Trayvon Martin, Vigilante Justice

[crimresearch]

Is it possible that Mr. Zimmerman is in the unenviable position of having lawyers that WANT his case to go to court?

Maybe that would be the outcome most worth preparing for.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Considering that GZ's lawyer is grandstanding, and not bound by the truth outside of a courtroom, I would consider it lawyering and not evidence.

And did the wound get stitches later, we don't know.

The attorney said:
I believe that his nose was broken ... he sustained a cut that was serious enough that he probably should have had stitches but there was a delay in him getting to the emergency room so they, by the time they got there, got to the doctor, there was an option not to stitch it up because it already had started healing, thats my understanding.

I don't find any of that unreasonable or to be a clear lie. If your point of contention is simply that on the leaked video, there is no bandage, therefor it's all a lie, we'll just have to disagree.

Although it was never stated, that statement implies it was never stitched.

 

[Cylinder]

SYG is an interesting factor. If the state tries to prosecute and looses then the state has to pay the defendants attorney fees. But this only happens if SYG applies.

Statutory immunity doesn't rely strictly on SYG claims.

776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.

(1) A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.

(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.

(3) The court shall award reasonable attorney's fees, court costs, compensation for loss of income, and all expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant is immune from prosecution as provided in subsection (1).

A claim of justified force under Florida 776.012 is eligible for damages only in civil cases under sub (3).

776.012 Use of force in defense of person.

A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other's imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or

(2) Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013.

This claim can be an ordinary reasonable belief "that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself."

Who decides? Is this a question put to the jury or does simply the claim by the defense make it so?

"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."

When the initial claim is asserted, statutory immunity applies until the arresting agency determines that probable cuase exists that the use of force is unlawful.

At that point, the defendant is entitled to a Peterson hearing - in which a trial judge will determine by the perponderance of evidence that the use of force was justified.

In the absence of a procedure for handling these matters, we find guidance from the Colorado Supreme Court's decision in People v. Guenther.   In that case, the court decided that Colorado's similar immunity statute authorized a trial court to dismiss a criminal prosecution at the pretrial stage and did not merely create an affirmative defense for adjudication at trial. The court further determined that a defendant raising the immunity would have the burden of establishing the factual prerequisites to the immunity claim by a preponderance of the evidence. The court imposed the same burden of proof as it would in motions for postconviction relief or motions to suppress.

If the trial judge accepts the claim, immunity attaches and the charges go away. If the trial judge rejects the claim, the charges proceed and the matter is left to the jury to decide using the reasonable doubt standard.

We now hold that when immunity under this law is properly raised by a defendant, the trial court must decide the matter by confronting and weighing only factual disputes.   The court may not deny a motion simply because factual disputes exist.   Here, the trial court did what was required.   Petitioner is not precluded from submitting the matter to the jury as an affirmative defense in his criminal trial.

 

[sgtbaker]

Below is a link to most of the interview with Piers Morgan and GZ attorney's. I don't think the attorney's did a lot of harm to their case but I don't think they did much good either. I was very surprised by the way the younger guy kept saying "when this goes to court" as if his client is going to be charged. He did that several times and then would catch himself and say "if it goes to court".

In my opinion if one of them is going to go on TV it should be the older guy on the bottom and not both of them. I do understand their need to try and get their side of the story out there from a PR standpoint, but they have two huge challenges:

1. They can't give out any information that proves their version of events whereas the TM attorney's can say pretty much anything they want.

2. The story as presented by the TM attorney's has been told for weeks on end to the point that it is the "official version". That's hard to over come. Normally it's much different and the police have the advantage and come out and tell a story. But in this case the police remained silent and never explained their decisions.


