The State of Florida vs George Zimmerman: The Trial

That would be a neat trick, seeing as how that law only applies to cops and government officials.

Which law are you referring to oralloy? Because I don't see where violations of civil rights are limited to only cops and government officials.

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Which law are you referring to oralloy? Because I don't see where violations of civil rights are limited to only cops and government officials.

The part of the civil right laws that deal with doing so under the color of law.

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There is no question that there was a racial element involved in this profiling and this tragic, totally unnecessary death.

Actually there is a question about this - thus all the controversy. It is an opinion of some that there was a racial element. Even one of the juror stated they did not believe there was a racial element.

Race played significant parts all during this thing...and I will acknowledge that goes for people who think, as I do, that George Zimmerman is a punk who essentially got away with manslaughter...as well as people who supported him.

"I think George Zimmerman is a man whose heart was in the right place, but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighborhoods, and wanting to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done," she said.

"But I think his heart was in the right place. It just went terribly wrong."

If anything, Zimmerman was guilty of not using "good judgment," the juror said.

"When he was in the car, and he had called 911, he shouldn't have gotten out of that car," she said.

She also said she believes Martin threw the first punch in the confrontation that followed.

"I think George got in a little bit too deep, which he shouldn't have been there. But Trayvon decided that he wasn't going to let him scare him ... and I think Trayvon got mad and attacked him," she said.

Zimmerman felt his life was in danger before shooting Martin, and it was his voice that was heard screaming for help in 911 calls, the juror said she believes.

"He had a right to defend himself," she said. "If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him, or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right."

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Race played significant parts all during this thing...and I will acknowledge that goes for people who think, as I do, that George Zimmerman is a punk who essentially got away with manslaughter...as well as people who supported him.

Here's the most likely scenario as to what happened.

• Zimmerman got out of his car to check an address, spoke with some cop dispatcher on his phone, and was then walking back to his vehicle.
  
• Martin spoke with his gorilla girlfriend for a moment and then doubled back to confront Zimmerman. All he had to do was walk home, Zimmerman had lost sight of him and did not know where he was going.
  
• Martin closed the distance to within two or three steps and said something at least halfway threatening.
  
• At this point Zimmerman made the one mistake which he made in the entire affair, but it was a very big and bad one and indicates a total lack of what you'd normally call street smarts: He reached into his left pocket for his cell phone. Two problems with this, i.e. one, it neutralized his left hand (which you normally block or parry a straight right with), and it's at least conceivable that Martin assumed he was going for a knife or a gun.
  
• At that point, Martin threw the hardest overhand/straight right he was able to throw, braking Zimmerman's nose and basically flattening him.
  
• Watch around time 8:41, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyTGgl1wRQo for an idea of what getting hit by a straight right like that can look like...
  
• At that point, Martin STILL could have said "Let that be a lesson to you, you creepy ass cracka" (Jeantel's spelling), and walked away. He'd still be alive.
  
• Nonetheless he didn't do that. Unsatisfied with being an ordinary asshole and aspiring to be a super asshole, he jumped on top of Zimmerman and proceeded to try to kill him using MMA "ground/pound" tactics.
  
• Ground/pound is fine in an MMA cage match in which there is a referee whose job it is to stop the fight the instant one fighter is no longer able to protect himself. Without the referee there (as in the case of Martin/Zimmerman, the most likely outcome would always be one fighter being killed or maimed.
  
• Anybody who sees racism in any of this is willfully ignorant. Even Martin was not guilty of racist action, he'd almost certainly have been just as happy to kill or maim another black person.
  
• In fact George Zimmerman almost certainly saved other lives as well as his own in taking Martin out of the gene pool, and you can be fairly certain that one or more of those lives would have been black.
  
  

At that point, Martin threw the hardest overhand/straight right he was able to throw, braking Zimmerman's nose and basically flattening him.
Watch around time 8:41, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyTGgl1wRQo for an idea of what getting hit by a straight right like that can look like...

You wrote,

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The intention of the double jeopardy provision of the Constitution was to prevent over zealous prosecutors from trying a defendant who had been found innocent over and over again until they got some jury somewhere to find him guilty for some reason. If the federal government charges him with Martin's killing again, but pretends that it's a different crime, they will be acting in exactly the manner that the Founders were trying to prevent when they wrote the double jeopardy clause into the Bill of Rights.

You don't know what you are talking about. There's a difference between a criminal case and a civil case.

Oh yea, you're like David, the attorney, who doesn't know what double jeopardy is all about.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Try harder next time.

The intention of the double jeopardy provision of the Constitution was to prevent over zealous prosecutors from trying a defendant who had been found innocent over and over again until they got some jury somewhere to find him guilty for some reason. If the federal government charges him with Martin's killing again, but pretends that it's a different crime, they will be acting in exactly the manner that the Founders were trying to prevent when they wrote the double jeopardy clause into the Bill of Rights.

The intention of the double jeopardy provision is to prevent a defendant being charged for the same offense more than once. Period. It has nothing to do with "over zealous prosecutors."

It has everything to do with safeguarding the rights of the accused. If the Federal government should see fit to try Zimmerman on a charge of violating Trayvon's civil rights, it would in no way be a pretense of saying "it's a different crime." He can't be tried for the killing of Trayvon again. That's the only charge of which he has been found "not guilty."

...I somehow suspect that you know and understand all this, Brandon, and are just playing dumb. It doesn't become you; you're not dumb.

I prefer to differentiate civil and criminal suits that are not looked on as double jeopardy - like in the OJ Simpson case.

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Simpson Civil Trial Explainer

A primer on the case


O.J. Simpson faces another trial in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. This time it's not his freedom but his bank account at stake as the families of the victims seek financial damages to compensate for the loss of their loved ones.

Simpson was acquitted of murder charges on October 3 and cannot be tried for the murders again in a criminal court. In the civil trial as in the murder trial, the plaintiff will be trying to prove Simpson murdered his ex-wife and her friend, with several key differences.

I prefer to differentiate civil and criminal suits that are not looked on as double jeopardy - like in the OJ Simpson case.

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Simpson Civil Trial Explainer

O.J. Simpson faces another trial in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. This time it's not his freedom but his bank account at stake as the families of the victims seek financial damages to compensate for the loss of their loved ones.

Simpson was acquitted of murder charges on October 3 and cannot be tried for the murders again in a criminal court. In the civil trial as in the murder trial, the plaintiff will be trying to prove Simpson murdered his ex-wife and her friend, with several key differences.

Here's a good answer on the difference between civil and criminal laws/suits.

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Civil law and criminal law are two broad and separate entities of law with separate sets of laws and punishments.

According to William Geldart, Introduction to English Law 146 (D.C.M. Yardley ed., 9th ed. 1984),
"The difference between civil law and criminal law turns on the difference between two different objects which law seeks to pursue - redress or punishment. The object of civil law is the redress of wrongs by compelling compensation or restitution: the wrongdoer is not punished; he only suffers so much harm as is necessary to make good the wrong he has done. The person who has suffered gets a definite benefit from the law, or at least he avoids a loss. On the other hand, in the case of crimes, the main object of the law is to punish the wrongdoer; to give him and others a strong inducement not to commit same or similar crimes, to reform him if possible and perhaps to satisfy the public sense that wrongdoing ought to meet with retribution.”

You're missing the whole point of my post. GTH.

It becomes about the poster, because, like you, everybody who disagrees with your idea of justice are "liberals."

Look in the ******* mirror, you idiot! You're talking about yourself.

Here's the most likely scenario as to what happened.