Jul 14 2013
The Effing Punk Got Away
Update: Here is a good reminder of the limitations of our legal system, and why ‘not guilty’ so many times does not mean ‘innocent’. – end update
Zimmerman’s defense team won a Pyrrhic victory yesterday. The prosecution had done its job in many respects. We all know Zimmerman chased down, confronted and – when losing the fisticuffs battle – killed an unarmed kid.
The prosecution proved Zimmerman’s statements were a series of lies. He lied where he first saw Trayvon. He lied about Martin circling his truck. He lied about not knowing the name of the street he was on . The prosecution had Zimmerman on tape with that lie:
Zimmerman’s problem came out during Officer Chris Serinos’ testimony when they played the reenactment video. It is just prior to time stamp 1:21:50 in this court video. At this point Zimmerman is in a police car talking through the incident. He and a policeman are parked in front of the club house and Zimmerman is explaining how Trayvon Martin – who he had seen back down the street a bit – had walked past his parked car and then down towards where he was staying.
The subconscious mistake Zimmerman makes is he automatically recalls the name of the street (Twin Trees Lane). I mean it just comes right out of his mouth. The same street he could not recall the night before!
Zimmerman, the effing punk, lied about how he could pull the gun from his pants and holster,all the while on his back with Trayvon on top. He lied about his injuries (clearly not all from the concrete). He lied about being jumped (Rachel Jeantell testified and ‘witnessed’ that truth there). Zimmerman lied and lied and lied.
But the jury apparently decided that they could not prove what did happen. The prosecutions one big mistake was going for Murder 2, which relied on them proving what happened absent Zimmerman’s concocted story.
A variant on negligent homicide (like what happens when a drunk or reckless driver kills someone) would have been attainable. In that kind of trial Zimmerman’s recklessness would be clear. His reckless assumptions, his carrying a gun to confront a kid, his unwillingness to wait for police. That verdict was in reach of the prosecution under those kinds of charges.
With Zimmerman’s story now shredded by the prosecution, the only way out for George was the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ escape hatch. And that door was sadly open. Murder 2 requires more than recklessness, it requires motive.
Another problem probably was that the jury never clearly got the fact that when Martin retreats (at a full run no less), Zimmerman cannot pursue him and retain any “self defense” rights. None. It is the right of retreat. Again, Rachel Jeantell testified clearly about Trayvon’s efforts to retreat. And no, he was not required to retreat home (though the prosecution gave a good rationale for why not to lead some psycho stalker back to his 12 year old friend).
There is no doubt Zimmerman shot Martin. There is no doubt he pursued him for up to 4 minutes after getting off the phone with police. There is no doubt his story is a sham. And there is no doubt Martin had as much right to defend himself from a stalker as anyone else. The challenge is whether the incident was driven by hate and malice or just by a dumb, reckless, idiot? What I saw in court was a lot of both, but there was wiggle room on the Murder 2.
Zimmerman is not done yet. The Martins should go after him in civil court. The Fed should consider a case too.
His neighbors will mostly shun him, and they should demand he remain unarmed.
The vigilante who killed a kid is going to burn in hell. He may have side stepped justice for now, but he is damaged goods. Watching his father in court, I am pretty sure he knows his son killed Martin without justification. The killing of Trayvon will haunt ZImmerman and his family forever, and I for one hope it burns the entire time. He took a life without good cause.
More importantly, it will be hard to convince others to not become vigilantes now that Zimmerman has won his case. Zimmerman took the law into his hands and killed someone. Now he is going to find himself the target of others with a similar mindset. They will profile him, judge him, and possibly confront him. I pray to God no one does. This is not the time for an eye for an eye justice.
But those are the ramifications for not confessing, not plea bargaining, not coming clean. Sometimes you can do more damage trying to be found not guilty than doing your penance.
