The Official Zimmerman Trial Verdict Thread

[Mr. H.]

Supposedly, according to T.M.'s phone text records he had a penchant for adult crime.

 

[Foxfyre]

This was posted elsewhere--Is it true? I keep hearing because a firearm was used additional mandatory minimums attach.

'Manslaughter is exempt from 10-20-life firearm statutes.....so no minimum mandatory. Technically, he could be found guilty and sentenced to time served.'

eta: I believe this individual is misinformed.
George Zimmerman?s 10-20-Life Problem | blawg

<Manslaughter>

Manslaughter is classified as a Second Degree Felony. Under Florida’s sentencing guidelines, and absent mitigating circumstances, a judge is required to impose a minimum sentence of 9¼ years in prison and can impose any additional combination of the following penalties:
•Up to 15 years in prison.
•Up to 15 years of probation.
•Up to $10,000 in fines


shrug--the headline on Drudge said 30 years. I suppose he/it checked.


Glad to have learned that it is unique to FL to allow the prosecution a rebuttal. In the dark recesses of my mind I thought in a criminal trial the defense had the last word.

and there is no limit to how long a rebuttal may be given.

Going on too long can diminish the impact--that was agreed.

They were given a time limit for the prosecution and defense closing arguments. The Prosecution saved 25 minutes to rebut the Defense's closing argument in the morning. The Defense cannot rebut the rebuttal but I hope they don't bore the jury to tears like the Prosecution almost certainly did to day. They needs to make the salient points in a clear, concise, understandable manner, don't use all the time they are allotted, and don't throw anything in that will give the Prosecution a lot of ammo to rebut.

 

[Pheonixops]

The shooter, Mr Zimmerman, should have been held in custody and certainly should not be walking free, still having a concealed weapons carry permit. From my reading, it seems this young man was pursued and there was no probable cause to engage him, certainly not pursue and shoot him….against the direction of the 911 responder. Let’s all be appalled at this instance not because of race, but because a young American man has lost his life, seemingly, for no reason.

OK so your view is the overweight Zimmerman ran after and caught up to the high school football star Martin and the confrontation proceeded from there, right?

What are you smoking to believe such crap??

Like I said ;they could have "happened" on each other while zimmerman was pursuing Martin and Martin was avoiding zimmerman. Maybe Martin didn't want to continue to run from the guy who was chasing him.

Now you are reverting back to being a putz who hurls insults!

 

[mudwhistle]

Yeeeehawwwww!!!

Comeon Yall, let's hang us another one.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Bernie The Attorney's summation will go down in the annals of prosecutorial summations as:

La La La.

Face facts. It sucked.

It was SO bad that if Sarie were honest even she'd admit that she is worried now.

 

[Gadawg73]

Manslaughter is just as bad, if not worse, than Murder II in this Case because the victim was a Minor.

Florida has a number of Cimes that are subject to the 10-20-Life rule.

Gets complicated. But some of those 'Lesser Charges' ain't so 'less'

I agree BUT this was a manslaughter case and not a murder case to begin with.
Yes, Florida is a right wing kook state. Since there was a gun involved the Republican Legislature passed a mandatory 10 year sentence on this if he is convicted.
Just another example of the police state we live in these days. Amazing the foolish liberals here want to roast Zimmerman as most times it is the state and their vast resources prosecuting petty drug offenses and sending people with health problems to prison for mandatory 10 year drug sentences for a handful of crack cocaine.
At one time in the Federal system you would get less time if you robbed a bank and pistol whipped the teller than if you had over a certain amount of crack cocaine.
People need to wake up as we have doubled the prison population since 2005 and most of them are petty dope cases with mandatory sentences. In Georgia it is 25 years mandatory sentence if you flash your penis at a minor as that is child molestation under the law here . There have been many arrests on college campuses of students and adults tailgating before football games and guys are taking a whiz behind the bushes. "Daddy, I saw that man's penis". I know of one plea of 25 to do 2 on those cases and the others have been plea bargained down to disorderly conduct or something else but the LAW REMAINS.
Same as Florida laws. Blame the Republican Legislatures for their draconian laws.

True.

The rest of your post, not so much.

Needlessly pursuing Martin when instructed by the police not to do so, causing the death of another because of this irresponsible behavior, clearly conforms with the definition of manslaughter.

911 operator testified at this trial "I never commanded or ordered George Zimmerman not to follow anyone as we do not do that because we could be held liable".
Police never ordered or commanded Zimmerman to do anything.
That is media myth.
Causing a death by irresponsible behavior IS NOT MURDER.
Maybe manslaughter but the prosecution still has to get past the 2 presumptions under Florida law of self defense: presumption that the defendant did have a fear that deadly force was necessary and the presumption that the alleged perpetrator intended to commit unlawful force or violence.
The facts are that Martin was on top of Zimmerman hitting him and that meets both of those presumptions.
Are we going to follow the law or not?

