the prosecution has to act to deny.

The prosecution couldn't present evidence that Zimmerman was acting without fear for his life or wasn't in a situation which constituted assault. That's not to say the situations were true either. However, burden of proof is on prosecution to deny Zimmerman's story, and they couldn't bring evidence to deny it. The details are lost to the night and, as such, we have no grounds to convict without running higher risk of false positives.

At the end of the day, this trial isn't about race. It's about evidence (and lack thereof), inept prosecution, and burden of proof. It's the perfect one to give an introductory law class as it takes factors such as public pressure, previous actions, and personal emotions out of the equation and understand where burden of proof lies and how the legal system interacts with each other.

Is it unfortunate someone died? Yes. Was it avoidable? Probably. Is it true that Zimmerman isn't the angel he presents himself as? Yes. Does he deserve to stand trial? Yes. The police bungled that completely. But does he, by our laws, deserve to be in jail? No. Think of it this way: There are no credible witnesses to what happened during the fight. Everyone who came in generally just knew there were two guys and one was conducting some pretty serious damage to the other (which only makes sense with the injuries as reported, were if Martin was beating on Zimmerman). With no other people who knew this, we HAVE to take Zimmerman's story as fact. There is simply no other course of action, unless you can contact ghosts. Then it lies in the prosecution's hands to prove that Zimmerman's story is false, something they just failed to do.

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#3 Fire Blazer

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Posted 18 July 2013 - 07:13 AM

I don't mean to... um, take away from everything you said, but after reading such thoughts, which seem rather... um, well-thought, to say the least (I really need to stop posting at 3AM when I can't think clearly), all I can really do is shake my head in a sort of "I don't even want to think about it" anymore manner. There's really nothing to be done, like you said at the end, to find the truth. This isn't some fiction detective game like Phoenix Wright. No matter what happens there isn't any "right" path. It's just gonna be one or another; possibly punishing a somewhat innocent man or not and letting him go. I personally think he deserves at least some sort of recompense--after all, he took someone's life, and from what I've heard the situation never got to the point where he HAD to take self-defense to that measure--but there's simply not enough to go on, I guess.

I dunno, cases like these really just irk me as a whole, I'm less inclined to take a side like most people and rant about my feelings or whatever than just say life sucks and sometimes there's little to be done about it >_<'

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#4 kirant

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Posted 18 July 2013 - 07:30 AM

QUOTE (Blazer @ Jul 18 2013, 12:13 AM)
There's really nothing to be done, like you said at the end, to find the truth. This isn't some fiction detective game like Phoenix Wright. No matter what happens there isn't any "right" path. It's just gonna be one or another; possibly punishing a somewhat innocent man or not and letting him go. I personally think he deserves at least some sort of recompense--after all, he took someone's life, and from what I've heard the situation never got to the point where he HAD to take self-defense to that measure--but there's simply not enough to go on, I guess.

And that's part of the problem: We have a situation where none of the witnesses are worth using: one is obviously bias (Zimmerman) and another can't really be used strongly to suggest whether lethal force was needed or not. However, it's the job of the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Zimmerman's story was false. And I think that's something we need to consider: people are assumed inherently good, that their recollection is correct unless someone else proves them wrong.

Zimmerman is being taken to Civil, where he'll be tested on whether or not he has denied Martin of right to life (something you can surrender if you're committing a crime). Here, the courts tend to be more lenient, but the only penalty can be money. We'll see where the courts rule on that, since I'm not familiar with the situation and where the burden of proof lies.

QUOTE (Blazer @ Jul 18 2013, 12:13 AM)
I dunno, cases like these really just irk me as a whole, I'm less inclined to take a side like most people and rant about my feelings or whatever than just say life sucks and sometimes there's little to be done about it >_<'

This is something that the prosecution keyed in on and is honestly why they tried the 2nd degree murder too. They thought they could tug at the jury's heartstrings by saying "A kid is dead!" over and over at the end of the trial, expecting people to give them the pity guilty verdict.

There's another famous case like this: Casey Anthony. A lot of innuendo about her being guilty (and especially so in the court of public opinion, much like Zimmerman), but no legal reason to find her guilty. It sucks that sometimes guilty people get let free...but it's better than the alternative, where more innocent people get thrown in jail.

