I think some people are in for a surprise Re: Zimmerman.

[onenote]

55. Instead of "findlaw" let's go to the actual Florida jury instructions and caselaw:

From the Florida Standard Criminal Jury Instructions:


If in your consideration of the issue of self-defense you have a reasonable doubt on the question of whether the defendant was justified in the use of deadly force, you should find the defendant not guilty.

However, if from the evidence you are convinced that the defendant was not justified in the use of deadly force, you should find [him] [her] guilty if all the elements of the charge have been proved.


In other words, the burden is on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not self defense, not on the defendant to prove that it was. Any doubt regarding this has been resolved by the Florida courts. See, for example, Murray v. State, www.4dca.org/Sept%202006/09-13-06/4D05-3691.op.pdf, where the court stated: "the law did not require defendant to prove his justification of self-defense to any standard measuring an assurance of truth. He did not have to prove the exigency of self-defense to a near certainty (reasonable doubt) or even to a mere probability (greater weight). His only burden was to offer additional facts from which it could be true, that his resort to such force could have been reasonable."