Do you think Zimmerman will be convicted of murder?

There is no indication that Zimmerman "confronted" Martin; Zimmerman was returning to his vehicle and Martin confronted and attacked him.

Martin had been thrown out of school for possession of burglary tools, was going about some business with two of the basic ingredients for the drug concoction called "purple drank" in his possession, and may actually have taken Zimmerman for another burglar impinging on his (Martin's) turf.

The damage sustained by Zimmerman for so vanishingly near zero provocation strongly indicates that lives other than Zimmerman's were likely saved by Zimmerman's cutting this young career criminal's criminal career short at the age of 17.

The thing which amazes me more than anything else about pistols is how easy it is to totally miss a basketball-sized target from 40' away. I wouldn't know how to do that with one of my hunting bows

Yeah, our 'takes' are about the same.

The tragedy is that this whole deadly conflict would never have happened had Trayvon simply been armed himself

Why was Zimmerman even outside of his vehicle?

Dec 4, 2012
George Zimmerman Lawyers Say Bloody Nose Photo Creates Doubt
ABC News’ Seni Tienabeso (@SeniABC) reports:

Lawyers for George Zimmerman believe that a newly released color photo of injuries their client sustained during his fatal altercation with Trayvon Martin and an alleged conversation involving Martin’s father create doubts about the strength of the murder case against the former neighborhood watch captain.

The color photo, which was released months ago in black-and-white form, shows Zimmerman’s swollen and bruised nose with blood dripping down his mouth. The image was released on the Zimmerman defense website, gzlegalcase.com. His attorneys released the image publicly Monday, along with a separate motion asking Sanford police investigator William Irwin to take another deposition because of comments he made that came to their attention after his first deposition.

Zimmerman’s attorneys say in the document that they learned after initially taking Irwin’s deposition that he told Sanford police Captain Robert O’Connor about overhearing a potentially damaging conversation between Martin’s father and lead investigator Chris Serino.

In the alleged conversation, Irwin, who took the voice stress test on Zimmerman after his deadly confrontation with Martin, said he heard Tracy Martin, the unarmed teen’s father, tell Serino that the still unidentified screams in those now-infamous calls did not belong to his son.

In the stress-test and throughout various interrogations, Zimmerman maintained that he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Martin because he believed the teen, who he says attacked him, was going to cause severe bodily injury to him if he did not do something. Zimmerman maintains that he was screaming for help, and shot Martin, 17, only after being repeatedly pummeled by the teen, who was walking back to his father’s girlfriends home from 7-Eleven after buying Skittles and tea.

Zimmerman’s attorneys call the conversation in the motion “significant,” saying “the primary issue in this case, if not the sole issue to be decided either by this court at a Self Defense Immunity hearing or by a jury at trial is whether Zimmerman was acting in self-defense.”

The elder Martin has disputed this police account in the past with both he and the teenager’s mother saying that they believed the cries for help belonged to their son, and any misstatements happened during the early confusion of not knowing what happened to their son.

Audio test of the screams on the 911 call, which was placed by a neighbor near the scene, have not conclusively linked the cry for help to either Zimmerman or Martin, casting another layer of doubt in this story.

This latest information was released as Zimmerman’s defense continues to gather evidence it will use in a “Stand-Your-Ground” self-defense hearing next year that, if the court sides with Zimmerman, could mean he never actually goes to trial for second-degree murder, as charged.

In the past few weeks, his defense has been interviewing officers involved in the early investigation, many of whom believed there was insufficient evidence to arrest Zimmerman.

Serino, the lead investigator who recommended charges be filed early on, hired Casey Anthony attorney Jose Baez in a highly unusual move last week. Audio and video taken days after the shooting showed that Serino was tough on Zimmerman during several interrogations, openly questioning his self-defense claim.

“You ever hear of Murphy’s law,” Serino asked during a Feb. 29 audio interrogation. “This person was not doing anything bad.”

Serino then questioned the extent of Zimmerman’s injuries, telling him that they didn’t appear consistent with someone involved in a life-or-death struggle

A few weeks later, in a March 13 affidavit, Serino wrote, “I believe there exists probable cause … charging George Zimmerman with Manslaughter.”

In a separate interview with the FBI, however, Serino told agents that he was feeling the pressure to file charges against Zimmerman.

Zimmerman’s defense has already listed several members of the Sanford police department as potential witnesses, and has stated it will claim that public pressure and a lack of evidence led to charges being filed against their client.

All this activity comes as Zimmerman remains in hiding and low on cash. A message on his defense website saying that he would sign “Thank You Cards” to supporters who donated to his fund has been publicly ridiculed.

Donations to his fund have dwindled in recent months, and the once-large reserve he had never fully recovered from the new bail he posted after being re-arrested for making false claims in court about the state of his finances.

Those claims also briefly landed his wife, Shellie, who still faces perjury charges, behind bars.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/12/george-zimmerman-lawyers-say-bloody-nose-photo-creates-doubt/

the attack was brought on by drugs and attitude problems...

it appears likely that Martin took Zimmerman for another burglar and was protecting what he viewed as his turf in much the same manner as lions take offense at other/unrelated lions moving into their hunting territories.

There is no indication that Zimmerman "confronted" Martin;

The law is not about

determine for sure

gungasnake wrote:

There is no indication that Zimmerman "confronted" Martin;

As far as I can tell, there is really no evidence at all about that critical moment either way. My scenario involves guesses on what I think most likely happened at several stages.

Unless others are privy to information I have missed they are all doing the same, and guessing what they think most likely happened in the gaps of knowledge the available evidence leaves.

The burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt," not "beyond any question of a doubt."