I consider this merely an analysis of the way it is, but I'm sure some will see it as being "pro GZ" or "anti-TM".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5d4gtzrNE

I most certainly agree with both of your points and of all the things his attorney's say in that video, there is one that I disagree with, whole heartedly. I, personally, have no idea what the facts are going to reveal. If or when the results of the investigation are released, I can't even speculate on what they are going to say. I can say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they will never "prove" George Zimmerman acted in self defense. A cumulation of evidence may suggest one way or another, how the fight may have started and who had wounds to suggest who assaulted who, but short of proving where George Zimmerman was standing when he ended the call and where he was when the assault happened; there will be little by way of knowing who approached who and who threw the first punch. Ultimately, they can never "prove" that Trayvon Martin went for George's gun. The very best that his attorneys can hope for is the case failing to meet the criteria for a conviction.

 

[AlBell]

The point I am making is that nowhere in the literature have I seen it mentioned that yelling/screaming is a huge problem. Different telephones, yes. Yelling, no.

You made a claim that all the papers in the literature mention that screaming is a problem. I called you on this, and asked for some citations. Since you haven't actually read any of the papers, you were incapable of coming up with any citations to back your claim.

So you come back to your Russell's teapot argument. No I have not read any papers that mention classifying screaming text.

At the same time, I have not heard of it being a huge problem, so I'm not willing to say that it is. Speaker variations due to mood or aging are mentioned, but are always mentioned as a distant second to problems with different microphones or telephones.

As I said, you are just making things up. You claimed that all of the papers in the literature mention this as a problem. When confronted with someone who has actually bothered to read a few papers, you went straight for misdirection.

Tendentiousness combined with an argument from ignorance combined with ad hominems combined with just making **** up. That's what you've given us so far.

How about this? You give us any evidence whatsoever that screaming in a test utterance is a major problem for speaker recognition systems.With your deep understanding of the problem, this should be really easy for you, right?

Asking someone to prove a negative doesn't work on this website and shouldn't work anywhere. Positive claimaints, in this case the experts, need to provide proof of a)methodology preferably via double blind tests, and b)technique and data that backs up the claims. Lacking that the claims may be dismissed out-of-hand.

 

[Moss]

If you are into programming, the toolkit that Easy Voice is probably built from is open source.

There are hints in other material that Mr. Owen did know enough to do proper negative comparisons. But if the software was doing negative comparisons then there should be a positive indicator of the quality of that negative result. I haven't seen that. But then, I don't think that anyone except Mr. Owen has seen enough of this program to say what it can and cannot do.

I am currently somewhat skeptical of this particular software package but don't find it inconceivable that the task is possible.

The toolkit? Are you referring to a specific API? If so, which one?

 

[AlBell]

I think Wildcat will look back on this episode with considerable embarrassment. The way he's handled this issue is truly beneath him.

I get it. All of the people can see why this is damning and they have a hunch that the experts are going to agree that the scream isn't George Zimmerman. I guess if he ever gets put on trial, he'll have an opportunity to challenge all this. Good.

But this hasn't been a shining moment for some of our veteran members.

Newer ones either. I've identified three posters who've convicted GZ of racially motivated murder.

The veterans are actually providing a bit of skepticism otherwise imo too often sorely lacking.

 

[Information Analyst]

I most certainly agree with both of your points and of all the things his attorney's say in that video, there is one that I disagree with, whole heartedly. I, personally, have no idea what the facts are going to reveal. If or when the results of the investigation are released, I can't even speculate on what they are going to say. I can say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they will never "prove" George Zimmerman acted in self defense. A cumulation of evidence may suggest one way or another, how the fight may have started and who had wounds to suggest who assaulted who, but short of proving where George Zimmerman was standing when he ended the call and where he was when the assault happened; there will be little by way of knowing who approached who and who threw the first punch. Ultimately, they can never "prove" that Trayvon Martin went for George's gun. The very best that his attorneys can hope for is the case failing to meet the criteria for a conviction.

I think the inherent probable is that given that some detail that has - however indirectly - come from Zimmerman seems highly unlikely, if not completely unbelievable, some people are never going to believe anything he says, short of a full "confession" to their liking. For example, even though I can see a scenario in which the "returning to vehicle" aspect is actually believable (from what would have been Zimmerman's perspective), some are still pouring scorn on it. It's entirely possible that he may retract X, Y, or Z detail, leaving something essentially true, but some will still refuse to accept A, B, C, etc.

