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
@Malisha: Didn’t she fire into the air? Same reason, she didn’t want to kill anybody, but she wanted to prove the gun was loaded and she could pull the trigger, in order to prevent further harm to herself. I do not know much about that case but I suspect she was innocent too, if you are allowed to KILL somebody in self defense, you should certainly be allowed to fire a warning shot instead.
Tony C: That would explain why Marissa Alexander would run to the garage when Rico Grey was assaulting her again.
@Sling: I have carried a gun. The honest answer is I carried the gun out of fear. Not to be macho, not to be powerful, but because somebody had been murdered, and I personally knew who did it, and I had good reason to fear him. I never fired my gun at anybody, that situation was resolved when the murderer went to prison, and I stopped carrying. If he is ever paroled, I will be carrying again.
Cops carry guns, and many do not ever fire their guns in the line of duty.
To me a gun is like insurance; you do not want to have to use it, but you carry it for what might happen. I do not feel macho or powerful because I own life insurance or home insurance or car insurance. I feel protected against disasters that I fear, and that is the same reason I was carrying a gun, or that I can see others carrying a gun.
Yes, it may be a fetish for some, maybe for most, but in some neighborhoods it really is just fear of being a victim without it.
“Rights”
In my view, if the answer given in response to “Why are you doing that” goes along the lines of “It’s my right” or “I’m entitled to do it”, that indicates that the person can’t reasonably justify what they are doing.
Why do you carry a gun?
It’s my Constitutional right.
Yes, but why do you carry a gun?
I’m entitled to carry a gun.
Yes, but why do you carry a gun?
It’s for self defence.
When was the last time you needed a gun for self-defence?
I never have, but I might, sometime.
I would guess that for most gun-carriers, the gun is a fetish. More macho than a Rolex
An honest exchange would be:
Why do you carry a gun?
It makes me feel horny and powerful.
If you get into a tight sport, why not run?
I can’t run. The gun is too heavy.
RE: Laws “giving” privileges and rights vs. laws “restraining” the appropriation of same
IF we could rely upon our courts to make fair and logical decisions about things there would be no need for SYG laws or any other nonsensical “if-then” laws minutely dissecting the possible scenarios that COULD play out if someone decides to impose his will upon someone else unnecessarily or inappropriately. Of course.
But we can’t.
In general we should look to our laws to show us carefully (a) what we may not do; (b) what we must do; and (c) what can be done to us if we violate (a) or (b). But too many people imagine that the law GIVES us rights we would not have otherwise had, and then you get the “ME ME ME ME ME” people using “law” to justify aggression.
This leads to every kind of anomaly/stupidity.
Once I heard the following conversation between a rational person and her spouse:
RP: If you have the right of way here and someone cuts you off, do you think it’s OK to assert your right and have an accident?
S: DAMN RIGHT!
RP: Why?
S: Because I’m not gonna let anybody take away MY RIGHTS!
Q.E.D.
I suppose in the Zimmerman case it could go like this:
Q: If you think you have a right to demand someone account to you for his whereabouts and for his appearance in your neighborhood, and he doesn’t want to answer your questions properly, do you think you have a right to kill him?
A: [I’m not attributing this answer, just imagining it] DAMN RIGHT!
Q: Why?
A: Because I’m not letting anybody take away my right to STAND MY GROUND!
???
Sling, I am relapsing, but considering your elaborate allusion to the rules that dictate traffic orders, could it be you are slightly prejudice against cyclists? I think our traffic rules enforce prejucice. Pedestrians, against cyclists and cars and the other way round. Even kids playing moving out of the way if a car approaches in the street, can incur the wish for sanctions in some citizen’s mind.
I happen to always make eye contact with car drivers, even if I have the right of way, since sometimes a cyclist appears unexpected from a bike lane behind parking cars for car drivers here in Cologne, a very unfortunate solution.
