**Official** Trayvon Martin thread

[Paulitics 2011]

His drug use is irrelevant to the case. Let's wait for ALL the facts before rendering judgement.

 

[azxd]

So I am right, but it doesn't count because the definition supports my position, or something?

Perhaps, perhaps not ... I'm thinking that word "repeatedly" should be analyzed more carefully.

 

[jmdrake]

Good lord. Are honestly citing a freaking politician? You realize that it is almost unheard of for a politician to actually write a law? Other people draft them for them. The best you can hope for is the politician has a vague understanding of the law before he introduces it. I've cited the statute itself. You've cited a politician who ignores the statute entirely and admits he knows nothing about the case. Show me where IN THE STATUTE it says anything that would justify the statute not being applicable.

I've cited the statute to YOU several times now and you keep ignoring what you don't want to see!

(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 or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

The important part is in bold. Trayvon was unarmed. Zimmerman should have to prove that he reasonably believed his life was in danger from a fist fight that his actions initiated. That means having a trial. It's also highly questionable if Zimmerman was engaged in a lawful activity after the police told him they didn't need him following Trayvon.

 

[RonPaulMall]

But the intention of the stand your ground law was to strengthen self defense laws. Previously, a person could be charged with choosing to defend oneself when there was an option to flee. This ceased to be about that when Zimmerman got out of the car.

No, it didn't. You are allowed to approach another being in this country. What you are not allowed to do is commit an unlawful act against them. Stand Your Ground would cease to apply only if Zimmerman did something unlawful prior to shooting Martin. Walking up to someone is not unlawful. Under your reading of the statute (and I hasten to call it that since there is really in the statute to support what you are saying) anytime a person approaches another person, the stand your ground law doesn't apply. That is absurd. It doesn't matter who among two people approaches the other prior to a fight. The only thing that matters with respect to Stand Your Ground is who started the fight.

 

[azxd]

The problem here is that while you're right - the gun grabbers use every available opportunity given to them - that having a CCW doesn't automatically exonerate you in shootings. There's less respect for gun rights on the NRA forums than there is on these forums.

Who has claimed that a CCW exonerates one of anything ... If anything it makes you that much more subject to your local laws, because you are supposed to know what you can and cannot do defensively, along with where you can carry and were you may not.

Take a class, Angel.

 

[azxd]

Of course it started on page 1 - look at the title of the thread!

Proving my point ... Thank You !!!

 

[RonPaulMall]

I've cited the statute to YOU several times now and you keep ignoring what you don't want to see!

(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 or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

The important part is in bold. Trayvon was unarmed. Zimmerman should have to prove that he reasonably believed his life was in danger from a fist fight that his actions initiated. That means having a trial. It's also highly questionable if Zimmerman was engaged in a lawful activity after the police told him they didn't need him following Trayvon.

There is a witness that has Martin on top of Zimmerman, punching him, and Zimmerman screaming for help. Of all the aspects of this case, the one least in doubt is the fact that Zimmerman was acting to reasonably prevent great bodily harm.

It's also highly questionable if Zimmerman was engaged in a lawful activity after the police told him they didn't need him following Trayvon.

You can not possibly be this dense. Please cite me that statute that says doing an otherwise legal activity becomes illegal if a police dispatcher tells you he doesn't need you to do whatever it is you are planning to do.

 

[jmdrake]

I have a law degree. I've drafted statutes that made their way in to Code of Virginia. If that statement you made is actually from Zimmerman's lawyer, than Zimmerman needs new representation. The lawyer you quoted says that the stand your ground clause is mostly about being attacked in your home. That is so wrong it defies imagination that it could come from a criminal defense attorney's mouth. Being attacked in your home is covered by an entirely different clause, 776.013 (1). The Stand Your Ground 776.013 (3) was an amendment to the code passed in 2006 that goes beyond just a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle. It applies whenever somebody is attacked "in any other place where he or she has a right to be".

Most of the clauses in the "Stand Your Ground" law are about defense in the home. So that defense attorney is right. It is mostly about self defense in the home. Outside the home the self defense aspect is more qualified. If you're in your own home you don't have to argue that you thought you were in danger of death or serious bodily injury. The person can just be a burglar. Outside your home you do.

 

[azxd]

Yeah. You have had a tendency to do that in this thread. Again:

Yeah. Sometimes a kid walks to a store to get a soda and some skittles and is killed by someone claiming to be "protecting the neighborhood". Go figure

Where is the distortion? Everyone agrees the kid went to the store to get soda and skittles. Everyone agrees he was killed by someone claiming to be "protecting the neighborhood". Those are the facts that cannot be gotten around just by your snarkiness. Oh yeah, and the kid was unarmed. That's a fact I left out. Sorry. Now who touched who first or who said what our who was walking where? That's all speculation. That's why we need trials or at the very least preliminary hearings. A kid is dead for no good reason. It can't be brushed aside just on a whim.

