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This is a sensitive and complex issue, please do not make comments without first reading the facts, which are cataloged in the OP. |
Is this really happening? unbelievable.
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On March 25 2012 07:20 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Can the dead body not count as probable cause? There have been cases of people being killed and the killer injuring themselves afterwards to make it look legitimate. It's clear that a homicide was committed, whether legitimate or not. I don't know much about how trials are conducted, but somehow it seems to me it should be for the trial to prove whether or not the homicide was murder or self-defense rather than the police on the scene. It's up to the police to gather evidence, it would be the family of the deceased to actually bring charges. Since you have experience in the legal field, could you explain it a little more thoroughly please? Is it just simply that the investigation may have still been ongoing and charges were not formally made yet but could possibly still have been done in the future before all of this blew up in the media?
dead body means someone is dead, it doesnt mean a crime was committed, and he admitted to being the killer. he claims self defense though and they apparently found corroborating evidence to support that, but no evidence to contradict it. because they had no reason (apparently) to disbelieve his self defense claim, they had no probable cause that he committed a crime. (im not agreeing with this, but this is their analysis based on their likely shoddy investigation.)
probable cause protects innocent people from going through expensive, time consuming, etc. etc. trials for claims that there is no basis for. otherwise, the government can arrest you for anything without any support. people may not like it in this case, but imagine a world where you get thrown in jail with no evidence. it was done in the past and thats why due process (i.e., probable cause) was written into the constitution.
they can still investigate though and see if there is enough evidence to charge him now (and because of the media frenzy and the DOJ's involvement, i am going to guess a thorough investigation will be done). if they find enough evidence to charge him then they will. probable cause is not a high standard (think 25% likely he committed the crime) and i think they will be able to find it in this case.
one they have probable cause, it will go to trial. then the DA will try to prove his guilt and he gets to prove his innocence according to the higher standards accorded defendants (i am not sure of the exact process in Florida, because im a California attorney, but defendant usually has to prove he acted in self defense; i would need to check this though).
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@kickboxer
I wouldn't want to live in a nation where someone who is getting beaten is forced to just take it or risk prosecution. Defending yourself is a basic human right in my opinion. I also have no problem at all with escalation of force in a moment of self defense. You can't predict an attackers actions, you don't know if they are gonna bruise you or kill you, there is adrenaline running through your system, neither party is thinking straight, and someone in that situation should not be punished for inaccurately assessing the risk or not responding in the "legally proportional" way. A victims right to self defense supersedes the attackers right to not be harmed.
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On March 25 2012 07:28 liberal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:21 Kickboxer wrote:
The law lets you kill somebody if you "feel" you are in danger of being seriously hurt, which is completely arbitrary.
Zimmerman, for example, was in no such danger objectively although he might have felt like it.
From what I understand, you're not obliged to run away even when you can. Also, your "assailant" does not need to have any kind of weapon. I put assailant in quotation marks because if you harass someone's girl and then spill beer in that person's face when he asks you to go away, which happened to me for example, you absolutely deserve to get punched in the face. That's not the law, you are misunderstanding it, which is understandable considering how so many other people are misrepresenting it.
Cite a source that opposes this statement
The SYG law allows for the use of deadly force if someone feels their life is in danger. They are allowed to stand their ground and defend themselves with deadly force.
This is distinctly different than a standard self defense law where one has a duty to retreat before deadly force is warranted. Some states further handicap the self defense law to say that only equal force can be used to defend one's self after they are followed their duty to retreat.
This is how the law was explained to me by my Criminal Justice Professor.
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A 13 year old white killed was covered in gasoline and lit on fire by 2 kids whos reason for this was "because he was white"
THIS ABOVE barely made news, yet when a man has a legitimate claim of self defence(the kid was tresspassing afterall) and the kid is black, it makes national headlines. Racial profiling is wrong, and disgusting, and the media should be ashamed for the amount of racial and political bias that is present.