Incidentally our traffic law can be interpreted in it’s general paragraphs as conveying the concept of “shared space”. Ever heard of it? It’s a EU program by now, mainly due to the research and concepts of the late Dutch Hans Monderman. While it’s true the blind and deaf may indeed be even more handicapped in such an environment, research shows that accidents are diminished drastically in such an environment. People are trained to simply follow the rules and forget about others, once they have the right of way. Ironically, only if there are no signs, they start to pay attention to each other.
Shared space: Wikipedia.
I could point out to you at least one huge junction, were I regularly move a couple of seconds before the light turns green for one reason only, by the way. If I am out of the way for the cars still waiting there for the light to turn green two more get through at that green light phase/time span(?). If I am caught doing so, it would cost me 83 or 93, I forget, Euros.
Admittedly I am a repeat offender at points were rules don’t make sense, always was. Like waiting at a red traffic light in the early morning with no cars around. I don’t do that if I drive a car by the way. That’s what they are trying to train me to follow the rule by raising the fines for a bicycle almost to the same fees for cars. A pedestrian pays 5 Euros for the same offense.
What I am asking myself in this context for longer now, do I have to patience to bring a specific case all the way up to the federal court. On the lower levels I expect in this context political decisions, admittedly.
Shano, well spoke. If I liked “medicine” I’da reached for some already.
Malisha: Oh snap!
sick
OK, so here we have targets selling out in two days, from Virginia (that was the top-of-the-line slave-producing state in the “old days”) showing a clear representation of an innocent Black youth, encouraging target practice by armed non-law-enforcement individuals. “Here, SHOOT THIS!”
So, maybe Rev. Al Sharpton, regardless of what you may think of him, was correct when he said: “Today, black … youth … are routinely targeted”!
Yeah, in the face of the rapid sale of these TARGETS — can we find Sharpton’s words inaccurate? Exaggerated? Over-dramatized?
And the targets bear a legend: “Of course we support George Zimmerman…”
Support him in what? In his right to shoot unarmed Black youth? We may WANT to look at this as if it is not about race, but those target salesmen in Virginia probably don’t. Who are their “target consumers”?
Man Sells Out of Trayvon Martin Gun Range Targets
Gun range targets meant to resemble dead Florida teen Trayvon Martin are offensive enough. But what’s more disturbing is that the Florida entrepreneur’s distributor reportedly sold out his entire stock in two days.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/14/man-sells-out-of-trayvon-martin-gun-range-targets/
@Sling: I have been on the record on this blog in a few other instances railing against the amount of discretion prosecutors have in bringing charges in fatality cases. I think it is disgraceful that a prosecutor (or even lower, an ADA or even a detective) can essentially choose to simply not prosecute a murder (like Trayvon’s) and doesn’t have to justify that decision to anybody or get approval from anybody.
It is particularly prevalent in the cases where cops kill civilians and not only is there never a charge filed, there is never even an investigation; the DA just rubber-stamps the killing as justified in the line of duty, because it was a cop.
I think it should be mandatory that ALL fatalities (or disabling injuries) must be investigated as potential murders, and if the injury or death was caused by a police officer or contract employee, they must be investigated by the FBI.
Well I agree with you mostly 🙂
It would be better to avoid writing laws that eliminate the leeway that a court should have to decide on the merits of cases.
That of course assumes that courts are capable of delivering rational decisions. In the Alexander case, the court apparently considered that shooting to miss indicated a true lack of fear.
It would be better to improve the performance of courts than to write laws that tie a court’s hands.
Florida’s SYG law allowed a situation where in the absence of the backlash, the Zimmerman/Martin case would never have been looked at by a court.
10-20-life law forces 10 and maybe 20 years rather that the 3 years that the prosecutor apparently felt to be appropriate. (This is to ignore whether the circumstances actually justified any penalty.)
As I said, reasonable people can disagree, and I disagree with you. Because to me, a legal requirement to retreat if the option is available is in the same territory as “you only have the right to eat in this restaurant if none of the patrons tells you to get out.”
