Originally Posted By: the G-man
 Quote:


In most jurisdictions I'm familiar with, that would be manslaughter, with a spent conviction or suspended sentence. My very limited reading of Florida's "stand your ground" laws (first time I'd heard of this was today) suggests you have a right to shoot at an aggressor if in danger. If that's correct, then this verdict must be correct.

If that's all correct, its very very sad that a young man was killed, but it is also sad that a man felt he had to shoot someone dead to protect himself from possible mortal danger.


http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/14/sorry-the-zimmerman-case-still-has-nothi

It's less a question of FL 'stand your ground laws' and more a question of standard rules of self defense. I'm assuming from your comment that Australia no longer follows that doctrine?


To be honest, I don't have much of an idea about it. We have a low murder rate. My very limited understanding is that there is no principle attached to it: its circumstantial ie. depends on the facts of the case.

Rather than read this entire thread, I went ot Wikipedia - the entry on this is in a state of flux and constantly updated.

There was a comment on the "stand your ground" princple though. The dispatcher recommended to Zimmerman that he not follow Martin. The suggestion is that when Zimmerman did follow Martin, he lost his ability to claim he was acting in self-defence. Sounds iffy to me. As a member of Neighbourhood Watch, part of his job was to deter crime by showing a presence.

There's also some data on Wikipedia which suggests that Zimmerman had been responsible for organising some sort of protest about local cops' treatment of the black community. If that's true, this doesn't sound like he is a bigot to me.

As for Obama, I think the choice of words that Martin's physical appearance would mirror that of the son Obama never had was a very, very misguided effort at an expression of personal sympathy for the family. "Misguided" because it carried with it the significant risk of poisoning a jury (a subconscious conclusion that Zimmerman had killed someone who could have been the President's son). I think that was a very big mistake, albeit one done apparently off-the-cuff and with the best of intentions.

Pimping my site, again.

http://www.worldcomicbookreview.com