Jul 14 2013
The Effing Punk Got Away
Update: Here is a good reminder of the limitations of our legal system, and why ‘not guilty’ so many times does not mean ‘innocent’. – end update
Zimmerman’s defense team won a Pyrrhic victory yesterday. The prosecution had done its job in many respects. We all know Zimmerman chased down, confronted and – when losing the fisticuffs battle – killed an unarmed kid.
The prosecution proved Zimmerman’s statements were a series of lies. He lied where he first saw Trayvon. He lied about Martin circling his truck. He lied about not knowing the name of the street he was on . The prosecution had Zimmerman on tape with that lie:
Zimmerman’s problem came out during Officer Chris Serinos’ testimony when they played the reenactment video. It is just prior to time stamp 1:21:50 in this court video. At this point Zimmerman is in a police car talking through the incident. He and a policeman are parked in front of the club house and Zimmerman is explaining how Trayvon Martin – who he had seen back down the street a bit – had walked past his parked car and then down towards where he was staying.
The subconscious mistake Zimmerman makes is he automatically recalls the name of the street (Twin Trees Lane). I mean it just comes right out of his mouth. The same street he could not recall the night before!
Zimmerman, the effing punk, lied about how he could pull the gun from his pants and holster,all the while on his back with Trayvon on top. He lied about his injuries (clearly not all from the concrete). He lied about being jumped (Rachel Jeantell testified and ‘witnessed’ that truth there). Zimmerman lied and lied and lied.
But the jury apparently decided that they could not prove what did happen. The prosecutions one big mistake was going for Murder 2, which relied on them proving what happened absent Zimmerman’s concocted story.
A variant on negligent homicide (like what happens when a drunk or reckless driver kills someone) would have been attainable. In that kind of trial Zimmerman’s recklessness would be clear. His reckless assumptions, his carrying a gun to confront a kid, his unwillingness to wait for police. That verdict was in reach of the prosecution under those kinds of charges.
With Zimmerman’s story now shredded by the prosecution, the only way out for George was the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ escape hatch. And that door was sadly open. Murder 2 requires more than recklessness, it requires motive.
Another problem probably was that the jury never clearly got the fact that when Martin retreats (at a full run no less), Zimmerman cannot pursue him and retain any “self defense” rights. None. It is the right of retreat. Again, Rachel Jeantell testified clearly about Trayvon’s efforts to retreat. And no, he was not required to retreat home (though the prosecution gave a good rationale for why not to lead some psycho stalker back to his 12 year old friend).
There is no doubt Zimmerman shot Martin. There is no doubt he pursued him for up to 4 minutes after getting off the phone with police. There is no doubt his story is a sham. And there is no doubt Martin had as much right to defend himself from a stalker as anyone else. The challenge is whether the incident was driven by hate and malice or just by a dumb, reckless, idiot? What I saw in court was a lot of both, but there was wiggle room on the Murder 2.
Zimmerman is not done yet. The Martins should go after him in civil court. The Fed should consider a case too.
His neighbors will mostly shun him, and they should demand he remain unarmed.
The vigilante who killed a kid is going to burn in hell. He may have side stepped justice for now, but he is damaged goods. Watching his father in court, I am pretty sure he knows his son killed Martin without justification. The killing of Trayvon will haunt ZImmerman and his family forever, and I for one hope it burns the entire time. He took a life without good cause.
More importantly, it will be hard to convince others to not become vigilantes now that Zimmerman has won his case. Zimmerman took the law into his hands and killed someone. Now he is going to find himself the target of others with a similar mindset. They will profile him, judge him, and possibly confront him. I pray to God no one does. This is not the time for an eye for an eye justice.
But those are the ramifications for not confessing, not plea bargaining, not coming clean. Sometimes you can do more damage trying to be found not guilty than doing your penance.
Zimmerman’s problems are still mounting, and rightfully so. And justice will be done in the end someway, somehow – even if it ends up being at the pearly gates of Heaven. This weekend the effing punk got away. But he cannot run forever from what he did.
Hey AJ, time to revisit this article. Very well researched and predictive given that it was written a year ago. http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/what_the_media_choose_not_to_know_about_trayvon.html Are you going to come out and ‘splain yourself. We all promise to be courteous and respectful. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg
The big thing to remember about the KKK is that it was the underground, activist wing of the Democrat Party and in its heyday almost *Every* Democrat officeholder in the south was secretly part of it.
It was *ALWAYS* Republicans who fought the KKK more than anybody else – look it up!
patrioticduo, I love that picture of the train wreck at Montparnesse, I think when I was a teen I had a poster of that one in my room with the caption “Oh, Shit.”
