Trayvon Martin, 17, shot and killed by Neighborhood Watchman

[TRIFORCE89]

On the charge of second degree murder, it seems more like first degree murder considering that Zimmerman left his car, despite instructions not to, and brought out his weapon seems a bit premeditated. It'll be much easier and swift to prove the second degree charge though, and he's still looking at life, so yeah, JUSTICE.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Yeah.

And... I meant 'finally', in the sense of justice. 40-something days and not even charged. And then he flees the states? Like, come on! Nuts.

 

[Esper]

Finally.

Any thoughts on the charge of second degree murder?

It'll be hard to prove in court seeing as "stand your ground" is law and can be used as a defense if it comes to that. I believe that second degree murder ("demonstrating a depraved mind without regard for human life") is the best they can reasonably hope for, but that they'll probably be satisfied with a manslaughter conviction.

 

[Sydian]

Wow. "Media will shut up". "Media will move on". Not even "justice will be served"? Just wow.

Wow. Way to totally direct your response at me. Of course the media won't move on or shut up or anything. Even after rulings in this case, things will still be covered in the news. But oh well. Sarcasm doesn't carry well online, and I tend to forget that.

I'm really happy he got murder. He claimed to have punched him in the face, but if that were true, he would have had some kind of bruise or black eye. Zimmerman was obviously lying.

He claimed that Trayvon "decked him" but it's essentially the same thing. Whether he was punched, decked, stabbed, etc there was no marking to prove that story.

It'll be hard to prove in court seeing as "stand your ground" is law and can be used as a defense if it comes to that. I believe that second degree murder ("demonstrating a depraved mind without regard for human life") is the best they can reasonably hope for, but that they'll probably be satisfied with a manslaughter conviction.

The thing with that law though is that if you feel like your life is threatened, then you have the okay by law to do that. But it's dependent on what exactly is being done to you, if I understand correctly. Is an unarmed teenager really going to be that much threat to someone to where his murder is justified? Though one could argue that Zimmerman didn't know if Trayvon was armed or not. Hmmm. This is a tricky law to get around. But Zimmerman was told not to follow Trayvon, so even if he was armed, had Zimmerman followed his orders, he wouldn't know the answer to that.

And... I meant 'finally', in the sense of justice. 40-something days and not even charged. And then he flees the states? Like, come on! Nuts.

This is what I was thinking too.

Someone did a PowerPoint on this in my class. It had a lot of flaws, but I was discussing it afterward with a classmate and he mentioned that he saw somewhere that Zimmerman has some sort of mental impairment? Does anyone know this to be true or confirmed anyway, or is it just hear-say?

If this turns to be true, well honestly, he shouldn't be a watchman, or at least not given a weapon as lethal as a gun. I'm all for equality, especially for those that are impaired mentally or physically, but there are some things that just shouldn't be allowed regardless. Judgement and decision making are usually impaired when one has something like this. But, like I said, I don't know if this is true or not.

 

[Esper]

The thing with that law though is that if you feel like your life is threatened, then you have the okay by law to do that. But it's dependent on what exactly is being done to you, if I understand correctly. Is an unarmed teenager really going to be that much threat to someone to where his murder is justified? Though one could argue that Zimmerman didn't know if Trayvon was armed or not. Hmmm. This is a tricky law to get around. But Zimmerman was told not to follow Trayvon, so even if he was armed, had Zimmerman followed his orders, he wouldn't know the answer to that.

That's the problem with the law. It doesn't specify a lot of things that really ought to have been included. You only have to "feel threatened" and that's pretty much the extent to which it describes anything in particulars. It makes perfect sense to sensible people that if you instigate something you can't really claim you're defending yourself, but this law isn't sensible like that. They'll probably have to try to convince people that he didn't actually feel threatened in order to have a chance at getting around this law and getting a conviction.