Last night, the police released this video showing George Zimmerman shortly after he killed an unarmed Florida teen. I discussed the legal significance of the video on Countdown last night.
As I mentioned last night, the video would pose both strategic and tactical problems for a defense. First, the absence of obvious injuries would obviously undermine the claim of a reasonable fear of serious bodily injury or death in the use of lethal force. However, it would not be determinative on the question. Zimmerman was treated by paramedics at the scene who could testify that he was indeed bleeding. Moreover, the defense is based on a reasonable fear of such harm. If Zimmerman could convince at least one juror that Martin was the aggressor, he may be able to avoid conviction on this nebulous standard. This might be strengthened by a claim that Martin tried to grab his gun. However, the video shows a Zimmerman who appears unharmed and casual. At a minimum, it seems to contradict accounts that he was a bloody mess at the scene. That would put particular importance on the testimony of the paramedics and officers at the scene.
On a tactical level, my first thought as a criminal defense attorney was that the video could be viewed as admissible in a trial. It seems obviously relevant to the claim of self-defense. Yet, defense counsel (and judges) work hard to avoid jurors seeing a defendant in prison garb or handcuffs. The prejudice from such an image can be immense. This video of Zimmerman in handcuffs after the killing could present such a prejudicial impact, but still be viewed as admissible since the value of the evidence outweighs its prejudicial impact. The video leaves the impression of an immaculate assailment — where an individual fights for his life but shows no obvious injury.
While the 911 call has portions that help and hurt Zimmerman, this video is entirely detrimental to the defense in my opinion. I would not want a jury to see the video as a defense attorney but I would expect a judge to admit it as material to the question of self-defense. That does not mean that I would not try to keep it out. One claim would be that, since paramedics had cleaned him up at the scene, the video is misleading as well as prejudicial. Defense counsel could also point out that there is a reported four-hour delay the fight and this video. Finally, some have noted that one officer appears to check out part of Zimmerman’s head at one point on the tape. between A judge, however, could deny the motion on the ground that the defense can make that point through cross-examination and argument.
In the end, the prosecutor will have to decide on the viability of even a manslaughter claim based on the conflicting accounts of witnesses – and the generous self-defense standard in Florida. Courts have generally given shooters the benefit of doubts on the reasonable fear of grave bodily injury and self-defense. It is possible to use the privilege of self-defense before one is injured. It has also been used successfully in cases of an unarmed alleged assailant.
I still believe that there is sufficient evidence here to sustain a charge. However, as I have previously said, I have great reservations about the effort to pressure the prosecutor through petitions and political pressure — as well as recent irresponsible acts that border on vigilantism. I do not believe in prosecution by plebiscite and thus declined to sign the petition demanding prosecution. This video offers another piece of evidence that I believe supports prosecution. Yet, there remains difficult legal questions about the viability of a charge under the Florida standard and prior case law. The country and justice would be better served by an objective review of such evidence.
We still need to see the forensic evidence that I previously described as well as the statements of some of the witnesses like the paramedics. Many questions remain unanswered like the trajectory of the bullet, any fingerprints on the weapon, the extent of the respective injuries on the men, and the proximity and relative position of the gun when it was fired.
It wasn’t Zimmerman who stated that he was bleeding from the nose and the back of the head. It was stated in the police officer’s report as something observed by the police officer.
In addition, the police report indicates that Zimmerman was wearing a red jacket. In the video, Zimmerman is no longer wearing a red jacket.
The officer’s report also indicates that the officer overheard Zimmerman telling the Fire Department personnel that he was yelling for help, but no one responded. The eyewitness account supports this claim of yelling for help on the part of Zimmerman.
So the way it works is, anyone who FEELS threatened, can blow anyone else away with utter impunity. And, like the gunfight at the OK corral, the fastest draw (or the only draw) wins.
If Zimmerman had a broken nose, there’d be blood on his shirtfront. Doubt very much if the police gave him a clean shirt after he was detained.
rafflaw “I see this as an execution by a vigilante racist.”
That’s because you’re a racialist. For you, as long is one party is black, and the other is not, it must be racist.
You’re not a very deep thinker. Are you?
That is one sad and disgusting case Elaine! That guy was a hero and was summarily killed by the NYPD.
According to the funeral home personnel, Trayvon’s hands showed no signs of damage, i.e., the bruising, swelling, cuts, that would mean he was hitting Zimmerman. As for defensive injuries, well, you don’t want to get close to someone with a gun.
