We wouldn't want to be irresponsible.
I expect he'll be convicted of manslaughter and while in prison he will marry someone who was dumped by one of the Menendez brothers.
2: What, and break Michele Bachmann's heart?
The Gawker interview of John Derbyshire is dissappointingly low on fireworks:
i-may-give-up-writing-and-work-as-a-butler-interview-with-john-derbyshire
How I see this playing out: Zimmerman is convicted and somehow sentenced to death, at which point he pulls out a gun and shoots the judge/jury in self-defense.
Vibe and NR used to have the same building? Gangster!
It's a good thing they've charged him, because it means publicly admitting that the kid was murdered, but I still don't see how they can possibly empanel a jury after all this media circus. Maybe they'll send him to Guantanamo.
In what sense were the press conferences given by his so-called lawyers not actually pranks staged by the Yes Men?
In no sense discernible by currently available technology.
What's to speculate about? At this point, nothing seems all that mysterious -- the prosecutor decided she has a case.
Can't tell what a loony jury will do, but this looks like the system working. I would love to know, and it's probably unknowable, what would have happened without the media storm, though.
What is it with Zimmerman's lawyers saying crazy things?
11: It's kind of hard to keep a good lawyer when you do things like call the prosecutor yourself.
Wow, that's his new lawyer? I'd think he'd know not to mention convenience stores of any kind.
"My client is not a hood!"
"The law isn't beanbag skittles."
"Do you know what it's like having a black mark next to your name everywhere you go?"
"Why do you all feel the need to follow this case so perisstently?"
"This prosecutor is on a hair trigger."
(muttered aside) "You assholes in the media, you always get away with it."
"We're going to follow this story."
"We don't need you to do that."
Like Zimmerman, the new attorney is an escapee from an unpublished Carl Hiassen novel. The novel is also where Zimmerman was hiding when no one knew where he is.
10
What's to speculate about? At this point, nothing seems all that mysterious -- the prosecutor decided she has a case.
What's mysterious is why she thinks she has a case since just based on publically disclosed evidence conviction under Florida law appears unlikely.
Now if the autopsy report shows Martin was shot in the back from more than 5 feet away or if they recorded Zimmerman giving a vastly different account from what he told police that would be different. But absent some such evidence I don't see how she comes close to proving her case and you shouldn't bring charges you can't prove.
The law has a specific exception about when the shooter started the confrontation, which seems clearly the case here. You also need to have a "reasonable" fear.
Shearer -- care to make it interesting? $50 on at least a manslaughter conviction.
"We expect to blow a gigantic hole in the prosecution's case."
21
The law has a specific exception about when the shooter started the confrontation, which seems clearly the case here. ...
The exception itself has an exception which makes it pretty meaningless in my view (IANAL). And I am unaware of any strong evidence that Zimmerman initiated the use of force which is what I think is meant by starting the confrontation.
21
... You also need to have a "reasonable" fear.
Past Florida precedent seems to be that this is a low bar, being punched (or threatened with being punched) is enough.
Could it possibly be that the prosecutor has access to specific evidence unavailable to the general public and news media?
22
Shearer -- care to make it interesting? $50 on at least a manslaughter conviction.
I am not a betting man, perhaps intrade will have a contract at some point but they don't yet.
Anyway I am not claiming that the prosecution doesn't have damaging undisclosed evidence just that I don't see how they can expect to convict without it.
"It will be a cooo-oold day in hell before my client is convicted."
We don't know what the evidence is. But if they've got, e.g., clear pictures of Zimmerman, or medical records from that night, showing no fresh injury; testimony from the girlfriend on the phone that Martin was trying to evade confrontation, and timing showing that the phone call lasted until seconds before his death; voice analysis of the audible cries for help showing that they're not Zimmerman; who knows, possibly even incriminating statements from Zimmerman -- any or all of that could be enough to prove the inapplicability of self defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now, that all seems like evidence the prosecutor could plausibly have: some of it (the phone call) seems very likely to me, some (incriminating statements from Zimmerman) is pure speculation. But there's plenty of evidence she might have at this point to make a case with.
26: Sure. Of course, two weeks ago, the media had information the prosecutor didn't.
29 is how I see it. I've yet to see a case for why Zimmerman was afraid that didn't boil down to "look, a black guy."
31: The defense case (and I have to say I don't find it inherently implausible -- it could be refuted by evidence like the evidence I described, but imagine there's nothing, or if Zimmerman did have injuries that night) would be if Zimmerman testified that Martin physically attacked him. This wouldn't get Zimmerman morally off the hook, given that the only plausible motivation for Martin to attack Zimmerman is that Zimmerman terrified Martin by stalking him, but legally, I think there's room between "Everything that happened was Zimmerman's fault" and "Zimmerman might still have had a legal self-defense claim."
Even if he incited the violence, if he's afraid for his life and can't retreat, he's allowed to shoot.
Right, but then he has to prove he couldn't retreat and that he was in reasonable fear of grievous bodily harm from somebody who is unarmed. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it is unlikely enough that prosecution seems more than reasonable.
33: Is the burden of proof on Zimmerman or the prosecution? I've been confused on that point.
who knows, possibly even incriminating statements from Zimmerman
That's my guess. The kind of guy who shoots a kid under those circumstances might be the sort of self-righteous prick who feels he's misunderstood, that the law is on his side, and that all he needs to do is explain himself.
perhaps intrade will have a contract
Heebie did give us permission to speculate.
The prosecution has to prove Zimmerman killed the guy beyond a reasonable doubt. That isn't really the issue, so my remark is pointless.
34: Prosecution. Zimmerman has a light burden of production -- he has to raise the issue -- but once it's raised, the prosecution has to prove it didn't happen that way beyond a reasonable doubt.
33: All he has to claim to evade a duty to retreat is that he fell/was knocked down. Unarmed? Eh, the kid had a bottle. Now, I think it's likely that there's evidence refuting this, but in the absence of such evidence, it really might be hard -- for a teenage kid to freak out and attack someone who was scaring him badly doesn't seem implausible enough to me to get past 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Which is why I'd like to see that standard where I thought it was: burden on the defense, by a preponderance.
Which is why I'd like to see that standard where I thought it was: burden on the defense, by a preponderance.
I didn't know it was beyond a reasonable doubt for the self-defense part. The wikipedia legal research method has its weaknesses.
Don't forget that Zimmerman also has to show that the response was proportionate to a threat of serious bodily injury that he reasonably believed in.
The duty to retreat stuff doesn't seem to play in the case at all; either Zimmerman attacked Martin first, or (on Zimmerman's story) he had already been knocked to the ground and retreat was impossible. You've just got a plain vanilla self defense justification at issue and (putting racist/insane Florida jury issues to one side) that seems pretty easy to overcome.
I didn't know that either -- I came out of law school thinking that affirmative defenses, the burden was on the defense by a preponderance, and then didn't ever do any significant criminal work. Turns out self-defense is on the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt in lots of states.
(putting racist/insane Florida jury issues to one side)
I'd not be surprised if the main battle isn't over venue/jury selection.
39: Well, duty to retreat comes in such that he really has to claim he was on the ground: "He said something threatening and I thought he was armed" doesn't cut it if he had the option of running back to his SUV.
And if he can sell "He had me down on the ground" well enough to meet the necessary standard, I'd say getting from there to "And I was reasonably afraid of serious injury" isn't much of an addition jump.
LB -- care to make it interesting? As I did with Shearer, $50 on at least a manslaughter conviction.
I mean, in reality, all of this will go before a jury, which will basically decide the issue on grounds of "racist loon instigates fight" or "reasonably afraid white man does what's necessary to escape from being pummeled on the ground.". It seems pretty clear where the evidence will lead and the jury will go.
No, there are too many unknowns for me to have a sense of the odds. The biggest is "what's the evidence?" Anything I mentioned in 29, and I'm sure lots of things I haven't thought of, could tank the self-defense claim. On the other side, a screwy jury could do anything, either way: acquit despite strong evidence that self-defense was bullshit, or convict despite evidence that would get me (as much as I might hate it in that case) to a reasonable doubt.
To want to bet, I'd want to know for sure what the universe of evidence was, and that'd still leave the wacky jury possibilities in play.
Zimmerman has, I think, already claimed he was on the ground. At this point if he changes that story, he's pretty damn impeachable.
It seems pretty clear where the evidence will lead
Not to me -- all I know about the witnesses is pretty filtered through the media. If there's evidence that rules out (or comes arbitrarily close to ruling out) the possibility that Martin attacked, that'd, I think, settle it. If there isn't, though, and Zimmerman says he did, that's enough to make it a hard call.
When Halford comments a lot, the sidebar starts looking like a bunch of Robert Zimmermans.
It seems pretty clear where the evidence will lead and the jury will go.
OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony beg to differ.
"racist loon instigates fight"
He can be racist. He's only half German by ancestry.
That was me and was supposed to be "can't".
I mean, no one knows anything until you've seen the evidence, juries are mysterious, blah blah blah. Obviously if I were an actual lawyer in the case I'd be saying things like that. But I have a pretty strong sense of where this one is heading, and I think I've got a better than 50/50 chance of winning the bet that you all are too chicken to make.
Have we ever really debated the OJ decision here? I've got my own opinion, formed when I was 17, which I haven't really revisited as an adult.
This is how my opinion went: I had a black(ish) roommate who hung out with lots of black kids at UMichigan in our room, and they were all convinced that OJ was innocent. I decided that him being found innocent restored so much of their faith in the system that it was worth it, even though I personally thought he obviously was guilty.
Fifteen years later, it's no longer obvious to me that "faith in the system" is always good, but whatever. That was my logic at the time.
Yes, honeybunch. You're much manlier than I am -- it's the grains, weakening me.
OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony beg to differ.
Word. Fucking juries drive me insane. That aside, I do think there's a solid chance at a manslaughter conviction. I think the 911 tape in particular is going to be pretty damning.
Zim probably thinks acquittal is very likely, and the only way he'll be able to safely go to a 7-11 again (they are, after all, filled with actual or potential black people, many with bags of skittles).
I haven't followed it closely enough to understand the physical details of Zim's story: he was on the ground, Martin was beating him, and he got a round off. Where exactly was the gun? How did he have a free hand to get to it? Why was he begging while reaching for his gun? How is it Martin didn't/couldn't get the gun away? I can imagine all sorts of physical evidence that makes his story -- whatever it is at the most granular level of detail -- dissolve.
12: Got a link? Not that I doubt it, I'd just be interested to see the story.
And Halford, you do know that just because you say you're willing to bet on things and no one takes you up on it, doesn't mean you're correct about it, right? I mean, it's a bit annoying. We're obviously not the Platonic ideal of logically constructed arguments to start with, but offering people money whenever your stated opinion isn't convincing enough kind of short-circuits things.
Yeah, I don't know anything really about gunshot wounds, but it seems plausible to me that for his story to be true, he'd have to have been covered in Martin's blood, and if he wasn't, his story's nonsense. But I don't know that to be the case, I just suspect that someone who does know about these things would know it.
58: I BET YOU $10,000 THAT HALFORD ISN'T BEING THE LEAST BIT ANNOYING.
I haven't followed it closely enough to understand the physical details of Zim's story:
I don't think they're out there -- what we're calling 'his story' at this point is, I think, mostly stuff his dad said, and the police report that says 'grass on his back'.
I just like people being willing to back up their speculations with cash. Doesn't mean I'm right, of course (I could lose) but it's a useful filtering device for figuring out how strongly held people's opinions are. If you really are strongly convinced that there's a good shot of an acquittal or that there's not a murder case based on what you've read, why not take the bet?
I had a black(ish) roommate who hung out with lots of black kids at UMichigan in our room, and they were all convinced that OJ was innocent.
My Italian grandmother went to her grave thinking OJ was innocent. My black cousin and I were listening to her go on about it once and she said something along the lines of "why on earth would OJ go stab anyone" and my cousin replied something like "'cause people sometimes do crazy stuff when they're coked out".
Even if he incited the violence, if he's afraid for his life and can't retreat, he's allowed to shoot.
Obviously I don't have a clue about the US law, but to resort to the great refuge of the common law judge, the law would be hugely deficient if it did not allow for Zimmerman's conviction in this case; therefore the law does allow for it.
I think bets are a great way to clarify thinking, and to examine how deep someone's convictions really are about factual matters.
I also think Halford beat me to it.
56: I agree. The 911 tape, his previous calls to 911, statements he might have made to buddies at wherever he gets his pistol practice, what's on his computer, no treatment for the head wound, etc. will do it, according to the ghost of the (estate) lawyer I used to live with.
but it seems plausible to me that for his story to be true, he'd have to have been covered in Martin's blood
Nope. Single shot to the chest with no exit wound might not have a lot of external blood.
If you really are strongly convinced that there's a good shot of an acquittal or that there's not a murder case based on what you've read, why not take the bet?
Because making bets with people on the internet based on your strongly held political or legal opinions is kind of lame in the best of circumstances?
I find it plausible that what Zimmerman did was within the (insane) limits of the Florida self defense law. In Martin's shoes, given what we know with some degree of certainty about Zimmerman's behavior, I'd have been sorely tempted to punch the asshole in the face. Once that's done the stupid law kicks in and he gets to shoot Martin.
I could see a scenario where the actions of both Martin and Zimmerman are justified within the limits of the self defence law as I understand it. It's just a fucking insanely stupid law.
I'm sympathetic to Castle Doctrine laws up to a point, but this law is especially dumb.
If you really are strongly convinced that there's a good shot of an acquittal or that there's not a murder case based on what you've read, why not take the bet?