 

[sgtbaker]

I think the inherent probable is that given that some detail that has - however indirectly - come from Zimmerman seems highly unlikely, if not completely unbelievable, some people are never going to believe anything he says, short of a full "confession" to their liking. For example, even though I can see a scenario in which the "returning to vehicle" aspect is actually believable (from what would have been Zimmerman's perspective), some are still pouring scorn on it. It's entirely possible that he may retract X, Y, or Z detail, leaving something essentially true, but some will still refuse to accept A, B, C, etc.

I have no desire to argue it, anymore, because it's starting to feel like walking in the wrong direction on those conveyor belts at the airport. Agree or disagree, my only response will only be to let you know that I read what you had to say. What is it that you think is highly unlikely or completely unbelievable?

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

I most certainly agree with both of your points and of all the things his attorney's say in that video, there is one that I disagree with, whole heartedly. I, personally, have no idea what the facts are going to reveal. If or when the results of the investigation are released, I can't even speculate on what they are going to say. I can say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they will never "prove" George Zimmerman acted in self defense. A cumulation of evidence may suggest one way or another, how the fight may have started and who had wounds to suggest who assaulted who, but short of proving where George Zimmerman was standing when he ended the call and where he was when the assault happened; there will be little by way of knowing who approached who and who threw the first punch. Ultimately, they can never "prove" that Trayvon Martin went for George's gun. The very best that his attorneys can hope for is the case failing to meet the criteria for a conviction.

I agree with you 100%. When I said "they can't give out any information that proves their version of events", it would have been more accurate to say they can't give out information that supports their version of the events.

As an example, even if they have doctors reports proving he had a broken nose, or close-ups of a scar on his head, they'd have to be idiots to release that. Unless the pictures showed his face bloodied and battered and swollen, that I have a feeling they would be releasing !

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
And did the wound get stitches later, we don't know.

Besides the fact the lawyer said no, medically it's ludicrous. If you had a head laceration that required stitches it would not stop bleeding in 30 minutes without a pressure bandage. It is physically preposterous.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Owen offered to let Zimmerman record a test sample under similar conditions (screaming, over a phone)...

Did he also offer Zimmerman a huge tube of lube and the opportunity to bend over and grab his ankles? Seriously though, there is no conceivable reason Zimmerman would want to agree to do so, and it's absurd grandstanding to offer it.

 

[RandFan]

An unfair analogy in that DNA has been scientifically justified in courts to have scientific merit.

If the science is sound then that is all that matters. To argue other wise is a fallacy. Now many people are arguing that the science isn't sound. That's fine but the idea that Martin's voice is necessary is simply false.

IMO voice analysis is sound science. What isn't sound science to our knowledge is the merit of the technique used, data collection techniques and probable accuracy of that data (high frequency losses and noise may or may not be key here), and chain-of-custody.

I too would like to see a positive result from the technique proposed here in double blind studies prior to admissibility discussion.

I think your complaints are fair and wanting to see a double blind study is fair. If you demand that the only way we can know is by attempting exclude Martin and that can only be done if Martin is alive then that's just silly. That's when the DNA analogy is quite apt.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Newer ones either. I've identified three posters who've convicted GZ of racially motivated murder.

The veterans are actually providing a bit of skepticism otherwise imo too often sorely lacking.

FWIW, my thinking is that with the limited information we have it's not very hard to imagine either of the following scenarios:

1. GZ approached TM aggressively, pushed him etc. and set off the entire chain of events. Effectively murdering TM.

2. TM did in fact attack GZ. I don't know why this is so unbelievable/impossible, and I don't know why acknowledging it as a possibility upsets some people so. I may also be giving the police far more credit than they deserve, but with 5 hours of questioning and no charges ever filed, it seems to me that GZ along with the eyewitness testimony must have presented a fairly convincing case that at a minimum it was going to be difficult to disprove this scenario.