I haven't read anyone writing ... Forget about it ... So I guess that trial will move forward.

 

[jmdrake]

There is a witness that has Martin on top of Zimmerman, punching him, and Zimmerman screaming for help. Of all the aspects of this case, the one least in doubt is the fact that Zimmerman was acting to reasonably prevent great bodily harm.

You must not have been in very many fights. Most fist fights end up on the ground with someone punching someone else. Following your stupid logic every bar fight is grounds for deadly force by whoever is getting beat up.

You can not possibly be this dense. Please cite me that statute that says doing an otherwise legal activity becomes illegal if a police dispatcher tells you he doesn't need you to do whatever it is you are planning to do.

Who says what Zimmerman did was legal? If Zimmerman put Trayvon in reasonable fear of imminent bodily contact that was harmful or offensive that's assault. You're dense if you don't know that. If Zimmerman so much as put his hand toward Trayvon that's assault. Considering the amount of attitude Zimmerman was brimming with when talking to the cops that's quite likely. Avoiding those kinds of situations is why the dispatcher told him not do do what he was doing.

 

[seeker4sho]

http://www.wagist.com/2012/dan-linehan/was-trayvon-martin-a-drug-dealer

So, what is your point? The Constitution provides for "Due Process" for a reason. Smearing a 17 year old kid without a full investigation is not cool. If he was murdered then the murderer should be made to pay the price, no free lynchings under any circumstances for either party. Read the Constitution.

 

[jmdrake]

No, it didn't. You are allowed to approach another being in this country. What you are not allowed to do is commit an unlawful act against them. Stand Your Ground would cease to apply only if Zimmerman did something unlawful prior to shooting Martin. Walking up to someone is not unlawful. Under your reading of the statute (and I hasten to call it that since there is really in the statute to support what you are saying) anytime a person approaches another person, the stand your ground law doesn't apply. That is absurd. It doesn't matter who among two people approaches the other prior to a fight. The only thing that matters with respect to Stand Your Ground is who started the fight.

The right to meet "force with force" does not include the right to meet "force with deadly force just because you are losing a fist fight". That is what is absurd. And what's the definition of "starting it"? Who actually lands the first punch? Or would approaching someone in a threatening manner making it look like you are going to hit him count? By all accounts the evidence shows that Trayvon was trying to avoid Zimmerman. Maybe you think what Zimmerman did was honorable trying to "clean up the neighborhood" and all. I don't. Regardless you seem to be ignoring Trayvon's right of self defense.

 

[azxd]

Ron Paul says that the judicial system is racially biased. The black community says the judicidal system is racially biased. You say it isn't important? Or that the kid wasn't brought up hearing messages about the prejudices in the judicial system?



I already told you that. I have been in that situation. Therefore a theory that I find incredibly likely is that he did not go home because he did not want the aggressor to know where he lived, which could likely expose his family to danger, either immediate or in the future.

The judicial system has and will continue to be a problem, especially when people use it as an excuse to trump up charges under the guise of racial motivation.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Pardon the interruption while I post another article with information I hadn't seen before:

4:35 p.m. EST, March 26, 2012|By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel

Police: Zimmerman says Trayvon decked him with one blow then began hammering his head

With a single punch, Trayvon Martin decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who eventually shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk, leaving him bloody and battered, law enforcement authorities have revealed to the Orlando Sentinel.

That is the account Zimmerman gave police, and much of it has been corroborated by witnesses, authorities say. There have been no reports that a witness saw that initial punch Zimmerman told police about.

Zimmerman has not spoken publicly about what happened Feb. 26. But that night, and in later meetings, he described and re-enacted for police what he says took place.


In his version of events, he had turned around and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from behind, the two exchanged words then Trayvon punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, and began beating him.

Zimmerman told police he shot the teenager in self-defense.

Civil rights leaders and more than a million other people have demanded Zimmerman's arrest, calling Trayvon a victim of racial profiling and suggesting Zimmerman is a vigilante.

Trayvon was an unarmed black teenager who had committed no crime, they say, who was gunned down while walking back from a 7-Eleven with nothing more sinister than a package of Skittles and can of Arizona iced tea.

This is what the newspaper has learned about Zimmerman's account to investigators:

He said he was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.

Trayvon was visiting his father's fiancée, who lived there. He had been suspended from school in Miami after being found with an empty marijuana baggie. Miami schools have a zero-tolerance policy for drug possession.


Police have been reluctant to provide details about their evidence.

But after the Sentinel story appeared on the newspaper's website Monday morning, City Manager Norton Bonaparte Jr. issued a news release, saying there would be an internal affairs investigation into the source of the leak and if identified, the person or people involved would be disciplined.

He did not challenge the accuracy of the information.

At a Monday news conference, Trayvon's mother, father and their lawyers called the report that their son was suspended from school because of a marijuana baggy irrelevant and needlessly hurtful.

