Do you think Zimmerman will be convicted of murder?

If the main thing George did wrong was to not follow the hint of a police dispatcher (or 911 operator) then you are admitting that George did no great criminal wrong, because is has zero criminal liability for not doing what the person on the other ende of the phone would have done....or what you would have done. There was never anything even close to a lawful order to not confront Martin.

What part of "the tragedy could have been avoided if Zimmerman had just waited for the police" don't you understand?

but the prime cause of the tragedy was Trayvon deciding to attack Zimmerman and trying to pound his brain out on the sidewalk.

Quote:

There is no question that this tragic, and needless, killing could have been entirely avoided had George Zimmerman simply waited for the police to respond after he placed his 911 call to report a "suspicious" person. The fatal confrontation was made possible only because Zimmerman continued to pursue Martin for his own reasons, despite the fact Martin was not engaged in any criminal activity.

Maybe, maybe not.
Who knows? If George Zimmerman hadn't been there, perhaps Trayvon Martin would have hung out in an alleyway between houses and someone else would have shot him dead. (highly unlikely; yet, not impossible as a scenario which could have played out)

Your statement instead of saying "the fatal confronation..." should have been "THIS fatal confrontation..." as there could have been another.

hawkeye10 wrote:

If the main thing George did wrong was to not follow the hint of a police dispatcher (or 911 operator) then you are admitting that George did no great criminal wrong, because is has zero criminal liability for not doing what the person on the other ende of the phone would have done....or what you would have done. There was never anything even close to a lawful order to not confront Martin.

What part of "the tragedy could have been avoided if Zimmerman had just waited for the police" don't you understand?

Maybe because he was the one who killed an innocent kid? You think maybe that's why?

Maybe because he was the one who killed an innocent kid? You think maybe that's why?

Once more not a damn mark on him but for the one bullet wound

Should I Shoot Someone IF They Are Unarmed?

There are a lot of things to consider with the given scenario "can I shoot an unarmed person if they want to fight me?" You have to decide what you want to do and be prepared for the consequences plain and simple.

If you think doing 3 to 5 years hard time in a state penitentiary for manslaughter is no problem, then by all means shoot that unarmed guy who picked a fight with you because he feels you slighted him somehow.

State prison is full of people who made the wrong decision in when and under what circumstances to use their firearm. They aren't bad people, they just made a poor choice when they thought that using their gun would be on solid ground.

You can sit on the witness stand crying all day long saying how that scary looking guy who turned out was only two years younger than you and considered to be about average size and shape could have hit you in the temple and killed you... may have been able to strike you in the trachea and crush your larynx and all sorts of hypothetical outcomes until you are blue in the face. At the end of the day... the law and the courts "generally" frown on those who pull a gun and shoot an unarmed person who was foolish enough/drunk enough to pick a fight with someone they didn't know was armed.

Now, with that said, are there circumstances where shooting an unarmed person is excusable? Absolutely, but they are relatively rare and few in the numbers of situations. Your hypothetical explanations of "well he could have hit me here and that may have done this to me" is not going to be a satisfactory answer to a grand jury or a jury of your peers.

Getting a broken nose and some bruised ribs or a black eye or maybe a tooth knocked out is "generally" not considered to be a life threatening injury or even a serious crippling injury no matter how much you say that hypothetically you could have gotten a detached retina from the black eye, or you could have choked to death if you swallowed that broken tooth.

These are the facts... You have a gun! The other guy doesn't! You know you have a "stacked deck"... the other guy doesn't know you have a gun until you pull it out and shoot him with it! He believed he was fighting another unarmed guy!

Bullies, drunk or otherwise who like to fight people, don't pick fights with people they knew beforehand to have a gun! Therefore the prosecutor in the criminal case or the attorneys for his estate in the wrongful death case will argue the "unarmed victim" you killed may have been drunk, and may have been a bully... but he thought he was fighting a man "on common ground" and it did not warrant being shot down in a fixed and unfair fight! (May not be 1st degree murder, but probably good enough to send you away for a few years for involuntary manslaughter!)

The courts will hold you to a higher standard of care to avoid the situation, walk away and maybe even going to extraordinary means in not bringing your gun out even if the guy manages to hit you a few times.

Again, are there circumstances where shooting an unarmed person justifiable? YES! But you are on very shakey ground. If you are going to claim there was a "disparity of force" you should have some very compelling reasons that are clear and obvious to the court or grand jury. (Hypothetical explanations are really not going to be acceptable.) Disparity of Force is not just a loose term to throw out in court. You must be able to clearly show the factors that pertain to that disparity in order to convince a jury to excuse you for taking the life of an unarmed person. There has to be some accountability for taking someones life.

It is for that reason I strongly recommend people really understand the laws, how the court system works and know specific details of how lethal force is used and justified
http://www.defensivecarry.com/forum/reference-how-forum/30503-should-i-shoot-someone-if-they-unarmed.html

Actually, we know that Zimmerman killed Trayvon. Since Zimmerman has confessed to this, it puts the burden of proof on him to show that he was either protected under the stand you ground law, or the shooting was justified as self-defense.

I'm not sure why this concept continues to elude you; it's not like it's some kind of fine print

According to Florida law he is assumed to have immunity since he claimed self defense unless the state can prove otherwise.

According to the US Constitution he is assumed to be innocent of the alleged crime unless the state can prove otherwise. If the state can not prove beyond a reasonable doubt what happened, if it remains a mystery.

No, that's why the state of Florida has pre-trial immunity hearings--where the burden of proof is on the defendant.

Section 776.032 of the Florida Statutes provides that a person who uses deadly force in self-defense "is immune from criminal prosecution." This odd provision means that a person who uses deadly force in self-defense cannot be tried, even though the highly fact-intensive question of whether the person acted in self-defense is usually hashed out at trial. The law thus creates a paradox: the State must make a highly complex factual determination before being permitted to avail itself of the forum necessary to make such a determination.
Not only that, Section 776.032 provides immunity from arrest unless the police have "probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful." Again, the law creates a Catch-22: police cannot arrest the suspect unless they have probable cause, not just to believe there was a killing, but also that the killing was not in self-defense; and where, as is often the case, the defendant is the only living witness to the alleged crime, the police likely will not be able to form probable cause without interrogating the suspect.

This is not an "alleged crime"--he committed a homicide, he shot and killed someone, and he admitted doing it.

You neither understand this case, nor the charges against Zimmerman, nor the law

What I find humorous is that Martin seems to hold no guilt in this whole thing. It only seems to be Zimmerman who is at fault.

Hawkeye we do know that there was not a mark of Trayvon skin other then the bullet hole and many wounds on Zimmerman that support his story of the events.

So they say, but what it boils down to is that the defense argues that immunity applies, and the only way the state has to nullify the argument is to show probable cause that self defense was not the motive for the killing. At the end of the day the state is the party that must show up with the evidence and the better argument.