Rocky1
New member
Originally Posted By: woodguruWait till they use that money they now have on a civil suit against Zimmerman.
OJ was acquitted but it didn't prevent him from being sued.
Also there may be a look at whether the trial will be called a mistrial before the jury came up with the acquittal, prior to that it was a hung jury.
The judge when giving a 3/3 hung jury further instructions (three jurors had voted to convict Zimmerman) invoked Florida's stand your ground law and told those jurors that they "had to acquit based on the Florida law". Wrong, to be valid it had to be explored in court which it was not.
Yet for that law to be valid in this trial it had to be used as a defense and withstand the court's scrutiny, which it would not have done. The standard specifically states that the person using it has to be in retreat, not the aggressor. The judge was dead wrong and made the jurors feel that even though they thought Zimmerman was guilty that Florida law which was not in play (as per the judge's words) forced them to let him get away with murder.
You would be absolutely, 100%, tea totally wrong there woodrot!
Quote:Initially, police didn’t arrest Zimmerman as he asserted self-defense under the state’s Stand Your Ground law. While his attorneys never filed an official Stand Your Ground motion in the case, the claim would become Zimmerman’s central defense.
Last year, state Senator Dwight Bullard , D-39th District, led the charge against the Stand Your Ground law which the state’s legislature passed in 2005. While some say the law did not play a part in the trial, on CBS4′s “Facing South Florida” Bullard told Jim DeFede he disagrees.
“The reality is that from the very first steps taken by police in Sanford, in their inability to put Mr. Zimmerman in prison, it had everything to do with blow back from the Stand Your Ground law,” said Bullard. “When you look at the prosecution’s inability to give rules to the jurors in regards to did Zimmerman retreat or could he have retreated, it had everything to do with that statute.”
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/07/14/the-role-of-stand-your-ground-in-zimmerman-trial/
Quote:A Florida judge questioned George Zimmerman today on his decision to waive a hearing under the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, which means that he is likely heading for a trial this summer in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.
The pre-trial Stand Your Ground hearing would have given the judge the discretion to free Zimmerman, eliminating the need for a trial. But the validity of a Stand Your Ground defense would be determined solely by a judge. Zimmerman's defense team has decided to put their case before an entire jury.
"We'd much rather have the jury address the issue of criminal liability or lack thereof," Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara said.
Zimmerman's team hinted it might resurrect the Stand Your Ground immunity hearing during the trial, and it is possible even after it.
Zimmerman spoke in court for the first time in over a year, answering "Yes, your honor" and "No, your honor" to a series of questions from Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson. Nelson was seeking to confirm a decision by Zimmerman's lawyer to invoke the Stand Your Ground defense.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-waives-stand-ground-hearing-heads-trial/story?id=19074241
Stand Your Ground does not require retreat, not even a little itty bitty bit of retreat. In fact, it's called "Stand Your Ground" because it does NOT require you to retreat.
Your everyday ordinary "Self Defense" requires you to retreat. However, George Zimmerman was pinned to the ground by Trayvon Martin, wherein retreat was not an option. That was established by Zimmerman's own account of the incident, and corroborated by eye witness testimony. It was further supported by the coroner's report. Since Zimmerman could not retreat, Stand Your Ground was not a necessary defense, he was within his rights under simple Self Defense law.
If you'd like more citations I can certainly provide them.
Originally Posted By: woodguruIf a higher court agrees with the judges error to the jury it could be ruled as a mistrial before jury deliberation, which is what and where a mistrial takes place, it's declared when something unduly and incorrectly influenced a jury in a way that can't be undone.
We may not be done with this one. That judge used a law that was not being used in the defense to incorrectly tell jurors that they had no choice but to honor that invalid law that had nothing to do with this trial.
That's funny... I haven't heard anything about that. How is it you are entitled to priviledged information in this trial 2500 miles away woodrot? You might want to check your sources though, they missed the above piece of news and were wrong!!
Originally Posted By: woodguruYou haven't heard anything about this yet, but you will be.
I can promise you, I will not be holding my breath waiting.
Originally Posted By: woodguruI think everyone knew before the trial that the stand your ground law was not going to be used for the defense because it did not apply.
Someone musta forgot to tell the judge about that, if she was instructing the jurors to render decision on this matter on the basis of Stand Your Ground.
Originally Posted By: woodguruWait till they use that money they now have on a civil suit against Zimmerman.