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#5 SmashedFish

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Posted 18 July 2013 - 07:43 PM

Though both cases you mentioned (Zimmerman and Anthony) are regarded by many as failures by the legal system (including myself, to an extent), you've correctly summed it up with your last statement- letting the guilty walk is preferable to falsely punishing the innocent. Of course, though I just want to imagine that it was all Zimmerman's fault because I don't like him, such an accusation holds no weight without evidence, and this case has woefully little of that. I agree with Blazer in that I don't want him to get off free, as he did kill someone (regardless of the circumstances). Sadly, at the same time, there's no evidence that shows that it wasn't self defense. Like it was said earlier, better guilty and unpunished than innocent and punished.

tl;dr The whole case kind of frustrates me because we don't have enough evidence to clam with confidence that we know how things happened. Even if such evidence proved Zimmerman's innocence, it'd be better than nothing.

Edit: Removed some comma abuse. Yes, it was worse than that at one point.

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#6 Rujio

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Posted 19 July 2013 - 04:17 AM

QUOTE (SmashedFish @ Jul 18 2013, 12:43 PM)
Even if such evidence proved Zimmerman's innocence, it'd be better than nothing.

You say that as though it would be bad if Zimmerman was innocent.

In any case, I don't think Zimmerman necessarily should suffer any kind of punishment for killing Martin. Given what I know of the case, there is nothing to suggest that Zimmerman did anything wrong. Were I to study more into the details of the case or maybe if I knew him well enough to judge the credibility of his story, that might change. As things are, he might have started the fight, or Martin might have, and I have no way of knowing at all what happened between the phone conversation and Zimmerman being pummeled.

The other thing this case highlights to me is the absurdity of people's focus on racism. Yes, racism is bad, but if everyone is so hyper focused on racism, then people are going to notice people's race and treat them differently, and it seems pretty plain to me that this case would not have garnered anywhere near the attention it did if Zimmerman and Martin had both been the same race.
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#7 Snow

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Posted 19 July 2013 - 06:40 PM

Hey guys, I only learned about this recently so sorry if I missed something important or I make a mistake.

Well from what I've seen/read, the situation is that Zimmerman followed Martin because he thought he was a suspicious person, but only of after calling the police. After that the Police (I'm not sure about this but it makes the most sense to me) find Martin dead with Zimmerman holding the gun that killed. Zimmerman claims to have killed him in self defense, but no one else actually saw what happened. That was what I got from the situation so if I missed anything let me know please.

Well from what I just typed, I think the jury made the right decision, mostly because of what Kirant said. I actually read Kirant's post and I agree with the things he said. There is only one thing that was bothering me, mostly because of my personal beliefs more than anything:

QUOTE (SmashedFish @ Jul 18 2013, 02:43 PM)
I agree with Blazer in that I don't want him to get off free, as he did kill someone (regardless of
the circumstances).
Ok well I know alot of people feel that the world should be this way, but I personally feel (as do most of the countries on earth) that self defense is a valid reason to kill, provided that someone's life is in danger or some other extreme situation. Now the Jury came to the conclusion that Zimmerman did act in self-defense, I agree with this. I also agree that he killed a man but no matter how much I dislike him I can't say he should be punished for killing Martin. This would be basically ignoring one of the fundamental rights humans have which is the right to defend yourself, and personally if I killed/hurt someone defending myself or someone else I wouldn't like to be punished for it.
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#8 arimibn

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Posted 19 July 2013 - 06:59 PM

Personally, I really don't think he should be found guilty. Simply because while it was a tragic event, the media blew it WAY out of proportion. They portrayed Zimmerman as some racist white power murderer. And they portrayed Trayvon as some innocent looking angel with a baby face. Zimmerman isn't even white.
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#9 kirant

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Posted 19 July 2013 - 08:24 PM

QUOTE (Snow @ Jul 19 2013, 11:40 AM)
Well from what I've seen/read, the situation is that Zimmerman followed Martin because he thought he was a suspicious person, but only of after calling the police. After that the Police (I'm not sure about this but it makes the most sense to me) find Martin dead with Zimmerman holding the gun that killed. Zimmerman claims to have killed him in self defense, but no one else actually saw what happened. That was what I got from the situation so if I missed anything let me know if I missed anything.

