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The juror who was interviewed said they did take stand your ground into account. I didn't see the part where he waived his rights.
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imagine dat is was da defense dat raised ann kept raisinn da race issue to paint zimmerman as da victim aff blakks.Originally posted by Tropicana View Post
defense asked racheal iff creepy ask cracker is racist even dough oyinbo cawl poor oyinbo in da south cracker. da defense sed da onlee reason y da prosecutors wanted to xxclude two oomen fram da jury were cah dem was oyinbo oomen even dough dem xxclude to blakk men. da judge agreed widd da defense ann allowed too more oyinbo oomen pon da jury.
realitee de prosectors shood ave made race an intergal part aff de case cah dat wood ave putt pressure pon da judge to qwestian certain qwestianable rulinnComment
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I agree.Comment
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It boggles my mind that race never came up in the jury room.Comment
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tropi realitee iss dat de judge doan affii tell da jury butt dem cood take tand yur ground defense into account even iff zimmerman claim was self defense and disregard da judge instruction.Originally posted by Tropicana View Post
because da prosecutor introduced itt wen he cawled zimmerman blakk law prof to da tand. den dem allowed zimmerman defense to qwestian da blakk law prof pon his understandinn aff tand yur ground even dough dem were supposed to fallow da judge instruction on da self defense law, natt tand yur ground. dat y sum peeps ar raisinn da wink wink canspiracee argument cah da prosecutors lowed da defense raise deer versian tand yur ground widd out strang objections.
zimmerman lawyer sed dat dey were assert zimmerman self defense as y imm wass innacent natt tand yur groundComment
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I missed this part too. What was his name. I want to watch it.da prosecutor introduced itt wen he cawled zimmerman blakk law prof to da tand.Comment
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itt raises qwestian bout ow da jury was secretlee selected? woo was selected ann y? zimmerman defense team wanted a moaslee oyinbo oomen jury ann dem jury selection xxpert spoke on ittOriginally posted by Tropicana View Post
nope dem juss talked bout dem blakk punks woo usuallee git away ann decide fe let georgie go free. cah even iff georgie zimmerman profiled imm wass natt breakinn oyinbo laws. oyinbo inn denial bout raceComment
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blu why did the prosecution boot the (potential) black juror ?Comment
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Zimmerman Prosecutor Excused Potential Black Juror for Being a Fox News Watcher
George Zimmerman haters throughout the media have carped and whined about the fact that there weren’t any African-Americans on the jury despite the law requiring the accused NOT the victim be judged by his peers.
On CNN Newsroom Tuesday, it was revealed that a potential black juror had been struck by the prosecution for committing the crime of being a Fox News watcher (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CAROL COSTELLO, HOST: So Mark, do Trayvon Martin's parents you think, I mean, when they look at the jury makeup and they look at the decision that jury came to, do they say why didn't we have an African-American on the jury? Why did we have six white women?In case you were wondering, Skolnick is not a Zimmerman supporter or a conservative.
MARK NEJAME, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And that's what we were saying from the beginning. You know, sometimes I've been criticized by some who don't understand that a legal opinion is very different than a personal, a social, or a philosophical opinion. When you look at the composition of Seminole County, it's eleven percent African-American. And when you look at Sanford, it’s 30 percent African-American. So when you subtract Sanford from the overall Seminole County, you have, you know, a very, very small minority, specifically African-American representation within Seminole County. So when in fact you condense that down to a jury, the odds of getting an African-American on the jury are very slim when you're in Seminole County.
COSTELLO: Although if I remember correctly one of the prosecutors struck a black, a potential black juror from the jury.
MICHAEL SKOLNICK, POLITICAL DIRECTOR TO RUSSELL SIMMONS, CO-PRESIDENT GLOBALGRIND.COM: Yeah, he was also, I was just, he was also a Fox News watcher. So that was, you know, problematic for the prosecution.
Besides being hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' political director and the co-president of GlobalGrind.com, he's also on the board of directors of the Trayvon Martin Foundation.
