@BillRM,
I'm not a gang fan but I seen how they happen and how kids are caught up in it.
To me, it is an establishment to be listened to, to an establishment that didn't listen.
By now, I see it all as criminal business and am no fan.
I lived at a heart of the gang stuff and don't need lectures.
@ossobuco,
I never hear Sharpton addressing the gang issue that killed far far far more black young men then any other factor.
No rally about stopping drive by shootings that all too often kill not the targets but innocent bystanders.
But let a non black killed a black teenager in self defense and all hell break lose thank to Sharpton and his likes!!!!!!!!!!
@BillRM,
Quote:Teaching their young males to obey the laws and not go around assaulting people for example who had annoy them for doing things like following them on public streets might be a good start
Don't you mean that those black folks have to teach their young males to be super careful that they don't rouse the ire, and suspicions, of any gun-toting vigilantes, even when they're just minding their business and walking home from the store? What could Trayvon Martin have done that would have prevented George Zimmerman from racially profiling him?
How would you suggest that black parents teach their children how not to be racially profiled? Disguise theit skin color?
@ossobuco,
Quote:to me, it is an establishment to be listened to, to an establishment that didn't listen.
By now, I see it all as criminal business and am no fan.
How about having rallies in Florida over the law that disenfranchised one in three black men?
Or a criminal justice system that had resulted in one in three black men having felony convictions in the first place?
No instead the black community allowed itself to be lead by leaders who focus rage on a non-black man that needed to defend himself by sadly taking the life of a black teenager and does not address the issue of the leading cause of young black men deaths, other young black men.
@BillRM,
Quote:How about having rallies in Florida over the law that disenfranchised one in three black men?
Or a criminal justice system that had resulted in one in three black men having felony convictions in the first place?
So why aren't
you organizing rallies about those issues if they concern you?
Who the hell are you to be telling the black community what they should be focusing on?
@firefly,
I think their best bet is to move out of Florida. They don't have a prayer in Florida, because even white christians will kill blacks without fear.
All they have to do in court is to say they were afraid for their life.
Aquitted! If I were black and had kids, that's what I would do.
@OmSigDAVID,
OmSigDAVID wrote:How many of those homicidal male blacks did Sharpton or Jesse Jackson
demand, in nationwide demonstrations, be criminally prosecuted????
I dunno, but I suspect
that the accurate answer is O.
How many people have you advised to leave their firearms at home?
I dunno, but I suspect that the accurate answer is zero.
You have your cause; they have theirs.
@DrewDad,
David doesn't know anything about whites killing whites and blacks.
Most of the serial killers in the US were white.
Gary Ridgway, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Wayne Williams, Patrick Kearny, and many others - were all white!
Know any of these nice people? How about the Unibomber?
@cicerone imposter,
Quote:think their best bet is to move out of Florida. They don't have a prayer in Florida, because even white christians will kill blacks without fear.
The little tiny fact and unimportant fact that it is not white Christians or any other white or brown or blue or green persons that are killing young black men in large numbers but instead are other young black men is somehow beside the point in your strange strange world view?
Young black men have must more to fear from the people who share their skin color then from whites or the police or all the others members of society all together.
@cicerone imposter,
Quote:Most of the serial killers in the US were white.
Kind of beside the point that the leading cause of young black men deaths in the US are not white serial killers or any other type of white killers but other young black men now is it..........
@BillRM,
What difference does that make? Are you trying to convince us that white crimes against whites are not important, but blacks against blacks are?
@cicerone imposter,
Perhaps the point is that the average black person is more likely than is the average white person to hurt me. my response to claims that Zimmerman took more of an interest in Martin because he was black is " I would certainly hope so, because the alternative is idiotic". when reality contradicts your politics reality should win.
@oralloy,
oralloy wrote:Lustig Andrei wrote:A civil suit by the victim's family, alleging 'wrongful death' and seeking monetary damages would also be possible (as was done in the O.J. Simpson case) inasmuch as nobody's accusing Zimerman of 'murder' (of which, again, he has been found not guilty) but merely of causing a wrongful death. No criminal charges, you see, just a demand for several millions of dollars.
I thought Florida did away with wrongful death lawsuits when someone is shot in self defense.
Am I wrong on that??
No, I am right.
And not only will Zimmerman be immune to such a wrongful death lawsuit, if they even try to sue him they can be forced to pay his legal bills.
I am unsure if it will just be his civil defense that they will have to pay for, or whether they'll also have to cover the costs of his criminal defense. (I assume just his civil defense.)
@farmerman,
farmerman wrote:cant have it two ways Bill. Zimmerman was presented as a past member of a "neighborhood watch" organization and the handbook that is used has a clear instruction to "Not engage with those that you have under observation" (its not a quote but a paraphrase). Im sure that the Neighborhood watch handbook will play a central role in any civil case the MArtins bring. Zimmerman cant plead ignorance of his own organizations rules of conduct.
I've never seen it established that Zimmerman was ever formally trained to be part of a neighborhood watch.
