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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (227755)	7/15/2013 3:18:44 AM
From: Metacomet	Respond to of 540750

Unbeknownst to Zimmerman at the time, Trayvon was committing a double hate crime, motivated by both racism and homophobia. ..and people who think like this are free to both walk the streets and vote Any body really surprised about the situations we find ourselves in

To: Thomas M. who wrote (227755)	7/15/2013 8:00:17 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540750

It is my information that "stand your ground' laws REMOVE THE REQUIREMENT under the self defense doctrine that one has a duty to retreat from conflicts before one can evoke the self-defense law--as you note. Presumably, prior to the conflict that resulted in the killing herein, if Zimmerman had followed that "duty to retreat" there would have been no killing. BUT, It does all depend at what point in time a reasonable person would have been expected to perceive a "threat" of "deadly force" to oneself, and, at that point in time, whether Z would have been able to retreat. So in the instant case whether the outcome would have been different is unknowable. However, the whole concept of the duty to retreat is to put in place the responsibility on people to avoid a conflict if possible thus making for a more peaceful society. With the revocation of this duty to retreat by the "stand your ground laws", it is more likely, IMHO, that these type of ambiguous situations that lead to deaths will increase rather than decrease. Not a good thing. As to the rest of your scenario, I think you are speculating as to how things went down based on the defendant's version of the facts. I do think the verdict was a product of the jury deciding that those facts could not be known to a certainty beyond reasonable doubt and therefore they voted to acquit on that basis.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (227755)	7/15/2013 9:57:38 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540750

No they aren't. He followed a teen against the advice of police. He could have retreated at any time. He could have let Trayvon go on his way. He could have stayed in his car. He could have run away. But he didn't. Imagine if this had been a white teen, and a black man with a gun stalked the teen, even though the police told him to leave the teen alone. Any guesses as to what the wingnuts would be saying about that white teen? Why wasn't Trayvon standing his ground? Because he was the one being attacked by a man with a weapon.