Zimmerman’s problems are still mounting, and rightfully so. And justice will be done in the end someway, somehow – even if it ends up being at the pearly gates of Heaven. This weekend the effing punk got away. But he cannot run forever from what he did.
Ditto for me. Your analysis of this case, from beginning to end, now has me doubting your ability to rationally consider any subject. I’m removing this blog from my list of favorites. Maybe one day I’ll return to see if you’ve recovered your sanity.
I am not going to refuse to come back to this site, as I’ve been following AJ’s postings here for years, just like many of the rest who have commented here, and with this one exception, have found his writings to be incisive, well-researched, and helpful to my own knowledge of issues. In many cases he’s been the only one to bring out little-known facts and under-appreciated arguments that have tended to bolster the case for conservatism in so many important ways.
As to Trayvon-Zimmerman, well, I don’t know what to say except to agree with the above conclusion that maybe AJ at some point had a significant emotional event which caused him to see this issue through a cloud. His reasoning has served only to cause me to feel even more certain of Zimmerman’s innocence.
AJ’s evidence against Zimmerman seems to result from staunch, unflappable prejudice-he and he alone has read Zimmerman’s mind. Does anyone else believe that Zimmerman’s “lies” wouldn’t have been pounced on in court by the prosecution, if indeed they were provable lies and not the result of mind-reading?
At any rate, I’m hoping most of the very astute posters on this site will reconsider and come back to this site, as it seems to me the first and only time AJ Strata has ever allowed emotion to trump reason.
Ditto all the above. The difference between the two legal teams during the post-acquittal pressers could not have been more stark. Mark O’Mara summed up the lynch mob mentality of the MSM and, unfortunately, people like you perfectly with his statement:
“Two systems went against George Zimmerman that he can’t understand: you guys, the media. He was like a patient in an operating table where a mad scientists were committing experiments on him and he had no anesthesia. He didn’t know why he was turned into this monster, but quite honestly you guys had a lot to do with it. You just did. Because you took a story that was fed to you and you ran with it, and you ran right over him. And that was horrid to him.
Then he comes into a system that he trusts — let’s not forget, six voluntary statements, voluntary surrender — and he believes in a system that he really wanted to be a part of, right? And then he gets prosecutors that charge him with a crime that they could never, ever, prove. They didn’t lose evidence along the way, right. So I don’t think anyone in this room would argue they had evidence of second degree murder. This ‘in you heart’ stuff…. That’s not what we’re supposed to do. So those two systems failed him.”
I hope you are never a juror in a case where I am the defendant.
It’s hard not to get angry when confronted by massive idiocy on the part of someone like AJ who should know better, but who consistently demonstrates such complete and total ignorance of some of the most fundamental, underlying facts about our justice system. But just to illumine – NOW he puts out an update saying that “not guilty” doesn’t mean innocent? WELL DUH!!! That is true for EVERY criminal trial that has EVER taken place in this country for the last 230 years! You’re just finding that out????
If you don’t understand that at the outset, you don’t understand the most fundamental aspect as to how our justice system works. This is why EVERYONE with honest legal expertise (Dershowitz for starters) who looked at this said this case should never have been brought, because there was no way for the state to make the case they were required to make. That judgment had NOTHING to do with whether Zimmermann was right or wrong; you did not have to go there at all to see that the State’s case was fatally flawed from the start.
Here’s why. (and I guess I forget that people who only watch CSI on TV and have no real experience with our justice system may not realize this, even though I have always taken it for granted that any intelligent citizen in this country did, but obviously AJ doesn’t.)
The Prosecution’s job in ANY and EVERY criminal case is to PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt what happened, and then to prove that what happened was something that violated the law. The job of the Defense is much, much simpler – the Defense only has to cast doubt on the Prosecution’s narrative. If there is Doubt, then the Defense wins. That’s our system, that’s one of the primary checks and balances we have to keep overzealous prosecutors from running roughshod over the country.
