Continuation: Discussion of the George Zimmerman case

[WildCat]

I'm the one that just said you would do this! Do you not realize that your earlier claims were that it is impossible to tell if any flashlight is on in a picture?

Do you realize we're talking specifically about Dan O's claim that Zimmerman's flashlight was not on in the police photograph?

Even without the goalpost move,

There was no such move.

I am willing to bet that if you get that exact flashlight and take some pictures of it on and off, at night, with the exact same camera and flash, and then compare the two sets of pictures, they will not look exactly the same.

You wouldn't be able to move the goalposts past that!

So how's that experiment going?

 

[TheL8Elvis]

And yet somehow they still manage to get a conviction now and again.

Perhaps because the prosecution only chooses to charge people when they are confident they can win. I don't know if they do that, and I don't have any statistics on perjury convictions. Do you ?

So how do you think they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the convicted perjurer believed themselves to be lying?

By having evidence beyond a reasonable doubt ? I don't know what else you expect me to say ?

How does anyone prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt ?

Again, if that is not the standard, please feel free to correct me.

And that relativity is established by "to assist with these costs".

She had $57,000. That's certainly "financial means" to assist in her husband's legal costs.

The money was in her account. It belonged to her. If you want to argue that it's creates "reasonable doubt" to suggest she didn't beleive the money in her possesion was hers, then you need to explain how anyone could ever be convicted of perjury using such liberal standards to define lying.

As I said:

I think that's a direction the defense will go, which may or may not be useful.

Using your standards, I don't see how you would prove perjury in this instance.

I didn't create any standards, just offer a possibility. I think something along those lines may be a feasible defense. I don't know what information MOM discussed with her about their financial status, etc. which could likely be relevant in what she believed about the paypal account.

How would you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she believed herself to be lying?

If you demonstrated that she discussed the account having more than 10,000 (via calls), then she claimed that she didn't discuss it ... that would seem to be beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you think that's a parallel with demonstrating how much was in her account, I disagree.

 

[Mumbles]

What, you live in a 1950s western serial?

See, there's a class of crime known as "muggings". It's when one or more people, often with weapons, approach a random person in a public area , and threaten to harm said person unless they give the mugger one or more items of value, such as money or jewelry. It's a fairly common crime in many US cities. A rather popular method is to approach the victim, reach into the pocket, produce a weapon, and then begin making demands.

The law does not allow you to assault someone in a place they have a right to be for looking or acting suspicious. Zimmerman would have had no right to assault Martin and Martin certainly had no right to assualt Zimmerman. You're the one using the double standard here - justifying Martin's attack on Zimmerman for doing the same kind of behavior that Zimmerman observed. The key difference is that Zimmerman did what he was supposed to - tried to observe the person and call the police. Martin chose a less fortunate strategy.

Then we'll have to disagree. There's a line between "suspicious" and "threatening", and in my opinion, Zimmerman's behavior went well into "threatening", while Martin really didn't even enter "suspicious".

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Why? If the medical records show injuries to George, then why on earth is his lawyer trying to suppress them?

Things that make you wonder, eh?

The state is asking for Zimmerman's records from an Altamonte Springs doctor's office. O'Mara already has released some, those that show what treatment Zimmerman got the day after he shot and killed

Do you know what dates they are requesting them for ? Is it from before the shooting ? Yes, it does make me wonder.

 

[johnny karate]

By having evidence beyond a reasonable doubt ? I don't know what else you expect me to say ?

How does anyone prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt ?

By providing evidence.

However, by your standard of reasonable doubt demonstrating that a person had $57,000 at the time she claimed to not have the financial means to assist in her husband's legal costs is not suffcient.

So by your standard of reasonable doubt, what is sufficient?

I didn't create any standards, just offer a possibility. I think something along those lines may be a feasible defense. I don't know what information MOM discussed with her about their financial status, etc. which could likely be relevant in what she believed about the paypal account.

I was referring to your hypothertical, not the actual case.

If you demonstrated that she discussed the account having more than 10,000 (via calls), then she claimed that she didn't discuss it ... that would seem to be beyond a reasonable doubt.

Really? How do you know she didn't forget? How do you she didn't misunderstand the question? How do you know she didn't misunderstand the original discussion?

In short, how do you know in this situation that she didn't believe what she was saying?

If you think that's a parallel with demonstrating how much was in her account, I disagree.

The parallel lies in the standard of proof you are requiring.

If it is not beyond a reasonable doubt that a person with $57,000 is lying when she says she has no financial means to assist in her husband's legal costs, how is it beyond a reasonable doubt she is lying when she says she didn't discuss the amount in the Paypal account?

 

[Unabogie]

The state is asking for Zimmerman's records from an Altamonte Springs doctor's office. O'Mara already has released some, those that show what treatment Zimmerman got the day after he shot and killed

Do you know what dates they are requesting them for ? Is it from before the shooting ? Yes, it does make me wonder.

Right, I wonder if he had some medical issues prior to the murder? Or perhaps he was high on prescription meds?

On that note, I have noted for some time how different he sounds on the NEN call than on his other calls and interviews.

On the NEN call, he speaks with what I would call a slight southern drawl, and very slowly. Yet in the walkthrough, he has a slight "east coast" accent that sounds much more quick and perky than the NEN. It almost sounds like two different people.

My only guesses as to what caused this is he used a fake accent on the police call, or he was somehow impaired.

IMO, the voices don't match, and I've found that very strange.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

There's a line between "suspicious" and "threatening", and in my opinion, Zimmerman's behavior went well into "threatening", while Martin really didn't even enter "suspicious".

