Interesting, even the guy who wrote the Stand Your Ground Law doesn't think Zimmerman has a leg to stand on.
Quote:
Trayvon Martin case: Inquiry into Stand Your Ground law launched in Florida
Florida lawmakers opposed to Stand Your Ground have formed a task force to investigate the law following the killing of Trayvon Martin. Among its members: prosecutors, judges, and tourism officials.
By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / April 5, 2012
Leslie Miller, Howard Mapp, and Judi Myers bow their heads in prayer during a vigil on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Wednesday, April 4, to remember Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old who was shot and killed in Sanford, Fla., on February 26.
Kristen Mullen/The Citizens' Voice/AP
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36 and 16 The shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman may or may not be explicitly or legally connected to Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law, which allows citizens to use deadly force rather than retreat in the face of a potentially life-threatening encounter.
Trayvon Martin case: Why hasn't George Zimmerman been arrested? (+video)
Will Trayvon Martin case spur rethinking of Stand Your Ground laws? (+video)
Trayvon Martin case: use of Stand Your Ground law or pursuit of a black teen?
.That depends on whether Mr. Zimmerman is prosecuted for the Feb. 26 shooting in Sanford, Fla. – he has yet to be charged – and how his attorneys might frame a defense.
But the case already has raised questions about Stand Your Ground laws now in force in some two dozen states and under consideration in others.
And on Thursday in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida lawmakers convened a task force to investigate the state's first-in-the-nation Stand Your Ground law. Task force members include prosecutors, law enforcement officials, public defenders, judges, law professors, and state tourism officials.
The effort is led by state Sen. Chris Smith, a Democrat representing Fort Lauderdale. Sen. Smith opposed the 2005 legislation, and he faults Gov. Rick Scott (R) for not acting sooner in reexamining a law that has seen a tripling of instances in which justifiable homicide is successfully used as a defense in shooting cases.
Governor Scott says he will convene a task force once special prosecutor Angela Corey of the State Attorney’s office completes her investigation of the shooting and the police response.
But for critics like Senator Smith, that just means more delay for a case in which an unarmed teenager was killed by a man who ignored the direction of a 911 emergency operator, and pursued Mr. Martin until some kind of confrontation (and perhaps a fight) occurred.
"I'm flabbergasted as to why there's the foot-dragging and hand-wringing. I don't know why they would want to wait," Smith told reporters this week. "To me, it seems a no-brainer that action is needed, and as leaders we need to take action right now."
Others are calling for a reappraisal of Stand Your Ground laws – particularly as they apply in cases involving armed neighborhood volunteers.
“I think the law is going to create real problems,” former President Bill Clinton told ABC News this week. “Because anyone who doesn’t have a criminal background, anyone not prohibited by the Brady Bill and caught by the checks, can basically be a part of a neighborhood watch where they have a concealed weapon whether they had proper law enforcement training or not, and whether they’ve had any experience in conflict situations with people or not.”
Clinton’s concerns about Stand Your Ground are the same voiced by law enforcement officials in Florida who opposed the law in the first place. (A main backer of the law was the powerful National Rifle Association, a principal reason why it was approved unanimously in the state Senate.)
In addition to gun-rights advocates like the NRA, such laws are modeled and promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative nonprofit policy organization whose major funders include billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.
That ALEC is behind laws like Stand Your Ground and efforts to restrict voter registration (neither of which has much to do with the organization’s stated pro-business agenda) apparently is making some members uneasy.
On Monday, the Coca-Cola Co. withdrew its membership.
“Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business,” the company said in a statement. “We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our company and industry.”
Although what exactly took place between Martin and Mr. Zimmerman that rainy night remains hazy, the authors of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law say it shouldn’t apply in this case and therefore doesn’t need to be changed or repealed.
“When [Zimmerman] said ‘I’m following him,’ he lost his defense,” former Sen. Durell Peaden told the Miami Herald. “They need to prosecute whoever shot the kid. He has no protection under my law. There’s nothing in the Florida law that allows him to follow someone with a gun.”
Christian Science Monitor 4/6/12
@Ragman,
Sorry, that wasn't evident from your post.
@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:Interesting, even the guy who wrote the Stand Your Ground Law doesn't think Zimmerman has a leg to stand on.
That law does not come into operation in this case.
Anyone has a perfect right to follow anyone else.
If he, or anyone, becomes a victim of violence,
then he has the ordinary rights of self defense available,
i.e., if the followee is pounding the innocent head of the follower on the sidewalk, the poundee has the natural right to fight back.
David
@Ragman,
Ragman wrote:He'd be safer in jail ... like Lee Harvey Oswald was?
I knew absolutely
FOR SURE
that there was
NO chance of Oswald leaving Dallas alive.