Let's see -- possibly because 'a good shot of an acquittal' isn't equivalent to 'I'm convinced that the odds of acquittal are above 50%'? That's one possibility. Leaping from 'You won't bet that he will be acquitted' to 'So you don't really believe that acquittal is a significant possibility' is both logically nonsense and annoying as all get out of you..
The prosecutor has certainly spoken with whoever it is who gave Zim whatever medical attention he got, and has a much clearer idea of what the injuries were. And whether the guy did have wet grass on his back. And doesn't the 911 call kind of kill the initial story -- he was just stepping out of the vehicle to look at a street sign (as unlikely as that is anyway -- the guy was on regular patrol, in a small neighborhood, and must have known where he was just looking at the surrounding buildings)
Maybe Zimmerman will produce a tape of Martin calling him Whitey, but it will really be Martin wondering, "Why'd he chase me?"
For actual physical evidence, CSI tells me that they can figure out things like angle of shot- was Zim on the group when he shot Martin, or standing over him, or was Martin on the ground? But the Sanford PD screwed up the investigation so badly they might not even have that.
Right -- the fact that the prosecutor's bringing charges suggests (as I said in 29) that she knows stuff that we don't know for certain that cuts against self-defense.
There are also people who just find betting a weird and sort of juvenile way to prove how much you believe something.
(tweetypwned on preview; we're not even in the same place or on chat, I swear.)
Do you want to take a bet with odds? I mean, I think your answer is fair; "I don't know enough about what's going in to have any reasonable ability to make a bet" is a fair answer, but it also clarifies where we are in terms of speculation. If I gave you 2-1 odds (ie, your $10 bet pays out with $20 if there's an acquittal on self-defense grounds) would you take it, or do you not have enough confidence to bet at that level? 3-1 odds?
58.1: There's not any detail here, but 2nd paragraph from the bottom mentions it.
Which is to say, when talking about the future, betting is a quick way to cut from "do you believe something is possible" to "how much do you believe it, and how likely do you think it is.". Maybe there's something un-fun about that, but it's certainly clarifying.
But the Sanford PD screwed up the investigation so badly they might not even have that.
What are you basing this on? PD wanted to charge manslaughter right off and was rebuffed by the prosecutor.
72: The prosecutor has certainly spoken with whoever it is who gave Zim whatever medical attention he got, and has a much clearer idea of what the injuries were.
And there was an autopsy of Martin which hopefully looked at other factors (like hand/knuckle bruising) and not just the gunshot wound.
but it's certainly clarifying
Except that if you're not the betmaking type, it doesn't clarify anything.
It's just a fucking insanely stupid law.
But, by definition, the legislature isn't fucking insanely stupid. So that's not the right way to read the statute! So, given the option is an insane law, or a conviction, even the most lenient penal presumption jails Zimmerman.
(Honestly, isn't this why judges exist? So they can clarify this nonsense?)
But, by definition, the legislature isn't fucking insanely stupid.
Florida?
I'd have been sorely tempted to punch the asshole in the face. Once that's done the stupid law kicks in and he gets to shoot Martin.
No, he doesn't. These laws are everywhere and I patrol a jurisdiction that has one. Shooting someone as retaliation for a punch to the face gets you a trip to jail. That's why Sanford PD recommended the manslaughter charge.
Obviously, Zimmerman should have carried two gun, one without his prints.
79 - From what I've read, the first cop on the scene did a miserable job investigating (Zimmerman not being tested for drugs/alcohol, leading witnesses, etc.), the Sanford PD homicide cop wanted to press charges, and the prosecutor screwed the pooch. I'm not sure where responsibility for things like not checking phone records falls.
77: At that point, I don't know what proposition you're defending. My thinking is what I described in 32 and 37: if Zimmerman testifies that Martin had him down on the ground and was hitting him, and there isn't evidence that's directly inconsistent with that story, it'd be hard to convict. You might disagree with me on that, but I'm not sure if you do.
I don't have a good sense of the odds that there is evidence directly inconsistent with that story -- I'd say more likely than not, given that the prosecutor is moving forward, and from the filtered media version of the evidence I've seen, it looks like some of it could be be directly inconsistent with that story. So, more likely than not there's enough evidence to convict, but I don't have a strong enough belief of how much more likely than not that I'd want to set odds.
If we got to a point where I knew there wasn't any evidence directly inconsistent with Zimmerman's story, then I'd think acquittal would be quite likely, but I still wouldn't want to set odds, because it all goes down to jury screwiness, and I don't have anything like the local knowledge to know which way that's likely to go.
84: I framed it poorly, but presumably once you punch someone in the face you maintain a threatening attitude so as to keep them from retaliation. That's what seems to me to create the situation where no duty to retreat becomes an issue. The whole point of maintaining that threat is to get the other party to retreat.
I'm not sure where responsibility for things like not checking phone records falls.
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders."
Shooting someone as retaliation for a punch to the face gets you a trip to jail.
Retaliation, sure. Someone's got you down on the ground and is in the process of slamming your head against the ground? Even if the attacker is unarmed, that sounds like plausible self-defense to me. I don't believe Zimmerman's story, but if he can sell it to the point of a reasonable doubt, I don't think the fact that the confrontation was all his fault or that Martin was unarmed rules out self-defense.
81 -- Yes. I sometimes offer to bet, but never take up anyone else's offer. And mine never get taken up. IME it's not clarifying, just more non-substantive rhetoric.
I'm going to stand up and wave my arms at my laptop. And then I'll stalk off to the shower. That'll show you people who's right.
85: Obviously, Zimmerman should have carried two gun, one without his prints.
If there is an acquittal, vigilantes everywhere will carry a bag of throwdown Skittles.
I can imagine it being clarifying if you hammered out exactly what the relevant point of disagreement was, and crafted the bet to hit that point exactly. Mostly people don't.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, sure the victim had a bag of Skittles. But we've had testimony showing that bag had been in a hot environment, an environment consistent with a size 12 tube sock, for many months."
Which is to say, when talking about the future, betting is a quick way to cut from "do you believe something is possible" to "how much do you believe it, and how likely do you think it is."
This assumes people's judgments about the expected value of money and the probabilities of future events are rational, which they manifestly are not.
The scientist/author with smart things to say on this topic left as an exercise for the reader.
, I don't think the fact that the confrontation was all his fault
I really really do think that this rules out self-defence, because (a) otherwise the law is insane (b) there's no way that the legislature intended to let any fucker start a fight and kill the other guy (c) if Zimmerman committed an assault (which he almost certainly did) then Travyon Martin had a right to self-defence also, in particular a right to prevent assault, and was allowed to use force in that right, and if Zimmerman is allowed to shoot him, then Martin's stand-your-ground rights are fucked.
Obviously I have no idea if the Florida courts know Florida law, but I hope like hell they do.
93 -- I'm waving my arms at you too.
Florida courts have foreclosed on houses based on notes signed "Epstein's mom".
I have no idea if the Florida courts know Florida law, but I hope like hell they do.
I have direct experience and strong views on this subject, and am waving my arms at Florida too. Submit!
(a) otherwise the law is insane (b) there's no way that the legislature intended to let any fucker start a fight and kill the other guy
I'm not sure it's possible to either underestimate the sanity or overestimate the pointless bloodthirstyness of the Florida state legislature.
96: here's no way that the legislature intended to let any fucker start a fight and kill the other guy
Drop the facts of this case, which are inflammatory. Say you've got two armed thugs -- both very bad people -- thug A has a knife and thug B has a gun.
Emboldened by his gun, Thug B walks up to Thug A, shoves him, and says "Your mother's a whore." Thug A turns around, punches Thug B, and as Thug B falls to the ground pulls his knife and says "You talk about my mother like that, I'm going to kill you slowly. I figure I can stab you a couple of hundred times before you bleed out."
Thug B is on the ground and can't get away (if you need more facts to establish that he can't get away, add what you like. Thug A's minions have tied his shoelaces together? Whatever.) If he shoots, that looks like clean self-defense to me, even though he started the fight -- not only do I think that's what the law is, I think it's what the law should be.
I'll take gswift's word on it that these no retreat laws don't license turning every street into the OK corral, but I'm pretty sure something like that is the underlying fantasy that moves people to promote them.
I don't think the betting is particularly revealing about the rational likelihood of the event, but it can be enormously clarifying about the intensity and certainty with which the belief is held. But I haven't read the Kahneman book that you all are on about.
I agree if Zimmerman can produce evidence sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of a juryabout whether he was in fact being beaten to a pulp on the ground at the time he fired, he will not be acquitted. And quite rightly so -- that would be acting in self defense. Note that this has nothing at all to do with any weirdness of Florida law; you'd have the same result in any US state.
But just having Zimmerman tell that story in the face of other evidence, including the 911 call, wouldn't be enough in my probabilistic opinion.
So far, things have happened pretty close to the way I thought they would when the case was first publicized. So I'm going to make some more predictions:
1. The venue will be changed to some neighboring county where there was allegedly less pre-trial publicity.
2. The jury will consist of some ratio like 7 white people, 1 non-Cuban Hispanic person, 2 Cubans and 2 old Black people.
3. Several key pieces of prosecution evidence will either be ruled inadmissible or be found to have been corrupted prior to the the case gaining national attention.
4. The jury will either hang, or convict on some lesser charge.
5. Sentence will sound reasonable (7 years or something like that) but it will be significantly reduced on appeal due to some technicality about bizarre Florida sentencing laws.
6. Zimmerman will be a free man again within 2-3 years at the absolute most.
77: Got it. Thanks. And thanks for not linking to lmgtfy, I might have been tempted to in another context, but it seemed harder to google than some questions.
96.last: I'm multiply pwned by now, but yeah, Florida is insane. I get that the rest of the world thinks America is insane, but Florida is insane even by American standards. Carl Hiaasen books are mostly set in Florida and they're barely fiction. Florida was arguably hit the hardest by the housing bubble, which both is a sign of bad policies to start with and caused new problems. Bush v. Gore hinged on Jewish retirees voting for Pat Buchanan. Californians say "at least we're not from Florida" to reassure themselves.
It seems like we have three routes to conviction here.
1) Zimmerman's story could fall apart in the face of new evidence.
2) Zimmerman's initial chase of Martin constitutes an assault, so anythign else Martin did is protected by Martin's right to stand his ground. Therefore Zimmerman can't claim self defense.
3) Even if everything else fails, the FLA law, interpreted with due legal charitably, does not protect actions like Zimmerman's
All of these strategies look good.
Oops, forgot UF doesn't like the less-than sign used as part of an explanatory arrow.
"jury will hang" = This I quite mistook the first time I read it.
107: As I've been saying, I don't think 2) works. Even if Zimmerman started it, all that does is reinstates his duty to retreat and try to end the encounter. If he can sell that he was reasonably afraid and couldn't retreat, that's enough for an acquittal.
I still don't see how you get reasonable fear of great harm that quickly without a weapon when facing somebody who isn't massively larger.
Well, a sidewalk is a weapon if someone's slamming your head on it. So's a bottle of ice tea.
110: Being aware of the dangers of concussion and being able to prove you were aware BEFORE some head-banging happened might do it.
Maybe convenience stores should only sell bottles with the caps removed, like at the baseball field.
To take it from another angle, if the 'reasonable person' is an experienced fist-fighter, who's spent a fair amount of time punching people and getting punched without taking much important damage from it, that's one thing. If it's someone who doesn't know from getting hit on his back getting his head bashed into the sidewalk, that'd seem like reasonably fear-inducing. I don't believe Zimmerman's story, I'm just saying that if you did, it's something I can see as a situation where a reasonable person would be afraid of injury.
Also, I thought I read somewhere that Zimmerman said Martin was reaching for the gun.
I think a reasonable person would shout, "I've got a gun motherfucker" before shooting if the other guy clearly didn't.
Thug B is on the ground and can't get away (if you need more facts to establish that he can't get away, add what you like. Thug A's minions have tied his shoelaces together? Whatever.)
I like to imagine that Thug B got on the ground because Thug C secretly went down on all fours behind him before Thug A pushed Thug B.
116: No, 'cause then you've scared the other guy and he'll hit you with his car. A reasonable civilian keeps any deadly capabilities hidden until it's time to use them. Warning shots are deprecated, stray bullets have to go somewhere and in L.A. seem to be magically attracted to small children.
stray bullets have to go somewhere
If you have a big enough gun, they might get into orbit.
stray bullets have to go somewhere
This is why responsible gun owners get their firearms spayed or neutered.
Warning shots are deprecated, stray bullets have to go somewhere and in L.A. seem to be magically attracted to small children.
Or sometimes mechanically.
109: I thought you were arguing against (3). Argument (2) depends specifically on applying the no duty to retreat law to Martin before applying it to Zimmerman. (I don't know if it can actually work that way.)
stray bullets have to go somewhere
If you have a big enough gun, they might get into orbit
If you have enough guns, they might go into other guns.
I don't think it can. No duty to retreat is specifically about whether you'd have a self-defense claim if tried for your actions, and I think it's pretty likely Martin would have. But it doesn't switch off the other person's self-defense rights: while the same facts are relevant to both people, you do the calculation for each separately.
OK, I have to get to work, so this is my last comment on this for a while.
First, the Florida stand your ground law (whatever its merits or demerits) does not control this specific case and is not a get out of jail free card for Zimmerman. Please, before referring to this law as being an important factor in this case, read here and also, in particularthis piece. I hesitate to recommend the latter because it's on the Volokh Conspiracy, which is often full of crackpot views, but in this case it is thorough and mostly right.