Sep 28, 2012
TheWashingtonPost
George Zimmerman’s bloody mess
By Jonathan Capehart

What Mark Osterman and his wife, Sondra, write in “Defending Our Friend: The Most Hated Man in America” isn’t exactly new. Their book on George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin, is an amplification of what Mr. Osterman told agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) on April 26. Zimmerman and his wife stayed with his mentor, a former Seminole County deputy, in the weeks after the Feb. 26 shooting.

But Osterman’s retelling of Zimmerman’s retelling of the tragic event raises serious questions about what really happened that rainy night. Chief among them: Where is the DNA evidence to corroborate Zimmerman’s story? For a man claiming self-defense in a life-and-death struggle, there appears to be precious little of it.

We know what Zimmerman says happened: Trayvon punched him in the face. There was a struggle, but the unarmed 17-year-old got on top of the 28-year-old and started slamming his head into the concrete. Curses were hurled. A flurry of punches were thrown at Zimmerman’s head and face by Trayvon. Zimmerman’s mouth and nose were covered by Trayvon. Zimmerman said he shot the teenager before he could get a hold of the neighborhood watch volunteer’s gun.

In that April interview with police, Osterman added some details Zimmerman had not. According to the report from FDLE, Osterman said that Trayvon “then observed or felt the handgun on Zimmerman’s side, took his other hand away from Zimmerman’s nose and reached for the handgun stating, “You’re gonna die tonight, m-----f-----.” Zimmerman then “slapped Martin’s hand away from the handgun, rotated the weapon and fired one round.”

In Osterman’s book, this detail is added to the Zimmerman recounting.
Somehow, I broke his grip on the gun where the guy grabbed it between the rear sight and the hammer.

The DNA evidence released by the prosecution two weeks ago revealed that Trayvon’s DNA was not on Zimmerman’s gun. Actually, that evidence had been among DNA evidence released earlier. Its significance was lost on me then. But given all that we know now, those DNA reports are a treasure trove of information that collectively raise more questions about (or poke more holes in) Zimmerman’s story.

Trayvon’s hands — how they were found versus what Zimmerman said he did with them — have long fascinated me. Now, there’s Trayvon’s fingernails.

Zimmerman claimed that Trayvon grabbed his head and slammed it into the sidewalk. Yet, “Exhibit ME-2,” fingernail scrapings from Trayvon, only showed the presence of blood from his right hand. “No DNA results foreign to Trayvon Benjamin Martin ...were found....” Translation: Zimmerman’s blood isn’t present.

For all the punching claimed by Zimmerman and the injuries he suffered — the bloody nose, the bloody back of the head — “Exhibit ME-12,” Trayvon’s hoodie, had no traces of Zimmerman’s blood on it. There were three stains, two of which “gave chemical indications for the presence of blood.” Only one had a partial DNA profile that matched Trayvon. The right cuff, left cuff and lower sleeves of both arms of the hoodie found “No DNA results foreign to Trayvon Benjamin Martin....”

Of the four stains that “gave chemical indications for the presence of blood” on “Exhibit ME-8,” the shirt Trayvon wore underneath his hoodie, only one matched Zimmerman. Two matched Trayvon. The major and minor contributors for the fourth stain “could not be determined.” The right cuff and lower sleeve of the shirt had no DNA “foreign to” Trayvon. The left cuff and lower sleeve had “the presence of at least two individuals.” It is “assum[ed]” that Trayvon is the major contributor. But because of “the limited nature of the results . . . no determination can be made regarding the possible contribution" of Zimmerman to that DNA mix.

According to Kendall Coffey, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, under normal circumstances, “ambiguities about DNA evidence favors the defense.” But he added, “This case has a distinction. That George Zimmerman says Trayvon Martin was trying to kill him. In a self-defense case, ambiguities in DNA can undermine a case of self-defense.”

Those ambiguities that undermine Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense don’t only apply to Trayvon’s clothing. They apply to Zimmerman’s, as well. And as you’ll see in my next blog post, the case where nothing makes sense — nothing —makes even less sense.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/george-zimmermans-bloody-mess/2012/09/28/e204d598-09a4-11e2-858a-5311df86ab04_blog.html

George Zimmerman’s bloody nose
Posted by Jonathan Capehart on December 3, 2012

Lawyers for George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin, released a photo today of their client’s bloody nose taken moments after he shot the unarmed teenager. As the Orlando Sentinel reports, this photo isn’t new. A grainy photocopied version was in a batch of evidence released by the prosecution months ago. Yet to see Zimmerman’s clearly battered and bloodied nose in vivid color is bracing.

Once again, we are confronted with a visual reminder of the confrontation, the struggle and the killing that took place on that rainy evening on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. This the latest in a series of photos showing Zimmerman’s injuries that will surely renew questions about what happened that night. No doubt his supporters will say they prove him innocent of the second-degree murder charge against him.

But today’s bloody photo doesn’t solve the mystery of Trayvon’s hands. There were “No DNA results foreign to Trayvon Benjamin Martin” found on them. Also, in a written statement, during a jailhouse interview and a reenactment the next day, Zimmerman said that he pulled the dead teen’s arms away from his body after killing him. Yet, the police officer who arrived on the scene noted in his report, “The black male had his hands underneath his body.” Until that question — among many — is answered, Zimmerman’s dubious claim of self-defense will remain suspect.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2012/12/03/george-zimmermans-bloody-nose/

The law is not about what we suspect, it is about what can be proven.

You know, if we had some way that both sides could be presented in a fair way to a panel of unbiased citizens who would hear and consider all of the facts before making a decision...