Half yes, and half no.

Zimmerman saw Martin and thought he was suspicious, so he called 911 and tails him. 911 tells him to back off. Zimmerman listens and is heading back to his truck. If we assume Martin's friend's conversation to be true, Martin keeps going and is now actively hunting Zimmerman, against his friend's protests. After this, we don't know who starts the fight (one of the most important details we'll never know), but it ends up with them getting the attention of the neighbourhood, who eventually find Martin, on top, dead after being shot by Zimmerman.

The rest are little details which confirm Zimmerman was getting creamed by Martin. Martin had no injuries to him other than a gunshot wound and lacerations to his fists (consistent with that of beating on someone), while Zimmerman had injuries consistent with that of being beaten against the sidewalk.

QUOTE (Snow @ Jul 19 2013, 11:40 AM)
Ok well I know alot of people feel that the world should be this way, but I personally feel (as do most of the countries on earth) that self defense is a valid reason to kill, provided that someone's life is in danger or some other extreme situation. Now the Jury came to the conclusion that Zimmerman did act in self-defense, I agree with this. I also agree that he killed a man but no matter how much I dislike him I can't say he should be punished for killing Martin. This would be basically ignoring one of the fundamental rights humans have which is the right to defend yourself, and personally if I killed/hurt someone defending myself or someone else I wouldn't like to be punished for it.

One thing to consider is that the US self-defence law is odd compared to the rest of the world's though. The law, as read above, could be read as (though unlikely to stand in court) "any violent action against an individual can be grounds for fatal self defence". That means that, with any shred of evidence that you acted in self defence, the onus is on prosecution, which sounds a little extreme for me.

Canada, for example, defines an crime being committed in self defence as being "action reasonable to the threat". In other words, if someone is shoving you around in Canada, you can't shoot them and claim it was to protect yourself. Prosecution can claim that shooting someone isn't reasonable self defence, exceeding what would be reasonable to someone pushing you. But this will allow you to fight back and kill someone if you feel your life is in imminent danger with no other recourse. This makes up that little loophole that I trouble myself when reading the Florida version of self defence (and I won't even touch the SYG law). It's not like an imminent threat isn't hard to prove either. Ian Thomson was acquitted of his crimes of firing his revolver a few times at people who were lobbing cocktails at his house.

QUOTE (arimibn @ Jul 19 2013, 11:59 AM)
Personally, I really don't think he should be found guilty. Simply because while it was a tragic event, the media blew it WAY out of proportion. They portrayed Zimmerman as some racist white power murderer. And they portrayed Trayvon as some innocent looking angel with a baby face. Zimmerman isn't even white.

This will always bother me...the news felt that they needed to make a story out of this and manipulated their copy of the evidence to make it about race instead of definition of the law.

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#10 SmashedFish

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Posted 20 July 2013 - 04:55 AM

QUOTE (Rujio @ Jul 18 2013, 11:17 PM)
QUOTE (SmashedFish @ Jul 18 2013, 12:43 PM)
Even if such evidence proved Zimmerman's innocence, it'd be better than nothing.

You say that as though it would be bad if Zimmerman was innocent.


Fair enough. As ignorant as this sounds (which it should, because it is), I was prejudiced against him because I honestly don't know much of the trial beyond the initial media backlash. I'll be sure to get informed before posting here again.

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#11 Golden Warrior

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Posted 20 July 2013 - 05:28 PM

I only skimmed most of the above posts, since I don't want to be a part of an argument, but here are my thoughts from what I could gather on this news page linked in the first post.

It may have been in self-defense and with justified force, but given the circumstances I saw about 7 paragraphs in...

QUOTE
Without explicitly discussing race, the prosecution had suggested Mr Zimmerman assumed the African-American teenager, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt as he walked in the rain, was up to no good.


QUOTE
Mr Zimmerman telephoned police to report a suspicious person, then left his vehicle in apparent pursuit of the teenager.


Shortly after, Martin was dead.

I am disgusted by the fact that he reported that Martin was up to no good. If he REALLY thought so, it seems to me he wouldn't attempt to pursue him, but instead leave it to the cops to deal with.