Even if scenario 2 is true I'm still uncomfortable with GZ having to resort to deadly violence. My thinking being that even if the scenario is true, I have a very hard time imagining TM intending anything but to give GZ an ass whooping. And I can imagine that GZ was genuinely in fear for his life (even if he had no reason to be) as I think he had already profiled TM and convinced himself he was a criminal (and this is what I find most damning). IF TM threatened him as he says, that might make such a fear more reasonable, even though I believe IF the threat was made it was most certainly nothing more than bravado. The above is my thinking at this point in time, which may change as more facts come out.

Speaking of which, from what I heard those attorney's say and from what I read GZ's brother said, I have a very strong feeling there's a claim on GZ's part that there was some type of a fight over the gun.

 

[Dancing David]

Newer ones either. I've identified three posters who've convicted GZ of racially motivated murder.

I think one of them maybe a robot from the bizarre nature of their posts!

 

[RandFan]

Newer ones either. I've identified three posters who've convicted GZ of racially motivated murder.

The veterans are actually providing a bit of skepticism otherwise imo too often sorely lacking.

I think we are all too quick to pat ourselves on the back at times. Having high regard for your skeptical abilities confident in the knowledge that you are not 'one of those people", is IMO a false sense of security and not conducive to skepticism.

 

[Newtons Bit]

Besides the fact the lawyer said no, medically it's ludicrous. If you had a head laceration that required stitches it would not stop bleeding in 30 minutes without a pressure bandage. It is physically preposterous.

Lol, wat? When I was in middle school I got hit on the head with an over-inflated basketball (my own fault). It caused a god awful large amount of bleeding but didn't hurt much at all. My shirt was covered in my own blood but I walked calmly along. I got quite a few strange looks walking through the administration office to the nurses office. Apparently that much blood makes people think you've been shot.

I don't recall exactly when the bleeding stopped, but it did long before I got to the urgent care clinic and did so without a pressure bandage. They still gave me stitches to close the wound.

 

[dirtywick]

2. TM did in fact attack GZ. I don't know why this is so unbelievable/impossible, and I don't know why acknowledging it as a possibility upsets some people so. I may also be giving the police far more credit than they deserve, but with 5 hours of questioning and no charges ever filed, it seems to me that GZ along with the eyewitness testimony must have presented a fairly convincing case that at a minimum it was going to be difficult to disprove this scenario.

If Casey Anthony has demonstrated anything, getting past reasonable doubt can be difficult. If the jurors even acknowledge that this may have happened, they can't vote guilty.

 

[Unabogie]

Did he also offer Zimmerman a huge tube of lube and the opportunity to bend over and grab his ankles? Seriously though, there is no conceivable reason Zimmerman would want to agree to do so, and it's absurd grandstanding to offer it.

This confirms my suspicion that you didn't actually watch the video in question. Do you ignore the other links in the thread as well?

Regardless, if you'd watch the interview in question, that part of the interview is the furthest from "grandstanding" as you can be. He was asked specifically if it helped to have a sample "scream" and he answered yes it would, but he didn't have one. So he said he'd record one if Zimmerman wanted to.

That was it.

Watch the video.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Lol, wat? When I was in middle school I got hit on the head with an over-inflated basketball (my own fault). It caused a god awful large amount of bleeding but didn't hurt much at all. My shirt was covered in my own blood but I walked calmly along. I got quite a few strange looks walking through the administration office to the nurses office. Apparently that much blood makes people think you've been shot.

I don't recall exactly when the bleeding stopped, but it did long before I got to the urgent care clinic and did so without a pressure bandage. They still gave me stitches to close the wound.

Your shirt was covered in blood. Apparently that much blood made people think you'd been shot. You aren't sure what you looked like 30 minutes later.

How does this support the consistency with what we saw on a time stamped video of GZ about 35 minutes after the shooting?

If someone washed off your wound you would have found it still oozing. If it was cleaned and bandaged there would be additional blood on the bandage hours later. You are picturing blood pouring out and that's not what I said.