I think if I have the civil right to to be in a place that is open to the public, then I have the right to remain in that place even if somebody is verbally threatening me, and I believe that if I am actually attacked by somebody and harmed and I fight back, then I am acting in self defense, and my right to claim self defense cannot be stripped from me because I refused to back down to threats.
I do not think it is any of government’s business to pass laws to encourage me or anybody else to act sensibly or choose wisely. That is not freedom, that is patriarchy.
The problem with any law that says you have to forego your civil rights if somebody threatens you is that it lets whole groups of people defined by their dress, skin color, language or religion, be legally deprived of their civil rights by bullies.
So, shall we then ALSO pass laws that prevent that? That esentially controls speech with legally enforced political correctness, and I think that is far too slippery a slope to use in solving the problem.
The true solution is the ELIMINATION of restrictions. Eliminate the duty to retreat if possible, and eliminate any law that says a claim of self defense is only warranted when no retreat was possible. Make self defense a possible claim ONLY when the claimant was not the aggressor and only when the action was taken in response to actual physical harm or imminent physical harm as judged by a JURY, or a JUDGE if the defendant so chooses.
Then let the bullies taunt and curse and threaten; let the targets of the bullies leave or stay as they see fit, and if the bullies begin the violence let self defense mean what it USED to mean, defending one’s self or somebody else from imminent actual physical harm. Not word bombs.
Physical resistance against physical bullies IS the sensible option, for those of us willing to do it. As the ACLU says, Freedom is not free.
Tony, you wrote – as part of a post
““What I disagree with is the requirement to retreat and the invalidation of self-defense, because it essentially gives license to others to threaten people away from public spaces, like parks, and deny people their legal right to be there.”
I was simply responding to that sentence as I think it is at the core of the whole thing.
It is unfortunate that you seem to have interpreted this to be me implying that the sentence encompasses all of your thinking.
An explicit ‘No legal requirement to retreat if you have that option’ law would be basically the same as a SYG law. This is not the same as the absence of a legal requirement to retreat if possible.
The problem with any law that implicitly says “It’s OK to do some damage even if you didn’t really have to” is that it creates an environment in which people are more likely to wander too near to the edge of a vortex.
Any confrontational situation can very quickly spiral out of control, with each side possibly misinterpreting what the other side is about.
People’s perceptions of what is actually happening can be inaccurate at the best of times and way off base at the worst of times.
“SYG in a public place” laws or some explicit “don’t have to retreat if you have the option” environment encourage a less sensible and more macho approach to situations.
Most laws are in place because people refuse to behave sensibly in the absence of those laws.
What’s the problem with going through a red light if there is no traffic coming from the side?
What’s the problem with driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road if the road is empty of oncoming traffic?
Why not just have a very strong recommendation that drivers simply give way to traffic if there is a red light?
Why not just have a very strong recommendation that drivers move to the right if they see oncoming traffic – which traffic would sensible move to their own right if they had been driving on the left?
A legal requirement to retreat if the option is available is in the same sort of territory as a legal requirement to drive on a certain side of the road.
It’s a very strong influence to condition people to instinctively take the sensible option.
Tony C. wish that were true in Arizona. The latest case is a man sitting in his car thinking he is being attacked by a man waving his arms and shouting! It is ridiculous. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDxPDgoJB6E&feature=player_embedded
@Sling: I do not know what alternative world post you were reading, but it wasn’t what I posted above.
As I said, sometimes retreat is the best choice; if a man approaches me in the park and shows me a gun and tells me to leave, I would leave. (and btw, he is already of guilty of assault by intimidation, which is a punishable crime in many states).
If you stand your ground but don’t shoot him, you’ll end up dead or injured.
Not necessarily.
If you are going to shoot, then the only logical time to shoot is before he can touch you.
Self defense includes defense against imminent threat; which is basically harm that you have no reasonable doubt WILL occur if you do not act.
What if it’s just you and him in the park?