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The big thing to remember about the KKK is that it was the underground, activist wing of the Democrat Party and in its heyday almost *Every* Democrat officeholder in the south was secretly part of it.
It was *ALWAYS* Republicans who fought the KKK more than anybody else – look it up!
I think you’re dead on about what Trayvon was up to that night, Momdear. Skittles and Arizona Watermelon tea (not ice tea like the media said) are part of an online recipe for “Purple Drank” aka Lean.
That ‘lustrus leader, Sen Byrd was a Grand Dragon, and, I believe, a Dimocrat.
Always wondered why TM chose to turn and confront GZ rather than just going home. Now maybe we have the answer. Jeamtel was interviewed on CNN. Seems Trayvon thought GZ might be a “homosexual predator” or “rapist” looking for “a boy”. Easy to see how he was going to turn on that “creepy ass cracker” and teach him a thing or two.
Haven’t heard a lot about this in the media. Black person making anti-gay slurs. Hmmmmm?
“Haven’t heard a lot about this in the media.” If that is true, you won’t hear much about it in the news. Doesn’t fit the agenda.
Just saw this excellent piece on Nancy Grace, who has yet again been “dis”gracing herself lately. (Remember how she campaigned for the conviction of the proven-to-be-innocent Duke Lacrosse defendents?)
This guy, I think, has Nancy Grace down pat, and it’s relevant here because I think this finally explains what AJ has been thinking for the last 18 months – he sees things through the same lens that Nancy does.
(the author is trying to analyze why NG sometimes appears liberal, sometimes appears “conservative”)
begin quote:
“Yes, Nancy Grace is a riddle covered in an enigma wrapped in a snarl shellacked with hairspray.
If, that is, you accept the liberal/moderate/conservative rubric.
I don’t.
Nancy Grace’s political bent is quite recognizable to me. She’s not liberal or conservative, and no principled view of gun ownership or race or women’s rights drives her coverage. No, she’s a vigorous statist, at least with respect to criminal justice. Her political viewpoint is perfectly internally consistent. As a statist, purpose of the criminal justice system is to convict and punish to the maximum extent possible people accused by the government. To determine whether someone has committed a brutal and dastardly crime, all you need to know is whether the government has said they did. That’s why defense attorneys are worthy of contempt: they are, by definition, trying to obstruct justice. That’s why she questions and despises constitutional rights: they are mere impediments to the guilty being punished. (That view, no doubt, fueled her penchant for prosecutorial misconduct.) That’s why anyone who might speak in support of a defendant infuriates her: they are objectively pro-crime. That’s why she’s defiant when law enforcement abandons a suspect in favor of a new one: we have always been at war with Eastasia! That’s why she is perplexed and abrasive when actual crime victims don’t act the way she thinks they should; the role of a crime victim is to advance the state’s chosen narrative. That’s how she decides whether she’s an opponent of the abuse of women (as in the Duke Lacrosse case) or a snide opponent of a defense of battered woman’s syndrome (as in the Jodi Arias case): she doesn’t decide, the state does by making its accusation.
Nancy Grace is the clumsy and ill-considered personification of frightened devotion to the will of the state. She’s the mob made one flesh, the embodiment of our fears, our hope that the government will save us, our worry that it might not. The notion that the state can be counted upon to accuse the right person, and that the justice system will punish the guilty and only the guilty, is comforting; the concept that the system is flawed and fallible is terrifying. Due process, like any sort of freedom, is scary and messy. How much more soothing it would be to believe, like Nancy, that the state is right, and that anything or anyone that stands in the state’s way may be righteously denounced.”
WWS,
The answer is much less complex. AJ has always staked himself as a “Moderate/Centrist.” In practical observation, in general he tends to be somewhat liberal/left/libertarian on social issues and more “right” leaning on whatever remains.
I have some friends like this, and one can never tell what’s going to be their position on a given issue. By and large folks like this tend to be swayed easily by emotional appeals, and so they are easy prey for smooth talkers like Bill Clinton and Obama.
For whatever reason he feels strongly about this case, and that is evident by his articles. Most of us here don’t agree and that is quite evident and we have all chimed in on point. I too have been turned off by some of his remarks. However, I think it would be good to us to”lay off” and give him the benefit of the doubt and in time I am sure you will get a less emotional answer.
I do enjoy the posts that have new info about the case like TM supplies for the LEAN cocktail. That sheads new light on the case. I just wish someone could tell me where the skiddles and tea were found. At the scene, or deposited somewhere for post assault pickup.
