Rocking & Rolling
Two 8+ earthquakes off of Sumatra, and minor ones all around the ‘Ring of Fire’. Fortunately they weren’t in the ‘tsunami zone’, but people went to higher ground as soon as they felt the first one hit.
It is probably just the fact that they are getting reported now, but it seems like there have been a lot of big earthquakes in the last decade.
Central Florida is shaking from the arrest of George Zimmerman on a charge of Second Degree Murder. I have to assume that the prosecutor has found something in the autopsy that led to the charge, because by all accounts the initial investigation really lacked ‘professionalism’.
State Attorney Angela Corey is reputed to be a very tough and experienced prosecutor. She wouldn’t bring the charges if she didn’t think she had a case, even if the case was going to be difficult to prove. I was actually expecting Manslaughter if there was a charge, but she is maxing out. Murder Two is a life sentence, while Manslaughter is 30 years.
The important thing for all concerned is that the case is going to be tried in court, not the media, and will be decided by a jury. I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened, but when you have someone shot to death, there really should be a public trial to determine the facts.
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You live in one crazy state.
George Zimmerman will receive that public trial, presumably before a jury. Win or lose, he will not be killed (at least not by the State of Florida). Those are two advantages that Trayvon Martin, whatever he may or may not have done, never had.
If Zimmerman is ruled not to have killed Martin (does anybody argue that?), I can accept that, however unlikely it seems. If he is ruled to have killed Martin but is let off with less than life in prison, no “Stand your Ground” law can make me feel that justice has been done. I freely admit I am not unbiased. Neighborhood vigilantes give me the creeps, as one who spent years walking around his own neighborhood with long hair and a beard.
If Zimmerman is not convicted and sentenced appropriately, I do not envy the people of Florida the inevitable racial unrest and probable violence that will follow the verdict. I hope your prosecutor is damn good, for everyone’s sake, including Trayvon’s.
I would like to point out that Florida is not alone, as the recent killings in Tulsa, Oklahoma are tied to that state’s ‘Stand Your Ground Law’ and people taking law into their own hands.
I don’t know what happened, but this is why we have courts – to determine to the best of our ability the facts. At this point all we know for certain is that whatever happened, it was George Zimmerman who brought about the confrontation, and he did it after being told not to follow by a 911 dispatcher.
Everyone in that gated community has a stake in this case, because they can be held financially responsible for Zimmerman’s actions in the event of a law suit. They have a homeowners association, and that association approved the neighborhood watch program, so they are responsible for what people in the program do. There is case law on this issue in Florida.
I am not proud of personally prejudging Zimmerman. He should receive a fair trial and face all the evidence (there’s a new affidavit out this morning from some investigators in the State Attorney’s office). My prejudice is from the perspective of someone who regularly walked a middle-class neighborhood for exercise and was quizzed more than once by the hired-gun neighborhood patrol, despite the fact that after the first time, they knew I lived in the neighborhood.
Zimmerman may or may not have been an official anything; indeed, it is not clear at this point that he was authorized by the neighborhood association to patrol. Martin was said (as a statement of fact) to be temporarily in residence within the neighborhood, and when he ran, he was running toward home. The record of Martin’s 911 call, on which his cries for help are reported to be audible (and confirmed as being in Martin’s voice by Martin’s mother), is incompatible with Zimmerman’s story that Martin pursued him and beat him.
I’ll say it again: I have zero confidence in neighborhood vigilantes. Anyone patrolling watching for crime should be a fully trained certified law enforcement officer. Anything less than that is just asking for trouble… and apparently this gated community got that trouble, whether they asked for it or not.
Anyone patrolling watching for crime should be a fully trained certified law enforcement officer
Good luck with that one. From watching the responses to Occupy and regularly reading the news, it appears that you are just as likely nowadays to encounter a fully trained certified law BREAKING officer, whose training consists primarily of how to spray pepper spray at school children and severely injure or kill non-violent decorated veterans with beanbag rounds or live rounds.
I have a security magazine around here whose front cover has a snarling out-of-control police officer smashing a wife-beater-shirted scumbag’s face into a grocery store counter and the question, “Appropriate use of force?” The actual article inside talks about how to keep your security company from being on the losing end of a lawsuit alleging unnecessary or excessive force (let me put it this way — Zimmerman violated the sample policies discussed there in more ways than I can count), but the cover sticks with me because it is all too often the modern face of policing in America today. As ill-equipped and trained as the modern rent-a-cop is, at least there is the fear of a lawsuit putting the rent-a-cop’s employer out of business that tends to restrain his behavior somewhat. But today’s so-called “certified law enforcement officers”? Hrm.
Well, yeah, but I don’t see what that has to do with the George Zimmermans of the world.