Second, I agree that if Zimmerman can convince a jury that there's at least a reasonable doubt that he was on the ground, getting his head smashed into the pavement repeatedly, and that he used his weapon only as a means of self-defense as a last resort, he will be acquitted. But that['s just saying "if he manages to persuade the jury that his self defense story is reasonably believable, he'll be acquitted" which is true in absolutely every jurisdiction and every time an issue of self defense is raised. On the facts of this case, it seems very unlikely that he'll be able to be persuasive on this point, just based on the circumstantial evidence we've already seen. You don't need physical evidence decisively disproving self-defense in order to demonstrate that Zimmerman's story is not credible. That's why I am reasonably confident that he will not prevail.
On the facts of this case, it seems very unlikely that he'll be able to be persuasive on this point, just based on the circumstantial evidence we've already seen.
Run through what makes it 'beyond a reasonable doubt' level implausible for you? (Clearly, he wasn't hurt badly: I'm figuring that 'on the ground getting hit at all' is enough to trigger a reasonable fear that you're going to get hurt badly.)
My Italian grandmother went to her grave thinking OJ was innocent.
My French-Canadian boss at the restaurant where I worked was a staunch defender, which seemed peculiar given that she was as racist as anyone I've ever known. "Bah, you'd have to be really strong and really fast to do that," she said, apparently unaware of what it takes to win a Heisman Trophy.
apparently unaware of what it takes to win a Heisman Trophy
I have a friend who was convinced that OJ's knees were too ruined for him to have committed the murders. Which seemed like a complete non sequitur to me, but I didn't push the argument.
I remember watching the low speed chase at a party.
I still consider that (the whole OJ case) my main source for understanding California.
I was driving a minute or two behind the low speed chase, on my way back from LAX to the Valley. I had no idea why we had to drive so slow, nor why the overpasses were crowded with people.
125: But doesn't that mean that you can have a gunfight between two people, and no matter who wins, the survivor can claim it was in self defense?
Wyatt Earp and Billy Clanton agree to meet at the OK Corral, in Florida and whoever is left standing did it in self defense?
134: Yup. People do claim that, doesn't usually work though.
I was at JFK waiting to board a plane for Cairo to spend the next few years there studying when it seemed that everyone in the airport suddenly gathered around the TVs they have in the waiting areas. And they're all transfixed by this image of a white Ford Bronco driving on the Freeway, I had no idea what was going on. It was surreal. When I found out what the whole frenzy was about I was never so glad as to be out of the country during that time.
134: I think that isn't far from what they legislature intended, at least subconsciously.
The combination of the 9/11 call, the lack of serious physical injury to Zimmerman, the relative size of the participants, the lack of blood, the fact that Martin was unarmed, the lack of any obvious reason for Martin to be beating up Zimmerman within an inch of his life, are all reasons that come to mind now. Basically, all the reasons people seem to think this case is an outrage based on media reports. I don't think Zimmerman just gets to show up on the stand, tell his story (however implausible) and it's like hey, it's not impossible, reasonable doubt. If that were the case, self-defense would be a successful defense to murder charges far more frequently.
In addition, there's also very likely to be physical evidence that (even if it doesn't conclusively disprove Zimmerman's story) casts additional circumstantial doubt on it.
After all, the prosecution was willing to charge not just manslaughter but second degree murder.
134, 135: If it did work, it might provide a cunning workaround for euthanasia laws. Pull a gun on your doctor, and he injects you with lethal chemicals in self defence.
134: Plausibly, yes.
To spin it out a little, for both people to have a good self-defense claim, I think you need the aggressor to be in a position where he can't retreat. The non-aggressor can 'defend' himself without retreating once he's plausibly threatened with serious physical harm. The aggressor is required to retreat if possible, but if he can't for some reason, then he can defend himself with deadly force if he reasonably believes the non-aggressor is going to seriously hurt him.
Once you throw in the burden of proof and having to establish who the aggressor was beyond a reasonable doubt, though, it really is the Wild West.
Wyatt Earp and Billy Clanton agree to meet at the OK Corral, in Florida and whoever is left standing did it in self defense?
No. So long as either of them is able to leave, they can't claim self defense. In that case, they both would clearly have entered into the fight voluntarily. Read the second link in 126.
138 is pretty much my view. Maybe I'm a starry-eyed optimist.
134
125: But doesn't that mean that you can have a gunfight between two people, and no matter who wins, the survivor can claim it was in self defense?
Well, as I read the quotes from the original thread (gswift quotes the law in 252 and 332, and maybe more bits were brought up elsewhere, but that seems like enough to start), your exact hypothetical wouldn't work, because the statute applies to a person "who is not engaged in an unlawful activity", and I'm pretty sure gunfighting is illegal. (Again, though, Florida, who knows.)
But given an honest misunderstanding with a sole survivor, it looks to me like, yeah, there's no grounds to charge anyone with anything under a stand your ground law phrased like Florida's.
The combination of the 9/11 call,
Do you mean establishing that the whole thing was Zimmerman's fault? Because while I think that's true, I don't think it's relevant. If you think it establishes that Martin didn't attack Zimmerman and get him on the ground, how?
the lack of serious physical injury to Zimmerman,
If Zimmerman's story is that Martin was going for Zimmerman's gun?
the relative size of the participants
Not all that much of a difference, now. Twenty pounds or so, and Zimmerman was a lot shorter. From Zimmerman's point of view, Martin was a lot taller than he was, and I don't think the weight difference establishes who was stronger.
the fact that Martin was unarmed
Zimmerman's gun; ice tea bottle; sidewalk. Say Martin knocked Zimmerman's head against the sidewalk once before Zimmerman shot -- maybe not enough to do much damage, but enough to reasonably scare Zimmerman?
the lack of any obvious reason for Martin to be beating up Zimmerman
This one, I don't get your thinking at all -- Zimmerman was following and confronting Martin. Beating up Zimmerman would have been ill-advised, and probably wrong, but in Martin's shoes I would have wanted to, and I'm not a seventeen-year-old boy, a notoriously violent and impulsive age and gender.
I don't buy any of it, but if there wasn't any contrary evidence, I'd have a hard time rejecting it beyond a reasonable doubt.
(And I do think there probably is contrary evidence -- while I haven't seen it from an authoritative source, I've seen suggestions that the phone call with the girlfriend goes up to seconds before the shot. I think that'd be enough to convict, and there are all sorts of other possibilities.
If contrary evidence doesn't come through, though, it's hard.)
but in Martin's shoes I would have wanted to,
You would have beaten up Zimmerman to within an inch of his life? Remember, the rule isn't "you throw a punch, I get to kill you no matter what." It's "if I reasonably think you are going to kill me, and I can't escape, I can kill you in self defense."
Because while I think that's true, I don't think it's relevant.
Makes it seem likely that Zimmerman is crazy, out to provoke a fight, and racist. Discredits his entire story. You get to assess witness credibility, you know.
Not all that much of a difference, now.
But enough so that Zimmerman was in reasonable fear of his life?
If Zimmerman's story is that Martin was going for Zimmerman's gun?
Even if true, if that's in the context of Zimmerman assaulting Martin, that's not self defense. If he did the initial assault, Zimmerman would have had to withdraw and signal his intention to stop the fight to be justified in the use of self defense.
...and I don't think the weight difference establishes who was stronger.
It doesn't, but getting beaten shitless (or being weak enough to be in reasonable fear of being beaten shitless) by somebody whose muscles haven't even finished with puberty at least makes him look like a truly pointless waste of gated-community square footage. Having him forced to argue in court about how weak and/or inept he was will at least be entertaining.
147.1: It's "If I reasonably think you're going to seriously injure me", not "kill me". And once someone has you down on the ground and is hitting you, I think that's a reasonable fear.
147.2: Sure, it goes to credibility. I think the evidence incontrovertibly establishes that Zimmerman is an incredible asshole, I just don't think that guarantees a jury would dismiss any testimony from him as unworthy of consideration.
147.3: Again, not life, but serious injury. The story is that Martin was knocking his head on the sidewalk. Clearly, Zimmerman wasn't badly hurt yet, but does the fact that he was twenty pounds heavier than Martin establish that he couldn't have been afraid Martin was going to hurt him badly?
147.4: Two things on this. First, I simply don't know how FL law would shake out on the 'aggressor' point. There's no argument that it's all Zimmerman's fault, but if he was just following Martin and being scary, not actually doing anything violent, does that make him the aggressor? I could see that going either way. Even if it does make him the aggressor, if Martin had him on the ground and he couldn't get away, does his responsibility to withdraw mean any more than having to ask Martin to stop hitting him? Because that's pretty easy to testify to.
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I don't actually disagree with this, or at least I don't think so because I haven't finished it yet, but good God does the writing suck. For example:
At one point, after walking a while, I offer to buy him a drink at a sidewalk stand. He bristles. "I don't patronize food carts," he says. The reason? They take up sidewalk space on already crowded thoroughfares. Outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, he pauses briefly to berate a tour bus driver, whose empty bus sits idly, its engine sending a noisy blast of hot air onto the sidewalks. The driver briefly looks up from his New York Post and, sensing no immediate physical threat, resumes reading. I have gone out today on a stroll with Zupan in the tradition of the Peripatetics, those ancient Greek scholars who were said, perhaps apocryphally, to accompany Aristotle on walking lectures.
I also read this today, also on Slate, and while I liked this one a lot more, the styles have something in common.
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147.4: Weren't there TV interviews with a few of Zimmerman's friends/defenders, some of whom were black?
The racial animus angle might not play. I haven't seen anything concrete about that so far.
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I'll go with manslaughter.
This from Charlie Pierce resonates with me:
To turn this trial into a public ceremony by which Sanford absolves itself for the nearly criminal stupidity with which is has handled this case from jump is to substitute boosterism for justice
Jeffrey Toobin is saying a plea deal is all but certain. I am not sure why.
You know the old saying. A trial on CNN isn't worth Toobin to push.
The minimum sentence on the 2d degree murder charge is 25 years, which is huge, and Zimmerman's still in a lot of jeopardy even if all the possible evidence breaks his way. I've been arguing the defense, but Halford's take isn't loony. So if I were Zimmerman, I'd plead to anything with a shorter sentence.
From the prosecution point of view, juries are screwy, and if the jury goes weird on this one, it's going to be really, really embarrassing.
So I think a plea is in the interests of either side, but I don't know why it'd be almost certain.
157: The defense doesn't want 25 years, the TPTB don't want riots. Manslaughter. Ten years.
157: Ah. He said it based on something TM's mother said on tv this morning -- about how she was sure it was an accident and is just glad GZ is being charged. But she's since clarified her statement and says now that what she meant by "accident" was just the general bad luck of their ever running into one another, not that GZ didn't intend to shoot.
140: With that kind of equipment you don't really need a doctor involved either.
I havent read the thread, but dont we know that the likely defense is:
I looked for him, and couldnt find him. As I was walking back, he jumped me and said I was going to pay. [See injury from video of Zimmerman with the police]
So I had to defend myself from the younger taller man.
Thus, even though I was at fault for looking for him with the gun, I had abandoned it and was retreating when attacked.
157: if the jury goes weird on this one, it's going to be really, really embarrassing.
Is there such a thing as a judge setting aside (invalidating) the jury's verdict, or is that only on teevee?
In general, speaking as a layperson and not speaking into the weeds, it's not clear to me that this is really about whether Zimmerman was on the ground being beaten by Martin, but whether Zimmerman instigated the confrontation. Now, if there were evidence that Zimmerman has spoken in the past of ridding the neighborhood of unsavories (while seekritly flashing his concealed weapon and tee-heeing), he would have a problem, regardless of whether Martin was beating him up in the actual event.
That is: I'm not seeing this as trading on whether Martin or Zimmerman was on top in the eventual tussle. Not about self-defense. Also note that characterizing Zimmerman as a neighborhood watch volunteer appears to be a bit wrong: my information may be outdated, but I had the impression he was rather self-appointed, and that true Neighborhood Watch participants are not to carry weapons (or engage potential perpetrators), as Zimmerman would have known had he attended Neighborhood Watch training sessions.
It's about the events and circumstances prior to the altercation itself. If and to the extent that he was actually reasonably defending himself in the event, the best he gets is manslaughter, but not acquittal.
145- I read "the 911 call" as the call from the neighbor with the screaming and shot in the background, where the screaming for help has been identified to some degree of certainty as TM. It would be an odd image for a jury to imagine a person beating someone's head on a sidewalk while screaming for help, or trying to grab someone's gun.
All of this aside, even if Zimmerman gets off, I'll be okay if, as a result, Stand your Ground laws are widely revisited, and it would be super if concealed carry laws are re-examined, maybe even the issuance of gun permits. There was a completely weird remark on the radio recently to the effect that George Zimmerman had a criminal record, so should not have been allowed a gun permit in the first place: I didn't track that down to confirm whether it was true.
It's about the events and circumstances prior to the altercation itself. If and to the extent that he was actually reasonably defending himself in the event, the best he gets is manslaughter, but not acquittal.
Seriously, this is just wrong. If you reasonably believe someone's going to hurt you badly, and (putting the Stand Your Ground stuff to one side) you can't get away despite conveying that you want to bring the altercation to an end, you're allowed to use deadly force in self defense even if you're Hitler -- it doesn't matter how evil your prior actions were, if in the moment your behavior is reasonable self-defense.
He had been arrested (pushing an officer or something) but no charges, so no criminal record. Being Florida, that means he can carry a concealed gun but probably isn't allowed to vote.
164: That would also settle it, but I don't trust media reports of the certainty of the ID (what I've read is that it's ID'd as "not RZ" as opposed to "definitely TM") to stay that certain when they get to trial.
He's allowed to vote if he only puts a dimple in the chad.
Even on TV, judges can't overturn acquittals.
