His name was Trayvon Martin

I heard about this and then saw Obama's speech on it. Something must be done and that fucker who shot him should go straight to the chair.

My heart always goes out so deeply to any family I hear of that has lost a young person. I hate that I understand how the world has completely collapsed on them, how the worst possible nightmare has happened.

I hope they find Justice.

I find it deplorable that people are willing to back down a little on the monstrosity of it by saying he looked as if he was up to no good.

let's be honest, I get it. sometimes when you're walking alone and there's someone in a hoodie walking around you, your natural reaction is to be a little on guard.
THIS IS NOT THE CASE. zimmerman followed this kid because he didn't look like he belonged in a gated community and then killed him.

we live in a country where a young black man can't walk home in a goddamn hoodie without being seen as a potential predator.

If looking like you are up to no good is a respectable reason to shoot someone I should've been dead and gone long ago.

I don't get why everyone's getting all panty knotted over this. The guy is gonna face charges for it and most likely be found guilty. That takes time to play out.

If they end up not charging him, then we should all go out and Batman his ass.

But that's just it. He's NOT getting charged. Highly controversial case, but it would seem that Zimmerman's definitely at fault, cuz it seems like he started harassing the kid a bit, and the kid reacted in self-defense. However, such "he said/she said" scenarios are far more difficult when the other party can't say anything.

It'd be nice for him to get charged. Then again, the "American" opinionated option would be to equate self defense with self defense. If you charge this man,then next you'll have to hold the police accountable for all the youth they kill in their fuck-ups. All these things need to happen, but it's going to be the biggest trudge through shit to see results.

The local police found "no evidence of a crime" and did not file charges.

Today (yesterday?), the FBI called bullshit on that. Let's hope they make some right decisions and charge this guy with what he is guilty of, Murder 1.

The police department has no intention of filing charges against him. If they did, the charges would have been filed, you know, when the crime occurred. They're handling this horribly, and by doing so are tacitly condoning murdering young minorities (or ANY person for that matter).

Best case scenario, he is eventually charged, tried and sentenced to death. Worst case, he never gets charged and the people deliver their own justice.

I doubt he'd get sentenced to death. Even in Florida. It'll probably go through a year of trials and he'll be found guilty and get 20-30 years, then be out in 10. Of course, all this will be after all the appeals he has to go through.

Probably the "best" thing is for them to work out some kind of plea bargain, where he's not eligible for parole for, like, 15 years and they don't end up wasting all the time and money trying what should be a pretty simple case.

If it does end up going to trial, I pray they don't televise it or else it's going to end up some goofy soap opera/reality show.

it's not murder 1 he'd be charged with so he wouldn't be sentenced to death. it's murder 2. zimmerman didn't plan ahead to shoot him, but he murdered him in cold blood. and I hope it would be charged as a hate crime as well.
I would hope they wouldn't go any lower than that. although if they get off their asses and actually prosecute him, I wonder if they'd give him a plea deal. I'd hope not.

and yeah, nate, this is something to be up in arms about because the local police did not want to file charges. if it was up to them, zimmerman would go about his life as a murderer with no repercussions. this is why it's so important to talk and raise hell about it so they investigate and give a little justice to this kid's family.

I'm not up on Florida law or all the specifics of this case, but if classified as a hate crime, it could be could bump the charge to M1 with execution as a potential punishment. Also, following Trayvon from Point A to Point B (especially after the police told him specifically not to follow him) could be construed similarly to "lying in wait" also bumping the charge to M1 with "special circumstances". (I'm not altogether sure I am phrasing all that right. My mind's not at its clearest today.) There are a lot of variables that could kick-in between now and any possible sentencing. Even if charged, he could ultimately get off with a suspended sentence or time served (assuming he doesn't make bail).

From across the world, and the news that I've seen on this, this post seems to sum up what the issue proabably is.

I really hope that they act soon and charge that guy or someone else is going to take responsibilty and then there is going to be ANOTHER murder to take care of, or sweep under the carpet.

What the hell does this even mean?

I know it's much edgier and cooler to pretend that police, collectively or individually, face no consequences whatsoever when they accidentally or intentionally kill or injure someone unnecessarily, but that's almost - almost - never the case. The U.S. is not a movie about the 1930's Deep South.