Then be aware that a jury is going to have to sort out what happened, and if they do not believe you, you may well end up in prison, bankrupt and with a ruined life, so choose your actions with that in mind. I will repeat, sometimes retreat is the smartest choice, if it is a choice.
He looks a bit rough and is approaching you asking if you can spare a dime. You are of a hyper-nervous disposition, so you shoot him.
Then I think you are guilty of murder. Should you shoot the preacher when he passes the plate? He is asking you for money too!
Self defense is in response to physical harm or imminent physical harm. If he swings at you, or tackles you, then you can defend yourself, not before. The same goes if he approaches you: If he is within distance to physically harm you with a punch or kick and threatening you (as opposed to being close for some other reason, like trying to be heard over loud music or machinery, or just being in a crowd), then he is committing assault by intimidation. If he makes a violent move that could reach you then you have the right to respond. If he is further away but is about to use a weapon that can close the distance, you are in imminent danger and have the right to respond.
As I said, I think it should be mandatory public policy to treat and investigate all such events as if they are murders or assaults in order to come to the right conclusion.
Also as I said, I think SYG laws as written should be struck down; I also think any kind of preemptive violence based on “fear” is bullshit, the only acceptable preemptive strike is in response to imminent physical harm and that should be judged ONLY by a court, not the person employing violence. I ALSO think that a duty to retreat is unfair, If I have a right to be someplace, and I am threatened with violence if I do not leave, I believe it is STILL self-defense if I choose to stay, and I AM attacked, and THEN I defend myself. In that SAME situation if I am threatened with violence but I am not actually harmed and I am not in imminent danger (as defined above, harm is inevitable if I do not act), then I think I would be guilty of murder to employ violence FIRST. Speech, gestures, roaring, and pretend swinging from a distance is NOT AN ATTACK. Throwing a rock is an attack, running to tackle you is an attack, pulling a gun is an attack, getting within punching or kicking distance with apparent hostility is an attack. Flicking lit matches at you is an attack, there are many kinds of attack that put you in imminent danger of physical harm, but angry words or gestures are not among them.
Tony C : “What I disagree with is the requirement to retreat and the invalidation of self-defense, because it essentially gives license to others to threaten people away from public spaces, like parks, and deny people their legal right to be there.”
Even with a SYG law, others “have a licence” “to threaten people away…” if the threatened person does not feel that they are tougher that then one threatening.
A SYG law is of no help whatever to a threatened person facing a threat that is greater than the threat that they can pose in return.
A SYG law actually makes life unsafer for everyone as it implies that people should not rely on calling the cops to have that sort of threatening behaviour dealt with. A SYG law implies (or at least it does to you as evidenced by your statement) that people should sort out that sort of situation by themselves. It removes a measure of onus on law enforcement to protect the weak.
This is all very well for a skilled martial arts expert or for a weak unfit skinny inoffensive person who carries a gun that they are prepared to use. It is no real help otherwise.
SO:
You are walking in a park – in a state that has a SYG law.
You are approached by somebody way bigger with madness in his eyes and tells you to get the f*** out of his park. You know that if he gets a grip on you, you’re bunched.
What do you do?
You say “I’ve got a right to be here”
He keeps advancing on you, roaring at you.
If you stand your ground but don’t shoot him, you’ll end up dead or injured. If you are going to shoot, then the only logical time to shoot is before he can touch you.
What if it’s just you and him in the park? He looks a bit rough and is approaching you asking if you can spare a dime.
You are of a hyper-nervous disposition, so you shoot him.
He was just begging and had no intention of hassling you or injuring you.
You tell the cops that you were in fear of your life. You basically murdered someone without any real justification, but that’s quite ok as you are the type that craps in your pants at every loud noise.
(Just to be clear, the “you” above is a general “you” and not ….eh…. you.)
@Malisha: In the SYG law, the ground is figurative. What it was supposed to mean, in my opinion, was something I strongly agree with, which is that when one is attacked, they have no legal responsibility to retreat from the danger.