You know, I have no trouble working around the Times' firewall when they count one of your free articles as looking at the interactive feature that goes with a story.
I'll be okay if, as a result, Stand your Ground laws are widely revisited, and it would be super if concealed carry laws are re-examined, maybe even the issuance of gun permits.
Hahahaha yeah right.
If this goes to trial (and Zimmerman doesn't exactly seem to be the type of guy who's willing to avoid a confrontation, you know?), I feel like jury selection could be a very interesting exercise for the prosecution. A lot depends on the level of generality at which these prosecutors are used to working, but many of their standard "pro-prosecution" variables probably aren't going to map well onto this case.
166: Okay. Noted. Are you on the hook for your actions leading up to the event? Let's say you're Hitler.
It's somewhat odd that public controversy has centered on the stand your ground law (which is (a) not unusual and (b) not at issue, read the links in 126) when concealed carry is, in fact, much more centrally at issue. If Zimmerman is not allowed to conceal a gun on his person, Trayvon Martin is still alive.
The only plausible justification for concealed carry would be if it substantially reduced crime through a deterrent effect, but there's basically no evidence to that effect. There's also no evidence that it increases crime or that tragedies like the Trayvon Martin one are common, I think, but still.
Let's say you're Hitler.
Then if you attack Stalin he's got self-defense on his side because you violated the non-aggression pact.
Let's say you're Hitler.
Performance review time isn't until May.
Additional evidence from said firewalled story:
Two witnesses' accounts: Selma Mora Lamilla and Mary Cutcher said they ran to their back porch after hearing "whining" and a gunshot. Ms. Lamilla said she saw Mr. Zimmerman on top with his knees straddling Trayvon. Ms. Cutcher went inside to call 911 and returned to find Mr. Zimmerman pacing.
In an account given to the Sanford police, George Zimmerman said that he lost sight of Trayvon and was returning to his S.U.V. when the teen approached him from behind and asked him if he had a problem.
Trayvon asked, "Why are you following me?" Mr. Crump said the girl told her. The girl then heard a faraway voice ask, "What are you doing around here?"
175: I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND YOU THAT JOHN LOTT, THE BRAVEST, MOST HONEST SCIENTIST I HAVE EVER TAKEN A CLASS WITH, HAS 100% REFUDIATED THE IDEA THAT CONCEALED CARRY HAS ANY PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER, AND AS SOON AS HE RECOVERS THE FILES FROM HIS HARD DRIVE CRASH YOU'LL EAT THOSE WORDS.
Seriously, though, I'm having a little trouble with the notion that self-defense is legally bullet proof, as it were, regardless of the past behavior that led to the event.
if concealed carry laws are re-examined
You must be new to this country.
180 -- Of course Zimmerman's behavior leading up to the attack is relevant. Florida law prohibits the self defense justification for anyone who "Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself." Fla. Stats. 776.041. The provoker can only regain self-defense rights if:
(2)(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or (b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.
While "provocation" isn't clearly legally defined, a jury that is convinced that Zimmerman started the altercation most likely would not be able to acquit him on a self defense theory. If Zimmerman provoked the attack, he'd then need to show that he exhausted all means to escape and or withdrew and indicated clearly to TM that he did not want to continue with the use of force.
That's why Zimmerman's story seems to be that he didn't do anything and was returning into his car, and also that he was immediately thrown on the ground. Zimmerman's story is that he didn't provoke the attack and had no means of stopping it. That story is highly implausible, though, for many reasons pointed out above.
The common cane-sword is the obvious solution for the need to conceal a weapon without making it too easy to kill people.
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So I'm in Critical Thinking class teaching away, and one of my students calls out to the student sitting in front of her, "oh my god, you've got a bee on your back!" The student in front says "are you allergic?" While she is saying this, the student in back takes off her shoe and swats the student in front, hard. "There, I got it, and yes I am allergic," she says. The student sitting in front looks completely baffled.
As class ends, I overhear the shoe-wielding student say "you know, I read that all the bees are disappearing because we swat them all."
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It's close enough to the end of the term that this lapse in thinking can be blamed on you.
I'm appointing Halford the prosecuting attorney and LB, the defense. LB said a few days ago that she could use her super-lawyer powers to get Zimmerman off. I have $100 that says Halford can make the second degree murder charge stick.
What if a trolley was filled with bees?
187: Oooh! Exciting! It will be just like The Devil and Daniel Webster!
I'm going with Halford on this one. I don't really know how betting works.
Thanks for the vote of confidence but I'm a non-criminal lawyer, chronic procrastinator, and unlicensed to practice in Florida. Sort of like Cousin Vinny but not secretly competent. Probably not your go-to guy in a high profile murder case.
The common cane-sword is the obvious solution
Uncommon Cane Swords is my favorite John McPhee book.
Why are you calling her a procrastinator?
Cousin Vinny wasn't secretly competent, he was overtly fianced to Mona Lisa Vito.
Perhaps Halford is referring to Stephanie Plum's Cousin Vinnie.
From what has appeared in the media (which we need to keep in mind is likely far from complete or comprehensive), it seems quite possible that after following Martin, Zimmerman then approached him and acted like an officious self-appointed policeman dick, probably interrogating him about his presence/intentions and instructing he had to remain there until a cop arrived (some kind of citizens arrest BS). At which point Martin could easily have attacked him. Then I can't see how anyone could know exactly how much danger felt he was in (he did have a scar on the back of his head, indicating that he might have been knocked down). That's a mix of Zimmerman provoking the confrontation, Martin escalating it, then Zimmerman bringing out deadly force. And since Florida appears to actively encourage its citizens to shoot each other when involved in a confrontation, that may well fall short of murder in Florida. It seems kind of like manslaughter to me. But LB says above it could fall under self-defense (in which case I'd be pretty nervous to be living in Florida generally). I don't know how to weigh all this up, or how a jury will do it given the media firestorm about it. Except that giving people the ability to become self-appointed armed neighborhood vigilantes is a really bad idea.
To turn this trial into a public ceremony by which Sanford absolves itself for the nearly criminal stupidity with which is has handled this case from jump is to substitute boosterism for justice
I'm still not convinced this was a botched investigation. Hard to know without seeing the case file I guess but apparently they thought they had enough for manslaughter. Sure maybe guys on scene were doing a less than stellar job handling some of the witnesses and such but even the non testing of Zimmerman for substances isn't that big a deal. Generally you're doing that because it's an element of the crime. But this isn't a DUI. If you can't smell booze on him, he's coherent, has no history of drug abuse, shows no outward signs of being under the influence of anything, etc. then there's not much point to the blood test. It's good to do as a standard procedure but almost certainly wasn't going to be an element of this type of crime. They took the guy into custody for a formal interview, took witness statements and all that and wanted to charge manslaughter. If the prosecutor refuses there's not a whole lot you can do. This kind of thing goes on a lot and pretty frequently I have a powerful urge to read criminal code out loud to certain other govt. employees at gunpoint.
(in which case I'd be pretty nervous to be living in Florida generally).
Houses are cheap now, if you find reassurance.
182: But in LB's scenario, with the tussle and the banging the head on the floor, 2(a) is at least arguably satisfied, so the previous behaviour is irrelevant.
200: This is right, but while I've been arguing it, the man disgusts me -- could you call it the 'Zimmerman scenario' rather than 'LB's scenario'?
It sounds like a Ludlum book title. The Zimmerman Scenario, that is.
Yes, that's an argument he could make (although that's not his current story -- his story right now is that he didn't provoke the attack at all, not that he did provoke the attack but then couldn't escape). But that would require persuading a jury that in fact he didn't provoke the attack or that, if he did provoke it, he had no reasonable opportunity at all to stop it from escalating without using force. Which is possible but I sure wouldn't bet on it.*
*Note again that none of this has anything whatsoever to do with Florida's stand your ground law.
202: Or some obscure gambit in the Great Game in the 19th century. A political faction in tsarist Russia is induced to lend support to dissidents in Greater Khorosan while on the ground British agents provocateurs are setting the dissidents up to overstep and politically embarrass the supporters theoretically triggering overly harsh internal political reprisals by the Russian government.
Or possibly an attempt by the Kaiser to induce Mexico to make war on the United States.
202: I'm excited for the episode of Knight & Armour where they deal with a case, ripped from today's headlines, that bears a strong resemblance to the Zimmerman/Martin killing. Of course, it will have to involve a knife rather than a gun.
Also, irrational prejudice against chavs, and use of the word 'curbstomping'.
I think this is going to be a really fun Trial of the Century, better than that Casey Anthony one, which I didn't even follow. In fact, I think the only other Trial of the Century I followed was OJ. Maybe this will reach the Leopold and Loeb league.
The person I know IRL who is most insistent on making bets to quantify knowledge about things is someone who I think strives to be as close to a purely utility-maximizing Bayesian robot as possible. It wouldn't surprise me if he also eats a paleo diet and does Crossfit, but only if a detailed statistical calculation told him it was the optimal thing to do.
Utility maximizers usually do things like eat oats with whey protein at every meal if they start getting serious about fitness.
I recently won a bet about the ultimate fate of the Santorum campaign. Have another one outstanding that the ACA will be upheld. Both for one (1) beer.
Uncommon Cane Swords is my favorite John McPhee book.
Speaking of which, I finished Coming into the Country a little while ago. (I mentioned it in some thread or other at the time, but you may have missed it.) I thought the third part was kind of underwhelming, at least compared to the other two.
I should've bet someone that you people wouldn't talk about anything else in the last 4 hours.
198: Surely the Sanford PD wouldn't need anyone's permission to make an arrest if they felt there was probable cause, right? This business about the prosecutor's office supposedly "overruling" their "recommendation" to charge manslaughter sounds awfully like after-the-fact CYA, and Norm Wolfinger unsurprisingly denies the whole proposition as an "outright lie". There may be a Sanford detective who recommended laying charges (the "recommendation" story usually mentions one specific guy, Chris something-or-other), but that's hardly the same thing.
And of course there are things like the reports from witnesses of cops attempting to "correct" their testimony when they said they heard a kid shouting for help. It all adds up to a pretty damning picture for Sanford PD.
210, 211: calorie restricted diet. Bet on it.
213: oho! I did miss it. I thought much of the third part (the stuff on the Yukon) was pretty overwhelming, but I thought the people who cut their bulldozer in half so they could fly it up to a gold mine in the middle of nowhere were fascinating.
217 cont'd: also, McPhee's fascinated admiration for ha[n|r]dy western libertarian types is itself kind of fascinating.
So what's the diet of a satisficer?
216: Yes! This is the libertarian whacko diet no lie.
217, 218: Yeah, there were several interesting set-pieces, including those two, but the thing as a whole just dragged on too long, I thought. I also thought it didn't add much to the first two parts, and might have worked better as a separate, independent work (which of course it originally was).
The detailed description of what Eagle was like at the time is also of some interest to me given what I've heard about what it's like now.
(It doesn't sound like it's changed much.)
220:My CR friend is a union organizer, but I get what you're saying -- the idea that progress is giving individuals the power to overcome death through careful dieting is often the province of people who don't see social ills as needing much attention.
How does the calorie-restricted diet avoid being girly? It must somehow avoid being girly, right? No yogurt? No sugar? No iceberg lettuce? No beverages? No uptalk? No "vocal fry"? Please enlighten me before I run the risk of doing some work this afternoon.
225: it's not girly because it's SUPER HARDCORE, like 400 calories a day all baked into an ultradense bran muffin.
It sounds like a Ludlum book title. The Zimmerman Scenario, that is.
Every time I look at the phrase "The Zimmerman Arrest", I imagine some scenario where everyone's asking why Bob Dylan would want to go and do something like that.
I'm on a calorie restricted diet, but a very loose one. 3,000 calories, unless it's a holiday. It's sort of the Swedish prison level of CR diets.
225: It's not girly 'cause after a day or two people start thinking you're looking for an excuse to kill even if nowhere near Reno.
It's not girly because it makes you proportionately weak, unlike very little girls who are proportionately quite strong.
400 a day? Do they also take Adderall, or is it a natural way to wring gallons of interest out of every scrap of life experience that passes during the other 23.75 hours?
My memories of caloric restriction in college mostly involved crying over the modem pool's busy signals. With today's technology I shouldn't have any issues, although it admittedly seems like a sketchy idea to combine with lactation. I'd have to eat two muffins , one for each side, like a girl.
231.1: given that the point is to live until you're 140 or whatever I'd bet people who are really into it are also pretty persnickety about what drugs they'll ingest.
Oh, I bet there's a Singularity-approved Adderall analogue, but it requires you to sustainably harvest seeds from the Amazon rainforest and combine them with the blood of a poor, obese manual laborer, to rid the former of impurities. Happily, MARKETS can facilitate this.
That was hamfisted. I apologize.
Robert Ludlum's The Zimmerman Scenario, by Erich von Lustbader.... reminds me of this post and its comments where I occasionally blogged, long ago. There are really some good ones.
235: But "The Fredholm Alternative" is so much better than the others that reading the whole list is kind of a letdown. It should have come last.
But fewer carbs than knuckle sandwiches.
A knuckle wrap is a lower carb option.
209: I think this is going to be a really fun Trial of the Century
I hate to be a sourpuss, but I'm not seeing it that way. I didn't follow the OJ trial whatsoever, so I have no personal precedent on the fun-ness meter. This case I see as an exercise in just how the criminal justice system works in real life, and as I said upthread, if there's fallout regarding policy-making for gun toting, good.
There was some talk about the feds possibly involving themselves if the Martin-Zimmerman case could be considered a hate crime: I take it that did not pan out.
Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage:
This wooden shoe'd miser will fight when you rattle his cage.