That said, it appears black jurors were only going to be acceptable to the prosecution if they were liberals getting their "news" from Zimmerman-hating media outlets.
Martin supporters should keep that in mind as they complain about the makeup of the jury.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...#ixzz2ZXibV62qLast edited by Tropicana; 07-19-2013, 09:01 PM.Comment
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New Theory on Zimmerman Trial: The State Attorney Wants to Lose
What does race have to do with it?
Over at Powerline, John Hinderaker has been doing some ruminating upon the George Zimmerman murder trial, and I have to say his speculation does mirror my own.
I am not an attorney, and I don’t play one on TV, but I have always had a great deal of interest in legal theory and the jurisprudential procedure and practice. I have always enjoyed reading about various different cases, and often like to read SCOTUS or appellate court opinions, especially how they relate to constitutional interpretation or legal theory. The Zimmerman case interested me from the beginning because I was very surprised not only by what the State Attorney’s office decided to charge him with, but also what they didn’t. While I was not expecting a charge of 2nd degree murder, (based on the evidence known in the public sphere, it didn’t seem there was any possible way to arrive at murder 2) I was even more surprised it was not accompanied by lesser charges, like reckless homicide, which would have been much easier to prove, if still arguable.
There has been a lot of discussion and analysis of the part race is playing in the Zimmerman trial, but all this talk has lead me to a theory of my own, which I have not seen or heard anyone else advance as of yet: Suppose the State Attorney filed the case to deliberately lose? Consider: we have what seems to be a text-book case of self-defense, based on the evidence at hand, so much so that the local police declined to even arrest Zimmerman at the scene. We also had a great public outcry, stirred-up entirely by outsiders insisting that racism was in play, and demanding an arrest (or worse!). Is it possible that the State Attorney filed this case against Zimmerman in an effort to appease the Black community, who was demanding Zimmerman’s head, but having no actual belief in his guilt, filed charges they knew they could never prove?
Of course there are several problems if they did indeed file a deliberate loser of a case. First, it seems a clear abuse of the office of State Attorney, and a knowing waste of taxpayer dollars. Putting on a trial is expensive, and putting one on that you know is going to lose rises to malfeasance. Second, there is absolutely no guarantee that arresting Zimmerman and losing at trial, despite “trying” to convict him will appease public displeasure. By heightening visibility and awareness of the killing of Trayvon Martin, this trial may well have the opposite effect. You have to admit though it would be far from the first time the law of unintended consequences came back to bite the government when they try something that in foresight seems like a novel way out of a difficult predicament. Worst of all, the State Attorney would be charging a man they believed likely to be innocent, placing him in jeopardy in order to extricate their own backsides from a difficult situation. Even though they think him innocent, Zimmerman has to bear the cost of his own defense, and still might be convicted, and lose his freedom. Even though there is not a shred of evidence against him to support the charge of 2nd degree murder, one never knows what a jury might do. The jury itself might in fact feel pressure to convict Zimmerman based on their own fear of what might happen to them at the hands of the “mob” should they fail to do so.
All things considered, filing a case you deliberately expect to lose seems like a really bad idea all around, but as noted, it would not be the first time someone went with a bad idea. And even if it’s not true, there remains the mystery of why the State Attorney’s office declined to file lesser, easier to prove charges in this case. It doesn’t seem to make sense.
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Zimmerman Jury Was Misled About The Meaning of Florida’s Self Defense Law
By: Adalia Woodbury
One question persists in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal. Had he followed instructions and stayed in his car, Trayvon Martin would be going to college in the fall. There wouldn’t have been a trial and there wouldn’t be a debate about that trial. African American parents would still have to teach their kids survival skills that I can’t begin to understand, but at least those skills wouldn’t have to be extended to racist cop wannabes with guns.
Even the juror who has been making the rounds to announce that she signed a book deal conceded that Zimmerman was wrong to get out of his vehicle. Moreover, Zimmerman’s lawyers knew it. That’s why they fought so hard to prevent a jury instruction on initial aggression. Had the jury been instructed on that part of the law, it’s more than a little possible that the verdict would have been less favorable to Zimmerman.
