Bad Law
If a jury that had three members ready to find George Zimmerman guilty, two of man slaughter one of second degree murder, is led to believe that manslaughter requires intent, SYG immunity statute even when not the basis of a standard self defense trial but nonetheless the overriding and guiding constraint in jury instruction – is fucked up law
Juror B29:
“as the law was read to me, If you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can’t say he’s guilty… You can’t put the man in jail, even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty”
(quote @ minute 3:56 – short commercial – sorry)
transcript@ link:
http://www.nbcnews.com/...
It is my belief that, beyond the mistake of tying intent to manslaughter, jurors also took the SYG instructions as an impenetrable wall protecting GZ. A wall that juror B29 (the only minority in this case btw) was then pressured to believe SYG instruction left her no other choice but to acquit.
That was what the jurors understood the SYG statute instructions to mean when interviewed post trial, but is not true. The sovereignty of the individual juror:
It is not only the juror’s right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.
– John Adams Yale Law Journal
(pdf) http://www.democracydefined.org/...
That’s a deep flaw in the statute. The SYG statute as applied to jury instructions does indeed circumscribe the case down to the narrow few moments of contact between killer and victim. The GZ defense team made sure of that.
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P.S. A side note about the prosecution imo: The prosecution could have pointed out this flaw and really hammered home to the jurors that they were free to determine what weight they gave to other facts in determining Zimmerman’s guilt. After all it is each jurors decision in the end. Not the lawyers
Facts including but not limited to: GZ ignored 911 officials warning to stay in his vehicle, that George Zimmerman racially profiled (though mention of “racial profiling” was forbidden by the court, could have been much more strongly indicated by any good lawyer worth his/her salt – imo) profiled, pursued with a loaded weapon , confronted , then killed Trayvon Martin.
Plus, the prosecution argued from the defenses’ narrative of the confrontation instead of putting forth one description of events of their own to help the jurors (not many possible ‘what-if’ scenarios as they did) find an unambiguous path to convict
Also too: It’s normal to expect experienced lawyers and prosecutors to disagree on some details of a law but not like this law. They’ve been arguing about its implementation, scope, and other aspects of it for years now. – It’s bad law
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Thank you LilithGardener for this helpful link explaining Florida’s SYG statute:
the law actually creates a presumption that a shooter had a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm when using deadly force.
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Joy Ann Reid and Reverend Al Sharpton had a very insightful conversation identifying and speaking out on a disturbing return to the past, tying the past into today’s reactionary RWNJ’s
Joy-Ann Reid:
“..Barack Obama’s election gave people a false sense of security about race. Barack Obama’s election didn’t signal that racism was over it just was an opportunity to open the door and let it come out. We saw a lot of things come out in this country that people weren’t prepared to view and the ugliness of them.
We saw a lot of it in the tea party ; the President being called a liar in the House well of the House of Representatives.
And look Lawrence the truth is, in the ugly history of this country, it used to be that any civilian..any white civilian could police the presence of any black person out on the street; young, old, child, old man. They could ask you; ‘what are you doing here?’ Make you cross the street. Find out what you’re doing..in the case of Emmett Till, drag you off and lynch you just for looking at a white person wrong.
Black people have been policed by civilian whites for a very long time. We thought that was behind us, and the primary concern that Reverend Sharpton and others have been looking at has been police profiling - and saying well now police can look at you as suspect, can even in some cases, shoot you because ‘Oh it looked like he went for his..waist band, I thought maybe he had a gun’ .
..We’ve sort of trained ourselves that the current problem is profiling by police.
Well now we’ve gone all the way back to people policing you when they are not an authority. That a civilian can actually pursue you, question you..
I’ve seen so many comments on line about - ‘Well why didn’t Trayvon Martin just tell him who he was?’ Well because this wasn’t a cop and he didn’t have any authority to ask him where he was. Neighborhood watch people are not police officers. They don’t have any authority over any teenager.
So the idea that people are saying – ‘Well Trayvon was acting suspicious..you know George was just doing his job to find out where he was going.’
This is setting us back in a way that is so ugly and so uncomfortable.. I’m glad the country is being forced to look at it”
Reverend Al Sharpton:
“Well I think also I might add, that the question should be asked – ‘Why didn’t Mr. Zimmerman tell Trayvon who he was?’ According to Zimmerman’s statement, he never identified himself to Trayvon Martin as a member of the Watchman group or the captain of the patrol in that area...”
If Trayvon had been a white woman,
like 5 of the jurors at his murder trial, wearing a dark hoodie would Zimmerman have identified himself and explained what he was doing out there with a loaded weapon playing cop?
(short commercial – sorry)
Transcript @ link: http://www.nbcnews.com/...
White privilege making a comeback these last years have exposed, as Joy Ann Reid has explained, what exists just beneath the surface in this “post racial” era
One last thing. How does this work? How do the brains of the GOP and authors of SYG - ALEC/NRA - dupe RWNJ’s into voting en bloc against their own interests beyond guns, but on many other issues too, especially with so much at stake in their own lives?
Joan Walsh hits the bulleye with her piece on the triumvirate of white-grievance mongers: Race Hustlers Inc. And it looks an awful lot like a re-dux of the southern strategy to me
So to end Bad Law like "Stand your Ground" we can let our elected officials know that corporate legislation mills like ALEC/NRA are not what we voted for - and they are NOT people
Kind of a late rant and not a lawyer but this is something I wanted very much to say