An' you'll be sorry that you messed with the boys of the Hague.
'Cos we've got hookers and weed, it's the Netherlands way.
Godverdomme. Ik neuk je zusje d'r kontje.
101
Thug B is on the ground and can't get away (if you need more facts to establish that he can't get away, add what you like. Thug A's minions have tied his shoelaces together? Whatever.) If he shoots, that looks like clean self-defense to me, even though he started the fight -- not only do I think that's what the law is, I think it's what the law should be.
I am not convinced that is what the law is (in all states) and I certainly don't think that is what the law should be. You should only get to plead self-defense if you are clearly in the right and starting fights that lead to your opponent's death doesn't qualify.
237: How about "The Aikaki Criterion" or maybe "The Power Spectrum" or "The Goldstone Diagram"
Surely the Sanford PD wouldn't need anyone's permission to make an arrest if they felt there was probable cause, right?
Sure, but if the DA tells you he's not going to file what's the point. I'd be interested if they filled out any kind of screening packet (or whatever their equivalent is).
244: California: "And even if you are the aggressor in the fight...which typically precludes you from asserting self-defense... you may plead self-defense if:
You make a good faith effort to stop fighting and clearly indicate that you are trying to do so (but the other party doesn't stop fighting), or the other party counters your initial non deadly attack with deadly force.
It's an acknowledgement that most arguments and even perhaps some shoving don't lead to deadly violence, that's all.
237 - "The Cauchy Matrix". "The Lie Algebra". "The Killing Form". Then you can expand into different genres with "The Witch of Agnesi".
New York is much the same, further research is left as an exercise for the other procrastinators.
1. A person may, subject to the provisions of subdivision two, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he reasonably believes such to be necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by such other person, unless:
(a) The latter`s conduct was provoked by the actor himself with intent to cause physical injury to another person; or
(b) The actor was the initial aggressor; except that in such case his use of physical force is nevertheless justifiable if he has withdrawn from the encounter and effectively communicated such withdrawal to such other person but the latter persists in continuing the incident by the use or threatened imminent use of unlawful physical force
142
No. So long as either of them is able to leave, they can't claim self defense. In that case, they both would clearly have entered into the fight voluntarily. Read the second link in 126.
Huh? The second link says nothing about this scenario. And that they are able to leave is irrelevant because they have no duty to retreat.
For an actual Florida case see here .
In a decision, Judge Lewis criticised the Stand Your Law even as he applied it.
He said the men had all been spoiling for a fight, both groups were armed, and none took precautions to avoid a gunfight.
"Two individuals, or even groups, can square off in the middle of a public street, exchange gunfire, and both be absolved from criminal liability if they were reasonably acting in self defence," he wrote.
"The law would appear to allow a person to seek out an individual, provoke him into a confrontation, then shoot and kill him if he goes for his gun."
Note this case didn't even make it to a jury trial.
248: nice genre move
251: yes that's perfect
164
I read "the 911 call" as the call from the neighbor with the screaming and shot in the background, where the screaming for help has been identified to some degree of certainty as TM. ...
Link? I am unaware of any credible ID from the tape.
I've read that TM's mom identified it as him but I have no idea how reliable that is.
87
If we got to a point where I knew there wasn't any evidence directly inconsistent with Zimmerman's story, then I'd think acquittal would be quite likely, but I still wouldn't want to set odds, because it all goes down to jury screwiness, and I don't have anything like the local knowledge to know which way that's likely to go.
It also depends on whether Zimmerman gets a competent lawyer.
74
Right -- the fact that the prosecutor's bringing charges suggests (as I said in 29) that she knows stuff that we don't know for certain that cuts against self-defense.
You would think but the Nifong fiasco shows it might not be the case.
254
I've read that TM's mom identified it as him but I have no idea how reliable that is.
This is in the probable cause affidavit :
... Trayvon's mother has reviewed the 911 calls and identified the voice crying for help as Trayvon Martin's voice.
Talkleft was not impressed with this affidavit.
The only support for its belief the voice crying for help was Trayvon's is his mother's identification. There's no reference to Zimmerman's father or brother saying they believed the voice was Zimmerman's, or that the officer at the scene overheard Zimmerman say he cried out for help.
246: Hence the reason for putting about the story that the prosecutor's office told them there was no case, but then the prosecutor specifically and vociferously denies having done so. So either it's a bungle and subsequent CYA by the prosecutors, or by Sanford PD. Either is strictly-speaking possible, but which one is likelier?
And even if Sanford PD really were consulting with the prosecutors before laying a charge (this sounds farfetched to me but IANAC) the question becomes how likely such a consultation would really have been had the roles been reversed, with say Trayvon Martin being the party who had pursued a guy and then shot him dead. I suspect the answer would be: not bloody likely.
I didn't hear the story that TM's voice crying for help was identified with any degree of "certainty," only that witnesses described having heard a boy's voice crying out for help and were subsequently instructed by the police it must have been Zimmerman they heard. That in itself is not conclusive or "certain" of course: just really, really suspicious.
Kinda on-topic:
One of Twitter's trending topics right now is the unforgivably racist "PeroAlMenosNoSoyNegro." ("But at least I'm not black.")
Who selects these things, a human or a machine? Where can I complain?
I don't know how authoritative this guy is, but there's this: http://bit.ly/HyaGNB
I replaced the link with the shortened version because it was absurdly long, but it's two forensic consultants contacted by the Orlando Sentinel who say it's not Zimmerman screaming on the tape.
260: Most likely it's just a machine count of the tags over some period. No humans need be involved.
Huh, this is baseless speculationinteresting -- Cuomo and Lee also both got divorced in the same year.
This game needs an official name. Something like The Ludlum Technicality. I submit that other things being equal an entry is the more Ludlumesque if it has at least four syllables in the second word and also if that word has a non-mathematical meaning that could be relevant to strategy or intrigue. So e.g. The Fourier Transform (otherwise good) satisfies the second criterion but not the first, while The Alexandrov Topology satisfies the first but probably not the second.
This leaves, e.g.: The Poincaré Duality, The Euler Characteristic and The Delauney Triangulation.
Borderline: The Gelfand Representation.
The Fredholm Alternative still wins.
90
... I don't believe Zimmerman's story, ...
So what do you think happened?
The problem for the prosecution is that they need to provide a reason for Zimmerman to shoot Martin that isn't self-defense (or close enough to self-defense that it is hard to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn't self-defense).
266: The second word doesn't really need multiple syllables, I think: just the vaguely suggestive relevance to science, religion, strategy or intrigue. Particularly the latter two. And the first term should be vaguely suggestive of Something Typically Western-Civilizationesque. (Hence: The Bourne Identity / Supremacy; The Apocalypse Watch; The Holcroft Covenant; The Parsifal Mosaic; The Aquitaine Progression; The Matarese Countdown; The Prometheus Deception.)
I'd suggest: The Huntington Paradigm. The Goldberg Equation. The Santorum Conspiracy. The Merovingian Gambit. & c.
Or more relevant: The Wolfinger Denial.
267: It's not a problem for the prosecution to provide motive for Zimmerman. His motives are recorded and explicit, and of a piece with his established patterns of behaviour.
Hence the reason for putting about the story that the prosecutor's office told them there was no case, but then the prosecutor specifically and vociferously denies having done so. So either it's a bungle and subsequent CYA by the prosecutors, or by Sanford PD. Either is strictly-speaking possible, but which one is likelier?
Hard to know for sure without access to the actual reports and other paperwork. If it was me I'd be inclined to submit a screening packet and make them fail to file the charge on record so I'd be in the clear. Consulting with the DA's AFAICT isn't uncommon on stuff like murders.
They don't need a motive for something like manslaughter, just negligence and a body. You know, like observing a kid not committing any crimes and then following him in your car and then chasing him with your gun into someone's yard before shooting him.
272: If it was me I'd be inclined to submit a screening packet and make them fail to file the charge on record
Intriguing, and what would a "screening packet" in a case like this one normally contain?
||
Why are my internets moving so slooooooooooooooow.
|>
"Screening a charge" is what it's called out here, everywhere has something similar. Basically it's the PD's report and PC submitted to the DA or prosecutor's office formally requesting the charges.
For example, I was the intitial officer on this stabbing. I find the victim on scene at the dive motel parking lot with a large laceration to his gut deep enough that he's got some bulge thingy going on like he's about to spill some intestines. He says "Juan" in one of the rooms cut him with a blue handled box cutter style folding blade. Myself and a couple buddies pull a couple people out of the room at gunpoint and "Juan" has a boxcutter matching the victim's description still in his pocket and the other occupant of the room confirms the victim's account of the stabbing. Juan gets booked into jail on second degree agg assault causing a serious injury, I book the box cutter as evidence, and write a report that goes to the detective's queue.
Detective gets the report in the morning, confirms the extent of victim's injuries at the hospital, etc. and submits that screening packet that's essentially "here's what we've got and what we're requesting for the charge" to the DA's office. But what gets actually charged is still up to the DA. They might look at the report and state that in their opinion we don't have PC for agg assault and they're not charging anything, or they might say no actual guts spilled out of the wound and therefore the wound doesn't merit the legal designation as a serious injury and therefore they're filing a third degree agg assault charge rather than a second degree. Or they could come back with they want additional info from the witness before they file, etc.
Every profession has its idiots and sometimes they refuse to file on something that appears to very straightforwardly adhere to the criminal code. They likewise have their stories of arrests and requests for charges that aren't within a country mile of probable cause.
268: Y'know, I was going with The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy and didn't even Google to see whether Ludlum's own titles satisfy my criteria. Huh. Never read any of 'em, myself. I could try to argue that there are some Ludlum titles wherein Ludluminescence is less fully expressed than in others, but I won't. You're right. (So stet to The Fourier Transform.)
(Your point about the Western Civilization thing is right too, of course, if you're playing a non-mathematical version of the game, but I was thinking of the version TJ introduced, where the titles have to be real mathematical phrases.)
Every time I look at the phrase "The Zimmerman Arrest", I imagine some scenario where everyone's asking why Bob Dylan would want to go and do something like that.
Whereas I keep thinking they've intercepted a telegram from the German government and are about to get involved in another war.
The best Ludlum title was one I saw somewhere where people were doing classics of literature: The Elsinore Vacillation.
It's reported that 2 voice ID experts have analyzed a copy of the 911 tape and concluded that the voice calling for help was not Zimmerman's (no conclusion one way or the other on whether it was Martin's).
That's what I saw -- not an identification as Martin, but an identification as not-Zimmerman. But I don't know how reliable that sort of thing is.
Oh, and TV Tropes is all over silly Ludlum-esque titles.
Speaking of that recording of the call, I listened to it a few more time last night (disturbing to listen to and somewhat disturbing that I chose to do so again*, but that's another topic). Two observations:
1) It would seem to indicate that the phone call with Martin's girlfriend ended a fair bit of time before the actual shot**. It occurs over 40 seconds in, and there is intermittent screaming the whole time up to that (a long time), plus the woman who calls is initially reporting screaming so time enough for her to make the call and initiate the conversation. The accounts of the call with the girlfriend have it ending shortly after the "Why are you following me?"/"What are you doing here?" exchange (repeated twice or am I misremembering?) when the phone apparently was dropped during a scuffle.
2) I was trying to see if the gun shot literally ended the screaming and although there is no screaming after the (2nd?) shot and it extends up pretty close to it, it is unclear whether it literally gets cut off mid-yell.
*This call is the 3rd call down the sidebar here.
**This is the tape where there certainly seems to be two shots (one maybe 20 seconds earlier). It could be something else, and the woman on the phone reports it as one (after the "2nd"), so the other bang could have been something else but I don't know what (maybe just a reminder for us in our armchairs that we don;t really know shit).
283: TV Tropes has developed into a much greater thing than I ever might have thought. Nicely adds value beyond the constraints of Wikipedia.
Hence: The Bourne Identity / Supremacy; The Apocalypse Watch; The Holcroft Covenant; The Parsifal Mosaic; The Aquitaine Progression; The Matarese Countdown; The Prometheus Deception.
And of course, The DaVinci Code.
271
It's not a problem for the prosecution to provide motive for Zimmerman. His motives are recorded and explicit, and of a piece with his established patterns of behaviour.
He has an established pattern of shooting people for no reason at all? I don't think so.
273
They don't need a motive for something like manslaughter, just negligence and a body. ...
IANAL but I think second degree in Florida requires some sort of bad intent.
... You know, like observing a kid not committing any crimes and then following him in your car and then chasing him with your gun into someone's yard before shooting him.
So the prosecution theory will be having first called the cops and knowing they were on the way Zimmerman chased Martin down and shot Martin while he was begging for mercy? I expect the jury will be reluctant to buy that given a plausible alternative like Zimmerman's story.
IANAL but I think second degree in Florida requires some sort of bad intent.
Living in gated community in Florida isn't sufficient to establish this?
277.1: "The Rhinemann Exchange" and "The Matarese Circle" are good if you want to start reading him. Also "The Holcroft Covenant" is a very good Nazis-hiding-everywhere tale. But they do start to all sound the same after a while.
So the prosecution theory will be having first called the cops and knowing they were on the way Zimmerman chased Martin down and shot Martin while he was begging for mercy? I expect the jury will be reluctant to buy that given a plausible alternative like Zimmerman's story.
We know that Zimmerman followed Martin after the police specifically told him not to. From the tape of that conversation we can also infer that Zimmerman was in a belligerent confrontational frame of mind: "These assholes always get away" & etc.
"The Rhinemann Exchange" and "The Matarese Circle"
Going through the list of his books, these were the ones I picked out as the easiest to use for the converse game of turning his titles into mathematical theorems.