I have been a member of the Mpls. police reserve and also a neighborhood watch captain (official, not self-appointed). No guns or other weapons are carried and any suspicious behavior requires a phone to the police. Vigilanteism is emphatically discouraged.
Unarmed Black Veteran Kenneth Chamberlain Shot Dead by NY Police, Yet No Officers Charged
3/29/12
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/29/unarmed_black_veteran_kenneth_chamberlain_shot
Summary:
As the Trayvon Martin case draws national attention, we look at another fatal shooting of an unarmed African-American male that has received far less scrutiny. Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68 year-old African-American Marine veteran, was fatally shot in November by White Plains, NY, police who responded to a false alarm from his medical alert pendant. The officers hurled racial slurs at Chamberlain, broke down his door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. We’re joined by Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., and two of his attorneys. One of the attorneys, Mayo Bartlett, questions the police response to the shooting, comparing it to the official story that emerged after George Zimmerman shot the unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida last month. “It’s very similar to Mr. Zimmerman suggesting that he had a bloody nose, and now you look at the video and that doesn’t appear to be the case,” says Bartlett. “That really makes you question what we’re being told sometimes by government with respect to these types of matters.” Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. struggles through tears to recount his father’s final moments, including the way police officers mocked his father’s past as a Marine. “For them to look at my father that way, (with) no regard for his life, every morning I think about it,” he says.
rcampbell,
I see this as an execution by a vigilante racist.
I would think that it would be part of the protocol for the police to take photographs (close-ups) of any obvious injuries, but I’m seeing things from the angle of a forensic nurse in the ER. As I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong), Zimmerman declined to go to the ER but, rather, sought medical assistance the following day. Photos and medical reports would be helpful…
I don’t know how anyone can say, from that video, that it looks like he has ANY sort of damage to his head or face.
While its not HD, the resolution (and Zimmerman’s close haircut) clearly show us the contours of his head and there are more than enough angles to see that the simply is no swelling anywhere on the back of his head.
If you’ve ever had a cut on your head, you know that it gushes. Paramedics would have had it bandaged and in the 3-4 hours after the shooting prior to him arriving at the station, the bandage would not have gone anywhere.
There are no obvious cuts and certainly no swelling (bumps or bruising) that would come from being struck in the back of the head hard enough to cause bleeding.
As far as his face… What I have repeatedly heard was that he was bleeding from the nose/face and likely had a broken nose…there is simply no evidence to support that from this video.
I have absolutely no problem saying that he certainly does not look like he’s been in a tussle or even touched.
If there was bleeding, why is it not on his shirt? If there was a struggle, why is his shirt not all torn up or even wrinkled?
To me, this is the last bit of evidence that tells me he deserves, at minimum, a manslaughter charge with a hefty prison sentence.
No swelling, No bleeding, No facial swelling, Shirt looks clean, and there’s no obvious signs of struggle (life and death struggle mind you) on his body or clothes…
But of course, I’m not a lawyer. I am, however, finishing up my two weeks of jury duty.
PJ:
No conviction there PJ. Just my assessment of the evidence at hand. I’m willing to reassess in the face of more persuasive countervailing evidence. Are you?
Well, Mespo, you’ve managed to convict and sentence Zimmerman without examining all the evidence, hearing the testimony of all the witnesses (including expert witnesses). Any jury would get to observe the evidence, and hear testimony from witnesses, and expert witnesses. As such, your attempt to portray yourself as a would-be member of the jury, arriving at a verdict is preposterous.
Have you ever had the opportunity to closely observe someone in the hours following a self-defense killing of another?
I think Jay asks the most critical question. One guy had a gun and a 100 lb.weight/muscle advatage, the other guy had his fists and a bag of Skittles. Regardless of how any scuffle or fistfight started or evolved, the only real danger to Zimmerman was getting his ass kicked by a skinny 17 year old kid. His response was a deliberate execution. The charges against him won’t reflect that, but there is little doubt in my mind that is what happened.
PJ:
I suspect my credentials in this area are about the same as most jurors in Florida. That’s what apologists like you have to worry about. People believe with their eyes and experience and most of us have had a broken nose or black eyes before. Swelling is a universal human trait. We can also imagine our reaction emotionally –even after fours houres, if that’s accurate — if we caused the death of an unarmed teenager and were being led into police headquarters in handcuffs.
Keep clinging to any theory of innocence. You and Zimmerman can write each other about it. I suspect he’ll have 5-10 years of “free time” to accommodate your musings.
Mespo,
No blood (after treatment by fire/rescue) -not a surprise. Given the resolution of the video, it would be difficult to observe any remnants.
Not bleeding. – No need for gloves.
