Medical examiner claims Trayvon case lost on purpose

[rhoenix]

Dr. Shiping Bao, the Volusia County medical examiner who handled teenager Trayvon Martin’s body after he was shot by George Zimmerman in February of 2012, claims that the prosecution team in the case were biased against the African-American teen and intentionally lost. Furthermore, Bao said that his attorney is poised to sue the state of Florida for $100 million, according to WFTV Channel 9.

Bao’s attorney told WFTV that the medical examiner was wrongfully terminated last week by the county. According to the former assistant coroner, his autopsy results showed that it was impossible for Martin to have been on top of George Zimmerman when the gunman pulled the trigger.

The medical examiner’s office, state attorney’s office and Sanford Police were all biased against the teenager, said Bao’s attorney Willie Gary to Channel 9. “He says their general attitude was that he got what he deserved.”

Gary maintained that Bao was scapegoated and wrongly fired from the medical examiner’s office because of his disagreements with how the investigation was conducted.

“He was in essence told to zip his lips. ‘Shut up. Don’t say those things,’” Gary said.

Zimmerman’s defense attorney Mark O’Mara resigned on Tuesday rather than represent the former neighborhood watch captain in any case stemming from an possibly violent confrontation which took place on Monday between Zimmerman, his wife Shellie and members of her family.

When asked by reporters what his former client should do differently with his life going forward, O’Mara replied loudly, “Pay me!” before leaving the room.

Given what was seen already, that the police basically put off doing anything until there was a large public outcry over Trayvon Martin's death, this isn't really that surprising. Disgusting, yes, but not all that much of a surprise.

[SirNitram]

Duh. No Batson hearing in a mono-gender jury? No Batson hearing in a jury with all but one white, and the non-white was hispanic?

[General Havoc]

Right, the prosecution of a nationally televised murder case, one that was feared might cause riots if it went the way it did, one the President of the United States and the US Justice Department weighed in on, intentionally threw the case for no reason other than the fact that they were racists.

The laws of the state of Florida being written to permit an extremely broad interpretation of the right of self-defense had nothing to do with it. The lack of eyewitnesses to what actually happened had nothing to do with it. The botched coroner's report that this guy clearly would never make up accusations to deflect blame about had nothing to do with it, it was a vast racist cover-up. Why? Because this coroner says so of course! Bring on the witch hunters, no other reason could possibly exist!

To say that I regard this claim with extreme skepticism is to put it mildly.

[rhoenix]

Right, the prosecution of a nationally televised murder case, one that was feared might cause riots if it went the way it did, one the President of the United States and the US Justice Department weighed in on, intentionally threw the case for no reason other than the fact that they were racists.

The laws of the state of Florida being written to permit an extremely broad interpretation of the right of self-defense had nothing to do with it. The lack of eyewitnesses to what actually happened had nothing to do with it. The botched coroner's report that this guy clearly would never make up accusations to deflect blame about had nothing to do with it, it was a vast racist cover-up. Why? Because this coroner says so of course! Bring on the witch hunters, no other reason could possibly exist!

To say that I regard this claim with extreme skepticism is to put it mildly.

Of course, Havoc. In a state in which a black man was assaulted by a police officer recently for "walking on the wrong side of the road," there is no institutional racism at work.

The medical examiner was prevented from giving the testimony that there was no way Trayvon could have been on top in that fight. That was the point of the article above.

Skepticism is good, but you also must realize that there is institutional racism at work, and it shows in cases like these. Highlighting them to "raise awareness" encourages questions to be asked, which is what must be done for shit like this to stop festering quietly.

[Hotfoot]

I'm sort of with Havoc on this one. They had federal attention from the media and the alphabets, if they tanked this one, they are FUCKED because it was going to get out, and as bad as the riots could have been on a serious miscarriage of justice, they could be worse if it was fucked like this guy is suggesting, because it confirms every crazy conspiracy theorist's fears and makes them real. If this is true, then shit is going to get seriously real on a lot of different levels. Heads rolling doesn't even begin to cover it.