George Zimmerman’s defenders have nothing but kind words for the legal system because it allowed a man to get away with murdering a 17-year-old boy. The various post-mortems have pointed to errors made by the prosecution and there were many. The post verdict debate has been framed on the assumption that since George Zimmerman had a fair trial and was acquitted by a jury of his peers. Because of double jeopardy, Zimmerman can never be tried again for the same crime.
One question persists in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal. Had he followed instructions and stayed in his car, Trayvon Martin would be going to college in the fall. There wouldn’t have been a trial and there wouldn’t be a debate about that trial. African American parents would still have to teach their kids survival skills that I can’t begin to understand, but at least those skills wouldn’t have to be extended to racist cop wannabes with guns.
Even the juror who has been making the rounds to announce that she signed a book deal conceded that Zimmerman was wrong to get out of his vehicle. Moreover, Zimmerman’s lawyers knew it. That’s why they fought so hard to prevent a jury instruction on initial aggression. Had the jury been instructed on that part of the law, it’s more than a little possible that the verdict would have been less favorable to Zimmerman.
George Zimmerman’s defenders have nothing but kind words for the legal system because it allowed a man to get away with murdering a 17-year-old boy. The various post-mortems have pointed to errors made by the prosecution and there were many. The post verdict debate has been framed on the assumption that since George Zimmerman had a fair trial and was acquitted by a jury of his peers. Because of double jeopardy, Zimmerman can never be tried again for the same crime.
Is a trial fair if the law was effectively breitbarted to the point of distorting it’s meaning? Based on the instructions that the jurors were given, the meaning of Florida’s law on self-defense was distorted. They were left with the impression that even if someone provoked an altercation they still had an absolute right to use lethal force.
The defense fought hard and won the exclusion of an instruction on the following clause:l
Use of force by aggressor.—The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force. (my emphasis)
Moreover, as Alafair Burke of the Huffington Post pointed out, the defense persuaded the judge to leave this instruction out based on a misreading of the ruling in the case they cited.
Using those important words “error” and “as a matter of law,” Zimmerman’s lawyers successfully focused on the fact that Gibbs’s conviction was reversed to persuade Judge Nelson to strike the instruction. But in Gibbs, the defendant’s conviction was reversed because the court failed to instruct the jury that the defendant’s “provocation” — as used in the initial aggressor limitation — had to be provocation through either “force” or “threat of force.” Acccordingly, the appellate court reasoned, the jury might have mistakenly believed that the defendant’s words or gestures were sufficient to make her an initial aggressor – “no matter how slight or subjective the provocation.” Importantly, the court in Gibbs did not indicate that the jury should have heard nothing about the initial aggressor exception. The only error was that the instruction was overly broad by failing to include the “force or threat of force” language. (my emphasis)
If the jury was instructed on this part of the law, it would need to consider if George Zimmerman was the initial aggressor in the fight that led to Trayvon Martin’s death. It would mean considering the facts that occurred before the fight. Facts like Zimmerman’s decision to ignore police instructions to stay in his vehicle would have had a different significance than they had in this case. The inclusion of this jury instruction would mean that the reason Zimmerman disregarded police instructions and followed Trayvon Martin matters to the outcome of the case. Zimmerman claims that he only followed Trayvon to provide police with information on the youg man’s location. If the jury had instructions on the initial aggressor provision, it means they would have to decide whether Zimmerman was following Trayvon for that reason or if he did so for other reasons that would suggest that Zimmerman was the initial aggressor in the fight that led to Trayvon Martin’s death.
No wonder the defense fought with a distorted reading of precedent and fear words to keep the initial aggressor instruction out. When the court ruled in their favor, a not guilty verdict was all but guaranteed. If the jury concluded that Zimmerman was the initial aggressor, under the applicable law, Zimmerman wouldn’t have had the right to use lethal force based on the available facts. He could only have done so if he had at some point retreated from the fight, conveyed it and Trayvon either continued to use force against him or resumed it.
