mystery

home of the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher mysteries

Posts Tagged verdict

Stand by your ground, as amended, judge & jury.

Jul 28

Posted by Bud in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

      I missed a crucial part of the Florida law, and it is a part of most of the stand-your-ground laws around the country. I feel bad that I missed it, but so did most commentators, and so did the judge (in so far as jury instructions went).

      There’s an instigator exception: if you picked the fight, if you initiated the altercation, you cannot claim the stand-your-ground defense. You can still claim common-law self-defence: you thought your life was in danger, so you did what you had to do. But you might have to prove, or at least argue convincingly, that you had no chance to retreat or descalate. Could you have pulled your gun, and backed away? For instance. And you might be challenged about exactly how and why you got into the situation. You can’t just play the get-out-of-jail-free card.

      There is no real first-hand testimony about the sequence of events, who did or said what first, except Zimmerman’s version (via interviews and videos and statements — he didn’t testify in court). So he might still have won the case. But the dubious jurors might have hung on a little longer, and persuaded some of the others.

      The judge did it.

 

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Stand your ground: one above, one under.

Jul 20

Posted by Bud in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

      George Zimmerman is not guilty. Probably the correct verdict. There has to be doubt about exactly what happened. And under the Florida law, regardless of how he got there, even if fully culpable for creating the situation, how can it be proved he was not afraid for his life? Had Martin killed him, having grabbed the gun, say, Martin’s verdict should also have been not guilty, under Florida’s stand-your-ground standards.

      There is ascribable guilt. The state of Florida made the law that allows the survivor of any deadly altercation to be judged not guilty: I tried to rob the guy, your honor, but he pulled a gun, so I had to stab him. The state of Florida allowed a person with a history of violence to own and legally to carry a gun. The shill of the gun manufacturers, aka the NRA, and all the second amendment hysterics who have pushed carry laws through in Florida, and in all states (now Illinois has fallen), their culpability is clear.

      Don Quixotie’s lance goes snicker-snack against these, the craven and the cynical and the delusional, but they are unhurt, nor a scratch, nor a tinge of remorse.

      Or course, none of it is about race. Unless you find that almost all of those who are pleased with the verdict are white, and all but a vanishing whisper of black persons are displeased or saddened by the verdict. Then, oops, we’re hip-deep in race. Doggone, that’s not behind us yet? Yes, it is behind us, still, and alongside, and in-our-face.

      The edges have blurred. But white people increaslingly desparate to keep power and priviledge incarcerate as many not-white as they can (the war on drugs), and ward off the dilution of immigration with deportations and ‘border security.’  The white persons who repudiate these motivations and tactics often as not allow the policiies to continue, holding their noses, passively accepting the prolongation of their privileges.

      Zimerman’s attorney is probably correct that, had the races been reversed, there would have been no trial. There would have been a quick plea deal and a very long incarceration. Some of our contradictions may yet shake out: a pot-smoker black president and a black attorney-general enforcing pot laws, a black supreme court justice voting against the kind of affirmative action that powered his elevation. It’s fabuoulsly entertaining, for those of us not dead or in jail.

 

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