Is the "Stand Your Ground Law" becoming a license to kill?

No one has the right to be on my property without my permission. If they have forced their way in at night they are definitely up to no good and the law gives me the righ to protect myself and my family. Why do you have a problem with that?

 

Before a jury can decide, one must be CHARGED. . .which is often not the case with SYG, when the shooter doesn't even get charged simply by referring to SYG.

I believe that EVERY case of SYG or any shooting should be fully investigated and the shooter should have to face charges and defend himself from those charges. Anything short of that is a license to shoot anyone you don't like and "pretend" that you felt threatened!

If the guy is dead, and there is no investigation because you said "you stood your ground," you can say anything you want, and without an investigation, NO ONE will ever know!

 

Yes, I have a problem with that. . especially with gun happy people like those you support so joyfully.

If my husband, my father, my child, my daughter, or any of my friend found themselves in trouble (even simply car trouble) and needed to reach out to get help, I would like to think that they would be lucky enough not to go ring YOUR door bell. . .or, based on your comment, they may end up dead because they "are on your property!"

SICK!

 

10 Reasons Lawyers Say Florida's Law Enforcement Threw Away George Zimmerman's Case

Florida law enforcement, from the local police to the special prosecutor overseeing the Trayvon Martin case, did not want to see George Zimmerman convicted of murder and deliberately threw away the case, allowing their prosecution to crumble. A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts who know jury trials and courtroom procedure say this is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the parade of otherwise incoherent missteps by George Zimmerman’s prosecutors.

1. There was enough evidence to convict, despite biased police work. That assessment “is itself a miracle,” Ingber wrote, citing how the Sanford, Florida police handled the killing. “Martin’s body lay in the morgue as a John Doe for three days while his mother was asking for his whereabouts. His cell phone records indicated he was on the phone as he was being killed. The person he was on with had no idea where he was. Meanwhile his admitted killer was on the loose and allowed to produce exculpatory evidence while crime scene evidence was deteriorating. It appears from videos of Zimmerman ‘strolling’ into custody that he was not that badly hurt. But in Florida the right of self-defense includes, for whites, the freedom to exculpate oneself. And when that wasn’t enough, the police stepped in, as when the lead detective Chris Serino told Zimmerman the screams for help were his, not Martin’s, over his objection.”

2. The governor’s handpicked prosecutor enters with an agenda. “No account of this trial is complete if it does not start with how the deck was stacked before the trial took place,” Ingber said. “But it continues in the identity of the person that Florida’s [Republican] Gov. Rick Scott selected to prosecute the case: Angela Corey, the prosecutor who sentenced Marissa Alexander [a black woman] to 20 years for firing a gun into the air in her own garage in defense against a convicted abuser of women. I’ll leave it to Alan Dershowitz, who knows the law of defamation, to describe her professional lapses that ‘bordered on criminal conduct.’”

3. No change of venue was demanded. There were a series of decisions made by the prosecutors that incrementally lowered their chances of obtaining a conviction. The first concerned not seeking a jury trial in another county. The Seminole County district attorney and multiple judges recused themselves, “proof that the case was a political hot potato and that there was a fear that there would be negative political ramifications following a Zimmerman verdict,” Times-Picayune editorial writer Jarvis DeBerry wrote. But the state did not want to move the trial.

4. The early mishandling of the jury. Prosecutors meekly tried to remove two jurors with very strong pro-Zimmerman biases, but did not use more forceful “preemptory challenges,” DeBerry noted. “Juror B-37… should never have been let onto the jury after she said there were ‘riots’ in Sanford over this case,” Ingber added. “How was that allowed to occur? B-37’s interview is worth a listen.” She called Martin a “boy of color” (at 10.41) and mentioned “rioting” twice (12.12 and 14.32), calling it “organized” by Martin supporters and adding that she didn’t trust mainstream media.