We will never know with absolute certainty if the inclusion of this instruction would have made a difference simply because we don’t know what led to the jury’s verdict. However, the omission of this jury instruction amounted to a misstatement of the law. This omission suggested to the jury that the only thing that mattered is if George Zimmerman reasonably believed death or severe bodily harm was imminent, regardless of whether he started the fight or not. The applicable clause states that is only one part of the equation. If Zimmerman was the initial aggressor, fear of imminent death or severe bodily harm alone wouldn’t have provided Zimmerman with legal cover to use deadly force. For the self-defense defense to succeed it means one of two other things would have had to happen. Either Zimmerman would have had to try every reasonable means to escape or he would have had to retreat, convey to Trayvon that he was retreated and Trayvon would have had to continue or resume attacking him.
The question of whether Zimmerman was the initial aggressor was a crucial one in determining whether he really had a “right” to use deadly force against Trayvon Martin and as such was important enough to influence the jury’s verdict.
While the court does have the discretion to decide which instructions the jury receives, it cannot mis- state the law. If, as it appears in this case, the law was misstated, it means double jeopardy doesn’t apply. In other words, Zimmerman could be retried on the same charges - at least if there was a will to do so.
If this is left unchallenged, the repercussions of the Zimmerman verdict are even more disturbing than originally thought. Within the context of the Zimmerman case, young black man are not only vulnerable to abuse and death by overzealous police, but now any racist gun has the “right” to start an altercation and reserve the right to use deadly force.
The possibility that other George Zimmermans will see this as a precedent to go out and hunt down anyone they deem doesn’t “belong” is only the beginning.
It means even if these individuals are put on trial, the court can just ignore parts of the law that might result in a conviction. That can apply in self-defense cases, but also in other cases. Extending that logic, it means courts could also overlook parts of the law that work in favor of a defendant.
Breitbarted law serves no one, least of all justice
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imm watch too much newsOriginally posted by Gen View Post
y didd da oyinbo judge allowed two oyinbo oomen pon da jury dat de prosecutors objected to?
y didd da judge woo ruled dat two oyinbo oomen were qualified fe jury duty inspite aff da prosecutors objections awlso ruled dat de prosecutors cood natt raised da racial profile issue imm dem case?
y did da judge awlso ruled in da defense favor dat de jury wood be instructed dat " even if someone provoked an altercation they still had an absolute right to use lethal force?"
was dat oyinbo ooman judge impartial and oww didd ar rulings help zimmerman defense?Comment
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Juror B29:
She is Hispanic and black
She just moved to Florida four months ago from Chicago.
She has eight children and works at a nursing home.
Juror B76:
She is white
She has lived in Seminole County since 1975.
She has called police about kids vandalizing signs.
She has family members who own firearms.
Juror B37:
She is white
She has lived in Seminole County for 18 years.
She used to carry a concealed weapons permit.
Juror B51:
She is white
She has been a resident of Seminole County for nine years.
She moved to Florida from Atlanta, Georgia.
She does not have any children.
She retired from a career in real estate, and also worked as a director, supervising 1,200 employees.
Juror E6:
She is white
She is married and has two children.
She has lived in Seminole County for two years.
Her husband and son own guns.
She was involved in a domestic violence incident in her past.
Juror E40:
She is white
She is married with one son.
She moved to Seminole County from Iowa seven months ago.
She served as a safety officer for 25 years.
Alternates:
Juror E54:
He is white
He has been married for five years.
He has one daughter and two stepchildren.
He said he was initially confused as to why Zimmerman was not arrested but now believes there was a thorough investigation.
Juror B72:
He is white
He has been resident of Seminole County for nine years.
He is originally from Chicago.
He is not married and has no children.
He was a teacher and is now a maintenance technician for a private school.
He is a competitive arm wrestler.
Juror E13
She is white
She has been a resident of Seminole County for 17 years.
She is a surgical assistant.
Her stepfather owns guns.
Juror E28:
She is white
She has been married for almost 30 years and has two children.
