Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread As I understand it your rights to self defense varies depending on the escalation of force. If I shoved you first and said drop dead and you responded by hitting me with a tire iron, me using lethal force against you could be justified because, though I started the conflict, you escalated the force to a point where I'd be in fear of great bodily harm or death. Also being unarmed doesn't necessary have any factor in believing at that moment you reasonably feared great bodily harm or death. Like my example, we can make it like the Florida case, instead of hitting me with a tire iron you bashed my head into the ground repeatedly after I shoved you. edit. Just for the argument I should have added that I had a gun in the tire iron attack/head concrete situation.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread I don't know if there is a civil suit pending or not, but the standard for being found liable for Martin's death rather than guilty of a criminal charge is much easier to prove. The criminal standard for guilt is "beyond a reasonable doubt" while the civil standard is "more likely than not". So Martin's family would probably win a civil suit against him, but the only thing they would receive are monetary damages. Which is great, but unless Zimmerman is independently wealthy collecting on the award is nearly impossible. You can seize his house and bank accounts and ruin his life, which is fun, but you still probably won't get much.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread http://www.legalinsurrection.com Go there. Read. Then you will have a better picture of what happened. I've watched/listened to this trial since it started and some y'all are still going off of cnn/hln/fox info.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread You know, it might be close minded of me to say this, but damn the torpedoes: I am not going to take seriously the content of a website named Legal Insurrection that favorably pushes Rush Limbaugh's opinions.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Point 1) Texas Point 2) victim = black person So clearly you meant celebrity row right?
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread I think the prosecution did as best they could with what little they had. In my opinion, this case should never even have been brought to trial, as it was clearly self-defense. Dude was getting beaten up, he was in fear of grave bodily injury, and he defended himself. Keep in mind, there doesn't have to be actual physical contact in order for a person to fear for their life and be legally justified in using deadly force to defend themselves, they just have to have a reasonable belief that their life is in danger. I'm one of those " 'Merica" people with more guns than any reasonable person should use and more ammo in my house than, to be honest, I think it should be legal to possess. (Why? Because I can, that's why. My wife buys purses and handbags. I buy guns and ammo.) That being said, I don't agree with the law in the Zimmerman case. I think people with guns should be held to a higher standard. In my opinion, in order to be legally justified in using deadly force under circumstances like the Zimmerman case, there's gotta be more than you just getting your ass kicked, concussions, broken bones. Before you make the decision to use your weapon to take a life, you better be injured to the point where there are no other means of defending yourself. No other means of continuing the fight until you can find an opportunity to make a break for it. You gotta at that point where it's either you kill the other person right the fuck now, or they're gonna kill you right the fuck now. That's my opinion on self defense, but it's not the law. And under the law, Zimmerman should be found not guilty based on his asserted affirmative defense of self defense.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread While I can could almost agree that people carrying guns should have a higher standard placed on them I don't agree it should be specifically during when they are receiving force against them. One, they might not have a chance or be unable to escape or break away or what ever which most self defense laws already cover (being straddled which is a lot harder to escape than say running and have dude latched onto your shirt). Two, like many have said commenting on this case how do you know when exactly it goes from a mere beating to a deadly situation? How many bounces off the sidewalk? Well I have to let him smash my head with 120lbs of foot pressure but if he applies 150lb I can act. That's just nuts. Fuck a girl in my high school slipped on a soccer ball her fiancé kicked her and went into a coma and eventually was taken off life support. I'd say a high standard with regards to maybe not interjecting yourself into situations might be argued as a more reasonable alternative. In this case him getting out of his car, following and or confronting him (though not illegal under the law) seems like he interjected himself into the situation more than warranted coupled with the fact that he has a gun. More reasonable for self defense but I'd never argue it as I don't see carrying guns legally as something that should be punished....
