Vigilante Killing in Orlando

I wish they had just charged him with manslaughter rather then murder. He is going to get off on the murder charge but I don't think he would have been able to get off nearly as easily from an involuntary manslaughter charge.

I'm a little fuzzy on which "killing someone" charge is which. Involuntary Manslaughter is the one you get charged with when you can't help but kill someone because it's God's plan, right?

You charge murder because the evidence supports murder, you bargain down to manslaughter or let the jury have it as a lesser included if the evidence introduced at trial supports a potential guilty verdict for manslaughter.

It's the "I didn't actively set out to kill someone but whoops!" charge.

Yeah, involuntary manslaughter is accidental death like when you run over an old lady with a powerboat.

"If only he didn't make me kill him, your son would be alive this day!"

This seems like a good idea.

Oh, wait, no, that's ridiculous and silly. How does this have any relation to what actually happened?

Character and reputation of the victim for peacefulness are commonly attacked by defense counsel. The judge is giving this to the defense for two reasons; it may produce information where the relevance is outweighed by the prejudicial value, but truly, to avoid having a guilty verdict overturned.

This is the obvious path for the trial to take, and remember, like Casey Anthony, this story will be told to twelve people who have never heard of Treyvon Martin or George Zimmerman. Everything you know about what happened, you need to throw out the window. The defense intends to bring us back to what we knew on day one, and prejudice us with Treyvon Martin's facebook history.

If only Casey Anthony's child hadn't been such a pot smoking vandal hooligan, she wouldn't have had to have been chloroformed and buried out in the woods.

The prosecution has two choices, pursue an interlocutory appeal to prevent the records from being handed to the defense, or lay a trap. Personally, I would lay a trap. If the defense gets the records, which it will, there will be no way to keep them out without violating the defendant's fundamental right to present a defense. As such, the prosecution should configure their attacks and their questions in such a manner as to attempt to tempt defense counsel into opening the door as to George Zimmerman's prior conduct with regards to rent-a-coppery, resisting arrest, and racism.

It is easier than it sounds to get people to make claims that inadvertantly put certain matters into issue. If Zimmerman's counsel goes in with one understanding of what evidence will be presented, but as a result not of motions in limine but rather the natural progression and presentation of the evidence, certain additional evidence becomes relevant and admissable, the arguments in Zimmerman's ultimate appeal could very well undercut his ability to have Treyvon Martin's records introduced at the new trial.

How could not releasing the records result in an overturned guilty verdict? It seems like Treyvon Martin's history is completely irrelevant, since Zimmerman himself didn't have access to the record when he killed the kid.

The legal logic seems very different from actual logic, and I'm wondering if you could square the circle for me.

In the most simple terms, not factually, but emotionally accurate;

Casey Anthony accused her father of molesting her and of watching the child. This was the debut of this story. Her father denied molesting her and denied watching the child, and denied that Casey Anthony killed her daughter. Her father then went from a biased defense witness to a self-interested hostile witness who still claims the defendant is innocent. The prosecution anticipated attacking a unified front, when the defense witnesses broke formation, they chased the wrong one.

Had the jury been aware, as normal people were, of the gradual introduction of bullshit story after bullshit story, organically, over weeks and months, living it as opposed to simply being told, the outcome would have been different.

It seems like it isn't relevant, but it is. Think about Bernard Goetz. It's just one of the things that the defense has a very well respected right to attack. If the judge doesn't make the State cough up the evidence, he'd get a new trial pretty easily.

Duty to disclose.

You just can't make up an effective cross-examination in fifteen minutes from potentially incomplete testimony. If you're in court for the grisly murder of Mrs. Anax and they pull out the murder weapon (your totally awesome katzbalger) and your fingerprints are all over it (no shit), and you aren't aware that the cops also lifted another completely unidentified set of fingerprints off of the very same weapons you're pretty much fucked even though you'd have a pretty good case for reasonable doubt because you keep the weapon cleaned and polished to a warm glow and therefore the other set of prints are also likely to have been from a recent handling of the very same item.

You've linked the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which don't apply to criminal cases. You're looking for Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, Brady v. Maryland, and probably any number of other things that Flowers can you tell about because he actually does criminal law.

Something of an interesting update:

George Zimmerman sues NBC Universal over edited 911 call
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/06/us/florida-zimmerman-nbc-lawsuit/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

"NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain," the lawsuit says.

[...]

The defamation lawsuit accuses the network of sensationalizing and manipulating a potential "racial powder keg that would result in months, if not years, of topics for their failing news program, particularly the plummeting ratings for their ailing Today Show."

The edited recordings included multiple deletions, removed intervening dialogue between Zimmerman and the dispatcher, and juxtaposed unrelated content "to make it appear that Zimmerman was a racist, and that he was racially profiling Trayvon Martin," the lawsuit says.

[...]

"Allen's broadcast removed a critical aspect of the dialogue between Zimmerman and the dispatcher, bringing the 'up to no good' and 'he looks black' statements even closer together, to further the false and defamatory implication that Zimmerman had said he believed Martin was 'up to no good' because 'he looks black,'" the suit says.