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On March 25 2012 07:31 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:20 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Can the dead body not count as probable cause? There have been cases of people being killed and the killer injuring themselves afterwards to make it look legitimate. It's clear that a homicide was committed, whether legitimate or not. I don't know much about how trials are conducted, but somehow it seems to me it should be for the trial to prove whether or not the homicide was murder or self-defense rather than the police on the scene. It's up to the police to gather evidence, it would be the family of the deceased to actually bring charges. Since you have experience in the legal field, could you explain it a little more thoroughly please? Is it just simply that the investigation may have still been ongoing and charges were not formally made yet but could possibly still have been done in the future before all of this blew up in the media? dead body means someone is dead, it doesnt mean a crime was committed, and he admitted to being the killer. he claims self defense though and they apparently found corroborating evidence to support that, but no evidence to contradict it. because they had no reason (apparently) to disbelieve his self defense claim, they had no probable cause that he committed a crime. (im not agreeing with this, but this is their analysis based on their likely shoddy investigation.) probable cause protects innocent people from going through expensive, time consuming, etc. etc. trials for claims that there is no basis for. otherwise, the government can arrest you for anything without any support. people may not like it in this case, but imagine a world where you get thrown in jail with no evidence. it was done in the past and thats why due process (i.e., probable cause) was written into the constitution. they can still investigate though and see if there is enough evidence to charge him now (and because of the media frenzy and the DOJ's involvement, i am going to guess a thorough investigation will be done). if they find enough evidence to charge him then they will. probable cause is not a high standard (think 25% likely he committed the crime) and i think they will be able to find it in this case. one they have probable cause, it will go to trial. then the DA will try to prove his guilt and he gets to prove his innocence according to the higher standards accorded defendants (i am not sure of the exact process in Florida, because im a California attorney, but defendant usually has to prove he acted in self defense; i would need to check this though).
Thank You.
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On March 25 2012 07:29 stokes17 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Have you actually read the SYG law? It does actually say that deadly force is justified if you feel threatened. You are allowed to "stand your ground." That is the wording and intent of the law And there is no decision to arrest Zimmerman. If the Police have probable cause to believe you committed a crime you are arrested. Zimmerman was found near the dead body, bloody, with a gun. The police do not decide if a homicide is justified. To prove justifiable homicide you have to 1st admit to the crime, which Zimmerman did, and then you have to prove that your defense is sound. The burden is on the defendant to demonstrate he acted in self defense. When I said due process was violated I meant that Zimmerman was not required to prove his defense in a court of law. Instead no charges were filed and he was allowed to go free. Again, A justifiable homicide is still a homicide and the accused has to be arrested if there is probable cause he committed the crime. It is up to a jury of his peers to determine if his defense is sound. Imo, trying to sweep this case under the rug by not charging Zimmerman is a breach of due process, and as an extension obstruction of justice. I think the fact that the Police chief resigned and the DA transferred the case support my assertion that due process was violated. Just because due process was violated in Zimmerman's favor doesn't mean it wasn't violated.
i read the Florida jury instructions and posted them in this thread at least three times now. please provide me a cite to where the law says "deadly force is justified if you feel threatened." a legitimate cite (i.e., the Florida statute, the jury instructions, the Supreme Court), because that is what i have provided multiple times.
you are still not using the term due process correctly. you can google it if you want to know what it means.
i agree he should be arrested and a trial had.
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On March 25 2012 07:31 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:20 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Can the dead body not count as probable cause? There have been cases of people being killed and the killer injuring themselves afterwards to make it look legitimate. It's clear that a homicide was committed, whether legitimate or not. I don't know much about how trials are conducted, but somehow it seems to me it should be for the trial to prove whether or not the homicide was murder or self-defense rather than the police on the scene. It's up to the police to gather evidence, it would be the family of the deceased to actually bring charges. Since you have experience in the legal field, could you explain it a little more thoroughly please? Is it just simply that the investigation may have still been ongoing and charges were not formally made yet but could possibly still have been done in the future before all of this blew up in the media? dead body means someone is dead, it doesnt mean a crime was committed, and he admitted to being the killer. he claims self defense though and they apparently found corroborating evidence to support that, but no evidence to contradict it. because they had no reason (apparently) to disbelieve his self defense claim, they had no probable cause that he committed a crime. (im not agreeing with this, but this is their analysis based on their likely shoddy investigation.) probable cause protects innocent people from going through expensive, time consuming, etc. etc. trials for claims that there is no basis for. otherwise, the government can arrest you for anything without any support. people may not like it in this case, but imagine a world where you get thrown in jail with no evidence. it was done in the past and thats why due process (i.e., probable cause) was written into the constitution. they can still investigate though and see if there is enough evidence to charge him now (and because of the media frenzy and the DOJ's involvement, i am going to guess a thorough investigation will be done). if they find enough evidence to charge him then they will. probable cause is not a high standard (think 25% likely he committed the crime) and i think they will be able to find it in this case. one they have probable cause, it will go to trial. then the DA will try to prove his guilt and he gets to prove his innocence according to the higher standards accorded defendants (i am not sure of the exact process in Florida, because im a California attorney, but defendant usually has to prove he acted in self defense; i would need to check this though).