This is going to be a much shorter trial than most people assume. Based on the affidavits there will be expert testimony from audio professionals that the calls for help are not George Zimmerman, and the testimony concerning the autopsy. Of note will be the position of the two when the fatal shot was fired as determined by the path of the bullet, and an estimate of how far away the shooter was.
Mr. Martin’s girlfriend will be called to testify about her conversation with him on the night in question.
The 911 dispatcher will be called to introduce the tapes into evidence and testify on his conversation with Zimmerman.
Then there will be the first officer on the scene to whom Zimmerman admitted shooting Mr. Martin.
The ‘theory’ of the case that the prosecution will present is that the fatal confrontation was solely the fault of George Zimmerman. Zimmerman pursued Martin, and Zimmerman brought the murder weapon to the confrontation.
This is a reasonable theory on many levels, and is the reason for the Murder 2 charge. It will actually be easier to prove in this case than a theory that covers Manslaughter. The case is actually built on George Zimmerman’s words on the 911 tapes which the jury will hear. It will also argue against a self-defense plea, as ‘if Zimmerman was really concerned with his safety, why did he put himself in peril?’ He could have stopped when the dispatcher told him to; he could have remained in his car; etc.
I think it’s winnable, no matter where it is tried, and I do expect a change of venue. It’s hard to tell if Zimmerman would accept a plea deal, if one is offered. It is possible that the defense may request a psych screening.
The best news is that both sides have supported sealing everything, and don’t seem inclined to talk to the media, to give things a chance to calm down.
Steve, as Badtux notes, with the police adopting military rules of engagement, I don’t trust any of them. When I was in rule number one was keep the peace, i.e. don’t let things get out of control, and don’t use more force than is actually necessary to keep a lid on it. Along with that was, arresting people costs money, so don’t do it unless you have to.
I would have been embarrassed to charge someone with resisting arrest for slapping me. If you didn’t have a bruise or a cut, you didn’t do it because the town justice wouldn’t accept it at arraignment.
The ‘modern’ police are a bunch of wimps, but they are better than the paranoids in the neighborhood watch.
Indeed, from what’s come out since the initial police botch-up of the response to the shooting, Zimmerman is toast. His own side releasing so many justifications and excuses that turned out to contradict the evidence is going to hurt the credibility of any defense that his side presents even if most of it isn’t admitted as evidence in court.
And yes, Steve, Zimmerman or any untrained self-appointed vigilante is not something to encourage or endorse, they are incidents waiting to happen. I was just pointing out that the supposedly “trained law enforcement officers” don’t seem to be doing what they’re supposed to be doing either. Ironically, it is the much-derided rent-a-cops who nowadays seem to have the most respect for the legal rights of those who they accost, they’re poorly trained in most respects but well trained in how to avoid getting their employer sued, because their employer getting sued would result in Bad Things for both employee and employer. At least, that’s the impression I get from reading magazines aimed at the security industry, where these kinds of issues are regularly aired and discussed by legal types in translated language that thick-necked security types can understand. (Yes, that’s normal lunchtime reading at my place of employment, we have a big basket of those kinds of magazines on the breakroom table 🙂 ).
I can tell you for a fact that if a security guard following the policies in these magazines had seen a suspicious person in the complex, he may have followed the suspicious person or even stopped and asked the suspicious person what he was doing, but he would not have gotten out of that vehicle, and likely would not have been armed at all, since arming your security results in increased legal liability and the legal advice to most incidents that might require firepower is “back off to a safe distance and call the police” because if the security guard gets injured the security company is liable for *that* too. When it’s your own money rather than taxpayer money paying your worker’s comp bills, you want to avoid worker’s comp claims at all costs!
Which is to say that police are necessary because there’s things that private security can’t handle, but a lot of these incidents we’re seeing recently, like cops pepper-spraying tardy kids in a school hallway, are the result of cops being put into places they simply don’t belong. If the school district can’t hire sufficient thick-necked coaches to patrol their hallways I’d much prefer private security in a school hallway to a police officer, the rent-a-cop is much less likely to beat the crap out of a mouthy student or pepper spray tardy kids for the simple reason that he doesn’t have sovereign immunity.
And if an unarmed private security guard can’t handle security in the school, you don’t need a school, you need a youth prison for the kids who are causing the problems. Just sayin’.
The biggest problem the defense has in the Zimmerman case is that to use self-defense at the trial, Zimmerman is going to have to testify, and he has already shown that he is flaky. I can’t see his attorney being too thrilled with putting him on the stand and opening him up to cross examination.
We have ‘school resource officers’ down here, and they are police officers. It is not a good idea, because they are not trained for the environment. School systems have been panicked into overreacting to highly publicized cases, and many schools feel like prisons, which doesn’t help attendance.
Liability is the reason that many large retailers will fire employees who ‘capture’ shoplifters. The corporation doesn’t want to risk being sued, so they institute ‘zero tolerance’ policies on shoplifting – report it, but don’t touch anybody.