Florida, where murder is legal

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Someone else made those terns up, I didn't.

Double tap is a phrase that originated in the military during their training (like most things gun-related). Again, it doesn't specifically refer to trying to "make sure" someone is dead, it literally means "delivering two shots in quick succession" (saying double tap is a lot faster when describing training drills).

We all know that taking a life, regardless of the situation surrounding it, is serious business. No one is trying to paint it as anything else. Stop sensationalizing for no reason.

Zimmerman's lawyer is now saying he will invoke SYG as part of his defense. The local prosecutor says he may get away with it.

One thing is certain, he does not want to go to prison. That would be very bad for him.

If I was his lawyer I would advise him to invoke SYG too. But will that hold up? Although the evidence points to him being on his back on the ground with Martin punching him when he shot, he could have just drawn his weapon without firing it to end the fight. If I was the prosecutor, I'd lean heavily on that. All the discussion earlier in the thread about double tap really just pertains to people who are either known to be or presumed to be armed (at least I think so- legal eagles correct me). Since this was a fistfight and Martin was punching and not using a weapon, how could he presume Martin was armed and couldn't be deterred by drawing but not shooting the gun?

Justified homicide is not murder. Florida law allows a person to shoot first if they feel threatened, and what can be more threatening than a young black male walking along at dusk or after dark?

The problem is it doesn't *have* to hold up. With the "immunity from prosecution" statute in effect, the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove, through the preponderance of the evidence, that it *doesn't* hold up (and this is *before* there is even a trial). That's not the way the legal system is "supposed" to work.

Let SYG stand as an affirmative defense, and make the defendant prove that he was acting in self defense.

That was the point. The irony is that, coming from someone who is an atheist, that is essentially a statement that the situation is utterly hopeless and irreparable, period. When murder is legal and life-saving drugs land people in prison, there is nothing remotely salvageable about a culture. Just nuke it.

No, the term you're looking for is coup de grace, which has more to do with movies and the mafia than any real life application.

He didn't have to presume Martin was armed, he needed only to be in reasonable fear for his life. I can rattle off a number of cases of justified self defense shootings where the individual who was shot was unarmed, though most of those cases involved some other disparity of force such as a much younger/stronger attacker than the victim, women shooting men, or multiple assailant situations.

The problem in this case is the lack of evidence, everything looks hinky as hell to all us outside observers, but without a witness or other evidence of what actually happened it's really hard to judge the situation accurately.

I'll give you a hypothetical situation in which the shooting could have been legally justified.

Zimmerman sees Martin and thinks he's shady for *whatever* reason, and unwisely follows him for a while. Martin "makes" Zimmerman following him, and rather than evading him chooses to loop back or hide and then attack him from ambush. Zimmerman, having been hit from behind and crushed to the pavement, manages to roll over while being pummeled, draw his gun and fire a single shot. Zimmerman did have a broken nose and stains on the back of his shirt indicating a struggle, and there is a witness who may support this theory http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/s ... n-03232012

If that was how it went down, and I'm far from claiming it was, the shoot itself might be perfectly legal and justified without SYG at all because a man being beaten on the ground doesn't have many retreat options available and would be rightfully fearing for their life, especially if their head hit the pavement with any force.

Whatever you may think of Zimmerman's actions in following Martin, following someone is not an attack on them, is not illegal, and does not entitle you to physically attack them. That should also put a fork in the ridiculous idea that Martin's mistake was not killing Zimmerman and claiming SYG, as not even the most tortuous interpretation covers an attack from ambush.

All that being said, what I see here is manslaughter, absent any further witnesses coming forward or some really dynamite forensics. Like more people should, I'm withholding judgment until the facts are more clear; going off half cocked isn't much good to anyone.

That's the holy grail of the less lethal weapons industry, and one that still sadly out of reach. The taser is about as close as we've currently got, and it's far from perfect on a number of levels. I'm also fairly disturbed at how quickly the taser has become a fix-all device for the cops rather than the alternative to lethal force it was designed and marketed to be. We've all seen the internet videos; taser in the back for disrespecting a cop, fat cop tasers girl in handcuffs rather than chase her (putting her into a coma when she hits the curb), Seattle police tase pregnant woman who won't sign speeding ticket, etc. They've become far too casual with the things since they don't see any consequence to using them and the courts have been reluctant to create consequences.