[General Havoc]

It's very easy, on the basis of no evidence, to claim "racism", an unprovable allegation that requires no evidence. And the self-serving word of a medical examiner does not constitute such evidence.

Florida is a state of nineteen million people, of which a proportion are going to be racists. The fact that a racist incident happened in the state of Florida does not condemn every damn thing that happened within it, especially, as I said before, on the basis of no evidence. If I had been on the Treyvon Martin case's jury, I would also have found the bastard Not Guilty within the statutes of the law. Am I a racist?

Institutional racism is a thing, but that does not mean people get to gesticulate wildly in its direction every time a decision happens they don't like. Absent any evidence beyond someone's attempt to cover their ass, and with a host of other, completely plausible explanations for what happened, including the actual statutes that the man was tried under, I find this claim ludicrous. And if you're going to "raise awareness" about an issue like this, then be prepared for people to debate the conclusion. You want people to ask questions? Here's one: Which of these is more relevant to the Treyvon Martin case? The fact that in Florida it is legal to shoot and kill a man whom you think may pose you a threat, irrespective of whether you were right or not? Or an unproven, alleged conspiracy of dozens upon dozens of secret racists out to sabotage their own careers for no gain?

[rhoenix]

I'm sort of with Havoc on this one. They had federal attention from the media and the alphabets, if they tanked this one, they are FUCKED because it was going to get out, and as bad as the riots could have been on a serious miscarriage of justice, they could be worse if it was fucked like this guy is suggesting, because it confirms every crazy conspiracy theorist's fears and makes them real. If this is true, then shit is going to get seriously real on a lot of different levels. Heads rolling doesn't even begin to cover it.

I know we'd like to think so, because pretty much all of us here agree that shit like this is disgusting.

The problem is that shit like this is not new. It's not suddenly appearing now, out of nowhere - it's been going on for a long, long time, and examples of it are just being reported more now. It's easy for it to occur and persist in occurring through a combination of a "not my problem" attitude from people that the attitude doesn't directly affect (i.e. white people), especially when attention for it is downplayed because those reporting such things in the past were at least partially sympathetic to the idea that non-white people are inherently dangerous. "Keeping the streets safe," and other such bullshit. Those this policy affects tend to have no sympathetic ears in the media at large in the past, hearing things like "they brought it on themselves," and such.

I'll bring up the example of the Steubenville rape case recently as an example of what I mean by a cultural attitude shift brought about by outside pressure. The boys who did such deeds were in the wrong, but it was covered over and made okay because "it's normal," and "they're just being boys." Excuses were made for their behavior in order to avoid having to take an introspective look at the circumstances required to bring about such an outcome, and this would not have changed at all if the case did not get national media attention. Once it did, public outrage essentially forced the authorities to be seen as doing something about it properly. Begrudgingly, to be sure, but they did so.

The same thing is at work here. There was no reason for this attitude to be challenged in the past, because things like this did not get national media attention in the past - we can thank the Internet for that, since I certainly do. The Internet has done more to show that people are more alike than they used to think than any other single invention in human history.

You'll notice that with the examples of reporting such as this, and our attitudes here, that the common cultural attitude toward things like this is changing, and for the better. It's being reported and seen for the inane disgusting excuse for law that it is. It must be seen as disgusting and in need of change for it to do so - obviously those in charge in Florida need outside pressure to do so, since they're not doing so themselves.

[rhoenix]

Florida is a state of nineteen million people, of which a proportion are going to be racists. The fact that a racist incident happened in the state of Florida does not condemn every damn thing that happened within it, especially, as I said before, on the basis of no evidence. If I had been on the Treyvon Martin case's jury, I would also have found the bastard Not Guilty within the statutes of the law. Am I a racist?

So let me get this straight - the medical examiner's professional opinion, one that would have given evidence in this case, was prevented from giving his testimony, and has since filed a lawsuit regarding this issue. And you, on the basis of "no evidence", would have issued a Not Guilty verdict about Zimmerman?

