State pushes to keep Trayvon Martin's past out of George Zimmerman trial

The state had pretty much said he was innocent.

walking up to someone in your subdivision to talk to them is not an "attack". Zimmerman was were he had a right to be and did what what he had a right to do until and unless he threw the first punch.the state has brought forward no evidence to date that Zimmerman is lying that martin threw the first punch, and if they dont have that then they have noting

And I'm glad the case is now going to trial.

walking up to someone in your subdivision to talk to them is not an "attack". Zimmerman was were he had a right to be and did what what he had a right to do until and unless he threw the first punch.the state has brought forward no evidence to date that Zimmerman is lying that martin threw the first punch, and if they dont have that then they have noting

Well Martin was also where he had a right to be, and doing what he had a right to do,
and then Zimmerman entered the picture...and
Zimmerman may not have just wanted "to talk to him"--

he didn't want "this one" to get away

before the police showed up.

If you're a black kid, just walking home, and some strange white guy begins following you,
in the rain and in the dark, and you have no idea what he's up to, you're going to get apprehensive.

And, if he confronts you, you might punch him,

if you felt threatened. And, if you noticed a gun in his belt, you might

definitely punch him in the nose in self defense.
And that wouldn't be an "attack"--it would be understandable
self-defensive on Martin's part--in response to a provocation by Zimmerman.

I think that will be closer to how the state sees what happened...
along with the fact that racial profiling entered into why Zimmerman
thought Martin looked suspicious, and why he followed him...

U appear to believe that conjectural speculation is IMPORTANT, huh? Significant?
I don't think it is.

What does the law say about naked guessing, counselor ?

I'm glad the case is now going to trial.

What does the law say about naked guessing, counselor ?

It says wait for the trial, and see what the state's contention will be.

firefly wrote:
I'm glad the case is now going to trial.

beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard, and inconclusive evidence can not get a jury there unless they avoid the law. and actually no dna on the gun does not damage Zimmermans credibility in the slightest because he never said anything that would lead us to expect it there.

Fucked up florida law...

hawkeye10 wrote:

Fucked up florida law...

You mean the same self-defense law that we've had in the US for a couple of hundred years?

THE FLORIDA LAW MADE INFAMOUS this spring by the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was conceived during the epic hurricane season of 2004. That November, 77-year-old James Workman moved his family into an RV outside Pensacola after Hurricane Ivan peeled back the roof of their house. One night a stranger tried to force his way into the trailer, and Workman killed him with two shots from a .38 revolver. The stranger turned out to be a disoriented temporary worker for the Federal Emergency Management Agency who was checking for looters and distressed homeowners. Workman was never arrested, but three months went by before authorities cleared him of wrongdoing.

More: the killing of Florida teenager Jordan Davis. And: racial discrimination and a spike in homicides linked to Stand Your Ground.
That was three months too long for Dennis Baxley, a veteran Republican representative in Florida's state Legislature. Four hurricanes had hit the state that year, and there was fear about widespread looting (though little took place). In Baxley's view, Floridians who defended themselves or their property with lethal force shouldn't have had to worry about legal repercussions. Baxley, a National Rifle Association (NRA) member and owner of a prosperous funeral business, teamed up with then-GOP state Sen. Durell Peaden to propose what would become known as Stand Your Ground, the self-defense doctrine essentially permitting anyone feeling threatened in a confrontation to shoot their way out.

Or at least that's the popular version of how the law was born. In fact, its genesis traces back to powerful NRA lobbyists and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing policy group. And the law's rapid spread—it now exists in various forms in 25 states—reflects the success of a coordinated strategy, cultivated in Florida, to roll back gun control laws everywhere.

Baxley says he and Peaden lifted the law's language from a proposal crafted by Marion Hammer, a former NRA president and founder of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, a local NRA affiliate. A 73-year-old dynamo who tops off her 4-foot-11 frame with a brown pageboy, Hammer has been a force in the state capital for more than three decades. "There is no more tenacious presence in Tallahassee," Gov. Jeb Bush's former chief of staff told CNN in April. "You want her on your side in a fight."

Ever since neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin point-blank in the chest, the term Stand Your Ground has been widely discussed, but what does it really mean? A Mother Jones review of dozens of state laws shows that the concept is built on three planks from the pioneering Florida legislation: A person claiming self-defense is not required to retreat from a threat before opening fire; the burden is almost always on prosecutors to prove that a self-defense claim is not credible; and finally, the shooter has immunity from civil suits relating to the use of deadly force. While the so-called Castle Doctrine (as in "a man's home is his") has for centuries generally immunized people from homicide convictions if they resorted to deadly force while defending their home, Florida's law was the first to extend such protection to those firing weapons in public spaces—parking lots, parks, city streets.

....While the so-called Castle Doctrine (as in "a man's home is his") has for centuries generally immunized people from homicide convictions if they resorted to deadly force while defending their home, Florida's law was the first to extend such protection to those firing weapons in public spaces—parking lots, parks, city streets.

Nonetheless if you go back to 1870 or thereabouts, at least in some places in the U.S., people did carry firearms routinely, and none of those places were any more dangerous than Chicago, Detroit, or Atlanta are now.

If you're a black kid, just walking home, and some strange white guy begins following you, in the rain and in the dark, and you have no idea what he's up to, you're going to get apprehensive. And, if he confronts you, you might punch him, if you felt threatened. And, if you noticed a gun in his belt, you might definitely punch him in the nose in self defense. And that wouldn't be an "attack"--it would be understandable self-defensive on Martin's part--in response to a provocation by Zimmerman.

Anyone is perfectly within his rights to confront anyone else