There are laws in some states now, including New York, that in a confrontation you can be legally charged with manslaughter if somebody picks a fight with you, and you fight back and accidentally kill them, IF you could have retreated from the fight instead. IF you could have retreated, the court does not have to allow you to claim self-defense. In New York, the reasoning is that IF you could have retreated, and did not, then you CHOSE to fight.
Reasonable people can disagree; and I disagree with that law. I do agree that if there is a route to retreat then you have a choice to make, and retreat is often the smart choice. What I disagree with is the requirement to retreat and the invalidation of self-defense, because it essentially gives license to others to threaten people away from public spaces, like parks, and deny people their legal right to be there. This has been done in racial contexts as well, as in, “your kind ain’t welcome in this park,” (or restaurant, or store).
The SYG laws as they are written are ludicrous and should be struck down. However, so should the laws that impose a “responsibility to retreat,” I think whether you were defending yourself depends only upon whether you were attacked and that you were not goading or threatening or instigating the attack yourself.
And because that is difficult to determine, I believe that in any case in which blood is spilt (even from a cut lip) or somebody is killed, a jury trial to determine whether self-defense is plausible should be mandatory and automatic, and police officers should treat the scene and any witnesses that way. That would discourage both sides, I think.
In any case, standing your ground is just a metaphor that means you do not have a legal responsibility to retreat from a threat, you have the right to wait and see if the other person initiates violence or not. In my opinion THAT is fine, but preemptively initiating violence, even out of fear, is not, and obviously if somebody like Trayvon is trying to retreat from somebody like Zimmerman, Zimmerman is not “Standing Ground,” he is seeking confrontation, or at least giving Trayvon valid justification to stop retreating and confront Zimmerman about following him, which according to DeeDee is precisely what he did.
That’s about it.
The SYG law as I understand it could be interpreted as taking the “your home is your castle” concept and extending that to “anywhere is your castle”.
I suspect the intention was to extend the concept to “anywhere you are *about your normal activities*”.
The law was intended to cover a case where Zimmerman was on his way to the store and Martin attacks him. Not even Zimmerman’s most fervent champions could argue that this was the situation.
They might argue that because Zimmerman was a (self-appointed) NW private/corporal/sergeant/lieutenant/captain then checking out Martin became his ‘normal activities’ once he spotted him. This would be to ignore that Zimmerman’s activity was not normal by NW standards. He was carrying a gun and having lost sight of his suspect, he was following down a dark path to where the suspect might be.
They have argued that Zimmerman had a perfect right to be down that dark pathway, and that there was no law against him following Martin. That is only to argue that there is no law against stupidity and recklessness.
That is to ignore the fact that people who behave that way and damage people or property are generally called to account for the consequences.
A thought just came to me about the SYG laws. If you’re following someone on public territory, you’re not on “your” ground any more than he is on “his” ground. The fact that Zimmerman felt that the ground was “his” and NOT Martin’s only shows us Zimmerman’s point of view; it does not show us the legal quality of the “ground” involved. For Zimmerman to claim ANY sort of self-defense, regardless of what took place on public “anyman’s-ground,” he would have to overcome quite a burden. There would have to be a law that basically said that if Zimmerman FELT that he was on HIS OWN ground, then he should be guaranteed that he would not get hurt by anyone he was trying to roust, on that ground he had just “mentally appropriated.”
It would be a whole different law, not a SYG, not a self-defense, but a guarantee. It would have to say that anyone who got the notion that he should have the right to roust, follow, interrogate, approach, or investigate the peaceable conduct of anyone else, in any public place, or on property that is neither the interrogator’s property nor the interrogatee’s property, had an executable (by him, in his sole discretion) right not to be hurt while doing so. I think if you try that, and make it retroactive, then maybe the photo that was posted at the top of this thread would be significant.
Otherwise, Zimmerman just went out after dark, got himself into a jam, and suffered for it…perhaps…and then killed somebody.