Aaaaand cue Giggan to tell me that, no, I'm wrong and that the AmeriKKKan Fascist Pig Roving Murder-Patrols kill at will. And that the Bilderbergers are in league with the Bohemian Grove to keep him from growing ever richer by selling Marihuana to his fellow Revolutionaires.

Is the rest of the country only now hearing about this? Because I live in Florida and this has been an issue for a while.

I've known about it for a while, I just noticed it wasn't being discussed and I wanted to make a thread for it.

Tuffy is getting at what I meant. His actions can be perceived (and probably argued fairly convincingly) as being premeditated. If it can be proven he held racist views, paired with his phone call to the police dispatch, it wouldn't be difficult to convince the jury he planned to kill someone because of their race. This would also increase the severity of his punishment because it would be considered a hate crime.

Even if he is convicted and simply goes to jail, most inmates don't really respond well to people who've committed crimes against children.

You forget that he has defensive wounds. That's enough to completely discredit the premeditated theory.

Some asshole following me after dark while I'm minding my business walking home I'm going to say something and if he has something to say back he might end up with some damn wounds.

Yeah. Except talking isn't illegal, unless he said something particularly threatening, of which there is no evidence.

How can he have defensive wounds when all the kids had was a bag of skittles? Did he get rainbow marks on his hands? Boohoo.

As a female, simply being followed IS very threatening.

He wasn't female, obviously. So I don't know.

I wouldn't think this is necessarily Premeditated by the strictest sense of the word.

It's what the evidence states. You can do a lot of damage with your fists.

We don't know all of the evidence.

Everything is speculation.

We still must wait to see.

In the mean time, the evidence we do know calls bullshit on no charges. Apparently the FBI thinks so, at least. Good enough for me for the moment.

This isn't the thread to be bitter in.

No, it's witness testimony that has the FBI questioning why he hasn't been charged. There isn't enough solid evidence to charge, precisely because it's all speculation. These testimonies don't prove much of anything, but we can come to our own conclusions based on our own experiences, and yes, he more than likely should go to prison for the rest of his life. I do wonder what techniques the FBI can use to provide enough evidence against him. It'd be interesting to see.

Being followed and harassed is grounds for self-defense. If someone has been following you in a car for blocks and is pointing a gun at you, chances are you're going to feel a little threatened. It would very difficult for the defense to prove that a scrawny little kid with a bag of Skittles posed a lethal threat to a portly older man with a pistol.

You can't be sure the pistol was drawn before the kid attacked him. In fact, I'd say there's evidence to the contrary considering the crying the witness heard. I'm gonna go ahead and read and watch everything I can about this. I'm really intrigued.

The kid attacked him? Somehow, I think no.

Dude... defense wounds.

Having defense wounds does not mean that you did not attack first.

It simply means that at some point the other person was attacking you.

Just because Zimmerman has defensive wounds doesn't necessarily mean that the Martin attacked him first. He could have pulled a gun on the kid and the kid hit him, which would be entirely justifiable as self defense. He was shot at close range, right?

Apparently, they consisted of a broken nose and bleeding from the back of his head. I don't think those qualify as "defensive wounds", but whatever. A blow to the back of the head is particularly consistent with the report he gave saying he was attacked while he was walking back to his truck. Buuut imma continue reading...

I really hope the jurors are not so easily swayed by defense wounds.

As for being hit in the back of the head, it's quite possible, and it wouldn't surprise me, if he attacked the kid, and in the scuffle, the kid knocked Zimmerman's head into the pavement. It's a fight. That shit happens.

By the way, simply because there isn't sufficient evidence to say he wasn't attacked first, nor before he pulled his gun out, that does not mean there is enough evidence to say the opposite occurred. The evidence SUGGESTS Zimmerman's report is consistent. That's what I'm saying. I know everyone wants him to be charged and guilty, but c'mon. Read with me.

What about the fact that Trayvon Martin was on the phone with a girl (his gf?) and mentioned that someone was following him

There would be evidence of that on the ground. But again, I have to keep reading. I'm simply arguing on the side of what the law NEEDS to see before charging and convicting. Defensive wounds ARE enough to convince the law of self-defense and prevent a charge before more evidence is found. So yeah. There isn't much evidence to suggest Zimmerman attacked first, either.

