Zimmerman's Lawyers Withdraw from Case
 

Eric Holder latest response to Trayvon Martin case.....
 

Trayvon Martin Case 'A Tragedy We Are All Struggling To Understand,' Says Eric Holder

www.huffingtonpost.com

Big Teddy :munchin

George Zimmerman to be charged in Trayvon Martin shooting, official says
 

George Zimmerman to be charged in Trayvon Martin shooting, official says

".......according to a law enforcement official close to the investigation..........."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...oAT_print.html

Leaks, Leaks and more Leaks. Oh, well.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/...beating-879234


Animals....

Why didn't anyone tell me April 9th was national Shoot a Black Panther Day:(

Worst than that "Whale shit"........:mad::mad::mad:

Big Teddy :munchin

Zimmerman Charged
 

I just watched the special prosecutor’s press conference; her demeanor struck me as anything but professional. She came across as almost gleeful over all this and her presentation was more in keeping with someone accepting an award and giving kudos out to all involved. I thought that she was anything but unbiased. I guess she’s finally getting those 15 minutes of fame that she has always heard about. All she had to do was come out, introduce herself and tell us the charges. Regardless of how this finally plays out there will always be those who will never think that the punishment fits the crime and it will get ugly down there.

Certainly there is no surprise here. Next will be the fair trial by a jury of Travon's peers followed by life in jail. And if by some chance he does get a fair trial and is found not guilty I'm sure Holder is standing by with Federal charges.

IMO she/they had to file charges. Sweeping this under the rug would have given us R. King x 100, and that "Red Sea" of blood shed. This is orchestrated damage control not only from the higher ups, but also based on the very events taking place outside in the streets. This will be an effort to appease the masses, and if GZ is acquitted, there will be some who still want his head on a stick.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Please direct your attention to he events in ring number three..." ;)

Why the case won't be as straightforward as you might expect.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

Florida v. Zimmerman Needs The Bravest Judge Around
Atlantic, 11 Apr 2012

THE PROSECUTOR

Put yourself in special prosecutor Angela Corey's shoes for just a moment. On the one hand, she has an ethical obligation not to prosecute a case she doesn't believe she can win. On the other hand she has an obligation to zealously prosecute people whom she believes may have committed murder. The first obligation reins in the vast discretion prosecutors typically have to bring criminal charges. The second, conversely, prods prosecutors to indict even when they know they don't have a slam-dunk case. And whatever else the newly-minted People of the State of Florida v. Zimmerman is, it is not, from a legal standpoint anyway, a slam-dunk case.

Given the choice between the two options, to do something or to do nothing, it is perhaps inevitable that Corey would have exercised her discretion to charge George Zimmerman with the murder of Trayvon Martin. By doing so, Corey pushes into the court system, first to a judge and then perhaps to a jury, most of the legal questions so many of us have been asking about since Zimmerman shot the unarmed 17-year-old in in Sanford, Florida on February 26th. Corey isn't so much passing the buck to the courts as she is toting it, along with all of the racial baggage of the case, to the courthouse for trial. Prosecutors prosecute. Judges judge.

So long as Corey and her team present a professional case against Zimmerman, so long as they are aggressive but honest in handling the evidence and the witnesses against him, they are now in a no-lose situation. That's what Wednesday's charges mean. Sure, Corey and company will be second-guessed by every so-called "expert" within shouting distance of a camera or a microphone. But it will be the Florida courts which ultimately will determine the depth and breadth and applicability of the state's "Stand Your Ground" law-- the judges here, and the law itself, are on trial almost as much as Zimmerman himself.

Corey? If she loses because the language of the Florida statute is so broad, or because of shoddy police work, she will be able to say to the world: "Don't blame us if you don't like the result. Blame the legislators who enacted the statute. Blame the judges who enforce it the way they do. Blame the cops for treating Zimmerman the way they did that night." I'm not predicting that prosecutors will lose or that Corey would say something like that even if they do. But we all should acknowledge going into this new phase of the story that Zimmerman has a lot of things going for him under the law of this case.

THE DEFENDANT

A talk show host asked me, on the air, to put myself in Zimmerman's shoes today. I cannot. I am not a "neighborhood watch" captain and I did not shoot an unarmed teenager to death. I do not have tens of millions of Americans, maybe more, labeling me a racist. Zimmerman today indeed stands alone-- with his new attorney already on board. Last month, following the release of the 911 tapes, I wrote about how Zimmerman seemed to be looking for trouble on the night he killed Martin. Now that trouble is here, in the form of a second-degree murder charge that could put him in prison for decades, if not the rest of his natural life.

