Help me understand something about the Trayvon Martin case.

Was it the part about the evidence and guilt beyond reasonable doubt?

I can't really talk, I served on a jury where I knew the guy was guilty, just knew it, and the lawyer was prosecuting her first case and also was no bright light, worst presentation ever, no follow up questions, no objections to pure theatrics - the defense was a drama king, and seemed to exaggerate, i.e. lie, to the extremes. we were denied by the judge the ability of looking at the transcript (he said this is a simple case, we should have listened).... and so it went, we had to let him go because the evidence was shown was a he said she said, even though there were half a dozen people there, we were only provided with the one witness - and this was for armed robbery. The excuse was that he was kidding he was not robbing them, because that is a funny joke, but he did not know any of these people. but that was not even challenged by the prosecutor. and so and so on. We all knew he was guilty, but we all voted to let him go. Hated it.

to the jury. The prosecutor clearly was not trying to win the case.

when the prosecution puts up witnesses who confirm the defense version of events... I don't know what othe option the jury had

when the prosecution puts up witnesses who confirm the defense version of events... I don't know what othe option the jury had

... but I sure know they presented the case as if they were

the SYG law because Zimmerman initiated the confrontation.

Serino, the police investigator nailed Zimmerman to the floor over his BS story but the case wasn't presented to the jury this way:




More excerpts:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023147402

...

And the people who donated money. And now look at him.... He's exactly what I thought he was.

I've had clients convicted on less.

the fact is Trayvon would be alive today if he had not encountered an armed lunatic with a record for being a thug, who was out LOOKING FOR TROUBLE

TRAYVON was the one who was standing his ground and he was EXECUTED for it

The talking heads on TV just talked on and on about it to give people another thing to be outraged about.

Find their ass with both hands being lead by the wife of a lawyer who was biased and bigoted.

I didn't follow the trial, so I don't know what the jury was exposed to, so I don't judge them. That said, Zimmerman is a creepy fucker, in my opinion.

more

Defense made sure to get that type. State tried to get that one racist off but wasn't able to.

If trayvon was white it would have been an easy conviction.

And doesn't it take just 1 juror to get a hung jury?

Hispanic/Latino woman who had moved from the Great Lakes area.

in a country where racism against blacks is the norm?

Someone was heard begging in a tearful voice, "oh, god, please don't kill me." There are two possibilities:

1. Trayvon was begging not to be killed after Zimmerman pulled his gun. Of course, that would mean pre-meditation murder 1 for Z.

2. An armed Zimmerman was begging not to be killed by the unarmed Trayvon. That would make Z the greatest coward in history.


I happen to think #2 is so ridiculous that it can not possibly be true. But that is what the jury decided. So Z's place in history has been recorded.

Zimmerman's story is absolutely RIDICULOUS and shame on ANYONE who bought it

then it is very likely that he was not going to be found guilty.

It was always going to be a tough case to try because there were no witnesses to the actual shooting. Without hard evidence creating reasonable doubt was not going to be hard - remember that trials are skewed towards the defendant.

I can fully understand the reasonable doubt from the jury. Every one of the state's witnesses was, in the end, supportive if the defense's case. Not so in reverse. No surprise here reasonable doubt was in evidence.

Apparently the jury believed that GZ was in fear for his life, and deadly force was his only choice to save himself.

Who knows what GZ was thinking? No one can know what anyone else is thinking, so reasonable doubt.

and all the other evidence was the same what would the jury have done ? anyone really think they would have let a black man go free with that evidence ?

would "armed with the sidewalk" be taken seriously ?

Exactly what do you find "immensely confusing"?

And why have you not looked into the thousands of past DU threads on the topic?

and so I can "understand" something, please tell me your basic demographic info...

To stereotype?

I just like knowing who I'm talking to, just so I can properly stage my argument....

And while my unofficial statistics are of course unscientific, 100% of the people I've met who claim to not "understand" this case or don't believe racial profiling exists are white...

Nor was my thread about race to begin with.

"pounding him MMA style", one can see why the jury could conclude that they could not convict Zimmerman of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/06/28/questions-still-loom-over-george-zimmerman-trial

And then I should mention the two jurors who admitted to the media that their minds were already made up to acquit before the trial even started...

People believe the narrative they want to believe...Things like truth and fact had nothing to do with Zimmerman's acquittal, but playing to latent prejudices plus a shockingly weak prosecution did...

But this isn't something I'm in the mood to tear the scab off of for the hundredth time, and I suspect the OP is taking a piss with this little hand grenade of a thread, so this will be my only post on the topic...

by lying about something one of their neighbors did.