Trayvon's father Tracy Martin, said "even in death, they are still disrespecting my son, and I feel that that's a sin."

His mother, Sybrina Fulton, said, "They killed my son and now they're trying to kill his reputation."

Supporters have held rallies in Sanford, Miami, New York and Tallahassee, calling the case a tragic miscarriage of injustice.

Civil Rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton headlined a rally in Sanford Thursday that drew an estimated 8,000 people. The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Sunday spoke at an Eatonville church, where he called Trayvon a martyr.

Zimmerman has gone into hiding. A fringe group, the New Black Panthers, have offered a $10,000 reward for his capture.

On Feb. 26, when Zimmerman first spotted Trayvon, he called police and reported a suspicious person, describing Trayvon as black, acting strangely and perhaps on drugs.

Zimmerman got out of his SUV to follow Trayvon on foot. When a dispatch employee asked Zimmerman if he was following the 17-year-old, Zimmerman said yes. The dispatcher told Zimmerman he did not need to do that.

There is about a one-minute gap during which police say they're not sure what happened.

Zimmerman told them he lost sight of Trayvon and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from the left rear, and they exchanged words.

Trayvon asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cell phone, he told police. Trayvon then said, "Well, you do now" or something similar and punched Zimmerman in the nose, according to the account he gave police.

Zimmerman fell to the ground and Trayvon got on top of him and began slamming his head into the sidewalk, he told police.

Zimmerman began yelling for help.

Several witnesses heard those cries, and there's been a dispute about whether they came from Zimmerman or Trayvon.

Lawyers for Trayvon's family say it was Trayvon, but police say their evidence indicates it was Zimmerman.

Zimmerman then shot Trayvon once in the chest from very close range, according to authorities.

When police arrived less than two minutes later, Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.

Paramedics gave him first aid, but said he did not need to go to the hospital. He got medical care the next day.

The Department of Justice last week opened a civil rights investigation into what happened, and Gov. Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor, Angela Corey, the state attorney for Duval, Clay and Nassau counties.

In an interview with the Sentinel Monday, she said it is too early to say whether she would leave it to a Seminole County grand jury to decide whether to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter or some other crime, something local prosecutors had planned to do April 10.

Her two-lawyer team worked through the weekend on the case, she said, and it will take them several more days, perhaps a week, to decide how best to proceed.

She would not comment about any specific pieces of evidence, including what authorities have learned from a 16-year-old Miami girl who may have been on the phone with Trayvon as he and Zimmerman came face to face.

Benjamin Crump, one of the family's attorneys, told reporters last week that the girl told him she heard the two exchange words then a sound that she believed was Zimmerman pushing Trayvon.

Corey said her office has routinely challenged self-defense claims and will pursue charges in this case if the evidence supports it.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...t-20120326_1_miami-schools-civil-rights-punch

 

[azxd]

His drug use is irrelevant to the case. Let's wait for ALL the facts before rendering judgement.

Whaa ... You mean the title of the thread might be in error.

 

[azxd]

You must not have been in very many fights. Most fist fights end up on the ground with someone punching someone else. Following your stupid logic every bar fight is grounds for deadly force by whoever is getting beat up.




Who says what Zimmerman did was legal? If Zimmerman put Trayvon in reasonable fear of imminent bodily contact that was harmful or offensive that's assault. You're dense if you don't know that. If Zimmerman so much as put his hand toward Trayvon that's assault. Considering the amount of attitude Zimmerman was brimming with when talking to the cops that's quite likely. Avoiding those kinds of situations is why the dispatcher told him not do do what he was doing.

Yea, everyone is supposed to assume that a total stranger is going to act all third grade and stop once a bloody nose is delivered.

And you're calling other people dense ... Unreal !!!

 

[jmdrake]

The judicial system has and will continue to be a problem, especially when people use it as an excuse to trump up charges under the guise of racial motivation.

For the record I don't think Zimmerman should be charged with a hate crime. Just murder in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree. He killed someone over at best dubious circumstances. That's enough to warrant charges in a sane world.

 

[AFPVet]

Keep in mind... this is exactly what the establishment wants... they want to divide us and trigger a race war.

 

[moostraks]

Are you really that lost ?
Zimmerman dialed 911 ... Martin called his girlfriend, then dialed 911, or so it has been reported !!!

What is your point here? I had a house fire caused by a gas leak. I called my husband at work first, who I then asked to call the fire department because I don't like to deal with strangers. All folks do not have a knee jerk reaction to call authorities when it danger. Some of us might prefer those we know and trust for advice/ assistance over those we don't.

 

[cajuncocoa]

For the record I don't think Zimmerman should be charged with a hate crime. Just murder in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree. He killed someone over at best dubious circumstances. That's enough to warrant charges in a sane world.

I surely believe there must be enough evidence to justify this. Now can we stop convicting the guy before the jury does?