5. There were no men on the jury. DeBerry, citing a former prosecutor who “handled hundreds of homicide cases over his career,” said opposing an all-female jury was “prosecuting 101. In a fatal fight between men, you fight to get men on the jury. Men are more likely to convict.”

6. The jury was improperly sequestered. While talking about the jury—before turning to what the prosecution did and didn’t do with witnesses—it’s also important to note that the jury wasn’t properly kept away from interacting with the public. “ Why wasn't the jury properly sequestered?” Ingber said. “Why was it given time with family members, time enough for, oh, I don’t know, arranging a book deal?” (Juror B-37 signed a contract with a literary agent immediately after the trial ended.)

7. Missteps with the state’s witnesses. The prosecution failed to adequately prepare its witnesses, such as Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with Martin during the confrontation “and was the closest thing the state had to a star witness,” DeBerry wrote.

“Why was the jury’s prejudices given free rein to suppose, as the entire nation did, that Rachel Jeantel was stupid because of her speech when she has an underbite that will require surgery that she is putting off?” Ingber explained. “Why did even close observers of the trial learn this only afterward, from this supposedly stupid witness? Could the prosecution have been even stupider? Or is prosecution of a white man for killing a black man in the South just stupefying?”

Jeantel was hardly the state’s only bad witness. “What of the ill-prepared "I know nothing" state medical examiner, who changed his testimony in the course of his examination, including waffling on the absurd notion that marijuana might have made Martin aggressive?” he wrote. “Why did he ignore testimony that Zimmerman was the aggressor? One wonders who got to this man. Surely not those Sanford rioters!”

8. More missteps with Zimmerman’s witnesses. If your side’s witnesses are falling down, lawyers usually work even harder to undermine their opponent’s case. But exactly the opposite unfolded.“The defense witness that impressed B-37 the most was that friend of Zimmerman’s (whom she mistook for a doctor) who testified he knew it was Zimmerman’s voice based on a knack acquired in military service,” Ingber said. “He had been sitting in the courtroom throughout the trial before his testimony—undisguised and adjacent to the defense team—in flagrant violation of the witness sequestration rule. He should never have been permitted to testify. Where was the prosecution?”

He cited other examples: “How could the prosecutors have been so stupid as to allow Zimmerman to testify in his own defenseby admitting into evidence his Sean Hannity interview on Fox News for the ostensible reason of admitting a minor detail?” Inger said. “Could it have missed the predictable effect on the jury’s sympathies of the defendant appearing before a fake journalist on Fox? Could it not see this for a one-sided waiver of Zimmerman’s Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination? Without risking cross-examination?”

DeBerry’s ex-prosecutor source noted more examples. “A Sanford police officer who was asked if he believed Zimmerman’s story of self-defense was allowed to answer yes without the prosecution objecting,” he said. “Witnesses should not be permitted to offer an opinion on the credibility of other witnesses or other evidence. The next day prosecutors asked the judge to strike that portion of the investigator’s testimony, and she complied. But why did the prosecutors sit quietly as the question was asked and answered?”

9. Florida’s abysmal laws compounded the botched prosecution. Many media outlets analyzed Zimmerman’s acquittal by saying that the state overcharged him—because second-degree murder has a higher standard of proof than the lesser charge of manslaughter. The lawyer-critics don’t buy that analysis, however.

All of the evidence is that Zimmerman was the aggressor,” Ingber said. “Jeantel testified that Martin was being stalked and that Martin’s cell phone was knocked out of his hand in real time and fell to wet grass just as the struggle—obviously self-defensive on Martin’s part—commenced. The tape of the 911 call is to the same effect. Zimmerman’s self-serving testimony, the coached evidence from the detective about whose voice it was—it’s all fluff. The two telephone calls set it all out. Who was on top for a moment means nothing. They rolled around. The injuries were not consistent with a ground-and-pound attack.

“But say they were. Is the explanation of the not-guilty verdict as to manslaughter that the jury thought it is legal for a man with a gun to initiate an altercation with an unarmed boy and shoot him dead if he starts to lose the fight and fears for his own?”

