Martin autopsy / Zimmerman medical report

[cjolley]

You may have not gotten my point because there was a typo in it

I meant to type "Or that Stand Your Ground is incompatible with a right to self defense."

Does that make more sense?

It's because SYG creates a feedback loop in the doctrine of self defense if you believe Dershowitz's logic.


PS I bet that this is the first time in his life that Doc has ever referred to Dershowitz by the respectful "As the Prof. pointed out..."

[Umfriend]

Or that Stand Your Ground is incomparable with a right to self defense.
Once you stand your ground you become the aggressor and the other persons self defense rights gain primacy.

Personally, I don't think it works like that. It's the over all event that defines causes.
That's why the original police report blames Zimmerman because he continued to follow Martin after being told to break off.

Not sure I understand your point. If the overal event defines causes AND you want to be sure you get off the hook then if you feel/are threatened you'd better shoot to kill and rely on SYG. Otherwise you must re-asess constantly whether you are the hunter or the prey and apparantly that is legally risky (and physically as well as M can no longer attest to).

[cjolley]

Or that Stand Your Ground is incompatible with a right to self defense.
Once you stand your ground you become the aggressor and the other persons self defense rights gain primacy.

Personally, I don't think it works like that. It's the over all event that defines causes.
That's why the original police report blames Zimmerman because he continued to follow Martin after being told to break off.

[Umfriend]

All the more reason to shoot right away, I guess. Using your fists just means you need to back-off once you're on top which may yield the initiative to the perp giving him time to recover and pull a knife or gun.

[Dr Mordrid]

As the Prof. pointed out both have defense rights but the primary right can shift according to who is the aggressor at the moment when one is in danger of serious injury or death.

Zimmerman was at that point the defender, being at high risk of a closed head injury, regardless of what happened previously - the "following" and the fight being two related, but separate, incidents separated by Zimmerman going back towards his vehicle. After that the police admit they do not know what happened other than the eyewitness account.

So far the evidence does not contradict Zimmerman's story; the injuries to Zimmerman are now well documented, and Martin's fist shows evidenceof aggression (wounds on his knuckle(s). The gunshot showed stippling, powder burns, indicating a very close discharge. Etc, etc, etc.

[cjolley]

Doc, you seem absolutely unable to see the position that Martin was in.
Did he have any rights at all?
He felt Zimmerman was a threat to life and limb.
Is it therefore OK if he shoots Zimmerman, but not OK if he knocks him out?

I'm really asking, because your position vis-a-vis Martin's self defense rights really baffles me.

[Dr Mordrid]

As Prof. Dershowitz said, at the point where Martin continues to pummel someone already in a dominated position he is then the attacker and Zimmerman's self defense rights supersede his. He could have easily said "sorry man, be cool" and quit, but no. Bad move.

[Brian Ellis]

Yep, that was what I was thinking as well. May well turn out that given the laws both are "innocent".

Hardly consolation for the family of the kid!

[Umfriend]

Yep, that was what I was thinking as well. May well turn out that given the laws both are "innocent".

[cjolley]

Martin was exercising his stand your ground rights.
He had no obligation to remain passive in the face of Zimmerman's actions.

And citizens arrest has nothing to do with any of this.
Martin was doing nothing illegal or even suspicious except in Zimmerman's imagination.

[Dr Mordrid]

Carrying the gun is legal. Period.

Following is annoying, and may or may not be legal, but it's key that he hasn't been charged with stalking so there is likely no evidence to support it.

Citizens arrests are legal in 49 of 50 states, so you don't necessarily have to be a cop to act like one. This may well include checking out a suspicious person/event. Made a few myself.

And, as Prof. Dershowitz said, even if Zimmerman can't claim SYG he still retains the standard self defense claim that would allow him to counterattack if someone had him grounded and was pummeling his head.

[KRSESQ]

Nahh. Zimmerman only chased down Martin with a gun, without identifying himself as a cop. That's not the least bit provoking.