Quote:Zimmerman's team hinted it might resurrect the Stand Your Ground immunity hearing during the trial, and it is possible even after it.
Under Stand Your Ground, which it is possible to invoke even after the trial, Zimmerman would be immune from civil suit.
Quote:laws.
"The case wasn't decided on a stand your ground basis," says University of Florida law professor Joseph Little. "So there's not much to say about what the Zimmerman case tells us about the stand your ground law."
The Big But
There's one big but, however, and that's in Florida, where Trayvon Martin's family is said to be considering a civil case against Zimmerman. (The U.S. Department of Justice is also undertaking a review of evidence in the case.)
In a civil proceeding against Zimmerman, the Martin family would have the opportunity to challenge a central, and controversial, section of Florida's stand your ground statute.
The section is titled, "Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force."
Indeed, the section provides the opportunity for just that: a path to pretrial immunity for potential defendants who can prove in a hearing before a judge that a "preponderance of evidence" shows that their deadly or potentially deadly actions fell into the category of reasonable self-defense.
Zimmerman did not ask for an immunity hearing before his criminal trial, but that does not preclude him from requesting one if he faces a civil trial, says associate law professor Tamara Rice Lave of the University of Miami's School of Law.
At a pretrial immunity hearing, Lave says, Zimmerman would have to show a preponderance of evidence, quantified as a 51 percent burden, that he acted lawfully under the state's stand your ground statute.
Zimmerman likely didn't ask for an immunity hearing before his criminal case, she said, because he would have had the burden to prove he acted lawfully.
"When he went to trial, it was the prosecutor's burden to prove he didn't act in lawful self-defense," she said, adding: The prosecutor also had to prove to a jury Zimmerman's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt," a far higher bar to clear than proving a "preponderance of evidence."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/...mmerman-verdict
Even if they hadn't already invoked Stand Your Ground, Zimmerman could invoke Stand Your Ground prior to the Civil Hearing, prove he was 51% within the law, using the trial as a substantial burden of proof in that respect, and he never goes to Civil Trial under Stand Your Ground, regardless of whether it was used as a defense in his criminal trial or not.
Now, go ahead and argue without any citation or reference in your usual manner. The rest of us understand the law and where this is headed. Civil Rights Violation is out of the question too, before you suggest such, the FBI proved a year ago that his actions were not racially motivated.
OJ was acquitted but it didn't prevent him from being sued.
Also there may be a look at whether the trial will be called a mistrial before the jury came up with the acquittal, prior to that it was a hung jury.
The judge when giving a 3/3 hung jury further instructions (three jurors had voted to convict Zimmerman) invoked Florida's stand your ground law and told those jurors that they "had to acquit based on the Florida law". Wrong, to be valid it had to be explored in court which it was not.
Yet for that law to be valid in this trial it had to be used as a defense and withstand the court's scrutiny, which it would not have done. The standard specifically states that the person using it has to be in retreat, not the aggressor. The judge was dead wrong and made the jurors feel that even though they thought Zimmerman was guilty that Florida law which was not in play (as per the judge's words) forced them to let him get away with murder.
You would be absolutely, 100%, tea totally wrong there woodrot!
Quote:Initially, police didn’t arrest Zimmerman as he asserted self-defense under the state’s Stand Your Ground law. While his attorneys never filed an official Stand Your Ground motion in the case, the claim would become Zimmerman’s central defense.
Last year, state Senator Dwight Bullard , D-39th District, led the charge against the Stand Your Ground law which the state’s legislature passed in 2005. While some say the law did not play a part in the trial, on CBS4′s “Facing South Florida” Bullard told Jim DeFede he disagrees.
“The reality is that from the very first steps taken by police in Sanford, in their inability to put Mr. Zimmerman in prison, it had everything to do with blow back from the Stand Your Ground law,” said Bullard. “When you look at the prosecution’s inability to give rules to the jurors in regards to did Zimmerman retreat or could he have retreated, it had everything to do with that statute.”
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/07/14/the-role-of-stand-your-ground-in-zimmerman-trial/
Quote:A Florida judge questioned George Zimmerman today on his decision to waive a hearing under the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, which means that he is likely heading for a trial this summer in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.
The pre-trial Stand Your Ground hearing would have given the judge the discretion to free Zimmerman, eliminating the need for a trial. But the validity of a Stand Your Ground defense would be determined solely by a judge. Zimmerman's defense team has decided to put their case before an entire jury.
"We'd much rather have the jury address the issue of criminal liability or lack thereof," Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara said.