And it seems pretty clear now that there is no evidence that Zimmerman "engaged" Trayvon.
farmerman wrote:Civil case will be interesting
Under Florida law, Zimmerman is immune to civil suits in this case.
If they even try to sue Zimmerman, not only will the case be automatically dismissed, they will then have to pay his legal bills.
@parados,
parados wrote:oralloy wrote: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. Or are you arguing that "every person" refers to only cops and government officials?
I don't know the exact statute number, but note the part about "under color of law".
@parados,
parados wrote:BillRM wrote:parados wrote:oralloy wrote: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. Or are you arguing that "every person" refers to only cops and government officials?
The part of the civil right laws that deal with doing so under the color of law.
So now you are arguing only cops and government officials can act under the color of law? And to think you've spent so much time arguing Zimmerman acted under the law when he shot Martin but now you want to argue he didn't.
It seems pretty straightforward that you cannot be acting in your role as part of law enforcement, unless you actually have a role as part of law enforcement in the first place.
Shapiro: Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict shines
troubling light on prosecutor’s decision-making
By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
Saturday, July 13, 2013
The jury in the Trayvon Martin case on Saturday
night acquitted George Zimmerman, but it should
never have gotten that far. The Florida State
Attorney’s Office should have dismissed their
case before submitting it to the jury.
That's what the law required.
The prosecution failed to prove the defendant’s
guilt by any standard of evidence and based on
the standard of probable cause, dismissing the
case would have been the right thing to do.
Now, the debate begins about whether the
Zimmerman case may go down as one of the most
meritless and politically motivated prosecutions in history
and the fallout on the streets of America remains to be seen.
Ironically, during its own presentation, the
State actually made a case for the defense.
A key witness called by the State who saw the
confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin
surprised prosecutors when he implied that
Martin was actually the attacker.
One police interrogator who was expected to
implicate Zimmerman instead testified that the
defendant did not appear to demonstrate ill will,
hatred or spite toward the alleged victim.
Ill will, hatred and spite are the elements required
under Florida law to secure a second-degree murder
conviction. Once prosecutors realized they couldn’t
prove any of those elements, they asked the judge
if they could add the lesser manslaughter charge.
Jurors decided the evidence fit neither charge
and declared Zimmerman not guilty.
One key police detective testified that he found
Zimmerman’s account of how the confrontation ensued credible.
Surprisingly, the prosecution’s case actually
sounded a lot like a defense case.
Under Florida Bar Rule 3.8, prosecutors in a
criminal case are required to “refrain from
prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is
not supported by probable cause… or make timely
disclosure to the defense of all evidence or
information known to the prosecutor that tends to
negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense…”
When considering whether or not the State is in
compliance with that critical rule, recall the following:
Last year, when charges were originally filed,
legal scholars criticized the State for
reportedly withholding material evidence that
supported Zimmerman’s self-defense claims.
They reportedly withheld photographs of Zimmerman’s
injuries when originally submitting an affidavit
under oath. Florida’s special prosecutor Angela
Corey made it clear that she believed it was her
job was “to do justice for Trayvon Martin.”
She was wrong.
A prosecutor’s job is to do justice for
everyone and that includes protecting the
defendant’s constitutional rights and ensuring he
is not wrongly prosecuted without probable cause.
Daily Beast columnist Mansfield Frazier last
April offered a different theory about what
Florida officials were really thinking when they
filed charges. “America can only dodge so many
bullets, and a not-guilty verdict could easily turn
the racial cold war into a very hot one,” he wrote.
Frazier, who watched the Los Angeles riots
first-hand, suggested that Zimmerman’s defense
should broker a plea agreement with the state
simply to help Florida avoid racial riots.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz blasted
both Corey and Frazier in a response he penned
for the New York Daily News:
As many see it, her [Corey’s] additional job is
to prevent riots of the sort that followed the
acquittal of the policemen who beat Rodney King…
Mansfield Frazier has suggested that it is the
responsibility of the legal system to ‘avert a
large scale racial calamity.’ He has urged
Zimmerman’s defense lawyer to become a savior
by brokering a deal to plead his client guilty to a
crime that ‘has him back on the streets within
this decade.’ But it is not the role of a defense
lawyer to save the world or the country.
His job his only job is to get the best result of
his client, by all legal and ethical means.
Dershowitz concluded his piece by saying that
“Zimmerman’s lawyer is doing his job. It’s about
time the prosecutor starts doing hers.”
The State declined to take Dershowitz’ advice
and instead filed murder charges without any
substantive evidence. Their case proved only one
thing beyond a reasonable doubt that from the
very beginning the state did not have a case for murder.
The loss of Trayvon Martin’s young life is indeed
a tragedy, but the State of Florida should have
dismissed their charges against Zimmerman before
they submitted their case to a jury because
prosecution should be based on evidence not
appeasement of racial tension.
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is a investigative
journalist and former Washington, D.C. prosecutor
