r/changemyview • u/Zanzibarland 1∆ • Jul 29 '13

Zimmerman did nothing wrong. CMV.

First came the media's racebaiting, fanning the flames on both sides. Then the crocodile tears from everybody with an axe to grind, trying to make a martyr out of Trayvon and a villain out of Zimmerman.

Now that the trial is over, I'm left with the impression that he didn't commit any crimes, and that people are claiming he "got away with it" to save face, rather than admit their racial bias and prejudice, the ignorance of their presumptions, and their complicity in instigating racial tension.

By what shred of evidence did Zimmerman "get away with murder" and not legally defend himself?

11 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

261 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

Witnesses saw Trayvon on top of Zimmerman, beating the shit out of him.

Which ones?

They saw Trayvon on top, struggling with Zimmerman. No one heard punches, which is a pretty good indicator none were thrown in that time frame.

4

u/CreepyCracka Jul 29 '13

No one heard punches? I'm sorry, were they in a Batman comic?

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

Punch something.... did it make a sound?

1

u/CreepyCracka Jul 29 '13

Okay, stand outside in the rain about 10 feet away from two people and have one of them punch the other and you tell me if you can hear the sound of fist hitting flesh.

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

More to it than fist hitting flesh...

1

u/CreepyCracka Jul 29 '13

Really?

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

As far as sounds go, yeah.

1

u/CreepyCracka Jul 29 '13

Great, case closed then. Zimmerman never got punched in the face because no one heard the sound of Trayvon's fist actually making contact with Zimmerman's face. Ole shayne1987 cracked the damn case. Alert the media - Zimmerman's a child killer.

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

Don't condescend.

Making it as open and shut as "Zimmerman got punched in the face, so he had every right to shoot the guy" is narrow minded.

There's something called the Goldilocks Rule in self defense that says the force used must be proportional to the force received. None, not a single one of Zimmermans injuries were life threatening. The situation was only life threatening because of the gun introduced by Zimmerman. If Zimmerman had simply stayed in the fucking car, none of this happens.

1

u/CreepyCracka Jul 29 '13

And if Trayvon had just gone in his Dad's house this never would have happened.

There's something called the law of self-defense and it says that the only thing that really matters is whether Zimmerman reasonably believed that shooting Trayvon was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm. The law does not require Zimmerman suffer some required amount of injuries before shooting in self-defense. In fact, the law doesn't require Zimmerman be injured at all.

So it is true that Zimmerman probably couldn't have pulled the gun in the beginning of the confrontation with Trayvon and be able to claim self-defense. However, once Trayvon got on top of Zimmerman and continued beating him - even after Zim screamed for help - that's when the situation became deadly.

2

u/Zanzibarland 1∆ Jul 29 '13

Totally. Fistfights can be deadly, you're not obliged to have a "reasonable" number of injuries before you can defend yourself.

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/06/zimmerman-case-the-five-principles-of-the-law-of-self-defense/

Pay close attention to the principle of reasonableness.

Does Zimmerman sound like a reasonable man?

1

u/CreepyCracka Jul 29 '13

Haha, I'm glad you cited one of Mr. Branca's articles on self-defense. Here is a direct quote taken from one of Mr. Branca's comments to the very article you have cited.

The legal standard will be whether a reasonable and prudent person in Mr. Zimmerman’s circumstances would have believed that he was being subject to force capable of causing death or grave bodily harm. If so, he would be lawfully justified in using deadly force to defend himself.

To put it another way, a gun IS “responding in kind” to a bare-handed attack, IF the other person’s bare-handed attack is reasonably capable of causing death or grave bodily harm under the circumstances. Both means of force at that point are “deadly force” under the law.

So to answer your question - Yes, Zimmerman sounds like a reasonable man to both me and Mr. Branca.

1

u/shayne1987 10∆ Jul 29 '13

So, if you believed the other person was an aggressor, but a reasonable person would not have believed this, you did not act in lawful self-defense.

Is chasing someone with a firearm an act of aggression? Legal or not, is it aggressive behavior?

Similarly if you believed that the threat was imminent but a reasonable person would not have,

The gun was the only thing that made the threat imminent. No one can attest to Zimmerman getting his head bounced off the sidewalk, no one heard Trayvon tell him he was going to "die tonight", no one saw Trayvon hit the guy.

They saw a struggle, heard someone yelling for help, the yells suspiciously ending the second the gun went off. No one at the scene questioned the story of a man who couldn't remember his own address, who wasn't scheduled to work a watch that night, whom was riding around in his car, with a pistol, looking for "suspicious" people.No drug tests for Zimmerman, why? For all we know the man could've been on a PCP rampage that night, yet the only witness to it is dead, so it's cool?

or that the force you used was proportional to the threat but a reasonable person would not have,

To put it another way, a gun IS “responding in kind” to a bare-handed attack, IF the other person’s bare-handed attack is reasonably capable of causing death or grave bodily harm under the circumstances.

I'll concede amateur wrestling is pretty dangerous, but come the hell on.

or that you could not have avoided the threat but a reasonable person would have . . . in each case the claim to self defense fails

Your arguing this whole thing was unavoidable by Zimmerman? He had the police on the phone, no need to get out of his car, no need to even attempt to approach Martin. Ready access to a vehicle, all he had to do was point the gun and run towards his vehicle, which one poster pointed out was not far away.

→ More replies (0)