Only a moron could find this to be relevant to the Zimmerman case. This guy caught two people breaking into a car, not walking home from the store. He didn't find them suspicious because they were white guys walking in his neighborhood. He found them suspicious because they were in the act of committing a crime. That hasn't kept the right wing blogosophere from pretending it's the same situation but with different races.
At some point you need to attempt to think for yourself.
Only a moron could find this to be relevant to the Zimmerman case. This guy caught two people breaking into a car, not walking home from the store. He didn't find them suspicious because they were white guys walking in his neighborhood. He found them suspicious because they were in the act of committing a crime. That hasn't kept the right wing blogosophere from pretending it's the same situation but with different races.
At some point you need to attempt to think for yourself.
Bump. Notice how Mad Roland will spend hours trading barbs but will avoid any post proving him to be totally full of shit. He's just a gun toting troll. Nothing more.
...At the end of Zimmerman's trial last week, the judge instructed the jury, with language mandated by the SYG law, on the grounds for justifiable homicide. Here is exactly what the jury was told to consider in its deliberations:
"If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in anyplace where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."
Even though a Florida law-enforcement agency had asked Zimmerman to not pursue Martin -- that he didn't need to follow him -- in the end, it didn't matter: The NRA had successfully changed the law in Zimmerman's favor. That rainy night in Florida, one man was armed with a deadly weapon and looking for trouble and a kid was walking home from the store to watch a basketball game. But according to the law, Zimmerman had no duty to retreat. He could follow Trayvon anywhere he "had a right to be."
And what about Martin's "right to be"? What about his right to stand his ground, or to defend himself from an angry man with a gun? The jury instructions said nothing on that.
That is not all that SYG changed. It also put the NRA's thumb on the scale of justice if the family of a shooting victim sues the shooter. The SYG law says that if the court finds that the shooter gets civil immunity in the case -- based on his right to stand his ground and not retreat -- then the plaintiff must pay the killer's attorney's fees, court costs, and lost wages. Any grieving family seeking to hold a shooter accountable will have to think twice about the financial risks of a civil lawsuit. And that's exactly the outcome the NRA intended...
Probably a lot of thinking people are "doing a 180" when they see the difference in the fairly reasonable expression of "stand your ground' and in the way it can and has been applied. Again, the big lesson from the Zimmerman case is, "leave no witnesses."
Does Illinois' Stand Your Ground law contain this clause:
A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
Or does it contain this one:
However, he is justified in the use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
When Obama states, "I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it—if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations," I'm not sure how any clear headed person could describe that as a "180."
The problem with "stand your ground" laws is that they rely too much on the rational judgement of someone who is already pissed off or scared. Most personal defense experts will tell you that if you're threatened (not necessarily immediately attacked), your first effort ought to be to look for a way out, then to attempt to de-escalate, then fight as a last resort. A lot of people most prone to get into fights don't necessarily agree with that view, or they just ignore it. So the original concept of "stand your ground" meaning you are entitled to defend yourself if necessary, gets turned into a green light to be an aggressor as a means of defense. Now in the scenarios often painted by those favoring these laws, a man and his wife are walking along a well-lit sidewalk and accosted by hoodlums who threaten them with some weapon. The brave man, in defense of himself and his lady, shoots the scoundrels and thus saves the day. For such brave action, he should not be prosecuted nor sued by the mamas of the scoundrels. But the law makes no distinction between the rights of brave husbands and those of, for example, neighborhood vigilantes or a foul drunk. Here's a realistic example for you... man goes to a bar, gun in pocket, gets drunk and engages in conversation with some other guy's wife. Other guy takes exception, and both take their argument into the street. Other guy proceeds to kick ass, our guy shoots him. Our guy gets charged with gun violations (taking to a bar, carry while drunk) but gets off for the shooting. Summary: guy illegally carries gun to bar, gets drunk, starts fight, shoots a guy, then walks away with minor charges, immune to civil suit. Seriously, who but the hardest core NRA really wants this?