You don't understand self defense law
The Police do not evaluate the veracity of a claim of self defense. It is an affirmative defense. This means it only applies after you are charged. It is a way to justify the homicide you are accused of. The police only had to determine if ZImmerman probably committed the murder. It is up to a jury of his peers to evaluate his claim of self defense.
The Sanford Police Chief took the law into his own hands, that's why he doesn't have a job anymore.
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On March 25 2012 07:21 Kickboxer wrote:
The law lets you kill somebody if you "feel" you are in danger of being seriously hurt, which is completely arbitrary.
Zimmerman, for example, was in no such danger objectively although he might have felt like it.
From what I understand, you're not obliged to run away even when you can. Also, your "assailant" does not need to have any kind of weapon. I put assailant in quotation marks because if you harass someone's girl and then spill beer in that person's face when he asks you to go away, which happened to me for example, you absolutely deserve to get punched in the face.
stand your ground just means you dont have an obligation to retreat in the face of a serious threat of bodily injury / death. that is all. the rest is just standard self defense law that is applicable in every state in the U.S. (and most of the world).
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On March 25 2012 07:32 stokes17 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:28 liberal wrote:On March 25 2012 07:21 Kickboxer wrote:
The law lets you kill somebody if you "feel" you are in danger of being seriously hurt, which is completely arbitrary.
Zimmerman, for example, was in no such danger objectively although he might have felt like it.
From what I understand, you're not obliged to run away even when you can. Also, your "assailant" does not need to have any kind of weapon. I put assailant in quotation marks because if you harass someone's girl and then spill beer in that person's face when he asks you to go away, which happened to me for example, you absolutely deserve to get punched in the face. That's not the law, you are misunderstanding it, which is understandable considering how so many other people are misrepresenting it. Cite a source that opposes this statement The SYG law allows for the use of deadly force if someone feels their life is in danger. They are allowed to stand their ground and defend themselves with deadly force. This is distinctly different than a standard self defense law where one has a duty to retreat before deadly force is warranted. Some states further handicap the self defense law to say that only equal force can be used to defend one's self after they are followed their duty to retreat. This is how the law was explained to me by my Criminal Justice Professor.
The burden of proof lies on the prosecutor in Florida to prove self-defense. Most other states with SYG laws-- the burden lies on the defendant.
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On March 25 2012 07:34 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:29 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Have you actually read the SYG law? It does actually say that deadly force is justified if you feel threatened. You are allowed to "stand your ground." That is the wording and intent of the law And there is no decision to arrest Zimmerman. If the Police have probable cause to believe you committed a crime you are arrested. Zimmerman was found near the dead body, bloody, with a gun. The police do not decide if a homicide is justified. To prove justifiable homicide you have to 1st admit to the crime, which Zimmerman did, and then you have to prove that your defense is sound. The burden is on the defendant to demonstrate he acted in self defense. When I said due process was violated I meant that Zimmerman was not required to prove his defense in a court of law. Instead no charges were filed and he was allowed to go free. Again, A justifiable homicide is still a homicide and the accused has to be arrested if there is probable cause he committed the crime. It is up to a jury of his peers to determine if his defense is sound. Imo, trying to sweep this case under the rug by not charging Zimmerman is a breach of due process, and as an extension obstruction of justice. I think the fact that the Police chief resigned and the DA transferred the case support my assertion that due process was violated. Just because due process was violated in Zimmerman's favor doesn't mean it wasn't violated. i read the Florida jury instructions and posted them in this thread at least three times now. please provide me a cite to where the law says "deadly force is justified if you feel threatened." a legitimate cite (i.e., the Florida statute, the jury instructions, the Supreme Court), because that is what i have provided multiple times. you are still not using the term due process correctly. you can google it if you want to know what it means. i agree he should be arrested and a trial had.
Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person.
Just because Zimmerman would have preferred there not to be a trial doesn't mean he and the general public are not entitled to one. The Sanford PD violated due process by not arresting Zimmerman after he admitted to killing Martin.
I'm gonna go read the SYG law myself now, I've been working off of class notes up til now.
EDIT: first line of wikipedia entry on the law -- A stand-your-ground law states that a person may use deadly force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of a threat, without an obligation to retreat first.
That's literally what I've been saying.
