ABC News has been given a photograph that might make the difference between life in prison and a walk. For weeks, we have been discussing the case and the application of the Stand Your Ground law. As discussed earlier, I think the case was over-charged and I remain doubtful of a conviction. This picture will likely be the single most important piece of evidence in the case. It shows Zimmerman with significant blood on the back of his head — an image that supports accounts from the scene and will be used to corroborate Zimmerman’s account of a struggle with Trayvon Martin where he feared serious bodily injury. [UPDATE: Zimmerman granted bond].
Unlike the photos of Zimmerman at the police station, this photo was taken a few minutes after the fight. Zimmerman’s shaved head could prove Godsend for Zimmerman. Had he had longer hair, the injury would have not appeared so stark.
The photo shows both cuts and a contusion — injuries that would normally be defined as serious bodily injury by many courts in torts cases where head injuries are treated as inherently potentially serious. The original police report said that he was bleeding from the nose and head and that his clothes looked like he had been in a fight. Zimmerman claims that it was Martin who jumped him, punched him, and pounded his head on to the concrete sidewalk.
The prosecutors can still argue that they do not contest the fight but that Zimmerman started it. However, with this photo, the charge of second-degree murder appears even more excessive and undermines Special Prosecutor Angela Corey’s claim that she was not affected by the political pressure to charge Zimmerman. I can understand a manslaughter charge, even with the photo, but no reasonable prosecutor would consider the second-degree murder charge as based on this evidence. Corey clearly must have seen this photo and the reports before her charging of Zimmerman.
The photo should also assist Zimmerman in his efforts to get bail.
Zimmerman, 28, is still being held on charges of second-degree murder of Martin, 17. In my view, a denial of bail would be an abuse and unwarranted given the fact that Zimmerman cooperated at the scene and voluntarily turned himself in.
Source: ABC
Yeah, I posted that from Jeralyn Merritt, and she refers to it as a booking photo — I honestly don’t know if that’s a mugshot or not, but I presume it could be. One of the lawyers, or maybe even Gene H, could clarify that.
Anyway, yes, that was taken six weeks or so after the shooting, so all that’s left is the bump, and not the inflammation or black eyes.
http://youtu.be/bv_EcZBNDVs
Thanks, otteray!
i believe this is the mugshot she is referring to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_Zimmerman_Mugshot.jpg
it’s from 2005 arrest.
Rebecca, I just posted this information on another thread. It may help some.
Here is the link to my parent comment.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/21/zimmerman-media-circuses-make-for-bad-justice/#comment-361304
Found it. 2:11pm.
Anon, I struggle to navigate this dang iPhone and find the exact location and time of the photo you posted. It was a split screen shot with a side view of Zimmerman’s nose. At the time I saw it, I thought it was a shot taken that night. So I recant that statement, but still maintain that I could not see a noticeable difference in the nose.
Another thing, and this may have been mentioned and I’m sorry if it’s flogging a dead horse… But what the deal with the hole in the back of Zimmerman’s head? It does not look like a gash, it looks like a puncture wound to me. Does anyone else see that?
Rebecca, what mugshot are you referring to?
Though I’ve picked my share, I know little about noses. But when I look at that picture (from TalkLeft), his nose does look different in the before and after, and perhaps bent and squashed. But yes, the immediate swelling and the black eyes are gone in that photo.
But what mugshot are you referring to?
What was the point of that, anon? His nose didn’t look broken in that shot either. Is that because it was taken weeks and weeks after the incident?
Hey Rebecca, what “mugshot” are you referring to?
I haven’t seen any mugshots (where he is holding up a number for instance.)
The shot I presented above was taken last week when he was booked after he turned himself in, and so was weeks and weeks after the incident.
Sorry for the poor grammar and punctuation. I am typing with fat fingers from an iPhone and cannot find it in me to do any sort of editing. 🙂
I can’t wait to find out who the person was who took the pic. I find it quite ‘interesting’ that Zimmerman allegedly posed for the pics and asked this guy to call his wife. We’re they friends? Who asks a random stranger to call his wife and goes on to pose for a headshot? Why was this photographer/wife caller on the scene in the first place? This just gives me the heebies and seems like a major ploy.
I want to see POLICE photos of his injuries. In his mugshot, his nose looks pretty good for having been broken only an hour ago.
It is all so strange and not much of it adds up.. At least, it does not appear to add up as of what we know.
I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of information to be learned over the coming months
Pete,
Fwiw, here’s a bit of documentation that in the uk and australia, cunt can be used “affectionately”.
“Silly bunt” is from the Monty Python sketch I linked to above.
Similarly, I regret to confess that all Pythonista’s love to call people, well women, moistened bints.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOTKA0aGI0
2:50 above
pete,
I thought anon was calling her a silly cake until I remembered that was spelled “bundt”.
Which is kind of too bad.
Silly cake sounds interesting.
malisha
i’ve tried finding out what a silly bunt is and i’ve come up short. the only bunt i’ve found is this http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bunte is spelled different and doesn’t make much sense to call someone a german ladies fashion magazine.
a silly punt would be a small flat bottomed boat and that makes no sense either
the only other choice would be a silly bint http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=BINT but calling someone that would just be rude.
and anon would never do that.