The lawsuit accuses NBC of falsely claiming that Zimmerman said "f------ coons" on the February 26 call.

"The truth, as known to the defendants, was that Zimmerman said 'f------ punks' and there was no evidence, or reason to believe, that Zimmerman uttered a racial epithet during the call," the suit says.

Zimmerman mentioned Martin's race only when prompted by the dispatcher, the suit says.

[...]

Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, told "In Session's" Jean Casarez that NBC tried "to get ahead of the curve coverage thinking that they had themselves a person who was a racist, and they were wrong."

The suit also names as defendants Lilia Rodriguez Luciano of Dade County, Florida, who was reporting directly from Sanford. Her employment was terminated by NBC as a result of her reporting, the suit says.

Also named as a defendant is Jeffrey Burnside of Dade County, another journalist who was reporting from Sanford to his station, NBC-owned WTVJ in Miami, the suit says. Burnside was also fired by NBC, the suit said.

Also in the linked article are a couple new pics of Zimmerman from the night of the shooting, showing his injuries.

You see it wasn't his black skin that made him stalk, chase down and eventually shoot the unarmed teenager it was because he was walking in a loud shirt in a built up area.

I don't know what the standard of evidence is for these kinds of allegations, but it seems to me that regardless of the fact that Zimmerman is almost certainly a murderer, he has NBC dead to rights.

Yeah, I think NBC really screwed the pooch on this one.

Except for the fact that he shot a black kid for the crime of black while in his neighborhood.
And I never heard "punks". I thought the official explanation was "goons". Which actually sounds plausible.

NBC would have some grounds for not sensationalizing past the facts, as in "we just misunderstood but it was a legitimate mistake" if the recording they played wasn't deliberately misleading in terms of how it played "he looks black" out of order, which was a pivotal moment in the public narrative about the case. The actual facts of the case are not going to change in terms of what Zimmerman did or what one ought to think of him, but it seems clear to me that NBC ought to be liable for this happening under their imprimatur.

Is there any actual evidence of Zimmerman's actions being race related? I mean, I could see why you'd make the inference that the shooting was race-related but an inference by definition isn't evidence.

Yes, there's the NBC story, oh wait...

Well, he singled out Trayvon because he was black like the people who had been breaking into homes and "profiling" is a form of racism.
In other words I sincerely believe White Trayvon would be alive today.
As for "evidence" no, I think Zimmerman owns less Nazi flags than I do.

Is there any actual evidence that Zimmerman singled out Martin for being black? Again, I understand why you would make the assumption that Zimmerman was profiling Martin, but I haven't seen any actual evidence that this was the case.

I guess it's not that important anyway; he's on trial for murder, not racism, and his reasons for following Martin have no bearing at all on his claim of self-defence.

Well, how many white kids did he follow and confront and ultimately shoot?
But anyway, records do show he had a history of calling 911 to report black youths, and only black youth, "hanging around" his neighborhood.
And he was a Jeff Dunham fan so...that's pretty telling right there.

I figure this story is related enough to just put into this thread.

Via Huffpost:

So he hates men as well?

He does it because he hates himself.

I give up. I guess the guy who calls 911 on only black people and has a history of harassing co-workers with racist jokes and shot a black kid for being suspiciously black isn't a racist. My bad everyone. I guess I just jumped to conclusions based on his history of racism.

I mostly just like the way CNN has to censor the word "fucking," but "coons" is inoffensive enough to print. Keep it up, CNN!

Hey, the important thing to remember, in our modern, 'post racial' society, is that the WORST THING anyone can do is call you a racist. And you should never call ANYONE a racist unless you've literally witnessed then burning a cross on someone's lawn or lynching folks. Those are TOTALLY our new fair and balanced standards.

If you think something might be racist, it means you thought about racial differences and thus it's you who is the racist. Klan rallies are actually just Rorschach tests for racism.

I just think we should be careful in these kinds of high media profile cases. A lot of wrongful convictions have occurred in cases where the community starts baying for blood. Racists are entitled to the benefit of the doubt, just like accused persons who we find sympathetic.

I don't think we should call for people's blood, we just need to call for the law's head on a plate. It's a really really poorly written law.

In this new instance (dude shot teen in car) it's less about racism and reason for the shooting, and more about his actions after the fact (fled the scene is understandable if in danger. Fleeing the city however without calling the cops after shooting someone? Not Okay, Ever.)

While I agree that "stand your ground" is a bad law, the Zimmerman case is not a "stand your ground" case. Zimmerman's account is that Martin attacked Zimmerman, pinned him, and smacked Zimmerman's head into the ground, at which point Zimmerman shot Martin. If you believe that account of events, self-defence would be established with or without "stand your ground". So even if you accept Zimmerman's account at face value there's no issue of "stand your ground"/duty to retreat.

Just a minor correction, he shot at FOUR black teens. One died, taking three of the eight rounds fired into the vehicle.