One other observation from the various 911 tapes that is just another tragic detail rather than being germane to anyone's story, is how quickly the police arrived on the scene after the shooting (almost certainly in response to Zimmerman's original call). It seems like almost literally within a minute or two (several calls have the person mentioning that the police are now there).
Also no really germane, but the gated community was not anything fancy, but rather just a bog standard middle-class townhome community (which are more likely to be gated in Florida than many other places in the States).
I just enjoy mocking Florida. I've only been there in August, which is probably not the time to go if you want to leave with a good impression.
I think "gated" doesn't necessarily mean it even has a physical gate, just that there is only one point of entry into the complex for vehicle traffic
What if there were two points of entry for vehicle traffice, but they both had gates?
291
We know that Zimmerman followed Martin after the police specifically told him not to. ...
Actually we don't. As I understand it the 911 dispatcher is a civilian with no authority to give orders (the comment was more in the nature of a suggestion in any case). And I haven't seen a timeline showing where this comment occurred in the sequence.
... From the tape of that conversation we can also infer that Zimmerman was in a belligerent confrontational frame of mind: "These assholes always get away" & etc.
So what is your theory? Zimmerman approached Martin, showed him his gun, let him a beg for a while and then deliberately shot him?
I think Zimmerman grabbed the kid and, at the least show of resistance from Martin, shot him in "self-defense" because he couldn't imagine anybody who wouldn't want to be stopped and searched by a stranger could be up to anything but theft.
a civilian with no authority to give orders
Yeah, no one should listen to people like that.
What about the witness who says he saw GZ straddling TM? That doesn't sound like GZs story that he was jumped from behind and having his head smashed.
What 299 said. They don't have to prove the Zimmerman followed Martin with express intention of shooting him in cold blood. My understanding is that they need to prove that he initiated a confrontation, did nothing to de-escalate it, and did not have cause to reasonably fear for his life.
300: I'd no advise putting almost zero stock in the various reports of what witnesses saw or did not before the shooting. A lot of conflicting information pushed by one side or the other.
I've been shoving bouillon cubes directly into the witnesses. They have their own water, so I don't have to carry as much liquid.
299
I think Zimmerman grabbed the kid and, at the least show of resistance from Martin, shot him in "self-defense" because he couldn't imagine anybody who wouldn't want to be stopped and searched by a stranger could be up to anything but theft.
So where does the screaming fit in? Do you believe Zimmerman had visible injuries?
300
What about the witness who says he saw GZ straddling TM? ...
Wasn't that after the shot?
People scream from time to time. As for the injuries, he looks to have had some but nothing near what would look like great bodily harm.
306- Yes, she says she heard the shot, ran to the porch, saw him straddling TM. That suggests GZ was in a superior position when he shot, not fearing for his life or on the ground unable to retreat as in LB's scenarios.
296
I think "gated" doesn't necessarily mean it even has a physical gate, just that there is only one point of entry into the complex for vehicle traffic
Apparently there are gates for vehicles but no fence. See here (via Ta-Nehisi Coates) for some interesting comments by a black couple who live in the community.
"It's a gated community, but you can walk in and steal whatever you want," Rashada's wife, Quianna, said.
They discussed the topic with Zimmerman when the watch captain knocked on their door late last year. Zimmerman seemed friendly, helpful, and a "pretty cool dude," Ibrahim Rashada said.
...
"I fit the stereotype he emailed around," he said. "Listen, you even hear me say it: 'A black guy did this. A black guy did that.' So I thought, 'Let me sit in the house. I don't want anyone chasing me.' "
308
... That suggests GZ was in a superior position when he shot, ...
So why did he shoot then? Still don't see what the prosecution scenario is exactly.
You guys seem pretty sure about Zimmerman being guilty but pretty vague about what actually happened.
This is getting a little ridiculous- you say there's no evidence to contradict his claim of self defense, people provide evidence (based on what's public) that contradicts it, and you say that evidence can't be true because it contradicts his story.
310: He shot an unarmed kid. There's nothing vague about that.
311: It's weird. It's almost like he's trolling, rather than arguing in good faith. But that goes against everything we know about Shearer. What a conundrum!
So why did he shoot then? Still don't see what the prosecution scenario is exactly.
That this is a guy who spent every waking minute hoping that he would encounter a criminal so that he could then best that criminal in physical combat? We don't need to presume that the suspect is a Homo economicus here. As with so many other non-white-collar crimes.
And of course, we don't need to care why he did it. Motive can be important in bringing a case to tell a story about what happened, but if you can show what happened, you don't need to get too involved in what the defendant was thinking beyond what you need for mens rea -- something along the lines that someone is presumed to intend the actions they take.
"The Weierstrass Substitution"
315
And of course, we don't need to care why he did it. Motive can be important in bringing a case to tell a story about what happened, but if you can show what happened, you don't need to get too involved in what the defendant was thinking beyond what you need for mens rea -- something along the lines that someone is presumed to intend the actions they take.
Of course you need to care why he did it, that is the crucial issue in a self-defense defense.
"The Weierstrass Substitution"
This is up there with The Fredholm Alternative.
the converse game of turning his titles into mathematical theorems
Amazingly, from the list of titles on Wikipedia, there's already a mathematical fact an honest-to-goodness name of which can be derived from actual Ludlum titles (if you allow mixing-and-matching and variant spelling). Boys and girls, we have: The Parseval Identity.
The Heywood Condition
The Poisson Distribution
The Cronbach Alpha
La la la la sifu takin stats sifu takin stats
The Secrets of Analysis Revealed
Tinker Tailor Cochran Mantel Haenszel
The Continuum Hypothesis
The Markov Chain
The Abelian Variety
The Weighted Residual
The Eisenstein Criterion
The Unknot
Method of Descent
La la la la sifu takin stats sifu takin stats
317: No, for self defense you mostly only need to worry about what a reasonable person in his shoes would have been afraid of. If you know enough about the situation to know what information he had, you don't need to have a theory about what he thought or why he did what he did. Just that he did something a reasonable person wouldn't have done in self defense, and that he presumably meant to do it.
There's probably a Florida downweighting of "reasonable", but still.
332
... If you know enough about the situation to know what information he had, you don't need to have a theory about what he thought or why he did what he did. ...
But we don't know enough about the situation. The problem for the prosecution is to exclude beyond a reasonable doubt all scenarios where Zimmerman could lawfully shoot in self-defense. In the self-defense scenarios it is easy to understand why Zimmerman shot. If in alternate prosecution scenarios it is not easy to understand why Zimmerman shot then the jury will tend to discount them as less likely. Naturally the same is true of Martin, scenarios that have Martin behaving in an inexplicable way will be discounted. People do sometimes behave bizarrely of course so if we had high quality evidence of exactly what happened motivation would not matter so much but in this case we don't have that so motivation does matter.
Well, what we know now ans what goes before the jury are different.
The big piece of evidence that looks likely to settle it to me is the tape of someone yelling for help. If it's not Zimmerman, and Zimmerman lied and says it was, that looks to me like it's very unlikely that Martin had Zimmerman down on the ground pummeling him. And I can't see any other version of the facts that would put Zimmerman in reasonable fear of serious injury. At that point, I don't think a jury needs to concern itself with exactly why he shot, just that a reasonable person in his shoes wouldn't have feared serious injury from an unarmed opponent.
If in alternate prosecution scenarios it is not easy to understand why Zimmerman shot then the jury will tend to discount them as less likely.
The scenario that comes to mind is one in which Zimmerman, assuming that Martin is a bad guy, unreasonably believes that he was in danger from Martin (e.g. Martin is reaching for the juice bottle in his pocket and Zimmerman believes that it is a gun) and shoots him.
@334
I'm not sure that the jury would have such a hard time buying a scenario in which Zimmerman's behavior is "inexplicable".
There's already a pretty clear record of him behaving strangely in the events leading up to the confrontation, e.g. normal people don't generally stalk complete strangers with a gun.
Late, but for the E.E.s: The Schmitt Trigger
Some clearly presented and convincing analysis of the "Help" tape would be the deciding factor for me in convicting Z. If he lied about that I'd figure he's lying about the rest.
That said, I'd be inclined to find him guilty just because he got out of his SUV and followed T.M. after calling 911. A semi-reasonable person (me) packing a gun (daily) would have read up on the applicable self-defense laws and cases and not done anything that would jeopardize use of that defense.
packing a gun (daily)
Seriously? What for? No particular judgment here, from talking to you for a couple of years I trust you not to go shooting people for no reason, but what on earth good does it do you?
335
The big piece of evidence that looks likely to settle it to me is the tape of someone yelling for help. If it's not Zimmerman, and Zimmerman lied and says it was, that looks to me like it's very unlikely that Martin had Zimmerman down on the ground pummeling him. ...
I think the odds are it was Zimmerman. If it wasn't and the prosecution can prove it, that would be helpful to their cause to say the least.
336
The scenario that comes to mind is one in which Zimmerman, assuming that Martin is a bad guy, unreasonably believes that he was in danger from Martin (e.g. Martin is reaching for the juice bottle in his pocket and Zimmerman believes that it is a gun) and shoots him.
This scenario does not account for the prolonged screaming.
"Help! Help! I'm about to ruin my life by shooting an unarmed kid! Somebody stop me!"
Yeah, that's the way I'd bet, too.
Seriously? What for?
The biohazards in question are cloned dinosaurs.
338
Some clearly presented and convincing analysis of the "Help" tape would be the deciding factor for me in convicting Z. If he lied about that I'd figure he's lying about the rest.
And if the evidence shows it was Zimmerman?
The 2 voice analysts in that newspaper article sounded pretty confident about ruling out Zimmerman, even though they were noncommittal about positively identifying the voice as Martin.
337
There's already a pretty clear record of him behaving strangely in the events leading up to the confrontation, e.g. normal people don't generally stalk complete strangers with a gun.
So what's the over/under on the number of jurors who carry a gun?
This scenario does not account for the prolonged screaming.
Why not? There's screaming during fighting that starts when Martin is reaching for his drink. Each believes that the other is a threat, unreasonably in Zimmerman's case, but it doesn't occur to either of them that there's been a misunderstanding, so nothing is said to clarify the situation. I'm not saying this is what happened, of course.
345
The 2 voice analysts in that newspaper article sounded pretty confident about ruling out Zimmerman, even though they were noncommittal about positively identifying the voice as Martin.
Other experts say they are crazy and that you can't identify screams. There is reportedly a witness who told the police that he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman with Zimmerman screaming for help.
345: I think they were noncommittal about identifying TM because they have no sample with which to compare 911 tape.
347
Why not? There's screaming during fighting that starts when Martin is reaching for his drink. Each believes that the other is a threat, unreasonably in Zimmerman's case, but it doesn't occur to either of them that there's been a misunderstanding, so nothing is said to clarify the situation. I'm not saying this is what happened, of course.
This is different from your first scenario which had Zimmerman shooting Martin immediately.
btw in this scenario Martin isn't beating up Zimmerman - let's say that he would stop struggling if Zimmerman would just stop grappling with him. So Zimmerman isn't defending himself from fists either, and knows it. It's just that he thinks Martin has a gun.
@346
My point in 337 was partially addressing what I take to be your point upthread: that a jury will balk at a scenario in which Zimmerman shoots Martin without being attacked, presumably because they will consider it too weird/implausible a thing for some one to do.
But putting together Zimmerman's statements on the 911 tape ("These assholes always get away" & etc.), his record of constantly calling the police, his altercation with his neighbors; it all suggests that Zimmerman is just a pretty weird guy.
If I were on a jury and all that was presented to me, it would make me adjust my expectations of what Zimmerman might plausibly do.
This is different from your first scenario which had Zimmerman shooting Martin immediately.
Actually, I didn't have a clear picture in my mind which of those scenarios it was. But fine, let's say I've changed the scenario.
NPR played a clip of a woman at an NRA meeting saying that "if she was single" and she felt threatened by someone, she should be allowed to shoot that person without having to go to court to explain herself.
The full story isn't on the website yet.
339: Later, 'cause I have to get ready to go to the range with my kid for some practice (really). And probably not here; I'm not interested in an exchange of insults with the usual hoplophobes.
it would make me adjust my expectations of what Zimmerman might plausibly do.
I think this is important (and an important part of the prosecutor's job). Obviously, no matter what GZ's deal, people would have wanted him examined in a little more detail than it appears he was, but what made this a cause celebrate, IMO, was that GZ comes across as a nutjob, and so it made it seem really likely that he is/was a zealot who'd act unreasonably.
IOW, you only need to change a few of the facts to make GZ seem plausibly innocent (or at least guilty of no more than some mild version of manslaughter*), but the key change you need to make is having GZ not be a nutjob. If he's a properly trained neighborhood watch guy who never calls the cops unnecessarily (i.e., non-nutjob), then the only other change in facts you need is to make his following of TM less stalkerish - "I see a guy who looks suspicious, I"m gonna ask if he lives around here." That's a situation in which the jury, and the public, would be willing to buy that TM freaked out and scared GZ, who overreacted in fear.
But most people aren't seeing that because GZ is evidently a nutjob. When a nutjob finds himself in an ugly situation, we tend to blame the him, not bad luck or the other actors.
* I know there's harsher versions of manslaughter - depraved indifference, I think? - so I'm inferring that there's a version where he's punished, but pretty mildly
355: Some of my best friends are hoplos.
a woman at an NRA meeting saying that "if she was single" and she felt threatened by someone, she should be allowed to shoot that person without having to go to court to explain herself.
"So I was saying at lunch that there were no good men left available, and this bitchy girl from accounts said, 'well maybe you should take better care of yourself', and I felt really threatened and...
