Medical experts also testified that the police were at fault for Zimmerman not being taken to the hospital with the head wounds that he had. Trayvon certainly did some damage (including a broken nose) before being shot, and there’s no denying that.
However, Zimmerman’s life was not at risk from the attack.
[quote=“law, post:83, topic:3888”]
However, do we really want to start putting parameters around “your a-- has to be handed to you THIS badly for deadly force to be acceptable”? That leads to obligating the ‘whoop-ee’ (apparently ‘victim’ is a trigger word for some in this scenario) to have to gauge just how much damage their aggressor plans to dish out in advance. I don’t think that’s a reasonable onus to put on someone.
[/quote]That is exactly what should be expected when you make the decision to use a lethal force against an attacker. You are making the decision to kill someone; not hurt, not subdue, not even escape - you shoot a gun you are saying “I am going to kill this person”.
I would agree so far as to say that Zimmerman’s life was not at risk from the wounds he had received so far. What we can’t know is what would’ve happened if the attack had been allowed to continue. For better or worse, “being in fear for ones life” has a subjective component to it. Of course there’s going to be some armchair-quarterbacking after the fact, but I think the standard is “would a reasonable person believe that their life may be in danger”. So, if a 5’11" person was on top of you, punching, slamming your head, etc, with you lying prone on your back and no indication that he was about to stop attacking, would a reasonable person believe that being in fear for your life was genuine?
I’m pretty sure the base assumption that the attacker you provoked was attempting to murder you has a lot of obvious flaws.
But that’s just it. There is an exceptionally high bar for “things you can say to another person that will justify them hauling off and repeatedly hitting you”. I can sit there and cuss you, your momma, and your every female relative back to when our species crawled out of the primordial ooze, and that doesn’t give you legal standing for kicking my butt. If you go ahead and kick my butt, that’s assault and YOU are in the wrong. At the time of the cussing I’m just an a-hole, but the second you hit me I am the victim.
So as long as I “believe” my life is in danger, I’m clear to use deadly force and kill someone, forever? If I “believe” a light is green and not red, is it OK for me to drive through it?
I find your beliefs fascinating, but I’m going with the medical evidence here rather than the truthiness of your gut. Based on the medical forensic evidence at the site, the only thing Zimmerman was in actual danger of was a mild ass-kicking. And may I remind you that he knew the police were already on the way based on the 911 call.
Actually, if you take Zimmerman’s account at face value–Martin initiated the confrontation. Zimmerman was following at a distance–that is not a confrontation. So the opposite applies–Martin was NOT minding his own business in that account–Martin came at him for the (stupid, but legal) behavior of trailing him. If you accept the defense story.
Now–you may or may not take Zimmerman’s account at face value. Understandably. But if you do—if you offer it as a premise—let’s get it correct.
I did not say that at all. I said there is a component of subjectivity to it, but there’s going to be some armchair-quarterbacking after the fact. Perhaps I should’ve been more clear - a grand jury, judge, or ‘regular’ jury is going to apply the ‘reasonable person’ test to your claim of ‘I was in fear of my life’. “He’s coming right for us!”, in the South Park sense, isn’t enough to pass the reasonable-person test. “A 5’11” individual was kneeling on my chest and punching me, I didn’t know when he was going to stop, so I drew and shot him in fear of my life", in this circumstance, in front of the judge and jury in Florida, apparently did pass the reasonable-person test.
Yep, a 17 year old black boy, nearly 30 pounds lighter than him, was beating this 29 year old man up so badly that he was going to die before the police – who were already on their way – arrived, unless he pulled out his gun and killed him immediately. That was the only option.
If only there were actual forensic medical evidence to support this scenario.
What can I say other than a jury of 16 white women in Florida were either unable or unwilling to properly evaluate the evidence?
[quote=“codinghorror, post:94, topic:3888”]
What can I say other than a jury of 16 white women in Florida were either unable or unwilling to properly evaluate the evidence?
[/quote]The guidelines they were forced to follow probably had a lot to do with that too.
Again, Zimmerman didn’t, and couldn’t, have known Martin’s age at the time of the beating. Nor could he have known that Martin would “only” stop at a couple of ‘medically insignificant’ taps. The fact of the matter, corroborated by witnesses, is that Martin was hitting him hard enough to draw blood, while sitting on his chest. By sitting on his chest, Martin effectively was preventing Zimmerman from retreating, which is presumably where the justification for drawing and firing came from.
So when in doubt – it’s OK to go directly to lethal force? Whatever law this is, we need to change it. You should not be able to legally kill people to avoid a mild ass-kicking. The belief in the heat of the moment that “I might end up in the hospital” is not a valid reason to take someone else’s life, forever. And the idea that people simply believing they are in life threatening danger – without any actual forensic medical evidence that they are – is enough to deploy lethal force is incredibly dangerous. Homicide city.
Zimmerman could always have pressed assault charges after the fact, and would have easily won.
Actually, the self-defense law in Florida explicitly allows people not retreating. It also allows people to use deadly force on a feeling.
Not surprisingly the murder rate has gone down about the same amount the self defense claims have gone up.
It also gives you legal standing to kill me for punching you for being an asshole, which is the actual problem here.
If you’re invoking “I was in fear of my life”, you don’t believe you’re going to the hospital. By the very definition, you believe you’re going to the morgue.
Your opinion on changing the law is valid. However, in the heat of the moment, what does a ‘hospital-bound’ ass-kicking feel like compared to a ‘morgue-bound’ ass-kicking? Better not guess wrong - if you think “hospital bound” but your attacker is going for “morgue bound”, you’re not going to get a second chance to argue your case. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I am of the opinion that I should not have to rely on the graces of my assailent, especially if I happen to be pinned down on my back with him on top of me.
I hope we both bring guns, and we can both end up dead in that scenario. It’s safest that way, isn’t it?
You seem to be referring to the “Stand your ground” law, which was speculated about as a possible defense for Zimmerman early on in the trial. It turns out that he did not invoke “Stand your ground” (which generally removes the duty to retreat under certain circumstances), he was able to mount a defense based on good old fashioned common-law. Under common-law self defense, while he did have a duty to retreat he was unable to exercise it with Martin sitting on his chest.
And just to pre-empt the inevitable “But why didn’t he just not get into the argument to begin with???”, remember - it wasn’t illegal for Zimmerman to get out of his truck, follow Martin through a public place, and start an argument with him. The clock would have started ticking on ‘duty to retreat’ immediately after the first punch was thrown, and according to Zimmerman’s side of the story he WAS supposedly trying to leave the scene when he ended up on his back with Martin on top of him.
I don’t know about ‘safer’, but it would be a more-equal fight. A handgun is the only way I know of for a 90lb woman to regularly fend off a 200-lb attacker. But by all means lets outlaw all guns everywhere, that way it’s only ever a question of “who’s stronger?” in physical confrontation, regardless of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
I want portable nukes. I don’t feel safe enough with just a gun.
C’mon dude, we’ve been doing a mostly-decent job of keeping it respectful and kinda/sorta on-topic through 99 posts. Don’t be “that guy” that gets us shut down over stupid crap like trolling over portable nukes. Besides, PNs aren’t the problem. It’s those damnable high capacity portable nukes that are the real scourge of society. 7 PNs per magazine should be enough for any post-apocalyptic duster, 8+ is for the nut-jobs who want to be extra-killy. And don’t even bother to ask my opinion about the shoulder-thing-that-goes-up.