No black eyes. – resolution insufficient to identify any early onset of black eyes, and insufficient time for pronounced bruising to appear.
Since you want to tell us all what the guy is supposed to look like, why don’t you provide us with something that demonstrates your expertise? Any police, rescue, or trauma experience? I just want to know why anyone should consider you to be an expert on what someone in Zimmerman’s position should look like.
Why Conservatives Are Smearing Trayvon Martin’s Reputation
by Michelle Goldberg Mar 27, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/why-conservatives-are-smearing-trayvon-martin-s-reputation.html
Excerpt:
I’m far from the first to notice the similarities between the way people talk about Martin and the way they talk about rape victims, whose clothes and histories are often subject to scrutiny no matter how cut-and-dried the case seems. Like a rape victim, Martin’s past is being excavated for evidence that he might have provoked the harm done to him. It hardly matters that even if Martin had gotten high every day, it would have had zero relevance; it’s not as if marijuana use is linked to violence. Nor that it’s not unusual for a teenager to come across as obnoxious on Twitter. People were looking for some tenuous justification for treating him as complicit in his own death, and now they’ve found it. (For the record, I was also suspended from high school, though in my case for smoking cigarettes. I trust that should a stranger shoot me in the street, no one will treat this as a mitigating factor.)
On the surface, it’s odd that Martin’s image would become so politicized. No ideological capitulation would be required for conservatives to mourn his death—one can believe in gun rights and still believe that he shouldn’t have been killed. A real NRA fanatic, after all, might make a case that Martin himself should have been armed, so that he could stand his ground against the paranoid man who was stalking him.
Certainly, it’s possible that some unknown evidence will emerge to complicate the current narrative of what happened between Zimmerman and Martin. Zimmerman claims that after he’d been following Martin, the young man attacked him, and according to the Orlando Sentinel, police found him “bleeding from the nose, [with] a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.” No matter how things unfolded, there’s no excuse for those like Spike Lee who have tweeted Zimmeran’s home address; if nothing else, this case should make clear the horror of vigilantism.
But as of right now, some things are not in dispute. Martin was unarmed save for a pack of Skittles and an ice tea. Zimmerman, who repeatedly called the cops when he saw young black men in his gated community, trailed Martin after the police advised him not to. He called Martin either a “coon” or a “goon.” Martin had no documented history of violence. Zimmerman, on the other hand, was previously accused of hitting his ex-fiancé; in response, he said that she was the aggressor, which means he doesn’t deny that there was a physical fight.
So why this desire to paint Martin, rather than the man who shot him, as the guilty party? Partly, of course, it’s just a reaction to his death becoming a cause célèbre on the left—it’s the same sort of impulse that leads some conservatives to delight in “Fry Mumia” T-shirts. Beyond that, though, some on the right are deeply invested in the idea that anti-black racism is no longer much of a problem in the United States, and certainly not a problem on the scale of false accusations of racism. You might call these people anti-anti-racists. They are determined to push back against any narrative that would suggest that a black man has been targeted for the color of his skin.
But as of right now, some things are not in dispute. Martin was unarmed save for a pack of Skittles and an ice tea. Zimmerman, who repeatedly called the cops when he saw young black men in his gated community, trailed Martin after the police advised him not to. He called Martin either a “coon” or a “goon.” Martin had no documented history of violence. Zimmerman, on the other hand, was previously accused of hitting his ex-fiancé; in response, he said that she was the aggressor, which means he doesn’t deny that there was a physical fight.
So why this desire to paint Martin, rather than the man who shot him, as the guilty party? Partly, of course, it’s just a reaction to his death becoming a cause célèbre on the left—it’s the same sort of impulse that leads some conservatives to delight in “Fry Mumia” T-shirts. Beyond that, though, some on the right are deeply invested in the idea that anti-black racism is no longer much of a problem in the United States, and certainly not a problem on the scale of false accusations of racism. You might call these people anti-anti-racists. They are determined to push back against any narrative that would suggest that a black man has been targeted for the color of his skin.
Zoologists tell us that rats under pressure will always eat their own. -mespo
It’ll be a hearty feast. Let the meals begin.
idealist:
Oh, it will collapse soon enough. Zoologists tell us that rats under pressure will always eat their own.
Well, PJ, we can accept your speculations or trust our common sense (no blood, no bandaging, no haz mat gloves on the cops, no black eyes, no swelling, no sense of distress or pain, Zimmerman’s “what? me worry” attitude, the cops casual treatment of a homicide suspect) and our lying eyes.
Not really a tough call.