351
btw in this scenario Martin isn't beating up Zimmerman - let's say that he would stop struggling if Zimmerman would just stop grappling with him. So Zimmerman isn't defending himself from fists either, and knows it. It's just that he thinks Martin has a gun.
This is a dangerous scenario for the prosecution as the jury could conclude Zimmerman's belief was reasonable.
340: I think the odds are it was Zimmerman.
James, have you listened to the tape with the screaming and gunshot on it? It certainly is not dispositive, but was just wondering.
352
... his altercation with his neighbors; ...
I missed this, what is it referring to?
... it all suggests that Zimmerman is just a pretty weird guy.
I think the courts are properly reluctant to admit evidence that a defendant is weird.
360
James, have you listened to the tape with the screaming and gunshot on it? It certainly is not dispositive, but was just wondering.
I haven't listened to any of the tapes. Is this the tape that people were sure had two gunshots on it?
I was in the post office and saw some jag in suburban dad wear (khakis and polo shirt) wearing a very unconcealed handgun. There's no reason at all to go around armed in this tiny crime-free village except that it's legal and one can. BUT NOT IN THE FUCKING POST OFFICE. I basically had to run out the door to keep myself from reporting him, but pissing off gun nuts is probably unwise.
Yes. There is one pretty certain gunshot, and second loud bang earlier. Third tape in the sidebar in my link in 284.
I think the courts are properly reluctant to admit evidence that a defendant is weird.
I defer to the lawyers on this of course, but I was under the impression the prior behavior is admissible if you can convince the judge that it's relevant to the crime.
Zimmerman's Dirty Harry complex certainly seems relevant here.
... the jury could conclude Zimmerman's belief was reasonable
This seems to me the crux in everything the right has been throwing at this case: that murderous racist panic is reasonable. And if reasonable at the point when Martin was shot, how is it not reasonable all the way back down the line of Zimmerman's behaviour.
that murderous racist panic is reasonable.
Not just reasonable, but a positive good that protects peoples' car stereos and shit.
366
This seems to me the crux in everything the right has been throwing at this case: that murderous racist panic is reasonable. And if reasonable at the point when Martin was shot, how is it not reasonable all the way back down the line of Zimmerman's behaviour.
A jury aquitted the officers who shot Diallo.
Zimmerman is only an officer in his own head.
366
... racist panic ...
LB in 145
This one, I don't get your thinking at all -- Zimmerman was following and confronting Martin. Beating up Zimmerman would have been ill-advised, and probably wrong, but in Martin's shoes I would have wanted to, and I'm not a seventeen-year-old boy, a notoriously violent and impulsive age and gender.
So perhaps it was a sexist or ageist panic.
369
Zimmerman is only an officer in his own head.
This is relevant how? It seems to me if anything that cops should be held to a higher standard not a lower one.
This is relevant how? It seems to me if anything that cops should be held to a higher standard not a lower one.
But cops are also given special license to use force. We supposedly don't go in for vigilante policing in this country.
Google offers two definitions for hoplophobia--"fear of weapons" and "fear of armed citizens." One Google accuses hoplophobes of not recognizing "that there is a living, breathing human being in possession of the inanimate object."
Actually, it is precisely the human being in possession of the gun that scares me. As Zimmerman illustrates, these dirty harry wanna bees are bombs waiting to go off.
Leaving aside how fucked-up the response was with Diallo, the police have to confront people to do their job. There are situations under which it is legal for a police officer to ask you to show your hands or otherwise determine if you have a weapon or are liable for arrest.
This confrontation was entirely at Zimmerman's initiative and there are no circumstances short of actually witnessing a crime in progress under which he would have been justified trying to determine if the Martin was armed. His entire defense will depend on getting people to forget this.
His entire defense will depend on getting people to forget this.
Or on finding one racist on the jury.
Surely a certain amount of fear of weapons and those wielding them is a good idea. A "healthy fear," one might say.
372
But cops are also given special license to use force. We supposedly don't go in for vigilante policing in this country.
The whole rational between Florida's stand your ground and similar laws (which I do not support) is to encourage vigilante policing.
They've been careful never to say "encourage vigilante" out loud.
Not sure what the Diallo case says against my point: that sometimes juries come to very obviously very bad conclusions, particularly when faced with police riots and crimes?
As to the "sexist/ageist" argument, yes, of course the locus of "reasonable behaviour" is exactly what's being contested. Is an unarmed young black man entitled to defend himself when faced with what he (reasonably) imagines is an armed racist vigilante lunatic? Shearer argues no, of course he isn't. The American right agree with him: anti-black racism is always reasonable. This is the lynch-law ruling they wish to be generally established. The fact that the wish can be so publicly stated and widely supported is exactly what makes Trayvon Martin's attempt to protect his own life reasonable. (If futile, and ill-advised...)
We don't, of course, know the details of the story. Zimmerman's extreme oddness of behaviour since suggests to me he's not that bright; and has a hero complex that has smashed up hard against the realities he set in train and enacted on an innocent passerby. Much of this behaviour won't form part of the trial -- and nor should it. But I don't think anyone can count on it to vanish tidily, and not re-emerge to contribute to his downfall.
374
This confrontation was entirely at Zimmerman's initiative and there are no circumstances short of actually witnessing a crime in progress under which he would have been justified trying to determine if the Martin was armed. His entire defense will depend on getting people to forget this.
We don't know the confrontation was entirely Zimmerman's doing. And Zimmerman is entitled to be wary of being shot which means among other things being alert to clues that someone is armed.
To be clear I think civilians should have a duty to stay out of violent confrontations when reasonably possible but Florida has decided otherwise.
Certainly hoplophobia makes more sense than homophobia. A person with a gun can kill you. A gay person can make you feel like a slob who doesn't spend enough time at the gym.
I said initiative, not doing. He started the ball rolling. There's no disputing that.
380
Not sure what the Diallo case says against my point: that sometimes juries come to very obviously very bad conclusions, particularly when faced with police riots and crimes?
If we are speculating about what the prosecution needs to convince a jury looking at previous jury decisions seems relevant.
... Is an unarmed young black man entitled to defend himself when faced with what he (reasonably) imagines is an armed racist vigilante lunatic? Shearer argues no, of course he isn't. ...
I have not argued any such thing. The problem with laws like Florida's (which I have repeatedly said I oppose) is they can allow both parties in a violent confrontation to claim self-defense. Hence the "shoot first law" characterization.
356: depraved indifference satisfies the intent requirement for murder.
383
I said initiative, not doing. He started the ball rolling. There's no disputing that.
Maybe not but it seems completely irrelevant under Florida law. And it is not clear who initiated the use of force.
(I can't stick around, but a few last responses.)
the jury could conclude Zimmerman's belief was reasonable.
I'm sure they could. Nothing of this sort surprises me any more. But I don't think they'd be correct to conclude that.
This seems to me the crux in everything the right has been throwing at this case: that murderous racist panic is reasonable.
Relatedly, it's one to think, as Derbyshire does, that it would be reasonable to respond to individuals differently in situations where you have limited information, based on the race of the people you're responding to. That's bad enough. What would be truly amazing is the idea that such discrimination can be warranted even when it involves killing people. Yet I would not be at all surprised if a lot of right-wingers would argue that the jury should acquit in the scenario outlined, on the implicit grounds that everyone knows that a black kid in hoodie would be more likely to shoot you than a white kid in a hoodie would be.
This is relevant how?
It seems to me that a cop responding to a call has at least some reason to fear that someone might shoot him or her to avoid arrest. Whereas if Zimmerman thought he was being threatened with a gun, it's a thought that would not have arisen but for the prior assumption that Martin was a suspicious character.
Not that I liked the Diallo verdict.
Yet I would not be at all surprised if a lot of right-wingers would argue that the jury should acquit in the scenario outlined, on the implicit grounds that everyone knows that a black kid in hoodie would be more likely to shoot you than a white kid in a hoodie would be.
Thing is, even if you accept the premise that young black men are more likely to be involved in violent crime than other groups, it doesn't imply that any random black person is likely to be involved in violent crime.
F can correlate with G, even though a very tiny proportion of Fs are G. As long as that proportion is higher than the proportion of non-Fs that are G, you can say that Fs are more likely to G.
Even I know this, and I haven't taken a stats course like Tweety's.
Only just listened to the Zimmerman call at the link in 284. He says that Martin "is carrying something", or words to that effect, in a way that sounds like he might suspect that Martin is armed.
F can correlate with G, even though a very tiny proportion of Fs are G.
But on certain weekends all F's are G's. Check your friendly MTA site for more details.
387
Relatedly, it's one to think, as Derbyshire does, that it would be reasonable to respond to individuals differently in situations where you have limited information, based on the race of the people you're responding to. That's bad enough. ...
Do you oppose all statistical inferences or just those based on race?
389: I hope I made it clear that I'm talking about right-wing perceptions rather than reality here.
393: You did make it clear. I don't think anyone here was making this mistake. Derbyshire makes it, and as someone who writes on math, he should know better.
Somewhat related: About six or seven years ago I was talking with a guy working in a local wine store. He and his wife had recently moved here from LA, and were living in my neighbourhood (low crime levels and still largely black back then). His wife had a Wall Street job and often worked late. He was saying how afraid he was for her safety when she walked home from the subway. I asked about her commute back in LA, and he said it was about a forty-five minute drive. To which I responded that I was pretty damn sure that her risk of death or serious injury from crime on her late night walk home was quite a bit lower than the risk of same from accidents back in her LA commute. (There's several muggings each week here, but ones that result in serious injury are extremely rare). I'm still pretty damn certain about that. In fact, I'm pretty sure that even if they had lived in a higher crime area, say a half dozen blocks to the east, this still would have been true. Perhaps 'the talk' should be that you should never, ever put yourself in a situation where you have to commute by car.
It seems to me that a cop responding to a call has at least some reason to fear that someone might shoot him or her to avoid arrest.
And even so there's a very clear two prong test in Terry for me to even be able to pat someone down for weapons. First, the stop has to meet reasonable suspicion of a crime being or about to be committed. Zimmerman doesn't meet that level in that 911 call. Walking down the sidewalk looking at houses is what everyone does when they take a walk. I don't hear any articulation of something like TM going onto people's property and looking in garages, or vehicles, etc. Second, once the stop has been made I again have to meet a reasonable suspicion standard for a status of armed and dangerous. Say the person is a known gang member, or is displaying behavior consistent with casing a place for an imminent robbery, or something else of that nature that would allow me to articulate a frisk.
392: At p less than what is it fine for a grown man to scare himself to the point that he shoots an unarmed teenager?
I think that intuitive statistical inferences about low probability events (especially those involving safety) are systematically irrational. We're not talking bout a perfect bayesian reasoner, we're talking about actual people.
(This is totally separate from the fact that I consider it immoral to make statistical inferences based on race.)
394: Thank you for reassuring me!
392: I intended the bit you quoted to be about discrimination ("how it would be reasonable to respond") rather than statistical inference ("what it would be reasonable to believe about probabilities.") The former has a normative component that the latter doesn't. On the issue of statistical inferences about race, I'm fine with them as long as you get them right.
(Sorry to have to run off now.)
400
(This is totally separate from the fact that I consider it immoral to make statistical inferences based on race.)
How about those based on age or sex?
Suppose statistically blacks outperformed (in college) their SAT scores by about 10 points. Would it be immoral for colleges to adjust for this?
Depends on context, sometimes ok, sometimes not ok. It's rare that you really want to make statistical inferences with respect to people, when you could just find out in that case. I think making statistical inferences based on ethnicity or culture (as opposed to "race" which is mostly a silly category anyway) is also sometimes ok.
It is never immoral to draw a valid inference.
I submit that 400 is impossible. It might be the case for African Americans or other cultural and ethnic groups, but "black" is not a meaningful category.
Not that it's impossible in theory. As SJG says, human equality is a contingent fact of history.
404
I submit that 400 is impossible. It might be the case for African Americans or other cultural and ethnic groups, but "black" is not a meaningful category.
Black and African American mean the same thing in this context, I just haven't kept up with the most politically correct terminology.
399
392: I intended the bit you quoted to be about discrimination ("how it would be reasonable to respond") rather than statistical inference ("what it would be reasonable to believe about probabilities.") The former has a normative component that the latter doesn't. On the issue of statistical inferences about race, I'm fine with them as long as you get them right.
The distinction here is unclear to me. If you reasonably believe A is likely to be a better employee than B is it wrong to hire A rather than B?
Or "Black American." Whatever, I mean the cultural and ethnic group americans who were raised by people raised by people raised by slaves. As opposed to say Panamanians.
At any rate, presumably any such affect would have a more proximate cause, like say spoke a nonstandard dialect in the home, or had parents who didn't go to college, or something. It'd be better to correct for that. At any rate, one way or another the test writers fucked up, and I can't really fault people if they use their best proxy for what the test makers fucked up.
409
... At any rate, one way or another the test writers fucked up, ...
This does not follow. It could be that blacks have on average slightly inferior pre-college educational opportunities compared to whites meaning it is slightly more impressive for a black to achieve a given score. The same possibility exists in reverse for students who went to fancy prep schools.
In reality IIRC blacks slightly underperform their test scores in college. This is not necessarily the fault of the tests either as it could be due to regression to the mean.
If I ever meet teraz at a meetup and hug him, it will be for 395.
Some perspectives on the Zimmerman indictment:
http://www.theagitator.com/2012/04/16/the-zimmerman-indictment-reactions/
Maybe worth a new post?
I saw that, and realized that I had somewhere inbetween a weak or no grasp of the difference between second-degree murder and manslaughter: I looked at the statute but the distinction didn't click for me.