Her husband is a teacher.
She has lived in Seminole County since 1975, but is originally from Texas.
mii ear nunsense dat zimmerman was judge by a jury aff imm peers. ar oyinbo woo pushinn dat argument arguinn dat blakks were natt zimmerman peers widdout beinn cawled pon dat racism?Comment
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Unbelievable Directions and Instructions from Judge Sway Jury in Zimmerman TrialOriginally posted by Tropicana View Post
By Marjorie Cohn
A Southern jury of six women – none of them black – found 28-year-old George Zimmerman’s shooting of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to be justifiable homicide because he acted in self-defense.
The jurors were prohibited from considering race. They were instructed only on the parts of self-defense law that helped Zimmerman, and the chief police investigator improperly testified that he believed Zimmerman.
Jury prevented from considering race
None of the jurors thought race played a role in the case, Juror B-37 told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. In fact the question of Zimmerman profiling Martin because he was African-American didn’t even come up in deliberations, the juror said.
No wonder it never came up. At the beginning of the trial, the judge forbade the prosecution from speaking about racial profiling. Only the word “profiling” could be used, Judge Debra S. Nelson ruled. “Criminal profiling is based on behavior,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said on Democracy Now! “Racial profiling is based on color and on race. And the reality is that it appears that George Zimmerman had a pattern of confusing color with grounds for suspicion.”
The entire trial from start to finish was sanitized of any mention of race.
Zimmerman told the 911 operator, “These ****ing punks” and “these assholes, they always get away,” when he spotted Martin walking down the street in Sanford, Florida, that fateful evening. “Looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something,” Zimmerman said. “Something’s wrong with him.” When an investigator later asked Zimmerman what he meant by those words, the shooter replied, “I don’t know.”
But the prosecutor was forbidden from telling the jury that the “something” that was “wrong” may have been the color of Martin’s skin. The Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, told the New York Times, “Trayvon Benjamin Martin is dead because he and other black boys and men like him are seen not as a person but a problem.”
Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, noted, “George Zimmerman saw a young black male as a threat to his community.”
Clifford Alexander, who worked as a lawyer in the Lyndon Johnson White House, said in an interview with the Washington Post, “The clear reason why Zimmerman had the audacity to approach this child was that he saw the color of his skin as a threat.”
Two days after the shooting, Zimmerman’s cousin, known as Witness No. 9, told a Sanford police officer in a telephone call, “I know George. And I know that he does not like black people.” She added, “He would start something. He’s a very confrontational person. It’s in his blood. Let’s just say that. I don’t want this poor kid and his family to just be overlooked.”
But the judge sanitized the case and everyone involved was forced to ignore the elephant in the room. Indeed, after the verdict, Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s defense attorney, made the preposterous statement that if his client were black, “he never would’ve been charged with a crime.”
Jury prevented from considering first aggressor
Florida’s self-defense law prohibits “initial aggressors” from using force if their own conduct has provoked that force. So if a defendant “initially provokes the use of force” against himself, he cannot claim to have acted in self-defense, unless he withdraws or retreats.
The prosecution asked the judge to instruct the jury that it could consider who was the first aggressor in the altercation between Zimmerman and Martin. If the judge had agreed to give that instruction, the jury might have concluded that, by following Martin, Zimmerman provoked a physical response from Martin. The defense objected to the instruction, and the judge decided not to give the first aggressor instruction.
The jury was instructed to consider only whether Zimmerman reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself – when he later tussled with Martin on the ground. The jury was also told Zimmerman had no duty to retreat, that he could stand his ground, and meet force with force- including deadly force – if he was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in a place he had a right to be. Finally, the judge instructed the jury that if it had a reasonable doubt about whether Zimmerman was justified in using deadly force, they should find him not guilty.
The instructions prevented the jury from considering whether Zimmerman was the first aggressor when he got out of his truck and began following Martin. When Zimmerman told the 911 operator, “****, he’s running,” the operator asked, “Are you following him?” Zimmerman said that he was. “OK, we don’t need you to do that,” the operator told Zimmerman. But Zimmerman followed Martin nevertheless. Rachel Jeantel testified that Martin told her on the cellphone he was being followed by a “creepy *** cracker.”