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread There is something wrong with a set of laws where one can accost a stranger doing no wrong, provoke a fight, and then walk away scot-free after pleading self-defense upon shooting him. Even if this is a valid interpretation of the statutes, that's some fucked up shit.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread To be fair, we don't know if Zimmerman provoked the fight or if Martin did.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread This case came up at work the other day. I was asked my thoughts on it, and they were something like this: Firstly, the news commentators reporting on this case, as well as the people in charge of the media agenda on it, should be put into a nice dark hole where no one ever has to hear them speak again. Excepting, of course, dear ol' Nancy Grace, who should be left to the mercy of the Duke lacrosse defendants. Secondly, not a damn person outside of the jury has any meaningful opinion on who was at fault. What facts have come out are largely "he-said, she-said" and very confused since there was no witness with a clear view of the entire incident. Finally, the entire case has been irreversibly colored by the issue of racism, largely thanks to the media who further distorted the issue by trying to make an incident not even involving a white person into an incident revolving around white vs. black racism. Not saying (TiB required disclaimer here) racism is nonexistent, but intentionally editing a photo to make a clearly Hispanic man appear to be fully Caucasian to support your fact-fucking agenda is some seriously shady shit. In short, fuck the media. Somewhat related, I had some Chipotle for lunch and damn it was fucking GOOD. Edit: Misanthropic's link seems to have a dead video. Here's the YT: [yy]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VqjlhtKITooo[/yt] I literally have tears rolling down my face right now.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread I work out of Tampa during the week right now but my wife and kid are in Orlando. I left early today to get home...just in case. In any case, we live a little ways from Sanford and I don't think there would be rioting here but who knows. I get the feeling though that there are quite a few people out there looking for any excuse to go out looting. With Florida's stand your ground laws it could get very ugly, very quickly here. In my opinion, Big Z is an idiot. He shouldn't be out there playing cop like that. Did he provoke Lil T? Maybe, maybe not...we'll never know. Regardless, if someone confronts you, you have numerous ways you can respond that run the spectrum from walking away all the way to killing the person confronting you. People confront each other every day, those confronted usually walk away from the confrontation thinking the other person is an asshole...but they walk away. That's because they don't punch the other person out and then try to bash their brains out on the sidewalk. Poor choices by both sides. The evidence leads me to believe that Lil T elevated what could have been a verbal disagreement initiated by Big Z into a life or death fight and lost. Not Guilty.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Nope. Nothing to worry about. edit: This was meant as a joke, so I'm leaving this one.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread So that's four guys on Twitter. In all likelihood, this is the equivalent of saying you're going to move to Canada if ______ is elected. This is starting to sound a lot like "Well you know them, their sort like to riot."
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread There's more where that came from, but I don't know if any of it is real. So I'm taking it down.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread It's likely real. But the fact that Alex Jones et al at infowars has selected a few choice Tweets that are, in all likelihood, not meant literally or with much commitment to follow through hardly implies that one should start boarding the windows. A lot of people on Twitter say a lot of things. I'd be surprising if you couldn't turn up similar things from white folk who were totally going to tear their town up if that damn Obummer won in November. Fears of rioting makes for good headlines, especially if the potential rioters are black and the majority of your readers are white. Maybe there will be rioting, but at this point, it's all speculation, and ill-motivated speculation at that.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Maybe they will, maybe they won't. People are frustrated. Hell, I might have my own one woman riot. I'm with Nom, I don't understand how an unarmed man gets attacked, gets shot, and the shooter isn't found guilty of murder. And this FL self defense law, how does that not degenerate into people getting into fights which escalate into someone getting shot and no one getting convicted of murder? What should Trayvon have done...not walked somewhere he shouldn't? Not fought back? Run? And related back to rioting, I don't know about FL, but in CA, sometimes the problem isn't really with the people truly rioting for a cause so much as the self proclaimed "anarchists" who use to opportunity to try and cause as much trouble as possible.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread When someone has a gun and you don't, these are the smartest options.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread I haven't followed this trial at all, did Trayvon know that early on? I also didn't realize the jury is all women. I say this as a fellow woman: I would NOT want to be on that jury. Unless they're all in agreement, that could be some crazy times. Also, beware, the verdict could be very different than what is expected.