Trayvon Martin

[Pure Method]

Sorry MXL, I was in New York for a funeral and then had my lady friend staying with me in Detroit. All in all, a busy weekend.

I am a rising 2L so i have yet to take evidence, though I am currently interning for a judge [federal, though, not state] and have seen a trial. The thing about the rules of evidence is that although some evidence is inadmissible [say, for hearsay,etc.], it can still be admitted if the other party doesn't object.

As for the SYG law, as I understand it: Normally, if you are threatened physically, you have a duty to retreat if possible. If you can't retreat, you can meet force with force, and may only use deadly force in response to a reasonable belief that your life is or may be in danger. As I understand SYG, the law gets rid of the duty to retreat in all instances - not sure if it allows for the use of deadly force as a response to less than deadly force, however.

the verdict is disappointing - though I agree the prosecution bungled the case. "following the law" is not really a legal or even logical decision, but a moral choice. I imagine the jury felt duty-bound to the 'law' as it was on the books - however, the law is language, and language is plastic. to say they reached the right verdict under the law is to say nothing, other than you agree with their decision (or you adhere to a strong belief in the value of 'fair processes', though i would argue such processes are never fair and always exclusive).

if anyone has any legal questions or anything, I can try to answer them to the best of my ability, but no promises. or if anyone wants to debate the above, I would love to.

[Juana]

Naw I'm just mad that there is no consequences for any of his actions and the law is protecting him. There is something wrong with this world when you can hunt down, have an altercation with and kill a 17 year old kid and there is no consequence for his actions.

[clickie]

Sorry MXL, I was in New York for a funeral and then had my lady friend staying with me in Detroit. All in all, a busy weekend.

I am a rising 2L so i have yet to take evidence, though I am currently interning for a judge [federal, though, not state] and have seen a trial. The thing about the rules of evidence is that although some evidence is inadmissible [say, for hearsay,etc.], it can still be admitted if the other party doesn't object.

As for the SYG law, as I understand it: Normally, if you are threatened physically, you have a duty to retreat if possible. If you can't retreat, you can meet force with force, and may only use deadly force in response to a reasonable belief that your life is or may be in danger. As I understand SYG, the law gets rid of the duty to retreat in all instances - not sure if it allows for the use of deadly force as a response to less than deadly force, however.

the verdict is disappointing - though I agree the prosecution bungled the case. "following the law" is not really a legal or even logical decision, but a moral choice. I imagine the jury felt duty-bound to the 'law' as it was on the books - however, the law is language, and language is plastic. to say they reached the right verdict under the law is to say nothing, other than you agree with their decision (or you adhere to a strong belief in the value of 'fair processes', though i would argue such processes are never fair and always exclusive).

if anyone has any legal questions or anything, I can try to answer them to the best of my ability, but no promises. or if anyone wants to debate the above, I would love to.

OK we got all that over a year ago.

[Pure Method]

just my $0.02

[clickie]

whatever you say mr. magoo.

[Tyler Durden]

The Zimmerman's are all pieces of shit...

[clickie]

Isnt Bob Dylan a Zimmerman?

[Tyler Durden]

Isnt Bob Dylan a Zimmerman?

Not all Zimmerman's are pieces of shit; just like not all pieces of shit are Zimmerman's...at least one of them goes by the name clickie.

[clickie]

The Zimmerman's are all pieces of shit...

OK flip floppin tough guy.

[Tyler Durden]

OK flip floppin tough guy.

[ellis]

What do you guys want them to do? best 2 outta 3 trials or something? These were 6 female jurors, all mothers, and a couple of them were black I think. You guys wouldve came to the same verdict if you were on that jury and heard all the evidence.

5 were white, 1 was hispanic.
If there were black female jurors, they were an alternate.

[ellis]

The Zimmerman's are all pieces of shit...

The Turk guy is an idiot.

I actually agree with Mr. Zimmerman's brother in that video. What are Mr. Martin's parents thoughts on the teen smoking weed and growing his own weed? On possessing a gun? Did they even know?