OL
Based on statements by Trayvon’s friend, Jeantel, who indicated that Trayvon thought that Zimmerman must be some kind of “gay rapist” so Trayvon decided to let loose with a little wumpass on his gay stalker.
To think, if Trayvon had been a little less homophobic, he would probably be alive today, in a jail cell some where.
I think the end game here for the administration is “gun control”. Obama got his hand slapped earlier this year over guns. You know he isn’t going to give up.
He is moving to fuse race and civil rights into gun control push. But turning crowds of black people out in the streets in quasi riots is no way going to endear other segments of the population into giving up their right to defend themselves.
If he can criminalize self defense, as it is in Europe, he can win without even going to war. Look for him to enlist the UN on this push, in light of the latest arms control treaty.
He is crafty.
holy crap – Rachel Jeantel, the “Star Witness” in both AJ’s and the Prosecutions eyes, just said that she believes Trayvon threw the first punch.
Of course she wasn’t actually there, but she knew Trayvon better than anyone, that’s what the Prosecution said, that’s what all of his defenders have said. She says that in that position, she would expect him to be the aggressor.
WOW.
I know AJ is still off in his “FEELINGS, WHOA WHOA WHOA FEELINGS!!!” approach to the law, but in the harsh world of legal reality, self-defense is justified when, in a confrontation where bodily harm is a reasonable fear, the accused was attempting to defend himself from an aggressor.
THE JURY GOT IT EXACTLY RIGHT, BY RACHEL JEANTEL’S OWN ADMISSION.
AJStrata – for a thoughtful man on so many other topics, you really went off the rails on this one. You bought the MSM’s spin hook line and sinker and had GZ tried and hung before the trial ever started.
I wonder if you are reconsidering your entrenched position now that all the misconduct on the part of the state, both federal and state, is coming to light. Let’s not forget NBC’s actions as well as RJ’s and the prosecutor’s post-trial statements to the MSM.
Overall a truly shameful episode in American jurisprudence.
I, for one, hope to never see you in the juror’s box with me as the defendant.
AJStrata:
It is pitiful to see a once cogent blogger lose his way. You should be a better scientist; the evidence in the trial of Zimmerman does not match in any way your remarks.
Zimmerman did not lie during the trial. He could not lie; he did not speak. His testimonies may have varied; any person with familiarity with memory will tell you that our memories are not frozen, but subject to revision internally. Since he was not cross-examined about his testimony, there is no judgment from the court concerning his “lies.”
The reference to Zimmerman running down Martin does not match the location where the two of them confronted one another. Did Zimmerman have the ability to retreat? Kind of hard to do that when someone is sitting on you. What, exactly, is the correct response when a mixed martial artist is sitting on you, breaks your nose, and pounds your head into the concrete?
Please explain.
Precisely how was the trial fair if evidence was withheld from the defense? And if, as subsequently happened, the whistleblower who revealed this concealed evidence was fired? Precisely how was the trial fair if evidence about the mindset of Mr Martin was not allowed into evidence? Were the verdict “guilty”, there would be many separate grounds for appeal.
How can the prosecution be credible if they did not appear to know what their witnesses would say? That is misconduct, and should lead to disbarment. You NEVER ask a question when you do not know what the answer will be!
Gaah!
AJ:
Lots of interesting stuff at Tallbloke’s and WUWT. How about getting back to the AGW hoax and maybe pretty soon we’ll forget you went on a bender on this one.
Funny how a hispanic man shoots a black man in a street fight, and 6 women find him innocent, and yet somehow it’s all the White Man’s Fault.
No, he did not lie. You can’t prove he did not know the exact address. Even the investigating detective testified that he thought Zimmerman was telling the truth.
Rachel Jeantel just stated on CNN that she thought Trayvon attacked Zimmerman. She also told the HuffPo that Trayvon told her he got back home. He then returned to attack George Zimmerman. It is not reckless to legally carry a gun. It is not reckless to shot someone who is attacking you. It is not reckless to get out of a car, it is not reckless or illegal to follow a suspicious person either on private property or on public property.
It is reckless to attack someone in public because your girlfriend told you a person was a homosexual rapist.
There were no lies proved by the prosecution. You are a sore loser. No wonder your blog is going the way of Charles Johnson’s blog.
Federale, who’s Charles Johnson? Does he have a blog?
Johnson had the blog “Little Green Footballs”.
and then he went insane and banned everyone who used to post at his place and now he’s been screaming RACIST!!! at anyone who doesn’t think Obama is the LightBringer for the last 5 years or so. Something or other flipped his lid, and one day he decided that he hated everyone he used to get along with. Loony Tunes.