@Dox47: the witness report is interesting, and I would have thought that any issue of Martin beating Zimmerman could be easily resolved: wouldn't Martin's knuckles be bruised and bloodied - including Zimmerman's blood?
I don't know how much evidential information police give out in the USA for live cases (here, it's practically nothing unless it might give a good lead to solving it) so I guess it's possible they already have a much clearer picture than we know and under those circumstances, it seems much more like a self-defence case.

See the link for a thread on the other side of the story.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4504769.html#4504769

The burden of proof resting on the prosecution is the basis of our legal system. That's how you remain innocent until PROVEN guilty.

Google "taser failure" and get back to me.

Of course not. For example, North Carolina has the "castle" law, which means that, if someone threatens you in your own home on your own land, you have a right to use deadly force if you feel it is necessary. I agree with it.

Picking a fight with somebody and then blowing his face off when you find yourself at a physical disadvantage is murder. Chasing someone down in the middle of a rain storm, with that person frightened, angry and confused, and shooting that person in the face when it turns out that it's not as easy as they make it look on Cops, is murder. However, Florida's "stand your ground" law has made murder legal.

Someone could take the facial tics I get when nervous to be a sign that I am either having a psychotic fit or demonically possessed and use that as a pretext to blow my face off. Even if he or she did not believe that, it could be used as a defense under Florida's law. It's still murder, and Florida's law has made murder legal.

A slightly older hispanic/white male who thinks he's a cop.

In the Mordecai neighborhood here in Raleigh, we have only had one threatening, suspicious, threatening person wandering our neighborhood lately. He's white and blonde. He manages to look somewhat threatening because his face is prematurely aged and he has a scar on his lip, but he would be lilly white without the tan. What makes him threatening is that he goes around asking weird questions, often seems to be on drugs, and frequently demands that people lend him money (that he never returns). The last time he stalked this neighborhood was several years ago, before my s.o. and I met. My s.o. lent him 20 dollars for a carton of cigarettes. The money never came back. He nevertheless came knocking again. He was, of course, turned down. My s.o.'s lifelong friend up the street called it "a cheap 20 dollar lesson." We have never had a black person come through here who did anything more suspicious than ride on bikes that had been painted to look about as butt-ugly as humanly possible, and we are frankly a lot more suspicious of white boys on skateboards.

On the other hand, my s.o. and I have some black folk next door, and the only "suspicious" thing they have done in the whole time we've been here is ask us to start giving them the coupons from the Sunday paper, which we've been doing routinely for about a year now. Besides that, they are just a quaint working-class family who lives next door.

Anyway, a ret*d hispanic/white vigilante is a lot more threatening to me than a black person, armed or otherwise. I have gotten a lot more harassment, in practice, from ret*d hispanic/white would-be vigilantes who think they are cops. I have had (white) security guards try to tower over me and intimidate me. Something that concerns me greatly is that, in confrontations, my voice drops into a very low growl that some people find to be very unsettling, and my pupils dilate considerably. I don't do it intentionally, but a defense attorney with any intelligence could portray it as sufficiently "threatening" to, under Florida's law, justify blowing my face off under scenarios that I have actually been in, which is a vigilante security guard deciding he "doesn't like the look of me" and taking a moment to be a prick.

On the other hand, the only thing I've ever had a black person do to me is, after thumbing a ride with me, asking me to drive him around on stupid errands when the idea was to take him where he needed to be and let him off. It also pissed me that he decided to smoke a joint while in the passenger seat of my car. That's literally the worst thing that ANY black man has ever done to me in my adult life. I have literally never had any negative interaction with a black person, in my adult life, other than that. No, I don't think that someone is justified, based on my own experience, in regarding a black person automatically as a threat.

The most dangerous thing in the world is a ret*d white guy who thinks he's the law.

Anyway, you will be in a lot of situations with people that you feel threatened. It is still murder if you blow that person's face off.

Except in Florida...where murder is legal.

Last edited by WilliamWDelaney on 26 Mar 2012, 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Speaks to that lack of evidence I keep hammering on; his knuckles might well be bruised and bloody, but if anyone knows they haven't spoken up. That could also depend on how the blows were struck, since striking with hammer blows or the heel of the hand are far less likely to damage the knuckles or fingers, but there still should be blood present if that is in fact what happened.

That's what's driving me so crazy with this case, the massive rush to judgment, the misinformed statements, the media just whipping people into a frenzy and the usual suspects circling the carcass waiting the right moment to introduce legislation they'd normally have no chance of passing. It's bad enough the kid got shot, now he has to be exploited in death so people can push their agendas. I think my signature says it all in this case.