Just as a reminder, I lived in a rough, poor, black neighborhood for almost 5 yrs and I was involved with the neighborhood watch. Often times we would have events to draw the youth in off the streets. My house was right on the corner of one of the busiest areas for drug dealing and violence. We cleaned it up with the new police chief. I recall one evening hanging outside my house around 10-11pm at night with a number of the neighborhood watch men. Many of the teens (age 13-16, roughly) began to pull out blades and compare them among each other, joking about how they would go about using it to stab someone, and I remember feeling very sad that this was their life. IMO, to possess a weapon means that there is some level of fear in you about losing your life. I never felt like that growing up and it was sad to see these boys live like that. And the process of convincing the neighborhood to stop fearing one another and to unite as a family seemed so impossible. (I won't cite articles about black-on-black crime to derail the thread... but the numbers are incredibly high and dejecting. Something like 90% of black homicides in America are by the hands of other black men)

So yes, I would want to know why Mr. Martin had all those things in his life b/c to ignore that and pretending he was such a good kid with skittles and arizona tea does nothing to improve the lives of young men just like him.

[Romeo]

Zimmerman is a wife beating (fiance technically), cop fighting, cousin molesting coward who got away with killing a kid because he killed the only other witness to his crime. The backwards ass laws in parts of this country make it to where the dead have to prove why they shouldn't be dead.

I'm just wondering when Zimmerman gets offed if his arrogant trash of family are going to be hitting the media circuit with such smugness. Cause make no mistake they're having fun in the spot light but when someone hunts him down and "feels threatened" cause we know he is packing now, and someone makes him suck start a .45, I wonder if they will think back to the choice that Zimmerman made to ignore the dispatchers directives.

Because when he is killed, I for one will think "welp shoulda stayed in the car" just like I'm thinking now.

You sound like a lot of district attorneys who have the attitude of so what if he didnt commit this crime, I bet he did at one time in his past so it all evens out.

So you believe if a rape victim had sex prior to being raped, it "evens out"?

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. How about this "clickie" click off Faux News and the shit they have been blowing up your ass since Zimmerman was arrested April 11th. And keep in mind Trayvon was murdered February 26. It take 44 days for to take this wannabe cop into custody? From the beginning this young man's life meant nothing to anyone in Sanford except his Parents.

And for ANYONE on this website to say ANYTHING about this kid "pot smoking" and "where were his parents is hypocritical. 90% of this board smoked weed when they were 17 among other things.

[Pandemonium]

Hate to say "I told you so" but it got ugly in LA last night thanks to the usual fringe element that takes advantage of these kind of tensions and goes off trashing property, businesses and assaulting people. And thanks to those twin assholes Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson stirring the pot with their "100 City March" thing being planned for this weekend, it's only going to get worse.

[ellis]

The media wants a riot. They will get one.

[Essence_Smith]

Again with the "Trayvon Martin trial"...

This kid was not an angel. He smoked weed, got in a little trouble at school, etc...it didn't give anyone a right to disregard emergency response instructions to NOT follow him and confront him...quite sickening that people will look at a black kid and make the assumption that because he may not have been a perfect kid that his actions before the night in question could have played into why someone murdered him.

Ellis in your time in your old neighborhood what were your thoughts on WHY these kids were walking around with weapons? People think about the symptoms of a problem and the situation as it is now but tend to overlook the pre-existing circumstances and conditions that cause the symptoms...do you know why some black families are fucked up now? A lot of the problems go back to slavery where black families were broken up systematically... a few hundred years of a system take more than a few decades of civil rights movements to correct...its not just about changing laws its about changing patterns of thinking and behavior as well...

YES, emphatically young black boys in a lot of places have a certain fear they grow up with that someone will do them harm...YES many of them will carry weapons or act like tough guys in part because if you don't someone may take advantage of you...YES there is a ridiculous amount of so called black on black crime. And another crime is that the price of their lives are so cheap that the media and a result most of mainstream American don't care to do much about it unless the killer is a non black or a cop and they can sell a paper or get good ratings off the story...

Again I am VERY upset that now this has turned into the Trayvon Martin trial...shameful to see people trying to somehow spin this into saying that because the kid might have thought he was tough or liked to fight that someone had the right to kill him...if that's not what you're saying directly its feels like that's what's being implied...

[Pandemonium]

The media wants a riot. They will get one.

That's ridiculous. First off, taken at face value, you're saying either the media is influencing people towards criminal mob behavior or looking to inflate or "make up" riot incidents or situations where little or none exists. And if you buy into the idea of the media inflaming tensions, you also have to pass blame around to guys like Sharpton and Jackson who thrive on this sort of thing and especially the Federal government with guys like Eric Holder making statements that "he" thinks there's something wrong with the verdict and it should be investigated (what, the FBI investigation and a state trial wasn't enough to conclude it wasn't a racially motivated crime?) and even Obama who made that dumb racially pandering statement that Martin could have been "his kid" back before any real facts were known about the case. Sure, stick some cameras and reporters in a mob and you'll get dumbasses who'll go full retard to get their face on tv, but that says more about the *people,* not the media.