He is alone but he isn't the first despised criminal defendant and he surely won't be the last. While the public debate about him rolls on, Zimmerman now, finally, may rely upon the rights and protections afforded to all criminal defendants under federal and state law. Now that there is a pending case, the presumption of innocence formally attaches. So do disclosure rules designed to ensure that defendants get a fair trial. So does the prosecutor's burden of proving the case against Zimmerman beyond a reasonable doubt. He is alone. But, paradoxically, in some ways, he is more protected today as a defendant than he was yesterday as a subject.

Soon, Zimmerman and his lawyers will ask a Florida trial judge to dismiss the charges against him on the grounds that he has "immunity" from prosecution under the state's notoriously broad "justifiable homicide" law. At that time, we will essentially have a "mini-trial" in this case on the issue of whether Zimmerman's actions that night, and Martin's actions too, cause this tragedy to fall under the statute. A judge will make that determination, not a jury, and it is only if the judge decrees that the statute does not apply will Zimmerman have to proceed toward trial. Here again is the pertinent language from the statute:

If Zimmerman wins this fight, and is granted immunity from prosecution for a "justifiable" homicide, prosecutors will have a hard time convincing Florida's appellate courts to reverse what the trial judge decides. Appellate judges traditionally afford trial court judges great deference on decisions that are based upon evidentiary hearings, which is what will happen here. On the other hand, if Zimmerman loses his immunity battle, he'll still be able to argue at trial before a jury that he had no evil intent at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors have to win every battle to get their conviction. Zimmerman only has to win one.

THE TRIAL JUDGE

There is an old saying in the law that the vast majority of criminal cases can be handled by the vast majority of trial judges. But every once in a while a case comes up which requires a special type of judge. This is one of those cases. It is imperative-- for Zimmerman, for prosecutors, for Martin's friends and family, for the hundreds of millions of people who care about this case, and for the perception of fair justice in America itself-- for this case to be assigned to a courageous, tough, fair trial judge who will be able both to control the courtroom and manage the media circus outside.

This case simply cannot be assigned to a judge like Lance Ito, who made a mess of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. It cannot be assigned to a media dandy or a fop. It must instead be assigned to a stern judge like Richard Matsch, the venerable federal judge who presided over the Oklahoma City bombing trials. There are many good trial judges in Florida. There are also many awful ones. The Seminole County judicial officials in charge of the process, whoever they are, have to ensure that this tinderbox case gets assigned to a judge who can protect it-- like a mother hen even-- from the passions and prejudices this story has evoked.

To ensure that Zimmerman gets a fair trial, to discourage some of the media silliness which has pervaded this story, to ensure that people all over the world who have nothing to do with the case can respect the result it generates, the trial judge here should immediately issue a media gag order on the lawyers involved in the case-- and then enforce it if the judge feels there is too much grandstanding on the steps of the courthouse. To her credit, prosecutor Corey did an excellent job Wednesday afternoon of refusing to spin the case in her direction. All she did was ask people to pray, which I guess is how they do it in Florida.

Travyon Martin's grieving mother expressed thanks Wednesday evening that the man who killed her son had finally, after 44 days, been arrested. But when Corey was asked about the "delay" in bringing Zimmerman in she seemed shocked at the perception that this homicide investigation had taken so long. We are so used to instant gratification today that we cannot even seem to wait a reasonable time for justice to run its course. You may think this story has been around forever but, really, it's still far closer to the beginning than it is to the end. It will be three to six months, at least, before Stand Your Ground faces its day in court here.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...around/255756/

Could not agree more.

6 Months, a year, maybe more
 

6 months, a year, maybe more, before anything new happens.

May be a leak here and there by either side - and a stern warning from a judge about them - but for the most part it will settle from the front page to maybe page two or three.

Come trial time it will be "Zimmerman & Martin? Who were they? Oh, yeah, them."

Not everyone is running out to get new rope..

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJ_BPK (Post 444077) Not everyone is running out to get new rope..:eek:

Big Teddy :munchin

She gave herself away when she said "Justice for Trayvon Martin". I thought her job was justice for all. :munchin

If we could get the NBPP in the same location as the KKK, would they negate each other like matter and anti-matter?

May solve 2 problems at once.

Way to think outside the box.:D

Not a bad idea at all.

Idiots vs Idiots.

We could put it on Pay Per View and make a fortune.

:munchin

So how do we do that? :munchin

I bet Dana White from UFC could figure it out. :D

Happens in prison on a regular basis.

TR

Is the prosecutor pushing for a plea-bargain?

LINK

How Can Overcharging Be Ethical?