Back in the day, what is now called "stand your ground" used to be referred to as the "castle doctrine" and related to defense of home. Thanks to the ever-encroaching NRA, powered by ALEC and village idiots who get elected to office, it has expanded to shooting someone anywhere, anytime and claiming you were "standing your ground" in fear of your life. To be sure, such a claim is not a slam dunk, but apparently at least in Florida, there will be no attempt made to require the shooter to provide any evidence whatsoever that s/he was actually in danger. One could argue that this is because of the judicial "presumption of innocence" and that it's up to the state to prove guilt, but I don't think most people would agree that this is how that's supposed to work in an instance where the fact of the killing or person doing the killing is not in dispute, but only the state of mind of the killer. How many people do you suppose are going to get up in court, facing no opposing witness, and say, "yeah, he wasn't really likely to hurt me, but I shot him anyway."
Vrede wrote:O Really, in theory SYG applies to everyone but, "in the scenarios often implied by those favoring these laws, a white man and his white wife are walking along a well-lit sidewalk and accosted by black hoodlums..."
Of course. There are no white hoodlums.
Did you read the case where a large white guy and his wife were walking down the street and met a small black guy. White guy told the black guy to get out of the way and shoved him toward the street. Black guy pulls his legal gun and shot the white guy. NRA applauds another instance of law-abiding citizen defending himself. Nope - I didn't read one like that either.
I just noticed a news story from ABC that said George Zimmerman was spotted at the scene of a traffic accident last week. He evidently pulled some guy out from an overturned pickup truck. That pickup truck guy is probably lucky he didn't get shot.
neoplacebo wrote:I just noticed a news story from ABC that said George Zimmerman was spotted at the scene of a traffic accident last week. He evidently pulled some guy out from an overturned pickup truck. That pickup truck guy is probably lucky he didn't get shot.
What are the chances ol George would just stumble into an opportunity to burnish his image? Let's see, car rolled over, "There were no injuries to any of the vehicle’s occupants, according to police." Apparently nobody saw the actual accident...hmmmmm. I've driven I-4 many many miles and hours, seen many accidents, never arrived at just the right time to pull any uninjured people out of a car. I guess it's just a nice coincidence. Bless his little scrawny heart.
O Really wrote:What are the chances ol George would just stumble into an opportunity to burnish his image?...
Whoa, and you think I'm too into conspiracies.
I do, but this is not that much of a stretch. There was an article last week (I'll try to find it again) from a PR firm, I think, describing what he should do to get out of being the most hated man in America. The article looked pretty reasonable at the time, and it didn't specifically say, "find or create an opportunity to be seen as a good guy" but it was close. Nevermind conspiracies, just consider - what are the odds that a guy who's been hiding (and still was) will happen onto an accident at just the right time to pull out the uninjured people? What are the odds of that happening to anybody? Keep in mind, the report said Zimmerman didn't see the accident happen, so envision: he's driving along I-4 at traffic speed of about 80. He sees a car overturned on the side, and he sees it quickly enough to slow down or stop and sees there are people hanging from seatbelts or whatever. Don't know how long they've hung there, or why since they aren't injured they can't unclick and climb out. Waiting for Georgie, I guess. Even though there are hundreds of cars around, the guy in hiding climbs off his horse and rescues the damsel in danger, thus getting the only favorable headlines he's had in a year and a half. That is one lucky sumbitch!
Apparently it was on I-4. None of the articles have any information whatsoever about the car's driver, occupants, causes of accident, or charges filed or not filed. According to the Sanford newspaper "A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office said the traffic crash report is not available yet." And probably won't be in the future.
Probably some other fat hispanic guy that the podunk deputy assumed was Zimmerman. I'm sure the gun obsessed rednecks who've made Zimmerman their poster boy probably can't tell one hispanic from another.
Here's the typical comment from the wing nuts fringe, this one from CNN.com:"GZ an obvious good man demonized by an agenda driven media."
Conservatives have a pretty low standard for goodness if they think helping a family in a wreck makes them good. His actions prove nothing more than he did what any person short of a serial killer would do in the same situation.
Just wondering, if Zimmerman wasn't a witness, and didn't stay around long enough for anything other than to tell the deputies he didn't see anything, how do you suppose the press got wind of his kind action?
Confirms something I had suspected all along. Zim would sell his soul to be a bigshot hero. He wants to be a hero so bad he can taste it. Smart money says he won't go too long before he does something else "ill-advised." He better hope he's still in some red state that has the sort of egregious laws to let him off again.
People are crazy and times are strange. I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range.
I used to care, but, things have changed.