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On March 25 2012 07:33 sc2blacklust wrote:
A 13 year old white killed was covered in gasoline and lit on fire by 2 kids whos reason for this was "because he was white"
THIS ABOVE barely made news, yet when a man has a legitimate claim of self defence(the kid was tresspassing afterall) and the kid is black, it makes national headlines. Racial profiling is wrong, and disgusting, and the media should be ashamed for the amount of racial and political bias that is present.
"legitimate claim of self defense" (following a hood wearing kid after being told by the police not to and doing this while armed at night, of course the kid was scared as hell), "the kid was trespassing" (wait, what?).
Read the articles again.
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On March 25 2012 07:32 stokes17 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:28 liberal wrote:On March 25 2012 07:21 Kickboxer wrote:
The law lets you kill somebody if you "feel" you are in danger of being seriously hurt, which is completely arbitrary.
Zimmerman, for example, was in no such danger objectively although he might have felt like it.
From what I understand, you're not obliged to run away even when you can. Also, your "assailant" does not need to have any kind of weapon. I put assailant in quotation marks because if you harass someone's girl and then spill beer in that person's face when he asks you to go away, which happened to me for example, you absolutely deserve to get punched in the face. That's not the law, you are misunderstanding it, which is understandable considering how so many other people are misrepresenting it. Cite a source that opposes this statement The SYG law allows for the use of deadly force if someone feels their life is in danger. They are allowed to stand their ground and defend themselves with deadly force. This is distinctly different than a standard self defense law where one has a duty to retreat before deadly force is warranted. Some states further handicap the self defense law to say that only equal force can be used to defend one's self after they are followed their duty to retreat. This is how the law was explained to me by my Criminal Justice Professor.
"A stand-your-ground law states that a person may use deadly force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of a threat"
It is a misrepresentation to suggest a person can commit murder based on a "feeling." They must have a reasonable belief of a threat.
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dAPhREAk I think you really need to calm down
You ignore simple facts and dont try to see the whole picture here
people have been beaten to death simple fact. self defense is justifiable
On March 25 2012 07:31 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:20 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Can the dead body not count as probable cause? There have been cases of people being killed and the killer injuring themselves afterwards to make it look legitimate. It's clear that a homicide was committed, whether legitimate or not. I don't know much about how trials are conducted, but somehow it seems to me it should be for the trial to prove whether or not the homicide was murder or self-defense rather than the police on the scene. It's up to the police to gather evidence, it would be the family of the deceased to actually bring charges. Since you have experience in the legal field, could you explain it a little more thoroughly please? Is it just simply that the investigation may have still been ongoing and charges were not formally made yet but could possibly still have been done in the future before all of this blew up in the media? dead body means someone is dead, it doesnt mean a crime was committed, and he admitted to being the killer. he claims self defense though and they apparently found corroborating evidence to support that, but no evidence to contradict it. because they had no reason (apparently) to disbelieve his self defense claim, they had no probable cause that he committed a crime. (im not agreeing with this, but this is their analysis based on their likely shoddy investigation.) probable cause protects innocent people from going through expensive, time consuming, etc. etc. trials for claims that there is no basis for. otherwise, the government can arrest you for anything without any support. people may not like it in this case, but imagine a world where you get thrown in jail with no evidence. it was done in the past and thats why due process (i.e., probable cause) was written into the constitution. they can still investigate though and see if there is enough evidence to charge him now (and because of the media frenzy and the DOJ's involvement, i am going to guess a thorough investigation will be done). if they find enough evidence to charge him then they will. probable cause is not a high standard (think 25% likely he committed the crime) and i think they will be able to find it in this case. one they have probable cause, it will go to trial. then the DA will try to prove his guilt and he gets to prove his innocence according to the higher standards accorded defendants (i am not sure of the exact process in Florida, because im a California attorney, but defendant usually has to prove he acted in self defense; i would need to check this though).
couldnt agree more. people need to stop thinking that this was just plain cold blooded murder. there is more to it
If i see a kid walking around looking at houses when its raining im gonna think hes up to no good also
reminds me the other day this car had been outside my house for about an hour and when I looked at it the backed up a little but still pretty much right infront of my house. Now my car that sits outside has been broken into before so I felt the need to go outside and see what these people were up to
now If i brought my gun out with me and this person got out of his car and jumped on me and started hitting me I would shoot him without thought.