The jury was only given partial instructions on self-defense – those parts that helped Zimmerman. They were prevented from considering whether Zimmerman might have been the first aggressor, which would have negated his claim of self-defense.
Ultimately, nothing mattered to the jury, Juror B-37 told Cooper, except whether Zimmerman feared for his life in the seconds before he shot Martin.
Juror B-37 said that Zimmerman was guilty of nothing more than “not using good judgment.” She added, “Both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into.”
Officer permitted to make credibility judgment
Sanford police officer Chris Serino, the chief investigator on the case, testified that, given all the evidence, he believed Zimmerman was telling the truth. It is well-established that witnesses cannot make credibility judgments – it invades the jury’s exclusive province of determining the credibility and weight of any evidence. But the prosecution didn’t object to Serino’s testimony until the next morning, at which point the judge told the jury to disregard it. Yet the damage was done, and Serino again testified that there were no significant inconsistencies in Zimmerman’s statements to police.
From the beginning, Serino did not believe there was enough evidence to file criminal charges against Zimmerman. The officer told the FBI that he was pressured into making the arrest. Zimmerman finally was charged for Martin’s death only after a powerful national outcry, and the governor’s appointment of a special prosecutor – 40 days following the killing.
Serino testified, “In this case, [Zimmerman] could have been considered the victim also.” Likewise, Juror B-37 felt sorry for both of them – the dead boy and the shooter alike.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at San Diego’s Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and is a former president of the National Lawyers Guild and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.
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Zimmerman Lawyers Were Once Supporters Of Judge Who Has Knocked Them About Florida Courtroom
Years before they would endure a televised pummeling in the Florida courtroom of Judge Debra Nelson, the two lawyers representing accused murderer George Zimmerman actually donated money to the prickly jurist’s first election campaign, records show.
In 1999, Republican Governor Jeb Bush appointed Nelson, a lifelong Democrat, to fill a vacancy in the 18th Judicial Circuit (covering Seminole and Brevard counties). When Nelson ran the following year for a full six-year term, she donated 85 percent of her campaign’s $151,000 war chest.
The balance of Nelson’s contributions came that year from scores of Florida attorneys and law firms. Division of Elections records show that the judicial candidate’s financial supporters included Zimmerman lawyers Mark O’Mara and Don West, both of whom have felt the 59-year-old Nelson’s wrath over the past several weeks.
O’Mara gave $250 to Nelson’s campaign, while West--who has tangled frequently with the jurist as he has defended Zimmerman against charges that the neighborhood watch volunteer murdered Trayvon Martin--donated $100.
It is apparently too late, however, for either man to seek a refund from Nelson, who won the 2000 election with 72 percent of the vote.
Pictured above bookended by O'Mara and West, Nelson ran unopposed for reelection in 2006 and 2012. While registered to vote as a Democrat from her Sanford home--which is about three miles from where Martin was shot to death--Nelson has appeared on the ballot with no specific party affiliation.
Nelson sought no contributions in her last two races, though she did loan her 2012 campaign $50,000 last January. But after paying a $5687.12 qualifying fee and an $18 bank charge, Nelson repaid herself $44,294.88 on May 1. It is unclear why she loaned so much money to her campaign, only to have it returned three months later.
Nelson, who was admitted to the Florida bar in 1979, earns around $142,000 as a Circuit Court judge (likely far less than what she would make in private practice). In a financial disclosure form filed last year with Florida’s Department of State, Nelson--seen above in her official court portrait--reported that her net worth was nearly $574,000.
While Nelson is, for the moment, the country’s most famous judge, her celebrity will eventually wane and she will return to the kind of mundane docket that makes courthouses everywhere hum. Which likely will not upset a public servant who, when she first ran with O’Mara’s and West’s support, declared, “I think I have a lot to offer the community. I love the law. I am fair and just and an impartial person."
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