I can only assume that you mean "the behavior that I imagine Zimmerman engaged in went well into threatening". Because that stance, which is oft repeated here, is all based on pure speculation. I agree, it could have been perceived as threatening, but we'll never know. It's just as possible that TM was angry that he was being watched by someone he figured was suspicious of him.

 

[Cylinder]

Why? If the medical records show injuries to George, then why on earth is his lawyer trying to suppress them?

Things that make you wonder, eh?

Not the same records. The state has already played its dirty tricks - releasing private information as part of discovery.

 

[Cylinder]

Objection to Subpoena

 

[Unabogie]

Not the same records. The state has already played its dirty tricks - releasing private information as part of discovery.

I don't think that's clear. Do you have a link to the actual subpoena? Your pdf refers to it as "pending".

 

[Cylinder]

I don't think that's clear. Do you have a link to the actual subpoena? Your pdf refers to it as "pending".

The subpoena is pending. Once it's executed then the objection is without remedy short of finding the state's attorney in contempt of the court's order limiting discovery. Zimmerman's record of treatment for 2/27 has already been submitted to the state - both in a hearing (they already had it anyway) and through discovery. It's been tendered as evidence to the court.

The new subpoena has yet to be executed and is probably not a public record at this point.

 

[Unabogie]

The subpoena is pending. Once it's executed then the objection is without remedy short of finding the state's attorney in contempt of the court's order limiting discovery. Zimmerman's record of treatment for 2/27 has already been submitted to the state - both in a hearing (they already had it anyway) and through discovery. It's been tendered as evidence to the court.

The new subpoena has yet to be executed and is probably not a public record at this point.

Fair enough, but that means we have to rely on O'Mara's characterization of it. So far, he hasn't earned any credibility points from me, so I'd wait until I see the actual subpoena before trusting the Zimmermans about anything.

 

[Alt+F4]

If it is not beyond a reasonable doubt that a person with $57,000 is lying when she says she has no financial means to assist in her husband's legal costs, how is it beyond a reasonable doubt she is lying when she says she didn't discuss the amount in the Paypal account?

Might SZ be the mastermind here? I mean, look at the situation; she married an unemployed loser who likes to shoot black kids because they are black. Next thing is the jerk is charged with murder after which she is sitting on a big pile of cash. Who's interest do you think she has at this point?

 

[This is The End]

You like to speculate about things for which there is no evidence.

So do you agree that there is no evidence that M attacked Z first and that there is no evidence that M ever went for Z's gun?

 

[Dancing David]

The state is asking for Zimmerman's records from an Altamonte Springs doctor's office. O'Mara already has released some, those that show what treatment Zimmerman got the day after he shot and killed

Do you know what dates they are requesting them for ? Is it from before the shooting ? Yes, it does make me wonder.

It will be up to the judge to decide the relevance to the case and weigh the arguments.

Now if GZ had obsessions about shooting people that might be relevant.

 

[Dancing David]

Not the same records. The state has already played its dirty tricks - releasing private information as part of discovery.

Really, it is the sunshine law in Florida, that is the cause.

 

[This is The End]

It starts out with a misrepresentation of a witness statement.

I'm still waiting for NBS to tell us what witness saw repeated punching...

 

[Dan O.]

Smith, Mead. Did I miss one ? Or is it because I said it was in the report, when it was actually in the supplemental interview...

Yes, I believe you missed one. if you go back to my earlier post where I was trying to resolve our differences by explicitly laying out all the information I had with names, the date they submitted there reports and the page in the discovery dump where that report can be found, I listed three. You should go back to that post and compare the information I provided with the information you have and post the differences in a similar fashion. We should at least be arguing from the same set of facts.

I didn't leave one out, I left many out. I picked what I perceived to be a few likely examples for my list, assuming you would add if necessary, as you did.

Expressly because the flash washes almost everything out on the closeups, I think the distant photo looking towards the light of the flashlight would be more likely to show the flashlight being on. I say almost because in the closeups the flash is on the left side of the camera and there is a small shadow area directly in front of the lense of the flashlight. This shadow should be filled in by the light of the flashlight. That it is not is an indicator that the flashlight is not on.

Yes, but my question was:
So, my next question is, which photo shows that the light is clearly off ?

Do you see what you did there? Nowhere have I said that this evidence is clear. I pointed out that the conditions in making the photographs could be tested and the results of those tests could change my mind on this issue.

Therefor, I default to trusting officer smiths report. The only reason I can think as to why they went back and asked officer mead about the light is someone must have had doubts as to whether it was "on" or "off" - so they asked him to clarify - which he did. "on"

As I said earlier, it depends on how the question was asked and given that this was over a month after the incident, whether there was discussions between the officers on this topic.

So unless you go back and re-create the scene and can demonstrate that if it was on, it would be clearly visible in the photos, I think sticking with "on" is the most reasonable conclusion.

My position remains: it could be on, it could be off. It really makes no diffence to me either way. There just hasn't been sufficient evidence on either side to say it is conclusive.

 

[Cylinder]

Really, it is the sunshine law in Florida, that is the cause.

I agree that the Sunshine Law, while a useful concept, is flawed in execution. If the rules of professional conduct are followed the problem goes away. Abusing discovery to conduct a media campaign is an ethical violation and the court needs to enforce its own order concerning irrelevant discovery. I would like the legislature to change the text to protect non-relevant discovery to allow open files without the abuse.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

So do you agree that there is no evidence that M attacked Z first and that there is no evidence that M ever went for Z's gun?

GZ statements don't count as evidence ?