and at no fault of my own
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On March 25 2012 07:38 stokes17 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:34 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 07:29 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Have you actually read the SYG law? It does actually say that deadly force is justified if you feel threatened. You are allowed to "stand your ground." That is the wording and intent of the law And there is no decision to arrest Zimmerman. If the Police have probable cause to believe you committed a crime you are arrested. Zimmerman was found near the dead body, bloody, with a gun. The police do not decide if a homicide is justified. To prove justifiable homicide you have to 1st admit to the crime, which Zimmerman did, and then you have to prove that your defense is sound. The burden is on the defendant to demonstrate he acted in self defense. When I said due process was violated I meant that Zimmerman was not required to prove his defense in a court of law. Instead no charges were filed and he was allowed to go free. Again, A justifiable homicide is still a homicide and the accused has to be arrested if there is probable cause he committed the crime. It is up to a jury of his peers to determine if his defense is sound. Imo, trying to sweep this case under the rug by not charging Zimmerman is a breach of due process, and as an extension obstruction of justice. I think the fact that the Police chief resigned and the DA transferred the case support my assertion that due process was violated. Just because due process was violated in Zimmerman's favor doesn't mean it wasn't violated. i read the Florida jury instructions and posted them in this thread at least three times now. please provide me a cite to where the law says "deadly force is justified if you feel threatened." a legitimate cite (i.e., the Florida statute, the jury instructions, the Supreme Court), because that is what i have provided multiple times. you are still not using the term due process correctly. you can google it if you want to know what it means. i agree he should be arrested and a trial had. Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person. Just because Zimmerman would have preferred there not to be a trial doesn't mean he and the general public are not entitled to one. The Sanford PD violated due process by not arresting Zimmerman after he admitted to killing Martin. I'm gonna go read the SYG law myself now, I've been working off of class notes up til now. EDIT: first line of wikipedia entry on the law -- A stand-your-ground law states that a person may use deadly force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of a threat, without an obligation to retreat first. That's literally what I've been saying.
if you are going to cite me wiki when i have been citing the actual law, i am not going to continue this conversation.
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On March 25 2012 07:41 AllHailTheDead wrote:dAPhREAk I think you really need to calm down You ignore simple facts and dont try to see the whole picture here people have been beaten to death simple fact. self defense is justifiable Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:31 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 07:20 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 25 2012 06:56 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:41 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 06:15 dAPhREAk wrote:On March 25 2012 06:12 Kickboxer wrote:
Well, they used to have a law that justified burning witches, too. Laws can be fundamentally unjust and let's not forget this one was passed by one of the dumbest people alive, Jebediah "weapons industry" Bush himself.
In my mind, if Zimmerman gets hunted down and shot, it will be a far less drastic response to his slaying of a minor compared to ending an unarmed person's life because they are beating you up. I don't want it to happen, but it's absolutely closer to objective justice than his so-called "self defense". 168 unarmed people shot in self defense? Wow.
What I find disturbing is that apparently the same people who are defending Zimmerman are somehow appalled by the Panthers' action. Haven't you heard of the difference between legal and legitimate? The SYG law is nothing but legalized murder and should be immediately revoked or hell will break loose sooner or later. The situation where a civilian can stalk and shoot an unarmed teenager (I don't care if Martin was beating him up, what the fuck? People get into fights all the time) and somehow has done nothing illegal, as in less legal than smoking a joint at home, is stranger than fiction. governors dont pass laws. yes, lets kill everyone accused of a crime. the judicial process is expensive and tedious. yes, lets take the law into our own hands. when we dont agree with the laws, we make our own. thats how a perfect democracy works. thanks for your contributions. =D The funny thing is the Sanford police department (and the DA) did exactly what you are making fun of. They decided the judicial process was too expensive and didn't charge zimmerman even though he admitted to shooting Martin. They literally find a guy with a bloody nose and smoking gun standing over a dead boy half his size. He goes "i felt threatened it was self defense" The cops go "HOKAY!" and let him go. Let's let all murderers free as long as they "felt threatened." That is a breach of protocol at the least and obstruction of justice at the most (combined with the apparent attempt to cover the incident up, leads me to lean towards obstruction of justice) The Sanford Police department took the law into their own hands and judged Zimmerman to be innocent. They did not give Martin's family due process which they are constitutionally entitled to. Its no wonder the DA asked to be relived of the case and the Police Chief resigned. I mean you use hyperbole in your example, I just have to point to what has fucking occurred in Florida over the past 7 years as a result of this absurd Stand your ground law. they decided there wasnt enough evidence to charge him of a crime based on constitutional principles (i.e., probable cause). i disagree with that decision, but i dont