In his latest Huffington Post column, former Reason writer Radley Balko notes the controversy over special prosecutor Angela Corey's decision to charge George Zimmerman with second-degree murder, as opposed to manslaughter, in Trayvon Martin's death. Given the circumstances in which Zimmerman shot Martin—during a violent struggle in which Zimmerman claims he feared for his life—it seems unlikely that he acted "from ill will, hatred, spite, or an evil intent," as Florida's standard jury instruction for second-degree murder requires. The affidavit supporting Zimmerman's arrest does not clarify that point, saying only that he "profiled" and "followed" Martin, after which "Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued." But no matter how questionable a charging decision, Balko points out, it is completely a matter of prosecutorial discretion:
Mandatory minimum sentences enhance this power, allowing prosecutors to determine a defendant's punishment by deciding how to charge him, which increases the pressure for a guilty plea in a justice system where cases are rarely resolved by trial. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Ohio State University law professor Michelle Alexander notes that prosecutors routinely encourage plea bargains by "overcharging" defendants, making allegations that probably could not be proven at trial (which seems to be what Corey is doing, raising Zimmerman's maximum possible prison term from 15 years to life by charging him with second-degree murder rather than manslaughter). Alexander also observes that a prosecutor "is free to dismiss a case for any reason or no reason at all." This wide discretion, she writes, makes the prosecutor "the most powerful law enforcement official in the criminal justice system."

Prosecutors are not supposed to use this power simply to rack up guilty pleas or convictions, because they are not merely advocates for one side in an adversarial process; they are public officials charged with pursuing justice. As Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland put it in a 1935 case that Balko quotes, a prosecutor is "representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done." In this light, how can it be ethical for prosecutors to bring charges they do not sincerely believe are justified by the facts of the case?

An interesting discussion with a complete transcript and audio at link below. IMO the complete discussion is worth a read or listen.

Below is a snip to merely get an idea of content.

NPR
Legal Strategies And 'Stand Your Ground' Cases
April 12, 2012

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/12/150507...zimmerman-case

Guests
Abe Laser, former assistant state attorney, Florida
Richard Hornsby, criminal defense attorney
Geoffrey Corn, law professor, South Texas College of Law

Excerpts:
Prosecutors in the case against George Zimmerman must prove that he intentionally killed Trayvon Martin, that his actions are not protected under Florida's "stand your ground law," and convince a judge to proceed with the case. His defenders will need to show Zimmerman acted in self defense.

HORNSBY: "Well, first, I'd like to - here's the thing, the Stand Your Ground law actually modified three different statutes in Florida, and it did three different things. One, it did remove the duty to retreat whenever you're confronted with violence against you. That's the primary one that everybody talks about. The second thing it did is it implemented the pretrial hearing that we've been discussing for the last 15 minutes that allows a judge to dismiss it after hearing all the evidence.

The third thing it did, which is one thing I do think needs to be changed, is it stated that a law enforcement officer can't arrest a person unless they determine that the deadly force used was unlawful or the force used was unlawful. And that seemed to be the thing that created all the outrage in this case is that George Zimmerman was never arrested. The way it used to be is that if you killed somebody, you were arrested, period. And then you could go before the judge, you know, and assert your affirmative defense and, you know, establish why you were justified in killing somebody or committing any crime for that matter that involved violence against somebody.

But the legislator made it to where, no, if the law enforcement has a credible claim of self-defense, they have to actually consider that before determining whether or not they can make an arrest. So that portion of the law that was implemented under Florida Stand Your Ground Act, which, again, it's actually enacted and changed three different statutes, I think, should be removed.

But let's be clear here about a few little things that I think gets lost in the uproar about Stand Your Ground. One, even under the old law, you had no duty to retreat if someone attacked you with their fists, meaning if Trayvon Martin would have come up to George Zimmerman and punched him in the face, George Zimmerman would've had no duty to first retreat. He could have responded back with physical force if he wanted to, not deadly force, just physical force. However, even under the old law, if Trayvon Martin would have gotten George Zimmerman to the ground and to a position where he no longer could retreat because Trayvon Martin is - allegedly was on top of him, beating his head into the ground, even under the old law, that would have been considered retreating to the door, meaning you had no other routes of escape, and then you can resort to deadly force.

The only catch, though, is that that would've had to have been a determination by the jury about whether or not that was true or not, not a judge. And so, you know, all this stuff about Stand Your Ground, you know, the castle doctrine, even under the old law, everything would have been implied exactly the same, except for the part about a judge can consider the issue. And, you know, and this isn't about a dog pooping on a lawn. This is about a 17-year-old kid who essentially was - if George Zimmerman is true, I'm not saying he is - was banging George Zimmerman's head in the ground, I would think of circumstances any person will have the right to use deadly force if they thought that the other person was going to kill them."

Prosecutor pushing for plea bargain?
 

IME, there is occasionally a disconnect between real life and theory...does an IRS auditor or state tax auditor ever - "over assess" - in looking for a settlement or to gain leverage over an "uncooperative" taxpayer?

The public answer will almost always be an emphatic NO...

Toronto Star
April 12
...Who is Florida State Attorney Angela Corey?