[Dr Mordrid]

Alan Dershowitz is a professor at Harvard Law School. At the age of 28 he became the youngest full professor of law in Harvard's history, and he has held the Felix Frankfurter Professorship since 1993. He is also a bigtime political liberal, not a conservative.

http://www.nydailyne...ticle-1.1080161

New evidence suggests Trayvon Martin's killer acted in self-defense

By Alan Dershowitz

A medical report by George Zimmerman’s doctor has disclosed that Zimmerman had a fractured nose, two black eyes, two lacerations on the back of his head and a back injury on the day after the fatal shooting. If this evidence turns out to be valid, the prosecutor will have no choice but to drop the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman — if she wants to act ethically, lawfully and professionally.

There is, of course, no assurance that the special prosecutor handling the case, State Attorney Angela Corey, will do the right thing. Because until now, her actions have been anything but ethical, lawful and professional.

She was aware when she submitted an affidavit that it did not contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She deliberately withheld evidence that supported Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. The New York Times has reported that the police had “a full face picture” of Zimmerman, before paramedics treated him, that showed “a bloodied nose.” The prosecutor also had photographic evidence of bruises to the back of his head.

But none of this was included in any affidavit.

Now there is much more extensive medical evidence that would tend to support Zimmerman’s version of events. This version, if true, would establish self-defense even if Zimmerman had improperly followed, harassed and provoked Martin.

A defendant, under Florida law, loses his “stand your ground” defense if he provoked the encounter — but he retains traditional self-defense if he reasonably believed his life was in danger and his only recourse was to employ deadly force.

Thus, if Zimmerman verbally provoked Martin, but Martin then got on top of Zimmerman and banged his head into the ground, broke his nose, bloodied his eyes and persisted in attacking Zimmerman — and if Zimmerman couldn’t protect himself from further attack except by shooting Martin — he would have the right to do that. (The prosecution has already admitted that it has no evidence that Zimmerman started the actual fight.)

This is a fact-specific case, in which much turns on what the jury believes beyond a reasonable doubt. It must resolve all such doubts in favor of the defendant, because our system of justice insists that it is better for 10 guilty defendants to go free than for even one innocent to be wrongfully convicted.

You wouldn’t know that from listening to Corey, who announced that her jobs was “to do justice for Trayvon Martin” — not for George Zimmerman.

As many see it, her additional job is to prevent riots of the sort that followed the acquittal of the policemen who beat Rodney King.

Indeed, Mansfield Frazier, a columnist for the Daily Beast, has suggested that it is the responsibility of the legal system to “avert a large scale racial calamity.” He has urged Zimmerman’s defense lawyer to become a “savior” by brokering a deal to plead his client guilty to a crime that “has him back on the streets within this decade.”

But it is not the role of a defense lawyer to save the world or the country. His job — his only job — is to get the best result for his client, by all legal and ethical means.

Listen to the way a famous British barrister put it in 1820:

“An advocate, by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none other . . . Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on reckless of the consequences, if his fate it should unhappily be, to involve his country in confusion for his client’s protection.”

The prosecutor’s job is far broader: to do justice to the defendant as well as the alleged victim. As the Supreme Court has said: “The government wins . . . when justice is done.”

Zimmerman’s lawyer is doing his job. It’s about time for the prosecutor to start doing hers.

[cjolley]

Judging by the last couple of cases in Florida Zimmerman is going to have trouble making a claim of self defense, much less SYG.

[KRSESQ]

False premise for both.

In most all SYG laws the fundamental idea is you have no duty to retreat, which often you cannot as when some idiot is on your chest pummeling your face.

This is circular reasoning, since Martin wouldn't have been sitting on top of Zimmerman if Zimmerman hadn't pressed his pursuit against police advice.

This kid ...was seen scurrying around behind buildings including a closed rec building.

Fact 1: Martin was fully within his rights as an American to be where he was.

Fact 2: Martin was going about his lawful private business.

Fact 3: Martin was fully aware that an unknown individual in a car was stalking him (yes, the word stalking applies in this case). Any evasive behavior he engaged in would be consistant with someone trying to retreat from a possible confrontation. Zimmerman brought the confrontation to Martin when he got out of his car and continued his pursuit on foot. Why shouldn't an UNARMED Martin have the right to stand his ground against an ARMED pursuer of UNKNOWN INTENT?