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
@Mespo: what made Trayvon Martin different or “suspicious”? His race? What he was doing?
Perhaps both, but plausibly, just the latter. My conjecture is that Trayvon left the house and walked to the store in the rain so that he could call his girlfriend in privacy and speak freely. At 17, kids are still developing an adult, sexualized identity they tend to hide from their parents and other adults in their family, for many reasons.
The reason I conjecture this is it would explain a great deal about what Zimmerman saw, and made him suspicious. The kid in the drizzling rain is going slow, that is because he doesn’t want to get home, he wants to talk and he can’t do that at home.
The reason he is aimless or looking around or making odd movements is because he is living in his imagination while in conversation with the girl, and Zimmerman mistakes those odd movements or sudden laughter for Trayvon being on drugs, and mistakes Travon staring at buildings (he isn’t really seeing) or looking around for Trayvon looking for trouble, something to steal or a place to break into.
I doubt Trayvon had some sudden craving for iced tea and Skittles, I think his purpose in going out was to speak freely with a girl, without inviting criticism or curiosity or lectures from adults.
@Mespo
I was reading about Zimmerman’s seemingly starnge statements at his bond hearing. Apparently Trayvon’s mother, in a press conference the day before, had specifically asked Zimmerman if he knew how old her son was and whether he knew he was unarmed. His statements were an attempt to address the questions posed by the boy’s mother.
Little bit younger and did not know if he was carrying, so he was afraid of a young person and thght I’ll shoot even if I do not know if i am in danger or not.
He hasn’t been tried yet, so I give it the benefit of waiting for the sworn testimony, but his words tell me it was not appropriate to shoot, it was appropriate to not follow as advised. My impression from news reports is that Zimmerman was on a hair trigger, so to speak, and looking for a target.
Gene H, the prosecution probably has lots of interviews with people who have been watching, hearing, and becoming more and more wary of Zimmerman’s obsessive desire to capture some criminal — and according to the fliers that he was papering the neighborhood with, the criminal he had in mind was a young black male. Those would tend to show that his following Martin was part of his plan to apprehend a criminal-type-person and become a hero in his neighborhood. He can probably be shown to have gotten out of his car with the actual intent of overpowering and dominating Martin, but he had no uniform, no badge. All the suppositions about his being beaten up may be based upon faulty evidence, if any evidence at all. For instance, I have listened over and over and over to the 911 tape in which he was actually shot. (The “Jeremy get IN HERE NOW!” tape) It appears to me that careful analysis of that tape is almost sure to yield pretty believable evidence that Trayvon Martin was not an aggressor. I also think the fact that there was no trip to the ER that night for George Z is going to weigh heavily against his “self-defense” ploy.
We shall see. Corey is no fool; she’s ambitious, tough and slick. If this were MY case and I were a prosecutor, I would not make out Murder 2 only to be humiliated.
I read that over the last few months some neighbors of Zimmerman have called police to complain about him confronting them as they walked and at their homes.
If this is true, are statements/complaints such as these admissible?
I think Zimmerman’s statement to the Martin family at his bond hearing is telling both as to race and about the obsession some have about packing concealed firearms. Zimmerman told the family, “I thought he was a little bit younger than I was, and I did not know if he was armed or not.”
So Zimmerman sees an admittedly younger, black male walking towards him in a hoodie while on the cell phone and his reaction is “I wonder if he’s packing?” As a young man it never occurred to me that someone merely walking towards me at night was carrying a concealed weapon. Permits were hard to get, and few felt the need to carry guns. And I grew up in the drug sponsored crime of the 1970s. By the way, what made Trayvon Martin different or “suspicious”? His race? What he was doing? The allegation that he had something in his waistband, is that enough?
The Second Amendment surely gives people the right to bear arms, just like the First Amendment gives people the right to call the families of American servicemen “fags” at the funerals of their loved ones. Does freedom require us to accept mayhem in the streets or be insulted when saying goodbye to genuine national heroes? Is this the logical extension of freedom?
For Second Amendment purists, my question is: Is this the “Dodge City” type of society we want to have? Let’s say Trayvon was packing. What would we have gotten in this situation? A “Stand-Your-Ground” stand-off? Perhaps, a gunfight at the “Retreat at Twin Lakes” Corral? Innocents and on-lookers be damned.