Now I really want to hear your reasoning for you finding him not guilty.

And if you're going to "raise awareness" about an issue like this, then be prepared for people to debate the conclusion. You want people to ask questions? Here's one: Which of these is more relevant to the Treyvon Martin case? The fact that in Florida it is legal to shoot and kill a man whom you think may pose you a threat, irrespective of whether you were right or not? Or an unproven, alleged conspiracy of dozens upon dozens of secret racists out to sabotage their own careers for no gain?

You're not at all seeing how the two are complementary, rather than separate options in this case?

[Hotfoot]

The difference here is that in Steubenville, the authorities didn't go out of their way to tank the case, and it got less attention than the Trayvon Martin case did, and there was, frankly, less riding on it. There weren't going to be riots if the Steubenville Rapists went free because of obvious bullshit.

And look at what happened in Steubenville. They were forced to get a conviction basically no matter what. It's better to take shit for giving just two of the boys a light sentence than to get nothing, so they stacked their shit as high as they could to get a result no matter what. They did everything they could to force those two shits into a plea bargain, but they were too stupid to take it. In the Martin case, they didn't have that strong a case, I doubt the ME's report would prove beyond a reasonable doubt the events of that night. Have you ever seen an autopsy report, much less tried to look at a body to find out what happened to it? I have, and it's not that simple. You can put together some things, but you can't make deductive leaps easily without additional evidence, which, without access to the other evidence, will be difficult to prove. Medical Examiners, along with the rest of the lab, do not usually have that sort of information, despite what CSI likes to pretend. Present that stuff in front of a jury, and under cross you know what happens?

"So is it possible that these injuries could have happened in any other way than the scenario you provided? Say <hypothetical>?"
"It's not likely"
"But is it possible?"
"Yes, but according to my-"
"So you admit that you cannot prove definitively that those wounds happened the way you stated, or another way? Thank you, no further questions."

There's an old adage that fits quite well here. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. There's more to the story here, and I don't think it's what the ME is saying it is, or rather what the media is hyping it up to be.

Look, when things get to the national scale, they want to AVOID looking like racist shitbirds, even if they are. Engaging in blatantly stupid behavior, like deliberately tanking a major case by being a racist shit? That does not achieve the desired objective. It's one thing if the case was mismanaged, but for there to be an active conspiracy to sink it? That will result in something very serious. I'm going to wait until this guy's lawsuit kicks off and see what he brings to the table. It's entirely possible he's bullshitting to get a payoff after getting fired.

[General Havoc]

So let me get this straight - the medical examiner's professional opinion, one that would have given evidence in this case, was prevented from giving his testimony, and has since filed a lawsuit regarding this issue. And you, on the basis of "no evidence", would have issued a Not Guilty verdict about Zimmerman?

Now I really want to hear your reasoning for you finding him not guilty

Very simple. The statutes of the Laws of the State of Florida are such that what he did was not shown to be a crime beyond reasonable doubt. Nobody saw what actually happened between Martin and Zimmerman. The law of Florida states that if you reasonably believe that you are in fear of your life, you have the right to kill in self defense, even if you turn out to have been wrong. Based on these things, there is no way to establish beyond reasonable doubt that what Zimmerman did was a violation of Florida state law, not with the evidence presented, and not with a medical examiner's report that at best was going to establish that it was "unclear" what the circumstances of Zimmerman and Treyvon were when he was shot.

If you think that the applicable law here is bullshit, and I also think this, then the problem is the law itself. Not imaginary racists.

You're not at all seeing how the two are complementary, rather than separate options in this case?

No I am not, and here is the reason why. Raising the issue of a vast racist conspiracy to tank a national case, on no evidence besides the say-so of a man trying to deflect blame off himself, one that would, by necessity, involve dozens of conspirators, is not only unsupportable, it actively deflects attention away from the real reason that Zimmerman got away with killing Treyvon Martin. Florida state law is written such that I could go there and murder someone and basically claim self defense regardless of circumstances, even if the victim had no weapon or was a minor. This law is outrageous, and consequently, going on a witch hunt for racists when the real reason that this happened is still on the books is worse than merely useless, it's outright damaging to the efforts to ensure that something like this does not happen again.

