Do you think Zimmerman will be convicted of murder?

Oralloy wrote:

I see no part of the sequence of events that would justify a conclusion that Trayvon was accidentally killed in an act of extreme recklessness.

Why do you keep insisting this was an "accidental killing".

It wasn't accidental--it was intentional. Zimmerman intentionally fired a gun at Martin at point blank range.

Oralloy wrote:

Yes, but none of that will be of any use in establishing that Zimmerman accidentally killed Trayvon in an act of extreme recklessness, which is what they really need to establish if they want to convict him of Depraved Heart Murder.

The state is considering the entire sequence of events from the time Zimmerman first noticed, and "profiled", Martin, until he shot and killed him--that was clear from their affidavit of probable cause justifying the second degree murder charge.

In effect, the state is claiming, or trying to claim, that Zimmerman wasn't thinking straight that entire length of time, and that affected his actions, such as following Martin, and then confronting and provoking him, and then killing him, after Martin reacted aggressively in self defense.

There was nothing accidental about this killing.

And the state has no intention of establishing it as accidental. Read the affidavit of probable cause in this case--that's what the charge is based on.

Another of the guys that pushed the law through says that it doesn't apply to people who instigate a confrontation. That was posted ages ago in this thread.

Thus, according to your own logic, the stand your ground law should not apply to Zimmerman.

If you initiate a confrontation, as Zimmerman did, you still have the right to self defense, but you lose the special immunity proffered by stand your ground.

We've already had this discussion.

hawkeye10 wrote:

There is no allegation that zimmerman intended to cause bodily injury to martin,

Of course he intended to cause bodily injury to Martin--that's why he intentionally fired his gun at him--at point blank range.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Making contact with a person does not equate starting a confrontation.

After you're recorded on a phone call to police dispatch making derisive and aggressive statements about the person, and you disobey their instruction to not follow and confront the person, I think that it most certainly does.

Cycloptichorn

hawkeye10 wrote:

I don't think that the state has a case for the top charge, and I don't think they have any chance of getting a jury to go with manslaugter.

They can make a case for the top charge if they portray Zimmerman as a man with a history of problems controlling aggressive impulses--he was court-ordered to take anger management classes in the past--and if they portray him as a man with psychiatric/personality problems that could have affected the judgment and actions on his part that led up to the shooting--and he was prescribed two types of psych meds at the time of the shooting.

Zimmerman did misjudge Martin's behavior from the getgo--Martin wasn't doing anything but walking in the rain and talking on his cell phone, and he had a legitimate right to be in that gated community--he was the guest of a resident. Because Zimmerman convinced himself the kid was a criminal and up to no good, and because he was obsessed with not letting this alleged punk get away and elude the police, it was Zimmerman who engaged in the impulsive actions which brought about a deadly confrontation.

Zimmerman provoked a confrontation that was entirely avoidable.

All Zimmerman had to do was sit in his car and wait for the police to show up in response to his calls.

I don't know whether the state can make a convincing case for the top charge, but they have a stronger case for manslaughter.

And it's Zimmerman who has a number of inconsistencies to try to explain away at an immunity hearing in order to make a justified self defense claim.

firefly wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:

There is no allegation that zimmerman intended to cause bodily injury to martin,

Of course he intended to cause bodily injury to Martin--that's why he intentionally fired his gun at him--at point blank range.

Hawkeye was referring to Zimmerman's intent during the part of the fight before he fired the gun.

No, by trying to prosecute for Depraved Heart Murder, the state is trying to claim that Zimmerman accidentally killed Trayvon in an act of extreme recklessness.

What's amazed me right from the start (and it really shouldn't, I know) was not how the rightwing and gun nuts keep repeating the same weak arguments, but how they so vehemently jumped immediately to Zimmerman's defense. From the start.
To them, Zimmerman could never be anything but a hero protecting his community, and Trayvon couldn't be anything but a thug who got what was coming to him.