Zimmerman's team hinted it might resurrect the Stand Your Ground immunity hearing during the trial, and it is possible even after it.
Zimmerman spoke in court for the first time in over a year, answering "Yes, your honor" and "No, your honor" to a series of questions from Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson. Nelson was seeking to confirm a decision by Zimmerman's lawyer to invoke the Stand Your Ground defense.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-waives-stand-ground-hearing-heads-trial/story?id=19074241
Stand Your Ground does not require retreat, not even a little itty bitty bit of retreat. In fact, it's called "Stand Your Ground" because it does NOT require you to retreat.
Your everyday ordinary "Self Defense" requires you to retreat. However, George Zimmerman was pinned to the ground by Trayvon Martin, wherein retreat was not an option. That was established by Zimmerman's own account of the incident, and corroborated by eye witness testimony. It was further supported by the coroner's report. Since Zimmerman could not retreat, Stand Your Ground was not a necessary defense, he was within his rights under simple Self Defense law.
If you'd like more citations I can certainly provide them.
Originally Posted By: woodguruIf a higher court agrees with the judges error to the jury it could be ruled as a mistrial before jury deliberation, which is what and where a mistrial takes place, it's declared when something unduly and incorrectly influenced a jury in a way that can't be undone.
We may not be done with this one. That judge used a law that was not being used in the defense to incorrectly tell jurors that they had no choice but to honor that invalid law that had nothing to do with this trial.
That's funny... I haven't heard anything about that. How is it you are entitled to priviledged information in this trial 2500 miles away woodrot? You might want to check your sources though, they missed the above piece of news and were wrong!!
Originally Posted By: woodguruYou haven't heard anything about this yet, but you will be.
I can promise you, I will not be holding my breath waiting.
Originally Posted By: woodguruI think everyone knew before the trial that the stand your ground law was not going to be used for the defense because it did not apply.
Someone musta forgot to tell the judge about that, if she was instructing the jurors to render decision on this matter on the basis of Stand Your Ground.
Originally Posted By: woodguruWait till they use that money they now have on a civil suit against Zimmerman.
Quote:Zimmerman's team hinted it might resurrect the Stand Your Ground immunity hearing during the trial, and it is possible even after it.
Under Stand Your Ground, which it is possible to invoke even after the trial, Zimmerman would be immune from civil suit.
Quote:laws.
"The case wasn't decided on a stand your ground basis," says University of Florida law professor Joseph Little. "So there's not much to say about what the Zimmerman case tells us about the stand your ground law."
The Big But
There's one big but, however, and that's in Florida, where Trayvon Martin's family is said to be considering a civil case against Zimmerman. (The U.S. Department of Justice is also undertaking a review of evidence in the case.)
In a civil proceeding against Zimmerman, the Martin family would have the opportunity to challenge a central, and controversial, section of Florida's stand your ground statute.
The section is titled, "Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force."
Indeed, the section provides the opportunity for just that: a path to pretrial immunity for potential defendants who can prove in a hearing before a judge that a "preponderance of evidence" shows that their deadly or potentially deadly actions fell into the category of reasonable self-defense.
Zimmerman did not ask for an immunity hearing before his criminal trial, but that does not preclude him from requesting one if he faces a civil trial, says associate law professor Tamara Rice Lave of the University of Miami's School of Law.
At a pretrial immunity hearing, Lave says, Zimmerman would have to show a preponderance of evidence, quantified as a 51 percent burden, that he acted lawfully under the state's stand your ground statute.
Zimmerman likely didn't ask for an immunity hearing before his criminal case, she said, because he would have had the burden to prove he acted lawfully.
"When he went to trial, it was the prosecutor's burden to prove he didn't act in lawful self-defense," she said, adding: The prosecutor also had to prove to a jury Zimmerman's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt," a far higher bar to clear than proving a "preponderance of evidence."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/...mmerman-verdict
Even if they hadn't already invoked Stand Your Ground, Zimmerman could invoke Stand Your Ground prior to the Civil Hearing, prove he was 51% within the law, using the trial as a substantial burden of proof in that respect, and he never goes to Civil Trial under Stand Your Ground, regardless of whether it was used as a defense in his criminal trial or not.
Now, go ahead and argue without any citation or reference in your usual manner. The rest of us understand the law and where this is headed. Civil Rights Violation is out of the question too, before you suggest such, the FBI proved a year ago that his actions were not racially motivated.