I get the outrage over the Treyvon Martin case, but let's not just pillory a bunch of people as racists on no evidence because it will make us all feel better. I'll remind you, the same exact argument (in reverse) was made by outraged white conservatives in the aftermath of the OJ Simpson trial, declaring that the entire prosecution team was involved in a conspiracy involving the Hollywood Liberal Media Elite and White Guilt to throw the case because they didn't want to convict a black man of killing white people. That argument, I'm sure you'll agree, was self-evidently stupid, despite the fact that civil authorities and law enforcement agents, outraged at the fact that the prosecution had lost, lent their credibility to the allegation. And I do not see a reason why, in the absence of evidence beyond this one guy's declaration, I should treat this allegation with any less skepticism than I treated that one.

I am the most hardcore pro-self-defense rights bastard you are likely to encounter. I believe in the Castle Doctrine for god's sake. And I am sitting here telling you that the problem is not teams of racists throwing cases, the problem is a law written to allow people to kill minorities and get away with it. If you want to talk about institutional racism, look no further than this law, a law that goes far beyond what even I, a self-defense evangelist, would dare contemplate. A law that places the burden of proof on the victims of would-be fatal attack to show that it was not justified. A law that presumes that you have the right to treat anyone you encounter as a threat to life and limb regardless of circumstance. A law that was flat-out written (or so I believe) to allow white people afraid of scary minorities in their neighborhoods to kill them and get away with it. That Zimmerman himself was not white is ultimately incidental. Zimmerman himself is ultimately incidental. The law is the issue here, and until it is changed, no hunt for racists will do a damn thing to impede more Treyvon Martins from being killed.

[rhoenix]

My argument in this case is that institutional racism is at work behind these laws that allow such broad interpretation, when the law is not applied equally to all people.

I most certainly grant that cries of "*ism is at work here" get overblown and even re-interpreted in that lens in cases where they are not, but I contend that the opposite is at work here, given the other cases in Florida recently where the law has been applied unequally to black people.

And honestly, the instant I read what Zimmerman's height and build are, compared to Martin's, there was quite simply no way I could possibly imagine Martin ninja-mastering his way to victory here. Zimmerman followed Martin when he was specifically told not to by the police. Zimmerman then chose to confront Martin, again against the advice he was told by the police. A short time later, a skinny black kid with an iced tea had been killed by a much larger adult man with a gun, who purportedly feared for his life enough to use said gun on Martin. That's utterly absurd to me, and there are simply no circumstances in which I could possibly see this as reasonable.

Please keep in mind that I'm not accusing the entire population of Florida of being racist assholes, or even a majority of the police in Florida. I'm arguing that a combination of lackadaisical attitudes when it comes to applying the law to people of different ethnicities, a very broadly-interpreted law that allows for very final circumstances to occur based on the standards of an armed witness, and an attitude from others thinking "no, that couldn't be true" has allowed this to persist.

[rhoenix]

My apologies - I missed this post earlier.

The difference here is that in Steubenville, the authorities didn't go out of their way to tank the case, and it got less attention than the Trayvon Martin case did, and there was, frankly, less riding on it. There weren't going to be riots if the Steubenville Rapists went free because of obvious bullshit.

I can grant that.

And look at what happened in Steubenville. They were forced to get a conviction basically no matter what. It's better to take shit for giving just two of the boys a light sentence than to get nothing, so they stacked their shit as high as they could to get a result no matter what. They did everything they could to force those two shits into a plea bargain, but they were too stupid to take it. In the Martin case, they didn't have that strong a case, I doubt the ME's report would prove beyond a reasonable doubt the events of that night. Have you ever seen an autopsy report, much less tried to look at a body to find out what happened to it? I have, and it's not that simple. You can put together some things, but you can't make deductive leaps easily without additional evidence, which, without access to the other evidence, will be difficult to prove. Medical Examiners, along with the rest of the lab, do not usually have that sort of information, despite what CSI likes to pretend. Present that stuff in front of a jury, and under cross you know what happens?