Here are links to the statutes. What it seems to come down to, assuming it wasn't justified by self defense, is whether Zimmerman's acts count as "evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life". And I have no idea what you have to show to show that his mind was depraved and regardless of human life. I understand premeditation, which is what you need for first degree murder. But I don't know depraved mind at all.
But I don't know depraved mind at all.
Good thing we have apo here to provide his expertise.
I don't really want to get back into it, but I've pretty much never found that woman from Talk Left to be a reliable source on just about anything.
417: Yes, Merritt's interest in this case, after the direction she took in the 2008 primary is suggestive.
If I understand the implication in 418, I think it's unwarranted. Merritt seems often unreliable to me too, but I'd attribute this to knee-jerk pro-defendant prejudice rather than necessarily racism. I can sympathize with knee-jerk pro-defendantism even if I don't share it in the specific case.
417: She lies. I'll flatly say that. In one case, she wrote on her blog on the conversation she supposedly had with a certain politician in the green room of some chat show. Now, it turns out that I know the family, have stayed in their home for days and days and eaten at their dinner table and dated one of their sons. She had a whole tale of nonsense about what the politician told her about zir sons, their ages, etc. It was top to bottom untrue. Now, everyone can make a mistake or not pay attention. So I point out that she must have misheard since I knew the family. She doubled down and tried to bully me. It was completely bizarre. She clearly had made shit up based on Wikipedia, where a certain biographical fact would make one think what she thought, but is still wrong.
In another case, she was drumming up hysteria about something Obama said in a campaign speech. It was something like, "Obama says gays are second-class citizens!" and if you looked at the transcript, he said, "Some terrible people insist gays are second-class citizens." Someone pointed this out and she again doubled-down and said, "Exactly! He says gays are second-class citizens." She's unhinged.
419: But LB is right about this! She is super-duper pro-defendant always (nothing wrong with that!) and wants to publish rape victims' names, among other things that make some liberals nervous.
Fair enough. I'll settle for unhinged.
TalkLeft explicitly says it is about pro-criminal defendant's rights.
She is usually fairly good about pointing out that there might be lots of facts that are not out in the public realm in a particular case.
The reaction to the Indictment is from a number of other sources as well.
Are you taking dating advice from The Atlantic again?
wants to publish rape victims' names
She is fairly explicitly against shaming people.
I believe that what she has said is that it isnt fair to have a "perp walk" based on allegations. Then, if it is appropriate to trash a defendant's name in the press before there is a conviction, then accusers should not be shielded.
Once again, given the huge advantages that prosecutors have in almost every area, I am happy that there are blogs like Talk Left out there.
I believe that what she has said is that it isnt fair to have a "perp walk" based on allegations. Then, if it is appropriate to trash a defendant's name in the press before there is a conviction, then accusers should not be shielded.
Well that first point ought to go without saying. But it is not appropriate to trash a defendant's name in the press before there is a conviction, ergo accusers should be shielded.
In many countries it is illegal to publish the full last names of defendants, and they can only be identified by initials or first name plus initial. You can publish the full names before they are formally charged, a sequence of headlines can be: Hotel Worker Accuses Kobe Bryant of Rape; KB Charged by Authorities in Rape Case; Charges Dropped in Kobe Bryant Case.
I'm surprised the people at The Agonist are leaning so heavily on the notion that we should be disappointed that the prosecutor is caving to public pressure. What are some other reasons a prosecutor could choose to do something slightly outside their routine?
- Lust for vengeance
- Prejudice
- Political grandstanding
- Desire to placate some politically powerful person who wants vengeance
- Desire to placate some small aggrieved lobby
- Desire to placate the victim's telegenic family
I think "Desire to placate hundreds of thousands of ordinary outraged citizens" is not so bad.
423: I read the criticism of the indictment, and it all looks like something I don't have the criminal procedure knowledge, much less the FL specific criminal procedure knowledge, to evaluate. Did any of the criticism quote or link to any standard of what has to be in the charging affidavit that they say is missing? I mean, the charging affidavit could be all screwy, but I really don't know what standard to hold it to.
Right, that was my issue as well. The point seemed to be "hey, all similar affidavits are thin but this one is really really thin" which may be true, but wasn't really explained. Looked like enough to me -- and frankly I'd be surprised if there was often more -- but I am not a criminal lawyer at all and absolutely not a criminal lawyer in Florida.
But it is not appropriate to trash a defendant's name in the press before there is a conviction, ergo accusers should be shielded.
Yes. That is the point. Protect both or neither.
Exactly. And if charging affidavits are generally minimalist, reading tea leaves from it to figure out what the prosecution's trial strategy is going to be seems really premature.
435:
I dont disagree. But, as you and others have said, I didnt have any expertise to evaluate this issue.
FWIW, here's the affidavit. Definitely minimal, but that doesn't tell me anything (there is some boilerplate at the end saying that it's not the entire prosecution case.)
I mostly agree with Balko's thoughts:
"None of this is to say Zimmerman didn't commit a crime. I still really have no idea. But what's happened in the last couple weeks doesn't feel like justice. It feels like a railroading. It's remarkable how many items have been wrongly reported about the case thus far, and nearly all of the false reports were damaging to Zimmerman. (There are a few exceptions involving right-wing sites posting allegedly incriminating photos of Martin that turned out to have been faked or Photoshopped.) Zimmerman's size relative to Martin was exaggerated, the racial slur he uttered is now discounted even by Corey, and his apparent unsolicited reference to Martin's race in a 911 call turns out to have been selectively edited. There are other examples. This to me suggests a media and commentariat that very much wants there to be a crime here, not a media and commentariat in search of the truth.
There does seem to be a rift forming between people who practice criminal law (and as far as I know, all the people cited above lean left or libertarian in their politics) and the mostly progressive commentators who are cheering on the indictment. That speaks well of the criminal law crowd. It doesn't speak well of the others.
The anger and outrage about how black people are treated in the criminal justice system is well-founded, well-supported, and consistent with my own experience reporting on these issues (although I think the common denominator is increasingly more poor than black)."
If there were any possibility that Zimmerman would have been charged without all of this, I might give a shit about that concern.
As you know, I teach the legal portion of a concealed handgun class. Most of the class involves telling them not to shoot. Most of the people are not crazy gun nuts.
But...it is important to remember how quickly things can change. It could start out totally Zimmerman's fault, but then shift in a flash.
One second, you might have the legal ability to shoot. The next second, you do not.
This split-second change makes criminal cases extremely difficult.
Eh. The thing is, none of the things that had to be corrected had any influence on my thinking about the case. The 'coons' thing was doubtful from the beginning, the difference in weight seemed silly to me as well (that is, 5'9" 250 sounds like an out-of-shape fat guy, not someone who'd be particularly imposing in context. Cory Booker, at 6'4" 250, would be scary. At 5'9", I'd think Zimmerman would be scarier at 170 than at 250), and I never heard the edited version of the 911 call before I heard the correction. The key facts: Martin was unarmed and not doing anything but walking home with Skittles from the story; Zimmerman called 911 and started following him for no reason other than his appearance; Zimmerman killed Martin, are what got me outraged.
And I've been arguing all along that you're right, that it's going to be hard to rule out self-defense without evidence of what happened in the confrontation.
Oh, dont get me wrong. I dont have any sympathy for Zimmerman. None.
He went looking for someone with his gun. That is enough for me to justify his actions being examined under a microscope, and I have no sympathy for him whining about having to defend his actions.
He brought death into that situation.
His actions are against everything I tell my class.
Speaking very mildly here: it was my impression that the 2nd degree murder charge was leveled with the expectation that the whole thing would plead down to manslaughter anyway.
Am I wrong in thinking that prosecutors don't necessarily file the charges they think will prevail, but also file with an eye toward the impact such charges may have on the social discourse? That is, in the Trayvon Martin case, vigilantism and racial profiling are under scrutiny: good that they should be. There seems little doubt that Zimmerman was acting in a vigilante spirit. Walking through whether his behavior was problematic for the general welfare is, frankly, something I can't fault.
That does not, of course, mean that Zimmerman should be railroaded: I don't see any indication that he is.
Yeah, this is something where I think a coldblooded application of 'beyond a reasonable doubt' on self defense might easily get a not guilty verdict, depending on the specifics of the evidence. OTOH, it's also a case where, despite a general pro-defendant slant under a lot of circumstances, it wouldn't bother me one bit if the jury got it wrong.
445 to 443.
To 444 -- I'm pretty sure that charging 2d degree murder allows the jury to be instructed that they can bring in a verdict of manslaughter. Like I said above, though, I'm really not sure of what evidence the prosecution needs to cover that difference.
432, 433, 437: I would characterize the issue as it being thin plus it uses some sloppy/charged language ("instructed", "profiled"). I have less specific knowledge than lawyers from other jurisdictions, but when I first read it I was bit surprised at how it was worded ("profiled" in particular--but maybe there's a specific legal definition).
438 But what's happened in the last couple weeks doesn't feel like justice.
Perhaps Balko has alluded to this elsewhere, but it seems a little disingenuous to decry the outcry when the outcry is the only reason this case is being prosecuted at all.
In terms of the various clews being mis-reported or whatever: So what? "Unarmed Black teenager stalked and shot dead" should be an outrage no matter what the circumstances, assuming he's not Charles Manson, Jr. or something. The fact that, under most circumstances, "unarmed Black teenager stalked and shot dead" is not only not an outrage for most people, but that it is the very antithesis of a newsworthy story in the corporate media, is why we should be and are outraged.
"Profiled" doesn't seem particularly bad to me; it was a law enforcement term before racial profiling was something liberals got het up about. Under any version of the facts, Zimmerman looked at Martin, and something about what he saw made him call 911. What he saw wasn't the commission of a crime, it was something about Martin's non-criminal demeanor, characteristics, and actions. What Zimmerman did may or may not have been racial profiling, but it seems inarguably to have been some kind of profiling.
And the worst you can say about "instructed" is that the affidavit doesn't bend over backward to see it Zimmerman's way. "We don't need you to do that" sounds to me like a polite way of saying "Don't do that". If you listen to it literally, ignoring the conversational implicature, you could say that it's not an order not to follow Martin. But this is a prosecution document, and there's no obligation to describe the evidence in the way most favorable to Zimmerman.
but I am not a criminal lawyer at all and absolutely not a criminal lawyer in Florida.
Methinks someone is protesting his pseudonymity a bit too much.
The LA stuff is all a lie. If I had to, I'd guess Samuel Halpern.
Balko is never disingenuous. Never.
450: I have thought several times about "We don't need you to do that" in terms of some of our discussions on blunt, direct talking versus Midwestern veiled passive-aggressiveness. Direct most surely would have been better in the circumstances, but per both James Shearer and the Sanford PD, The call taker's suggestion is not a lawful order that Mr. Zimmerman would be required to follow. So maybe they are trained to use constructions like that.
BTW, I happen to be in Florida at the moment. Any data I should be gathering? People I should be following?
here was his prior post about the Martin case:
http://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/22/trayvon-martin/
I think it is clear that he falls into the "Let's have more outrage" camp. Bc there are a lot of cases where people get killed by cops that are outrageous.
JP Stormcrow:
See what Ozzie Guillen thinks about Castro.
People I should be following?
We don't need you to do that.
...something something .. mumble mumble... these assholes always get away with it .... something.
Zimmerman was apparently a Neighborhood Watch person: such persons are supposed to work in tandem and in conversation with the police (and are not to carry guns). Given that he wasn't actually deputized in any way, he wasn't contravening direct orders; but as a Neighbor Watch person, he might reasonably be expected to defer to police directions. The *context* of his presence and orientation in the neighborhood is relevant to the way he (should have) responded to police instruction.
"Should have" is slippery there. How he "should have" behaved throughout is not gone out with a loaded gun looking to hunt down criminals. But while any reasonable person "should have" followed the 911 operator's suggestion, and possibly the fact that he disregarded the suggestion says something about whether his mind was the right sort of 'depraved' to qualify for second degree murder, I'm pretty sure that having a 911 operator suggest a course of action to you doesn't impose any legal obligation of obedience.
No, no legal obligation, as I granted. It goes to his state of mind, however: I tire of hearing him described as a Neighborhood Watch captain, given that he did not behave in keeping with that.
But while any reasonable person "should have" followed the 911 operator's suggestion...
We were, during the setup of our "Halloween Vandalism Watch" back in dino days, explicitly told by the Pelham PD to not initiate any confrontations or attempt arrests, and so on. They weren't making suggestions, we were supposed to observe and report, and that's it. They didn't carve out any exceptions for black kids in hoodies.
The most I, crazed pistol-packing nut that I am, would have done, assuming I thought TM suspicious enough to report, would be to park at the entrance to the community, get out, smoke a Lucky, and wait for the cops.
Hey, Anders Breivik is on trial now, by the way.
417
I don't really want to get back into it, but I've pretty much never found that woman from Talk Left to be a reliable source on just about anything.
She was a more reliable source on the Duke case than a lot of lefties were.
456: See what Ozzie Guillen thinks about Castro.
Apparently he has personally apologized to the Cuban-born team announcer who says he's cool with it.
And it looks like the original judge in the Zimmerman case may step aside because her husband is a partner at a law firm which has been hired by CNN to provide analysis on the case.
I must say that while we were crumpling up newspaper to pad some shipping boxes and our attention kept being arrested by one "Florida" story after another:
Woman Who Stole From Scout Posts Bail.
Car Fleeing Sting Drags Cop Away.
Fatal Accident With Deputy Followed by Suicide.
and in shocking charter school news:
Lawsuit Says School Fakes Roster, Grades.