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/ar...y-angela-corey

Might depend on whose SuperPAC you donated to...
:cool:

The 411 about the Trayvon Martin timeline
 

The 411 about the Trayvon Martin timeline

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news...12/04/411.html

"A key moment in George Zimmerman's cellphone call to the Police Department in Sanford, Fla., on the fateful night of Feb. 26 occurs at 7:11:41 p.m., a little more than two minutes into a call that lasts about four minutes.

"He's running," says Zimmerman, referring to the "real suspicious guy" he'd called in to report. Almost immediately you hear on the recording a car door opening and what sounds like a warning beep indicating the key is still in the ignition. Shortly thereafter comes the unmistakable sound of wind blowing into a phone mouthpiece............................"

This interesting piece from yesterday puts an overhead view of the subdivision, key locations and the timeline together - and asks some good questions.

Was walking through the living room a few minutes ago and ABC was showing a claimed picture of the bloody back of Z man's head - they said was taken by a bystander in the area at the time. Jeez - what else is out there.

Edited to add ABC news story link:

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/...hooting/nMdbw/

Negroes with Guns
 

[LINK]


NEGROES WITH GUNS
April 18, 2012


Liberals have leapt on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida to push for the repeal of "stand your ground" laws and to demand tighter gun control. (MSNBC'S Karen Finney blamed "the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point.")

This would be like demanding more funding for the General Services Administration after seeing how its employees blew taxpayer money on a party weekend in Las Vegas.

We don't know the facts yet, but let's assume the conclusion MSNBC is leaping to is accurate: George Zimmerman stalked a small black child and murdered him in cold blood, just because he was black.

If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association, America's oldest and most august civil rights organization.

Apparently this has occurred to no one because our excellent public education system ensures that no American under the age of 60 has the slightest notion of this country's history.

Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.

(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU'er, but every ACLU'er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.)

In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks -- even freemen -- could not own guns.

Chief Justice Roger Taney's infamous opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford circularly argued that blacks could not be citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to own guns: "[I]t would give them the full liberty," he said, "to keep and carry arms wherever they went."


With logic like that, Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery.

Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.

After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted "Black Codes," denying black Americans the rights of citizenship -- such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms -- while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan.

For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.

The original draft of the Anti-Klan Act of 1871 -- passed at the urging of Republican president Ulysses S. Grant -- made it a federal felony to "deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property." This section was deleted from the final bill only because it was deemed both beyond Congress' authority and superfluous, inasmuch as the rights of citizenship included the right to bear arms.

Under authority of the Anti-Klan Act, President Grant deployed the U.S. military to destroy the Klan, and pretty nearly completed the job.

But the Klan had a few resurgences in the early and mid-20th century. Curiously, wherever the Klan became a political force, gun control laws would suddenly appear on the books.

This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

How's that "may issue" gun permit policy working for you?

The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence -- including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.

A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high -- beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.

But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe.

Williams' repeated thwarting of violent Klan attacks is described in his stirring book, "Negroes With Guns." In one crucial battle, the Klan sieged the home of a black physician and his wife, but Williams and his Black Armed Guard stood sentry and repelled the larger, cowardly force. And that was the end of it.

As the Klan found out, it's not so much fun when the rabbit's got the gun.

The NRA's proud history of fighting the Klan has been airbrushed out of the record by those who were complicit with the KKK, Jim Crow and racial terror, to wit: the Democrats.

In the preface to "Negroes With Guns," Williams writes: "I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense -- and have acted on it. It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence."

Contrary to MSNBC hosts, I do not believe the shooting in Florida is evidence of a resurgent KKK. But wherever the truth lies in that case, gun control is always a scheme of the powerful to deprive the powerless of the right to self-defense.

COPYRIGHT 2012 ANN COULTER

Opposite sides of the same hateful coin
 

lol I love Ann. :cool:

I probably should have said a sentence or two.....actually I am not a fan of Ann, but I found her premise in this blog interesting. (And this is about the calmest I've ever seen her write.) I posted it to see if it would provoke discussion, even though I know she is not a historian and the odds are high she has gotten some of her 'facts' wrong. ;)

I've yet to read anything she's written that included "wrong" facts.

She did date Mahler, though...:D

I had no idea she was THAT old! :)

Even if only one or two of her "facts" she is way ahead of MSNBC and CBS combined. :D

Now for some cross-thread points :D

I posted this some time back, most of it concurs with Ann's post.

'Someone Kill the Judge'
 

Aside from the Twitter Lynch Mob we now have death threats against a Judge.....wasn't Hal Turner incarcerated for verbal death threats against a Judge?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...ge_640598.html

My apologies Sig, it was a pink question

Man Beaten By Mob, In Critical Condition
 

The firestorm continues to brew.....and the DoJ is still on a coffee break.

American Priorities.........
 

Very True..........:confused:

Big Teddy :munchin