No, the simple fact is there's a element that will take advantage of large public gatherings to go off and destroy property and assault people, no excuse needed. It happens at sporting events, it happens at protests. It just seems like LA has more fuckwits then the rest of the country who get into this sorta thing at the drop of a hat.

[clickie]

Zimmerman is a wife beating (fiance technically), cop fighting, cousin molesting coward who got away with killing a kid because he killed the only other witness to his crime. The backwards ass laws in parts of this country make it to where the dead have to prove why they shouldn't be dead.

I'm just wondering when Zimmerman gets offed if his arrogant trash of family are going to be hitting the media circuit with such smugness. Cause make no mistake they're having fun in the spot light but when someone hunts him down and "feels threatened" cause we know he is packing now, and someone makes him suck start a .45, I wonder if they will think back to the choice that Zimmerman made to ignore the dispatchers directives.

Because when he is killed, I for one will think "welp shoulda stayed in the car" just like I'm thinking now.

You sound like a lot of district attorneys who have the attitude of so what if he didnt commit this crime, I bet he did at one time in his past so it all evens out.

So you believe if a rape victim had sex prior to being raped, it "evens out"?

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. How about this "clickie" click off Faux News and the shit they have been blowing up your ass since Zimmerman was arrested April 11th. And keep in mind Trayvon was murdered February 26. It take 44 days for to take this wannabe cop into custody? From the beginning this young man's life meant nothing to anyone in Sanford except his Parents.

And for ANYONE on this website to say ANYTHING about this kid "pot smoking" and "where were his parents is hypocritical. 90% of this board smoked weed when they were 17 among other things.

Romeo, I meant it like this..
You sound like a lot of district attorneys who have the attitude of "so what if he didnt commit this crime, I bet he did at one time in his past so it all evens out."

The police didn't just blow the case off. They did all the investigating and eventually arrested him. 44 days is nothing when youre securing all the evidence that will put someone away for life. Its not the cops fault.

[Essence_Smith]

even Obama who made that dumb racially pandering statement that Martin could have been "his kid" back before any real facts were known about the case

I get the context in which you're making this statement...however personally I think he was just being truthful...Trayvon DID look kinda like he could have been Obama's kid...and I think he was doing it to show sensitivity because I can't think of ANY other situation in his entire presidency where he's "pandered" to people of color. I think he purposely avoids doing do...


The real tragedy is that people are supporting the fact that any lunatic can provoke, then open fire on our kids without witnesses and claim self defense.

[Hype]

The real tragedy is that people are supporting the fact that any lunatic can provoke, then open fire on our kids without witnesses and claim self defense.

[clickie]

He shouldve at least waited for the witnesses to arrive.

[Pandemonium]

The real tragedy is that people are supporting the fact that any lunatic can provoke, then open fire on our kids without witnesses and claim self defense.

I agree. However there was a witness, but he didn't see what led up to Martin pounding on Zimmermans face which is imo, as relevant to what happened as the actual claim of "instant self defense." But yeah, this is a confrontation that should never have taken place and likely wouldn't have if Zimmerman didn't have a big man with a gun complex.

[clickie]

The media wants a riot. They will get one.

lol ellis. The media cannot manufacture a riot.

[ellis]

The media wants a riot. They will get one.

lol ellis. The media cannot manufacture a riot.

I'm not being serious... but I do believe there is a bit a truth in my post.
I will say though, on Saturday night when the verdict came out I channel surfed between the 3 major 24-hr news networks. CNN and FOX were calling the crowd outside "Protesters" while MSNBC called them "demonstrators" and even made an effort to point out that fact as if they knew the other networks were calling them protesters.

On Sunday, all the networks said there were isolated riots in Oakland, CA (shocking) and Washington state. Since then, FOX claims there could be riots while the other two say there will be demonstrations this weekend.

[ellis]

Ellis in your time in your old neighborhood what were your thoughts on WHY these kids were walking around with weapons? People think about the symptoms of a problem and the situation as it is now but tend to overlook the pre-existing circumstances and conditions that cause the symptoms...do you know why some black families are fucked up now? A lot of the problems go back to slavery where black families were broken up systematically... a few hundred years of a system take more than a few decades of civil rights movements to correct...its not just about changing laws its about changing patterns of thinking and behavior as well...

You already know I could never answer your question without completely filling the database of this website in one post.