Just looking at the graffiti you might mistake it as a simple message supporting Zimmerman. But it’s important to remember that this was painted on the Hale Black Cultural Center on the night of the anniversary of the killing of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This wasn’t just some randomly chosen location or time. This graffiti was, without question, racially motivated.

Source: PlunderBund (http://s.tt/1gZfD)

The New York Times
Editorial
July 9, 2012

Florida’s Gun Law Morass

A federal court has struck down one of the more nonsensical of Florida’s many risky gun laws — one that banned the state’s thousands of doctors from ever discussing firearms with their patients. There was no evidence that this was ever a problem or a common occurrence, yet the law was enacted last year on the strength of an anecdote from a couple who complained to their gun-obsessed legislator that their physician inquired if they owned guns.

The court wisely upheld the free-speech rights of physicians. Safety-minded Floridians must hope similar judicial wisdom applies eventually to the state’s far less laughable Stand Your Ground law.

That gravely loosened self-defense statute was invoked in the shooting death in February of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman initially walked free, but after a public furor he was charged with second-degree murder — a demonstration of the law’s dangerous vagaries, which have left courts, prosecutors and police fumbling with contradictory interpretations that abuse justice, more than ensure it.

In the boom in self-defense claims caused by the 7-year-old law, some killers in drug shootouts, gang wars and street brawls have walked free while comparable crimes end with long prison sentences in neighboring local jurisdictions, according to a detailed study of nearly 200 cases by The Tampa Bay Times.

Almost 7 in 10 people who invoked the overreaching law have not been charged, the study found. In 135 cases, the slain victim was unarmed; in 157 killings, the accused used a gun or a knife. In nearly a third of the cases, reporters found self-defense claimants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued the victim — and still went free under local authorities’ conflicted interpretations of the law. It has become an excuse for mayhem, used at least six times in drug deals gone lethal, 23 times in barroom fights, 12 times in neighborhood disputes and 30 times in arguments turned violent.

The racial aspects of the law are far from fully investigated, but the study found 73 percent of those who killed a black person successfully claimed immunity compared with 59 percent of those who killed someone white. The law, which has been copied in more than a score of states, scrapped the traditional duty to retreat from a threat when possible and instead allowed a license to kill if a citizen “reasonably believed” he was in danger of grave bodily harm. Slain victims like Trayvon Martin, of course, have no chance to tell their side of the story.

The Florida law reached the level of Wild West farce when one judge freed two gang members, ruling he had to grant immunity because it could not be proved that they fired first — rather than in claimed self-defense — when they sprayed 25 rounds outside an apartment complex. No wonder defense lawyers quickly exploited the law, even claiming immunity in minor incidents, as in cases in which a man shot a bear, a protected species, and another beat a dog. The law is a dangerous disaster that should be repealed if state politicians could ever muster courage to retreat from the macho fantasies of the gun lobby.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/opinion/floridas-gun-law-morass.html

http://bcclist.com/2012/05/14/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-court-proceedings-and-trial/

Look at Zimmerman's path vs where the killing occurred. He could not be on direct path back to his car for the killing to occur where it does.

Oralloy wrote:

No, by trying to prosecute for Depraved Heart Murder, the state is trying to claim that Zimmerman accidentally killed Trayvon in an act of extreme recklessness.

Is that what the affidavit of probable cause stated? Have you even read it?

You don't seem to understand the state's case at all, or what they have to prove to establish second degree murder in Florida--your assumptions about needing to establish an "accidental killing" are off the mark with regard to this case. And you further seem unfamiliar with any of the evidence in support of the state's case, and unfamiliar with the evidence that tends to cast doubt on Zimmerman's version of events.

What's amazed me right from the start (and it really shouldn't, I know) was not how the rightwing and gun nuts keep repeating the same weak arguments, but how they so vehemently jumped immediately to Zimmerman's defense. From the start.
To them, Zimmerman could never be anything but a hero protecting his community, and Trayvon couldn't be anything but a thug who got what was coming to him.