"So is it possible that these injuries could have happened in any other way than the scenario you provided? Say <hypothetical>?"
"It's not likely"
"But is it possible?"
"Yes, but according to my-"
"So you admit that you cannot prove definitively that those wounds happened the way you stated, or another way? Thank you, no further questions."

There's an old adage that fits quite well here. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. There's more to the story here, and I don't think it's what the ME is saying it is, or rather what the media is hyping it up to be.

That's certainly true, as it's found to be true far more often than not. Usually such things are the result of not being mindful, rather than due to direct and deliberate cruelty.

And you're right, in that the medical examiner can only show what was found to be true, and what possible causes for it were. However, the examiner did find that there was no way that Martin could have been on top in the conflict, due to the injuries sustained. That part nags at me.

Look, when things get to the national scale, they want to AVOID looking like racist shitbirds, even if they are. Engaging in blatantly stupid behavior, like deliberately tanking a major case by being a racist shit? That does not achieve the desired objective. It's one thing if the case was mismanaged, but for there to be an active conspiracy to sink it? That will result in something very serious. I'm going to wait until this guy's lawsuit kicks off and see what he brings to the table. It's entirely possible he's bullshitting to get a payoff after getting fired.

I grant as well that it's possible, and that this issue strikes my sense of injustice. I do want to see what the results of the suit are, and see what comes of it. Until then, all we have is conjecture about it.

[Hotfoot]

The thing is, let's say Martin wasn't on top when he was shot. That presents only a slightly different sequence of events, the information would have been available to the defense at trial, they would have had a version of events to make it still seem like self defense. That information alone is not a game-changer here. It may have been stupid to exclude it, but it wouldn't have damned Zimmerman.

[General Havoc]

It is certainly true that the law is not applied equally to all people, but the whole point of the law is to try, as best we as humans can, to produce a standard of impartiality whereby people can be judged. If there is a failure in this, then the correct response is to perfect the law, not arbitrarily decide that the law is racist and thus does not apply. More black people than white, by every comparison you could possibly make, are thrown in jail. Once in jail, they spend more time in harder prisons for the same crimes as whites. More of them are thrown in jail unjustly, and more of them receive poor representation, allowing these things to occur. That does not mean that if a black man shoots me, he should get away with it because "the law is racist". Imperfections in both the law and the application of it are a reflection of those of society as a whole, yourself and myself included. What you can do is try to perfect the law. And that means that laws such as the one Zimmerman was tried under must be revised or removed. This is not something that can be accomplished by going on a hunt for racists that we have no reason to think exist. In fact I think it's something that will be hindered by deflection attention away from the real problem and onto some panacea target that in all likelihood, doesn't even exist.

It's very easy to say that the law is applied unequally. What is not easy is to look at why it is applied unequally. Because the answer to that is not imaginary conspiracies of racists out to keep the black man down, any more than it's shiftless black thugs who don't want to work. The answer to it is immensely complicated, and treads upon highly uncomfortable truths that all of us, black and white alike, do not want to see tread upon. Truths you don't want to hear. Truths I probably don't want to hear either. It's easier to just point the finger at some pack of racists, real or imagined, and say that they are the problem. That's why the "race card" gets played so often, by everyone, of every color. Not that it isn't justified at times, but often it clouds over the actual reason why things happen in favor of finding some convenient scapegoat, whether real or not.