The Florida law deciding this case is abysmal, Ingber said, noting that this added to the jury’s confusion during deliberations, and in getting the charge from the judge. “ Try reading the instructions. Really try. I did,” he wrote. “I am an attorney and thought I knew what the elements of manslaughter were until I read this. Anyone who can parse this—in written form, never mind by ear—qualifies for a Supreme Court nomination.”

“But it’s even worse,” he continued, saying these were yet more prosecutorial blunders. “During deliberations the jury, having only the legal smarts of a mere circuit court judge, asked for clarification as to manslaughter but never received them. Why was that?”

10. Florida wanted to get rid of the case, not win it. The Times-Picayune’s DeBerry said his ex-prosecutor source “said he’s polled about 20 prosecutors in New Orleans, and though all aren’t sure that they would have been able to get Zimmerman convicted as charged, each of them is convinced that he or she could have gotten more than an acquittal. It was a clear case of tanking, he argued: ‘They didn’t want to win this case.’”

There are political benefits to that outcome, Ingber said, explaining what would be the state’s motive for proceeding so sloppily and working not to get a conviction.

“Bear in mind how cost-free all of this shoddy prosecution is,” he said. “Once jeopardy attaches and a defendant is exonerated the prosecutor will suffer no judicial embarrassment because any further proceedings would be double jeopardy. Translation: Zimmerman can’t be retried and the prosecution also gets off the hook. So this could all be swept under the rug and Angela Corey and Rick Scott… can go their merry way.”

Who wins when the state deliberately loses?

It is clear that the details of the Trayvon Martin case will not be forgotten by people who watched the trial or heard it described in detail by radio hosts such as Randi Rhodes, who understand how Florida’s legal system can be stacked in favor of white defendants. The striking conclusion after listening to these lawyers is that even with all the state’s policing and courtroom errors, there was enough to obtain a conviction.

“It takes no partisan slant to see the procedural injustice in this case,” Ingber said. “It is not hard to make the case that the evidence supported a manslaughter verdict beyond a reasonable doubt. This was another O.J. [Simpson] case, except this was not a case of jury nullification. It is to the Emmett Till case what modern-day voter suppression is to the poll tax. You need to drill down to see it for what it is.”

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liber...ment-threw-ryan-zimmermans-case-away?page=0,2

 

And rubbish instead of trash, and removing lory instead of moving truck. . .

Yep. . .I remember it well! I love "Queen's English," maybe because I learned to speak English in England! Good memories, too!

 

and like i said. so you are required to ask why that person broke into your home before you are allowed to use deadly force. does that sound logical to you?

this is why in England you have this

http://futurewire.blogspot.com/2004/12/home-invasions-us-vs-uk.html

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications/Article250.htm

and you want to know why you have what is stated above because there is no deterrent for those criminals not to. what is there for them to be scared of? not a dam thing all you have done is made criminals embolden

 

There is a difference between ringing someone's doorbell and breaking into their house like I referred to. But just like the Zimmerman case you have jumped to conclusions without looking at the evidence. Instead you will twist the evidence to fit your conclusion. Why not wait for the evidence to come out. That way you can avoid being embarassed as bad as the not guilty verdict.

 

Of course not, but the murder rate here, despite being higher than yours, is minuscule. And since I'm prepared to defend myself, even if I get into a "minuscule" situation, I have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. And considering I actually train, it's probably much higher.

Do me a favor, make another post tomorrow or next week sometime asking me that. It's late, I'm tired, and I've been drinking, so I don't feel like digging through pages of statistics. It IS true, but I totally understand you wanting me to back it up as opposed to just taking my word for it.

 

Nothing makes me more secure than knowing some guy that is drinking is talking about taking his gun out if someone crosses through his yard.

 

That is not exactly true. LEO who have a warrant to search your property have a right to be on your property or other entities who own the water or mineral rights located under your property have a right to be "on your property" as well.