Here's my view on the whole thing, standing separate of the details of the attack.

If a person, in any sort of confrontation, takes the life of another human being, whether it is in self-defense or not, that person needs to be held by law enforcement officers for a certain period of time. At the very least, they need to be detained and interviewed. As far as I am aware, he was not picked up or detained at all simply because he had a clean record.

I don't give two fucks if you're the goddamn pope. You shoot and kill someone, you need to be in custody.

It's already known Zimmerman was following him. *shrug* That doesn't mean much if anything at all.

This 'stand your ground' law is pretty ridiculous

I would agree, but that's neither here nor there, as nothing would've changed if that was the case. I don't think it's much of a difference if whether they get his testimony on the scene or at the station. But I guess interrogation would be more rigorous.

The jury has the power to decide the ultimate fact of the case, based on the established facts of the case. Ultimate fact is a logical deduction of intent ("assumption") after analyzing the facts.

If the jury knew about this power, they would likely determine that the ultimate fact is Zimmerman provoked, and therefore started, the altercation. So far the established facts are:

a) that the police dispatch explicitly told Zimmerman to stop following the child and to not confront him in any way;

he ignored the dispatcher and confronted Trayvon;

c) Trayvon's last phone call was to his girlfriend, during which he revealed to her that someone was following him;

d) Zimmerman was holding a loaded gun which he used to kill Trayvon;

e) Trayvon had no weapon and no motive to cause harm to Zimmerman;

f) Zimmerman, during his phone call to the dispatch, used a racially-charged epithet to describe Trayvon;

g) the police did not take Zimmerman into custody, administer a drug or alcohol test or run a background check on him after arriving at the scene.

Point "b" is not supposed to be a smiley face with sunglasses...

Actually, jurors have a very specific and strict protocol to follow. They can't just decide willy nilly based on their perception of the facts of the case. This is why actual court sessions are so boring to watch. Lawyers know showmanship counts for very little beyond knowing how to speak clearly and formally.

The bias in that list of facts is pretty apparent.

A) They didn't say stop. They said it wasn't necessary.
Same point.
C) That's obvious, and really has no point considering we already know he was following him, and that phone call, in fact, reports that Trayvon confronted Zimmerman first by asking, "Why are you following me?" to which Zimmerman responded "What are you doing here?" That's where the call ended, according to the gf.
D) Okay.
E) Trayvon was seen on top of Zimmerman, beating on him by the only witness of the events preceding the shooting. The witness made no mention of seeing a gun.
F) It's not a crime to use racial slurs. You first have to prove that it was unjustifiable homicide before making statements about whether or not it was a hate crime. Just because I'm a racist doesn't mean I'm not allowed to defend myself against a black guy.
G) Yeah, that part sucks huge nuts. The police were really at fault here.

You missed some major ones.

H) Zimmerman called the police before the incident and told someone to call them after. He did not flee. That's actually a very important fact.
I) He had defensive wounds that are consistent with his story of being attacked as he was turned around/leaving. They don't necessarily mean it had to have happened the way he said, but they certainly do suggest it did.

I guess I included a lot of the missing facts in the A-G part.

I'm just saying there's a LOT of reason to not assume anything and jump on the bandwagon here. It's controversial whether the facts even add up to a charge. A conviction is even more difficult.

Actually, juries are allowed to do that. Have you ever heard of jury nullification? It's when the jury is allowed to acquit a defendant if they do not feel the person should be indicted, on moral or ethical grounds. Alexander Hamilton (in the Zenger case) started the trend and the SC has established its Constitutional use (under the 5th amendment).

Juries have some semblance of autonomy. If you can find it, check out the article "Jury Nullification: The Right to Say No" by Alan Scheflin and "Merciful Juries: The Resilience of Jury Nullification" by Scheflin and Jon M. Van Dyke.

The judge is not required to inform the jury of its power to do these things so most people don't know about it.

(I've been doing my law homework all day, so I'm on a bit of a binge).

Well, before I get to that, it seems that implies they can't choose to CONVICT willy nilly, which still supports my point.