 

[Zona]

BTW, manslaughter, in Florida, carries the same penalty as does 2nd degree Murder.

 

[hortysir]

How many people have no problem living next to a "child killer"?

Regardless of the controversy, George Zimmerman killed what the law considers a "child". I suspect George will probably walk.

How many of his supporters would want him to actually live next door?

What if you have teenage children? Would you have any concern that he might kill one of them? If not, why not?

If he shot and killed Martin, what would keep him from doing the same to someone else's child?

If he did, would you still support him?

My neighbor has had two abortions

She seems alright

Damn.....you'd think she would have learned her lesson after the first one.

She's a cereal killer.

A while back I visited the town I went through HS in.
I ran across an old girlfriend and we got talking about what all our classmates are up to.
There was another girl, Angie, that hung around with us....she'd had 5 abortions in the 10 years since HS
:sick:

 

[Pheonixops]

Can we agree that zimmerman was pursuing Martin?

I dont know that we can. How do we define pursue? Is getting out of the car and following alittle pursuing? How far did he actually follow him? We just dont have enough evidence.

His 911 call isn't evidence? Remember the "we don't need you to do that" in the transcript? Pursue means to chase, what did zimmerman do when Martin ran? When Martin got off of the road, zimmerman got out of his truck to pursue, follow, chase, find Martin.

 

[Foxfyre]

Unless of course she liked it.

 

[Pheonixops]

Can you be more specific on "somehow they ran into each other"? Because that's kind of the crux here. If Zimmerman ran after him and caught up to him and initiated the fight that looks a whole lot worse for SD than Martin doubling back and confronting him.

Can we agree that zimmerman was pursuing Martin?

No, he was observing Martin.

LOL, he was observing him while he was chasing him.

 

[Sunshine]

Bernie The Attorney's summation will go down in the annals of prosecutorial summations as:

La La La.

Face facts. It sucked.

It was SO bad that if Sarie were honest even she'd admit that she is worried now.

Sarass will not take off her rose colored glasses long enough to do that!

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Unless of course she liked it.

While possible, it's difficult to imagine that anyone who is hoping for the conviction of George Zimmerman could actually be STUPID enough to "like" that clusterfuck of a summation by Bernie.

 

[member]

"...Zimmerman will probably be found guilty of..."

GOOD, i'll take it. He's "GUILTY" alright. Too bad it can't be for premeditated murder. CAUSE the dude couldn't wait to pull the trigger...............TRAYVON OR NOT.

...he wanted to become a cop ? His actions showed he wasn't qualified.

"Prosecution: grasping at straws"

HE'S disgusting. GZ had a gun. the kid, had no gun, no baseball bat, no knife, no numbchucks, no brass knuckles, not one weapon. he had a bag of "CANDY" in his pocket.

"GUILTY"​

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Mostly too busy doing other things like defending this sorry country (nothing will turn you off to the notion of marriage faster than a tour in the military and watching a brick solid old Sergeant go nuts over a Dear John Letter. And then finding out he has to give the bitch half his pension!)



1. Following this kid. Especially after being told not to.

2. Going out at night with a gun.

3. Not identifying himself as community watch.

4. Getting out of his truck

5. NOt waiting five minutes for the cops to show up. (Fucking assholes, they always get away!)

6. Generally being a wannabe thug.

Now tell me which one is a crime?

The part where all those things led to him putting a bullet into an unarmed child...

Was this the same child that was pounding Zimmerman's head into the ground?

 

[SantaFeWay]

The hilarious louses network is bullying Frank Taaffe

What a bunch of creeps. I am now blocking that channel for good

Dr. Drew is playing, what a tool

Watching it now with no idea why. It's in the background as I'm finishing up work. That channel is completely pro-prosecution. I don't understand it. I had felt they were on the side of "right". Maybe that was my mistake since past cases have shown the prosecution to be what I considered right, i.e. Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias most recently.

"Right" has no meaning to the producers or editors on this channel. Every commentator has the same POV. That's not normal. Maybe I'm jaded. I try to see these cases based on evidence. I don't live in FL. I don't have prejudice rampant in my life. I judge people on their actions, not on the color of their skin. That would be whacky. I honestly don't know anyone who isn't long past that.

In this case, IMO, the prosecution is wrong. And I have a problem with people who try to make a "statement" by siding with a specific group, even if the individual involved is not representative of that group in any way. These activists should rethink making TM a poster child for black teens. It just doesn't apply. He obviously assaulted GZ and thereby caused his own demise. It is sad, but true.

