Can o’ worms

7/31 edit:  Um...so... turns out Stand Your Ground didn't play a role in the trial at all.  The defense went with a straight self defense argument and created sufficient doubt with it to avoid conviction.  So there you go.  Justice is abstract.  Our legal system is concrete.  Zimmerman got his speedy trial and a jury of our peers decided he should walk.  I still have some questions, and the original post below still asks them, but I stand corrected when it comes to Florida's Stand Your Ground laws. (do I at least get a chit for posting my correction at THE TOP rather than burying it in the comments?!)


Does the trial of George Zimmerman suggest that Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws place too high a burden on the prosecution?

Under normal circumstances, doesn’t the prosecution “simply” have to demonstrate that the defendant committed the act in question beyond the shadow of a doubt?  And don’t we know this much beyond that shadow:  George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed Trayvon Martin?

Ah but then Zimmerman claims it was self defense!  Fair enough, but now, with one dude dead, and the other admitting to have shot him, shouldn’t the degree of certainty regarding the claim of self defense meet a similarly high standard?  One would think.  And I’d like to believe that it normally does.

Then comes the 911 call clearly demonstrating that Zimmerman PURSUED Martin.  Without the strange twist of Stand Your Ground, this is the kind of evidence that absolutely destroys any claim of self defense.  You do not pursue someone whom you mortally fear. You do not pursue someone you mortally fear when a law enforcement officer is telling you to stop.  If you do pursue them, and you continue to ignore the directive of the law enforcement officer, then you give up your claim of self defense and your presumed innocence.  If defense was truly your concern, you run the other direction.  If you don't listen to the dispatcher telling you not to chase down the guy you later claim you were deathly afraid of, then you absolutely have given up the assumption of innocence and taken on the burden of proving how these strange sounding circumstances justify your pursuit and killing of an unarmed man.

That is, until we wave the magic wand of Stand Your Ground over all of this.  Suddenly the prosecutor must prove more than that you pursued and killed an unarmed man.  Now the prosecutor must prove, in spite of the fact that you actively went after this guy, that you were NOT frightened for your life, while the jury, apparently, has to assume you were, even though you chased after him instead of running away.

I don’t get it.

One thing I do get: I’ve spent enough time in places where the local authority sanctions the chasing down and killing of people for reasons I never completely understood.  Those places are not pleasant. I won’t be visiting Florida again real soon.

Luth,

Out