That was a little bit off topic. Whether or not it was in self defense, he took a human being's life away from them. Accident or not, their life is no longer there. There should be at least some punishment here. Self-defense is somewhat justifiable for an action like that, but it doesn't cover the bloodshed completely. Murder is murder.

Gah, I'm no good with most of this type of thing, perhaps I'll stop talking now. (Probably not a good idea to post without info beyond that news article, however, I felt compelled to anyway.)


EDIT: totally, related: http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-23382880

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#12 Fire Blazer

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Posted 20 July 2013 - 06:16 PM

QUOTE
Weather or not it was in self defense, he took a human being's life away from them. Accident or not, their life is no longer there. There should be at least some punishment here. Self-defense is somewhat justifiable for an action like that, but it doesn't cover the bloodshed completely. Murder is murder.


*Whether

agree with this thought though the dude should at least be forced to listen to boring ass lectures about how he should take life more seriously or some shit

you can't just let the guy go as if nothing happened though

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#13 kirant

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Posted 20 July 2013 - 10:24 PM

QUOTE (Golden Warrior @ Jul 20 2013, 10:28 AM)
Shortly after, Martin was dead.

I am disgusted by the fact that he reported that Martin was up to no good. If he REALLY thought so, it seems to me he wouldn't attempt to pursue him, but instead leave it to the cops to deal with.

Part of it is Zimmerman's history. I've heard elsewhere that he's been the target of robbery and muggings before, so there's probably a "hero" feeling kicking into him.

We can also consider that some, especially of the SJ Myers Briggs type, are very strict in their moral code - they feel there is a certain way to act and act on them. My brother is an ISFJ/ISTJ (borderline F/T) and every time it comes down to action, he'll listen to that code alone.

QUOTE (Golden Warrior @ Jul 20 2013, 10:28 AM)
That was a little bit off topic. Whether or not it was in self defense, he took a human being's life away from them. Accident or not, their life is no longer there. There should be at least some punishment here. Self-defense is somewhat justifiable for an action like that, but it doesn't cover the bloodshed completely. Murder is murder.

But:
1) It wasn't murder. Murder is done with malicious intent with the other side not presenting a clear and present threat at the time of murder. Unless Zimmerman followed him intent on shooting Martin, there's no way we can claim murder. Manslaughter, maybe. Murder, no.
2) For real life example, was it fair for the police to shoot Tamerlan Tsarnaev and get away with nothing but pats on the back and being told, after filing their report, that it was part of the job? Life is no longer there. A man is dead. Should there be some punishment? Murder is murder, no?

QUOTE (Golden Warrior @ Jul 20 2013, 10:28 AM)
Probably not a good idea to post without info beyond that news article, however, I felt compelled to anyway.

A very good idea is to read up on the full facts. The news has been piss poor in dealing with this and has warped their presented information, such as Zimmerman's intent, to make it sound worse for Zimmerman than the information really makes it out to be.

QUOTE (Golden Warrior @ Jul 20 2013, 10:28 AM)
EDIT: totally, related: http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-23382880

Obama, I'll admit, has the right idea. He admits that the court has made its decision and that we have to respect it. It does sound like that he wanted manslaughter as the charge, but is willing to accept otherwise.

I honestly think if we had omniscience, there's a healthy chance (65-70%) we'd find Zimmerman guilty of manslaughter. But we just flat don't know.

QUOTE (Blazer @ Jul 20 2013, 11:16 AM)
agree with this thought though the dude should at least be forced to listen to boring ass lectures about how he should take life more seriously or some shit

you can't just let the guy go as if nothing happened though

Disagree. We can't assume that he wasn't actually acting in self defence. For all we know, he could take life as seriously as the rest of us, but actually did fear for his life and made the correct inference that Martin was intending to kill him, shooting him before he had the chance.

If that's the case, if we give him anything, we just sentenced an innocent man to a punishment not fitting the crime.

You can't go around sentencing men falsely. And there's no conclusive evidence here that Zimmerman did anything wrong. The court did exactly what a court should have done here by legal extension of the law.

I don't pretend to know what Zimmerman was thinking. None of us do. What should be done can only be decided if we knew exactly what Martin and Zimmerman were thinking during and before their fight.

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Shameless Self-Plug - Updated May 30 - A Letter to a Younger Me – Anime Edition





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