David
Oh, goody, another conspiracy theory about to rear its head.
so what you're saying, david, is that if the person whose head is being pounded had threatened the life of the person doing the pounding, which poiunding is an attempt to stop the threatener from carrying out that threat, now feels his life is threatened, e4ven though he had first threatened the pounder's life, he then has the right to kill the person pounding him,to remove the threat on his, the original threatener's, life. Because that is by far the most probable cause of Zimmerman's being pounded, if in fact he was, which is not at all clear. For example, with all the hypothetical scenarios you've dreamed up, I propose an actually probable one: Zimmerman as we know he was went into this with the mindset "the assholes always get away" (his own words), he follows Trayvon, who has in fact removed himself from confrontation), he goes after Trayvon, finds him, and determined that he not get away, grabs him. Trayvon, caught off balance, lurches forward, falls against Zimmerman, who falls backward and lands on the sidewalk with the back of his head. Trayvon's head falls forward, hitting Zimmerman's nose, which is far more likely, being heavier bone than a fist. Trayvon meanwhile, finding himself attacked by a seeming maniac, is despearately calling for help, now that he seemingly for the moemnt finds the threat against him partially neutralized, since he landed on top of him, since he landed on top of him. Zimmerman brings it all on himself, playing his macho vigilante role to the hilt. Finding himself on the bottom, through his own actions, he now feels threatened, rather than the threatener he in fact is, he pulls his gun, which might actually already have been in the hand he didn't grab Trayvon with, and kills him. Since you've been inventing scenarios for the past few weeks, it behooves us to have a more probable one. This has been the probable one. Mine's got far more of the available facts than yours does.
@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:Oh, goody, another conspiracy theory about to rear its head.
NO, I have nothing to add to that.
I merely understood the emotional state of affairs,
as a result of which, I
knew with no doubt
whatsoever, that Oswald 'd not leave alive
: NO CHANCE.
David
exactly. thank you for confirming you don't understand.
@OmSigDAVID,
OmSigDAVID wrote:Anyone has a perfect right to follow anyone else.
Not Zimmerman, though, if he was acting on behalf of his neighborhood watch group.
a) As a volunteer for that group, he ignored their instructions that volunteers are
not allowed to arm themselves and
b) That volunteers are --
under no circumstances -- to pursue a possible suspect.
He also ignored the dispatcher who clearly told him to
not pursue Trayvon.
@OmSigDAVID,
Quote:I knew absolutely FOR SURE
that there was NO chance of Oswald leaving Dallas alive.
Isn't it heartwarming that you have such faith in the US system of "justice", Om.
@Irishk,
Quote:) As a volunteer for that group, he ignored their instructions that volunteers are not allowed to arm themselves
I have seen no evidence that this group forbid its members from carrying a weapon. The police had no authority to forbid it, and in fact all the literature on setting up a watch group is consistent that the practice is discouraged by the state but not forbidden
Quote:That volunteers are -- under no circumstances -- to pursue a possible suspect
See above
Quote:He also ignored the dispatcher who clearly told him to not pursue Trayvon
My understanding is that he spoke with a 911 operator, not a police dispatcher, but either way this person had no authority to command Zimmerman to do anything.
@hawkeye10,
hawkeye10 wrote:
My understanding is that he spoke with a 911 operator, not a police dispatcher, but either way this person had no authority to command Zimmerman to do anything.
That is my understanding, as well. I confess to having had several previous misunderstandings as well.
@roger,
Quote: I confess to having had several previous misunderstandings as well.
That's been the case throughout your entire life, Rog.
@JTT,
JTT wrote:
Quote: I confess to having had several previous misunderstandings as well.
That's been the case throughout your entire life, Rog.
Given your hostility towards the US government one might think that you would be interested in commenting on the governments authority to order Zimmerman about before this unfortunate event....but no, all you come up with a gratuitous personal insult.
@roger,
Happy Easter, roger.
Operator/dispatcher...is there a crucial difference? Most of the media reporting on this case (which is just about
all media) mostly uses the word 'dispatcher' when reporting the transcript of the 911 call, so I used it, too.
Also, many, many sources have reported on the neighborhood watch programs, including the one in Sanford started at the request of George Zimmerman. It was one of my very first questions, so i googled it early on and learned the rules and regulations, do's and don'ts and what those showing up at the initial meeting to form the group were told.
Essentially, they were told, "
no weapons, do not confront, call the police". All of that was emphasized in a power point presentation and the attendees were also presented with a manual - presumably containing the instructions for would-be volunteers.
No weapons. Do not confront. Call the police and stand aside. If those instructions hadn't been ignored by George Zimmerman, no one would have been killed or even injured.
(That last part is for Hawkeye, btw).