Whether he is a racist or not, and I have seen no evidence to indicate that he is, the prosecutor in the Treyvon Martin case did not write that Florida Law that enabled Zimmerman to get away with killing Martin. And the politician who did write it, no doubt did so because his constituency wanted him to. They wanted him to because they had fears of suffering violence, which may have been racially motivated and may not have and may have been partly one and partly the other and partly some third thing I haven't even thought of. And they had those fears because of other reasons, relating to the media and to popular culture and to generation and to history and to sociology in general, and on and on and on. That is the level of complexity that we are dealing with. And "raising awareness" about institutional racism is not going to do much if our message ignores all of the above in favor of a simplistic message about how we are virtuous and there are packs of secret racists about that are not. Even when institutions are racist, that's just not how the world works.

[rhoenix]

The thing is, let's say Martin wasn't on top when he was shot. That presents only a slightly different sequence of events, the information would have been available to the defense at trial, they would have had a version of events to make it still seem like self defense. That information alone is not a game-changer here. It may have been stupid to exclude it, but it wouldn't have damned Zimmerman.

By itself, that information would not have damned Zimmerman, you're right there - but I do contend it would have put a new light on the events of that night during the trial.

I'm certainly no lawyer or student of law, but I would say that if the victim of the event was shown to not be the aggressor in the conflict through injuries sustained, that right there would have placed an appreciable amount of doubt on Zimmerman's take of the events.

Would it have single-handedly changed the outcome of the trial? I don't know.

However, the fact that the medical examiner was barred from testifying makes me suspicious.

[rhoenix]

Whether he is a racist or not, and I have seen no evidence to indicate that he is, the prosecutor in the Treyvon Martin case did not write that Florida Law that enabled Zimmerman to get away with killing Martin. And the politician who did write it, no doubt did so because his constituency wanted him to. They wanted him to because they had fears of suffering violence, which may have been racially motivated and may not have and may have been partly one and partly the other and partly some third thing I haven't even thought of. And they had those fears because of other reasons, relating to the media and to popular culture and to generation and to history and to sociology in general, and on and on and on. That is the level of complexity that we are dealing with.

I think this is a salient point. You're quite right in saying that this issue is not cut and dried, where one can point to a person or people and go "YEP THEM RIGHT THAR'S THE RACIST, HAW" and then move on.

Issues of this sort, as you rightly pointed out, persist, occur, and fester due to a combination of factors, such as the above. The solution, indeed, is to re-examine the laws at work in an effort to make things better. As you mentioned, we humans are fallible, and can only make laws and judgements based on our imperfect understanding of things at the time - and we can and should revisit those things if needs be down the line.

I do completely agree with you that the Stand Your Ground laws need to be strongly re-examined, especially in light of this case. As you mentioned, though I consider this case to be an miscarriage of justice in ways, it was settled and finished under the current laws in place, lawfully in a court.

The fact that it did signals that there should be some re-examination of said laws, given the examples I've linked to so far in this thread, and quite probably others I haven't seen, or am otherwise not aware of.

Maybe I leap too far in assuming racism - I will admit to that possibility here. I can only contribute anecdotal examples of my own experiences in this regard, anecdotes in which non-white friends of mine were repeatedly treated far differently by a police officer than I was, when my friend and I had the same attitude. These have happened with me quite a bit more than once, and one notable event was a "driving while black" offense that I was utterly shocked by.

However, I will at least agree that the laws should be re-examined from the context of the present, with the aim of making the rule of law applied blindly and only according to evidence.

[Josh]

The balance on self-defense laws is always a tricky thing. One has to have a care not to overly shift the burden of proof back to the defendant- the state must always, always be obligated to produce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

The consequence of that burden of proof means that criminals of every stripe will go free for every conceivable crime, which goes back to the theory that better ten guilty men go free than one innocent to jail. (And that's one part of our system that definitely needs more oversight vis a vis racial issues, obviously.)

My personal opinion is that the ME here is probably on a self-serving agenda and I would be less than shocked to hear that all sorts of evidence of hackery will emerge from this individual's background. As for Zimmerman himself, I at once believe that he is guilty of manslaughter for creating and unnecessarily escalating a situation where he ended up killing somebody (because my impression of him is that he's a dipshit wannabe), and at the same time I also believe that the combination of charge, evidence, and statute pointed toward acquittal, and even absent Florida's statutes I probably would've leaned that way because of the absence of witnesses to the actual altercation.