know all the facts. you keep oversimplifying all the issues. sigh, another person using due process incorrectly. are you the person i corrected earlier in this thread? edit: it wasnt you. it was someone else. zimmerman is entitled to due process, not the family. see my previous post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=322664¤tpage=70#1384 Can the dead body not count as probable cause? There have been cases of people being killed and the killer injuring themselves afterwards to make it look legitimate. It's clear that a homicide was committed, whether legitimate or not. I don't know much about how trials are conducted, but somehow it seems to me it should be for the trial to prove whether or not the homicide was murder or self-defense rather than the police on the scene. It's up to the police to gather evidence, it would be the family of the deceased to actually bring charges. Since you have experience in the legal field, could you explain it a little more thoroughly please? Is it just simply that the investigation may have still been ongoing and charges were not formally made yet but could possibly still have been done in the future before all of this blew up in the media? dead body means someone is dead, it doesnt mean a crime was committed, and he admitted to being the killer. he claims self defense though and they apparently found corroborating evidence to support that, but no evidence to contradict it. because they had no reason (apparently) to disbelieve his self defense claim, they had no probable cause that he committed a crime. (im not agreeing with this, but this is their analysis based on their likely shoddy investigation.) probable cause protects innocent people from going through expensive, time consuming, etc. etc. trials for claims that there is no basis for. otherwise, the government can arrest you for anything without any support. people may not like it in this case, but imagine a world where you get thrown in jail with no evidence. it was done in the past and thats why due process (i.e., probable cause) was written into the constitution. they can still investigate though and see if there is enough evidence to charge him now (and because of the media frenzy and the DOJ's involvement, i am going to guess a thorough investigation will be done). if they find enough evidence to charge him then they will. probable cause is not a high standard (think 25% likely he committed the crime) and i think they will be able to find it in this case. one they have probable cause, it will go to trial. then the DA will try to prove his guilt and he gets to prove his innocence according to the higher standards accorded defendants (i am not sure of the exact process in Florida, because im a California attorney, but defendant usually has to prove he acted in self defense; i would need to check this though).
wow. i take it you havent been reading all of my posts in this thread.
edit: wtf. you just edited your post to say you agree with me after saying im ignoring facts....
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being latinamerican myself, ZIMMERMAN sounds very common , its pretty much like lopez in the common department...
Im not buying the guy is hispanic.
They are saying that to try to diffuse the implications of a white man shooting an african american...
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On March 25 2012 07:37 Sofestafont wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2012 07:32 stokes17 wrote:On March 25 2012 07:28 liberal wrote:On March 25 2012 07:21 Kickboxer wrote:
The law lets you kill somebody if you "feel" you are in danger of being seriously hurt, which is completely arbitrary.
Zimmerman, for example, was in no such danger objectively although he might have felt like it.
From what I understand, you're not obliged to run away even when you can. Also, your "assailant" does not need to have any kind of weapon. I put assailant in quotation marks because if you harass someone's girl and then spill beer in that person's face when he asks you to go away, which happened to me for example, you absolutely deserve to get punched in the face. That's not the law, you are misunderstanding it, which is understandable considering how so many other people are misrepresenting it. Cite a source that opposes this statement The SYG law allows for the use of deadly force if someone feels their life is in danger. They are allowed to stand their ground and defend themselves with deadly force. This is distinctly different than a standard self defense law where one has a duty to retreat before deadly force is warranted. Some states further handicap the self defense law to say that only equal force can be used to defend one's self after they are followed their duty to retreat. This is how the law was explained to me by my Criminal Justice Professor. The burden of proof lies on the prosecutor in Florida to prove self-defense. Most other states with SYG laws-- the burden lies on the defendant.
My goodness, you are correct. Completely right, I just emailed my professor. That makes the law even scarier.
You are actually immune from arrest in the state of Florida if you meet this requirement.
776.012 Use of force in defense of person.—A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:
(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself.
That's mind blowingly arbitrary.
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On March 25 2012 07:43 TheBlueMeaner wrote:
being latinamerican myself, ZIMMERMAN sounds very common , its pretty much like lopez in the common department...
Im not buying the guy is hispanic.
They are saying that to try to diffuse the implications of a white man shooting an african american...
he is half white, half peruvian.
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On March 25 2012 07:43 TheBlueMeaner wrote:
being latinamerican myself, ZIMMERMAN sounds very common , its pretty much like lopez in the common department...
Im not buying the guy is hispanic.
They are saying that to try to diffuse the implications of a white man shooting an african american...
You aren't "buying" it? Huh? Do you think it's some kind of conspiracy? His own family says he is hispanic.
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EPT