 

then maybe you need to explain how this black man was able to shot and kill this white man was brought into the police station the black man said he was standing his ground was set free and wasn't dragged into court till almost two years later

http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...n-valrico-leaves-community-bewildered/1124429

so explain again how Florida’s legal system can be stacked in favor of white defendants when Zimmerman was forced into trail within the year of his shooting but Trevor Dooley took almost two years before he was brought into trial

 

Trevor Dooley was arrested two days after he killed James in self defense, but he was convicted of manslaughter.

It took 44 days after worldwide protests to have Zimmerman arrested.

Zimmerman's trial was rushed because Angela Corey and her minions were tasked with making it go away as soon as possible.

 

This thread is about the case of the 34 year old man getting OUT of his house and shooting the 72 year old man with advanced Alzheimer FOUR times in his yard.

If you were not talking about that case, maybe you were off topic. . . .I wasn't!

 

I assume that you believe that this 34 year old guy shooting the 72 year old man with Alzheimer didn't do it based on his "emotions?"

Are you saying he did it in COLD BLOOD. . .after due reflection?

And. . .I would say that you contradict yourself by stating that "with liberals it is all about the intentions it is never about the results," since it is PRECISELY the RESULTS of gun ownerships by idiots that SOME liberals (like myself) are concerned about.

And, if you insist that the SYG is filled with "good intentions," it is OBVIOUS that YOU are not considering the DEADLY results which become more apparent every week!

 

like how the crime rate has steady dropped over the decades as gun ownership has sharply increased in the same amount of time
that is called looking at the results and not relying on the intentions your intention is to decrease gun violence but will ignore the evidence to decrease gun violence is to allow more legal ownership

 

Is that why you felt the need to bring up the Zimmerman case?

You were not there and most likely are clueless about any evidence in the case. Why rant about something when you don't know all the facts?

 

Actually police don't need a warrant to "be on your property" they simply must be doing their job "in good faith"

IOW if a police officers believes he's heard a person crying for help inside your home, no warrant needed.

Another scenario is, a warrant gets screwed up and the police go to the wrong house, the cops are okay there to, as long as they believed they were at the right address.

Among other things.

 

So by liberal logic the police should be banned.

 

What's your point? Can we get back on topic please?

 

Oh puh-leeze, spare me the hair splitting nonsense.

 

It's certainly not hair splitting.

Do you know that if a police officer is on your property trying to affect an illegal arrest you have the right to resist up to and including using deadly force? But if HE is there for a legitimate reason , he has a right to be there and your "right" to protect yourself or your property is irrelevant.

You just damned well better know the difference between a legal and illegal arrest.

 

Very few buglers make housebreaking a second career, as most are in the regular army, but I suppose it is possible. But seriously, we are talking about customary assumptions in different societies, and what the law allows in those respective societies. I am pointing out that, because of prevailing circumstances (notably - the lack of firearms) the general assumption in the UK is that a burglar is there to burgle - his primary intention is neither murder nor rapine. So your hypothetical scenario is more than a little fanciful.

I think you will find that informed opinion is divided upon the matter.

Quoting a blog, and an opinion expressed in a local Halifax newspaper, are not quite as convincing as national statistical data, and even that needs to be qualified by methods of classification. Per example - abuse and threatening language is classified as assault in many jurisdictions, including the UK.

I have dealt with many such allegations in respect of the UK - the motive for which always appears to be the justification of the gun laws in US society.

 

I understand, but would it not be simpler for you to address the matter when you feel more disposed to do so?

 

Point being- Do you have a $50 bike... that was free?

[video=youtube;0VZy4G67QRw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VZy4G67QRw[/video]

 

Hair splitting is just a negative description of strict adherence to the law which is exactly what courts do. I have no qualms about being called a hair splitter for legal purposes. Its something to be proud of.

A question to you cornhog.

If a Policeman has a faulty warrant and attempts to arrest you based on that warrant do you have a right to resist arrest -in what circumstances would this be true?