So by my opinion he probably should be in prison by moral grounds, but the legal code doesn't run on my opinion and that's a good thing. (Otherwise it'd be awesome for me and the other 99.9~ percent of the not-Josh population would toil in even sadder misery and squalor than they already do.)

It was sad, tragic, unnecessary, and it probably was manslaughter. But our courts aren't about enforcing our feelings, they're about enforcing what the state can prove under the law.

[General Havoc]

I mean, I'm certainly not gonna tell anyone what's what in regards to their own personal experiences. Nor do I deny that there are legitimate racists out there, some in positions of power, who should be dragged over the coals for their practices, if not their beliefs. I just think that before we assume racism, especially on fairly thin evidence, we should look at other, more deeply-rooted, and in my mind, more likely causes. Racism is such a strong accusation that it tends to bury everything else involved with a situation.

The balance on self-defense laws is always a tricky thing. One has to have a care not to overly shift the burden of proof back to the defendant- the state must always, always be obligated to produce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

The consequence of that burden of proof means that criminals of every stripe will go free for every conceivable crime, which goes back to the theory that better ten guilty men go free than one innocent to jail. (And that's one part of our system that definitely needs more oversight vis a vis racial issues, obviously.)

My personal opinion is that the ME here is probably on a self-serving agenda and I would be less than shocked to hear that all sorts of evidence of hackery will emerge from this individual's background. As for Zimmerman himself, I at once believe that he is guilty of manslaughter for creating and unnecessarily escalating a situation where he ended up killing somebody (because my impression of him is that he's a dipshit wannabe), and at the same time I also believe that the combination of charge, evidence, and statute pointed toward acquittal, and even absent Florida's statutes I probably would've leaned that way because of the absence of witnesses to the actual altercation.

So by my opinion he probably should be in prison by moral grounds, but the legal code doesn't run on my opinion and that's a good thing. (Otherwise it'd be awesome for me and the other 99.9~ percent of the not-Josh population would toil in even sadder misery and squalor than they already do.)

It was sad, tragic, unnecessary, and it probably was manslaughter. But our courts aren't about enforcing our feelings, they're about enforcing what the state can prove under the law.

Yeah, that's more or less how I see it. There's not a doubt in my mind that Zimmerman provoked the entire incident, and would, in a perfect world with perfect laws, be guilty of Manslaughter if not worse. Morally, the man is as guilty as sin, and I hope I never cross paths with him or else I might be facing a trial of my own. But the law is the law, and while we can change the law, we cannot try Zimmerman by one law and the rest of us by another.

[rhoenix]

Havoc and Josh both made this point in different ways above, which was: it arrived as such through the rule of law - so while racists may be a part of what happened, they're not necessarily the reason they are what they are now, or even the reason they're applied as they are right now. That justice must be blind to everything but the facts of the case in order to get the closest we can to impartial justice.

Just so both of you know, I don't disagree with this point at all. I've just seen that it's far too easy for bad things to continue to happen in an institution due to those within the institution not wanting to acknowledge those things, even when that institution has good people in it.

[Lys]

Yeah, that's more or less how I see it. There's not a doubt in my mind that Zimmerman provoked the entire incident, and would, in a perfect world with perfect laws, be guilty of Manslaughter if not worse. Morally, the man is as guilty as sin, and I hope I never cross paths with him or else I might be facing a trial of my own. But the law is the law, and while we can change the law, we cannot try Zimmerman by one law and the rest of us by another.

That's what the one juror who got interviewed by the media said as well, though the media distorted and misrepresented her words to mean something else. She said she felt Zimmerman was morally responsible, that he would have to answer to higher authority, but insofar as her understanding of the law was the call had to be not guilty. To which I agree, the prosecution failed to prove Second Degree Murder, and flat out didn't make a case for Manslaughter. If the prosecution doesn't prove its case then it's not guilty, so the jury made the right call, regardless of whether or not Zimmerman deserves to be behind bars.