TM is not an example of black teens unless the black community wants to acknowledge that their children are violent individuals who are ready to fight for any reason. I don't want to believe that. He is an anomaly. A person who was primed to become involved in the unfortuate situation he found himself in.

Ok...the end...done...TMI..........See y'all in the AM.............

 

[earlycuyler]

Supposedly, according to T.M.'s phone text records he had a penchant for adult crime.

He was walking that path, but as much as we want to, we can't shoot them. The tragedy is that polititions and race baters have made this the mess it is. No matter what side of the issue your on justice will never be had.

 

[ScienceRocks]

There is no evidence to suggest that either initiated the confrontation. All we know is that at some point TM was on top of GZ bashing his head into the ground and the GZ shot TM. None of that suggests either initiated things. Nobody will ever know besides GZ what happened.

There is evidence. Zimmernan's own statement. If you want to say it isn't reliable you will need to provide counter evidence. And tehre is none.
Tracy Martin was put on the stand as Trayvon's father. Everyone assumes he is Trayvon's father. But no one has produced a DNA test that proves that. Capiche?

Zimmerman is known liar, he lied at his bond hearing about his finances. He cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

As to your second point, that is a bunch of nonsense. Was a DNA test provided to prove Gladys Zimmerman and Jose Meza are George's mother and uncle?

So what you cock sucker. The evidence supports Zimmermans case at every turn....Who cares if he lied on somethings....It isn't like fat whale bitch didn't.

IT IS THE STATES JOB to put up the case to hang him. FUCK YOU as you're the liar!

 

[Londoner]

Now tell me which one is a crime?

To know if a crime was committed, we would need to know who instigated the fight, and whether or not Zimmerman acted in self-defense.

It is the prosecution's burden to prove these things beyond reasonable doubt.

I don't think the prosecution has met this burden.

I do believe that Zimmerman wrongfully profiled this child as a criminal (an asshole and a punk) - and these initial assumptions set in motion a chain of events that resulted in the slaughter of the child. We know that he pursued the child (and apparently stopped). I suspect when the child realized he was being pursued, he decided to take action. This resulted in a fight, and the child was shot dead.

HOWEVER, because the state lacks evidence about many crucial details, Zimmerman must be acquitted, and he will be acquitted.

Tragically, if a 29 year old black Trayvon, wearing a hoodie, shot a white child who was walking home with a pack of skittles in his pocket, that 29 year old Trayvon would get life in prison or the death penalty.

But that doesn't change the fact that the state has not proved its case against Zimmerman beyond a reasonable doubt. People get away with terrible crimes all the time because there is not sufficient evidence. We can only hope that karma catches up with this guy.

[FYI: when a rightwing screenwriter submits this story for a movie, I'm betting he will take some narrative licenses. For instance, he will probably omit the fact that Trayvon was on the phone talking to a girl and that he was focused on getting home for the All Star game. They will claim that Trayvon was not walking home, but he was looking to steal something. They will claim Trayvon stole those skittles. Why? Because they need him to be a punk - otherwise they would have to admit the unthinkable - that an innocent child was slaughtered]

"These fucking assholes always get away."

Not this time George. Not this time.

 

[Sunshine]

This was posted elsewhere--Is it true? I keep hearing because a firearm was used additional mandatory minimums attach.

'Manslaughter is exempt from 10-20-life firearm statutes.....so no minimum mandatory. Technically, he could be found guilty and sentenced to time served.'

eta: I believe this individual is misinformed.
George Zimmerman?s 10-20-Life Problem | blawg

<Manslaughter>

Manslaughter is classified as a Second Degree Felony. Under Florida’s sentencing guidelines, and absent mitigating circumstances, a judge is required to impose a minimum sentence of 9¼ years in prison and can impose any additional combination of the following penalties:
•Up to 15 years in prison.
•Up to 15 years of probation.
•Up to $10,000 in fines


shrug--the headline on Drudge said 30 years. I suppose he/it checked.


Glad to have learned that it is unique to FL to allow the prosecution a rebuttal. In the dark recesses of my mind I thought in a criminal trial the defense had the last word.

and there is no limit to how long a rebuttal may be given.

Going on too long can diminish the impact--that was agreed.

They were given a time limit for the prosecution and defense closing arguments. The Prosecution saved 25 minutes to rebut the Defense's closing argument in the morning. The Defense cannot rebut the rebuttal but I hope they don't bore the jury to tears like the Prosecution almost certainly did to day. They needs to make the salient points in a clear, concise, understandable manner, don't use all the time they are allotted, and don't throw anything in that will give the Prosecution a lot of ammo to rebut.

I plan on watching it. I must confess, I find O'Mara captivating. I think the ladies of the jury likely do as well. I said early on the defense will triple dazzle the jury and if he gives the closing for the defense, he will. It West gives it, that would be a big mistake. Just my not so humble opinion.