Especially when the only person to counter the official story is dead?

especially in a case like this one where they were only neighbors as opposed to friends. As a juror, I would not find it credible that this witness would risk a perjury conviction to save Zimmerman. Yes, Trayvon was dead, but there were other witnesses, and for all he knew when he was giving his eyewitness account to the cops, there may well have been CCTV footage.

of a juror believing Zim's freedom was worth more than some dead black teenager nobody cared about and got what was coming to him...

And sometimes it's just a matter of neighbors getting together and making sure they all "saw" the same thing, which was especially easy since the cops didn't get any definitive accounts from neighbors that first night, and it took the fucking cops 3 weeks (and national media pressure) to even pretend to start "investigating" the case, which was plenty of time...

But a possible theory of guilt is not equivalent to proof of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what was needed for conviction.

the state never said after his testimony that he had lied to them as to what he saw.

The prosecution was inept.

or just protecting their bosom buddies on the police force...

The lives of black folks have always been expendable in this nation's long history...

The public outrage and presumptions of guilt on the part of Zimmerman came from the underlying circumstances:

Z got out of his car, with a gun, and confronted Martin because he suspected him of some wrongdoing, which many presume was based in some part on Martin's race or his dress. If I recall correctly, it came to light that there had been break-ins in the neighborhood, and Z believed black youths had been seen. He apparently thought he had stumbled on "those people."

So the end result -- Martin's death, was completely avoidable but for Z's assumptions and presumptions, and his notion that he should carry a weapon and go around guarding his neighborhood from anyone he felt didn't belong.

The problem with convicting Zimmerman in front of most any jury in most most any state, was that

1) *Ordinary self defense laws* permit the use of deadly force based on a reasonable fear of imminent great bodily harm, AND

2) No one, and no clear forensic evidence, could contradict Z's story that Martin knocked him down and commenced beating him senseless. Z. also told police Martin threatened to kill him.

The way gun laws work, almost everywhere, is that you can get a license and carry one. The way self-defense laws work, almost everywhere, is that if you are, say, pinned down and believe you are about to be subject to severe injury or death, you can respond with deadly force. There is not a lot of law that allows for who "instigated" things or caused the initial problem to begin with. Once someone is in "reasonable fear" of being greatly hurt, they can use deadly force.

"Stand Your Ground" was mentioned in the jury instructions, but was not raised by Z, nor did any of the facts bear on that law. If Z was pinned and unable to flee as he said, the generic self-defense laws in effect anywhere would allow him to defend his life with a gun. "Stand Your Ground" only takes away the obligation to flee if you can safely do so. "I was pinned to the ground" eliminates applicability of that law entirely.

My personal take is that the biggest problem is allowing people to walk around with weapons, with no special responsibility to avoid *putting themselves* in a situation where they might then claim the need for deadly self defense. I think it is entirely possible Martin was beating Z up after Z's creepy stalking behavior. But I don't think he was going to kill him via punches to the face. If there was a legal reason for Z's defense to lose, in my opinion it was in the question of whether he was ever in "reasonable fear" of losing his life or suffering great bodily harm. He was receiving an ass beating, not a murdering.

The other problem with carrying guns is -- assuming again for a moment Z's story was true -- once the gun "appears," someone is likely to get shot. Z claimed Martin saw the gun in the shoulder holster and grabbed for it.

But once it was in view, didn't they both HAVE to grab for it? You can't have a gun sitting there in the middle of a fight and simply let it be. A deadly weapon automatically escalates any physical conflict into life and death.

Of course, because of the lack of evidence, it's possible Z was even worse than he appears, and executed Martin for no reason. But absent that evidence, a jury had no business making such an assumption, no matter how much contempt they may have had for Zimmerman.

For what it's worth, I spoke to several attorneys casually about the case, and they felt the same regarding the inapplicability of SYG and the overall lack of evidence to refute Z's self-defense story.

So here we are. A person can a) carry a gun almost anywhere, and b) shoot anyone they somehow come to "fear," even if they instigated the situation. We couldn't have a better recipe for people who don't like or don't trust certain "types" of other people to end up killing them, in my opinion.

But it wasn't because "Floriduh," and it wasn't because the jury was racist, and it wasn't even the stupid, should-be-repealed Stand Your Ground nonsense. This is the law everywhere. If we don't like it, we ought to do something about it.

getting patched up, and being sent home. Allowing racist wannabe-cops like Zimmerman to go strutting around with guns is a recipe for disaster.

Zimmerman on the head and told him to go on his way. He is a hero to the very worst of gun-as-self-defense afficionados -- those who imagine they can go and *seek out* trouble, secure in the notion that as soon as it doesn't go their way, they can employ their personal "superpower" -- a bullet.

It's exactly the kind of behavior a fearful, insecure person -- like a racist -- would find appealing.

Thank you.