[Hotfoot]

The thing is there was only evidence of there being a fight. There may also be evidence Martin went for Zimmerman's gun and a struggle ensued. Because Zimmerman is the only living person who witnessed the fight in its entirety, there's nothing else but the aftermath of that fight that we can go through. We can't tell at what time in the struggle a wound was made, at best we can tell if it was pre or post mortem, and even that is dicey given the very brief time frame involved.

Bottom line, once it has been established there was a fight and Zimmerman was wounded, it no longer really matters what little detail there was in the fight, save the following:

1. Was the victim actively removing themselves from the altercation? If so, lethal force was not necessary, though this only matters in some states. This is only really proven if the entry wound was in Martin's back.

2. Was the victim no longer able to remove themselves from the altercation? If Martin was not able to get away because he had been rendered helpless, then lethal force was not necessary. This is only really proven if his body had signs of restraints or immobilizing injuries.

3. Was the victim surrendering? This one you can't prove with forensic evidence, really, you need a witness, and we don't have one of those.

Without those things, what specifically happened is no longer something you can use science to find. CSI super-tech bullshit aside, labs in the real world have phenomenal tools, but they only do certain things well, and they are inundated, simply drowning in cases that need them. Very simply, any data you could gather using modern day crime lab tech only confirms the story put out by the defense, there was a fight, Zimmerman was hurt as was Martin, Zimmerman shot Martin, the end. Without absolutely damning evidence, the standard for a Jury is "Reasonable Doubt", meaning that if you suspect that there is a reasonable chance Zimmerman was within the bounds of the law, you let him go. It's not "motherfucker is guilty as sin, hang his ass". If Zimmerman claimed not to be the one that shot Martin, we'd have his ass. If he said it was an accident, we'd have his ass. If he said he and Martin fought over the gun, we could potentially have his ass. He told a story that was just enough in line with the facts that were presented to skirt by through an extraordinarily permissive self defense law, and he was light enough to do so.

Was Zimmerman racist? Yeah, most likely. Were people involved with the gathering of evidence, the prosecution, and even the trial itself racist? Possibly, even going to almost certainly in some cases. However, the crux of the issue is the law, its application, and the overall lack of evidence and eyewitnesses. There's what we may know or strongly believe to be true, and then there's what is provable in court beyond a reasonable doubt.

If this had all been caught on CCTV, there wouldn't even be a question, but we haven't reached Panopticon yet.

Here's the shit of it though. Let's say the ME was right, he's got rock solid evidence that fucks Zimmerman. So what? I mean sure, we can hit the DA and a bunch of other people, but Zimmerman still gets a walk. Double Jeopardy has attached and he can't be tried again unless we can someone did something massively illegal during the trial itself, like tampering with a juror or a witness, such that the entire trial was itself ruled to be illegal and would have to be tried again, and there's very little chance Zimmerman or his attorney would have risked that.

[rhoenix]

Yeah... that's the shit of this whole thing. I think this case is a good reason to start re-examining some laws here, but this case is done and closed. As you said, unless the entire trial itself is somehow shown to be illegal somehow, it'll stand as-is.

[Cynical Cat]

Look, legal systems are flawed beasts. They mostly come into existence to protect property rights and they do a better job of protecting and serving the property owning elite than ordinary people. That's not news to anyone here. In other words, they do imperfect justice.

Florida's self defence laws are absurdly generous, but they are the laws with which the jury had to work with. If the ME had any real evidence of someone tanking the case, he should be talking to the FBI, not the media. The Feds work slow, but if there is real evidence of malfeasance they'll grind them into dust under their iron wheels. I find it far more likely that ass covering, incompetence, glory hounding, media grandstanding, and so forth are responsible for any prosecution mistakes than a deliberate attempt to ice the case while under the glare of the national media.