This is the “dog eat dog” world the ultra right-wing wants both socially and economically. They would do well to remember the words that echo down through history as a judgment against such societies:
Those who live by the sword; die by the sword.
Bob,
While I agree with you and JT that manslaughter is the more appropriate and mostly likely to stick charge, I’m still willing to listen to evidence of murder 2 if the prosecution has it.
@Raff: Thanks for the details. I believe Zimmerman meets (2), that he initially provoked the use of force agaimst himself. So why isn’t it murder 2? If 2(a) is not available to him, and 2(b) is not available to him, then Zimmerman is left with no cause to use deadly force. Why is it just manslaughter and not Murder?
776.012 Use of force in defense of person.
Inapplicable.
776.013 Home protection; use of deadly force; presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm.—
Inapplicable.
776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.—
(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.
Explains delay in arresting Zimmerman.
776.041 Use of force by aggressor. —The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.
The case against Zimmerman clearly hinges on 776.041(2)(a) and (b). That Zimmerman was told by the 911 dispatcher not to pursue Martin and that Zimmerman did anyway is evidence contradicting a “stand your ground” defense.
Even if Zimmerman did sustain the injuries he alleged, it still wouldn’t rise to the level required under 776.041(2)(a) and proving (b) would be a tall order indeed.
I agree with Jonathan Turley; there’s a possible case for manslaughter here, but not murder 2.
Bill Lee, Sanford Police Chief, To Resign After Temporarily Stepping Down Following Trayvon Martin Shooting
Hey Elaine…..
Experience makes one much, much wiser…..Didn’t someone once say book learning may make you smart….but experience makes one wise….honk, honk, honk…..
AY,
What’s good for the gander is also good for the goose.
I guess it’s okay for some to call Trayvon Martin a gangbanger–but not okay to say that Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.
My bad! I missed reading “Matt’s Book of Rules.”
😉
Bosco,
Calling you two “boys” wasn’t racist, half-wit. It was diminutive, dismissive, descriptive and derisive. It was supposed to be. When you act like children, then you get the appellation of children. But children come in all colors, including boy children. Since you don’t know what the word “likely” means, that you don’t know these facts about the word “boy” comes as no surprise.
Hey Matt, i noticed that the people here criticizing you are trying to get off the main points. They are focusing in on you and not your WORDS,,not at all. They will NEVER admit guilt to any hastiness . By the way Gene,,who are you calling BOY(S) ? Sounds a little racist to me
Its quite alright in your little pea brains to think that convoluting the issues and redirecting is a-ok. It isnt.
Elaie,
Be very careful in how you defend yourself…..Some may think you are attacking them….wink….
Matt,
“And by the way, how quick you were to label me a “racist, woman beating, less of a man” but once it’s turned around on you you don’t like it so much.”
I did all that? Really? I called you a woman beater? Have you misinterpreted some of the things that I’ve written?
Tony C, you are merely stating the obvious. And not guilty only means they found say OJ not guilty, but that does not mean they found him innocent.
@Matt: What happened to “a person is innocent until proven guilty?”
You apparently do not understand that, either. “Innocent until proven guilty” is a principle applied to punishment for a crime, it is saying no person should be punished by the police or courts until by due process they have been found guilty of a crime. It is supposed to be a prescription guaranteeing due process (now diluted by the Obam administration).
I agree that Zimmerman should not be punished for murdering Trayvon until he is proven guilty of murdering Trayvon.
Innocence is not a presumption I am required by the Constitution to personally make. We can believe somebody is guilty of a crime. Even the police can believe somebody is guilty of a crime, that is often the basis of a search warrant, e.g. they believe that damning evidence will be found in somebody’s house, car, boat, bank account or computer. It would be simply bullshit for a cop to say that he expects to find evidence that Mr. X killed his wife, but also Mr. X is an innocent man.
Government employees (and the public at large) are free to believe a person is guilty of a crime, they are just not supposed to take any action to punish that person for the crime until guilt has been proven in a court of law.
Matt, Zimmerman condemned Martin. (whether you call him a killer, which he has admitted, or a murderer which, hopefully, will be adjudicated.)
Matt,
Wow! You are becoming unhinged. Got an anger management problem?