Malisha,
Who made your keyboard and how much will they charge for an “enter” key?
Let me know and I’ll paypal you whatever it takes.
Anon, if you don’t think there was an arrangement made to fail to charge Zimmerman the night of the shooting, you’re either way too trusting of government (except for President Obama, apparently) or too concentrated in on side issues like identifying silly bunts. All the reported cases of self-defense are reported for the simple reason that the shooter gets charged, and then his defense counsel convinces a jury that he shot in self-defense, and if Zimmerman’s defense team can do that, he will go free. But the reason he was not charged on 2/26/2012 was NOT because there was not enough evidence to charge him, it was because obviously the cops thought Martin was some throw-away who would never be identified by anyone who had any power to complain of his death, and they didn’t want to charge Zimmerman, for one reason or another. When it turned out that there was a sizeable vocal bunch of folks protesting this “freebie killing” the cops and prosecutor’s office started giving out all kinds of idiotic excuses for their conduct and rightfully, investigations followed. NOW we have a second-degree murder charge but it’s anybody’s guess whether this is a further, really clever but corrupt piece of an even bigger cover-up outrage, or if this is a genuine attempt to do what should have been done in the beginning. Naturally you will presume that my take on this is simply a “conspiracy theory” promulgated by a silly bunt. But there have been conspiracies in history. One of them — well, way more than one, but the one I am thinking of right now — was a giant criminal conspiracy that had laws and judges behind it, and all kinds of justifications for it, but it was a mass murder and exploitation of people who had done nothing to deserve that, and it worked because so many people with guns protected each other from the natural results of such criminal conduct, and it was called slavery, and in each and every instance in which it worked, it worked because each participant decided not to hold other participants accountable for what they did wrong. And why would these good people support each other’s wrong-doing? Because they were doing wrong themselves and did not want to be held accountable either.
Why do people take part in conspiracies? To protect themselves for what they have done wrong. Easiest thing in the world to understand.
Now I hope that is not continuing to play out in Florida. It DID play out on 2/26/2012, in my opinion and the opinion of many rational people, many of them with law degrees. But how tightly are the wagons circled around the folks who gave us the Trayvon Martin case (and the folks who gave us the Trayvon Martin case are NOT the demonstrators but the cops and prosecutors who botched the thing at first)? I don’t know yet. I hope the feds will tell us that.
“You and I would answer to Anon for our behavior”
See, and that’s just defamation.
Mespo, GeneH, OS, you and others have been measuring loops in the noose for Zimmerman since the case became known, and I doubt I’ve said anything other than: Zimmerman is a dumbass who if he’s not actually in real life guilty deserves to be found guilty because his actions were so stupid.
But since you dislike what I say about that, you think it’s okay to project on to me your lynch mob thoughts and behaviors.
Nope, you can’t have it.
Keep your authoritarian lynch mob bullshit between you and your blog buds.
“MAYBE they are trying to throw the case to protect their own department. MAYBE NOT”
HEh, so that’s what you were trying to say. Sheesh, all those pixels wasted just to set up your conspiracy theory so should Zimmerman walk, you won’t have to believe it was because there was no evidence and reasonable doubt.
You should read more Ann Althouse who seems to feel Obama had his solicitor general purposely throw Obamacare so Obama can bring in something even more communist.
Rebecca, Curtis Sliwa, founder of the “Guardian Angels” community watch organization (now very well known and respected in many countries) has said on a TV interview that he believes Zimmerman “woke up that morning” looking for trouble, looking to hurt somebody, looking to do something to somebody. Now Sliwa is not a forensic psychiatrist or anything, and in fact, he knows nothing about Zimmerman’s psychological make-up or character, which, to my knowledge, has even now never been tested by any impartial authority. But Sliwa was talking about the case because he was so upset that now, people associate the “neighborhood watch” concept with the actions taken by (or crimes committed by) Zimmerman that night. When Sliwa trains people to do the real job of really protecting their communities, he emphasizes: (a) NO GUNS OR WEAPONS; and (b) NO USURPATION OF POLICE AUTHORITY.
I think this is a very important point. Zimmerman’s concept of himself and who he thought he should be, and how much of a SUPERIOR and an AUTHORITY he wanted to be when he came up on Trayvon Martin that night, and how he wanted to be seen and responded to by Trayvon Martin that night — all that — nothing to do with what HE DID that night. His motivations? Only significant in terms of whether they are in fact the elements of the second degree murder charge. Was he respectfully addressing a young man he had already called an “asshole” and perhaps called a “punk”? Or was he assigning himself the role of the superior who could demand respectful obedience from an inferior, and when he didn’t get it, there was hell to pay? Usurpation of police authority is a dangerous thing. If we as a society allow it, we are done for. Each hostile person in our culture will be elevated to a supercop to do with us as he will. You and I would answer to Anon for our behavior. It wouldn’t be pretty.
(But don’t listen to me, I’m just a silly bunt, have already been convicted of silly buntitude, second degree.)
The ‘they always get away’.. Paired with Zimmerman’s refusal to take the duspatcher’s advise not to pursue makes it seem quite probable to me that Zimmerman was looking for a fight that night.