Now this is not just true for the Zimmermann trial – this is true for EVERY CRIMINAL TRIAL THAT HAS EVER BEEN HELD IN THIS COUNTRY.
If, at the end of the trial, there is still =Doubt as to what actually happened, as to how things played out on the ground, then the defendant walks. That’s the system. And if the Prosecutor knows going in that there is Doubt, and that there isn’t enough evidence to prove his/her narrative, then CHARGES SHOULD NEVER BE BROUGHT. This is why the original local team all declined to press charges – because the evidence was NEVER there to support them!
In this case, the Prosecution put on the most laughably incompetent display (well, laughable if it wasn’t so malicious) I have ever seen in a courtroom. They spent all their time trying to say “well, maybe what George said isn’t true.” Wonderful, that plays to the politicized fanboys watching TV, but guess what? All you have done by doing that is introduce Doubt. If the case ends with Doubt, the Defense wins. Simple. The Prosecution HAS to PROVE what DID happen, not what might have happened. And by universal admission, they never came close to doing that. That’s what had happened when I wrote that the Prosecutions case had collapsed.
The closing arguments by the Prosecution were the most pathetically bad I have ever heard – they were a total face-palming embarrassment for every real prosecutor out there. The Prosecution spent almost the entire argument saying “well, this COULD have happened, or it COULD have happened this way…”
WAKE UP GENIUSES! THAT WAS THE DEFENSE’S ENTIRE CASE YOU JUST MADE FOR THEM!!!
Mara did an outstanding job in this case, but he was helped immeasurably by the Wile E. Coyote, SuperGenius approach of the Prosecution team, who blew every argument, every witness, and every aspect of this case.
A not guilty verdict was not just likely, it would have been a tragic violation of our most basic sense of Justice for this to have come out any other way. Anyone who doesn’t realize that doesn’t have a clue about how a real criminal justice system works.
Just to add in what I thought was the most laughably incompetent move of the entire trial, and the witness that I thought really sealed the case for the Defense – it was Detective Serino’s testimony.
1st, remember that he was a PROSECUTION witness, and that he was also the lead detective in the case. He came out and said, under oath, that he believed Zimmermann’s story and that in his opinion, George was being honest! Any competent prosecutor would have objected right there that the witness was drawing conclusions, not giving evidence, but the incompetent prosecutors just sat there with the mouths open, letting the jury eat this testimony up. They got the Judge to later instruct the jury to ignore this, but everyone with courtroom experience knows that that’s a joke – by bringing it up again later, you have just emphasized it’s importance to the jury, who of course can never unhear what they have already heard.
But even this wasn’t the greatest failure of how they handled this witness – the most mind-boggling failure was that Florida is an unusual state, in which every witness has to give the attorney’s on both sides depositions of what they say ahead of time, and for which they can be charged with perjury if their courtroom testimony is divergent from their prior written deposition.
LONG STORY SHORT – the Prosecution KNEW that Serino was going to say this before they put him on the stand – and yet they still marched right into this catastrophe like blindfolded lemmings? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???? That one negative witness destroyed their entire case!!!! Now, they spent some time trying to attack Serino’s credibility, but you know what? All that did was to introduce more Doubt, and as I said previously, DOUBT = DEFENSE WINS.
BDLR, the chief prosecutor at the trial, isn’t even fit to present traffic citations in municipal court. What an absolute embarrassment he is to attorneys everywhere, not for the position he took, but for the absolute and stunning level of incompetence he showed at every level of his job.
And Dershowitz is right – Angela Corey, the special prosecutor, should be disbarred for the withholding of exculpatory information from the defense, in direct violation of State and Federal Law. This is exactly what Mike Nifong did in the Duke Lacrosse case, and is what got him disbarred up there.
I want someone to confront Jessie Jackson and all the race pimps on TV with this question. With all the hundreds of cases of Black on Black crime/homicide that happen each year, why is this case so important?
94% of all Black homicide are by other Blacks. No protests.
This case should have never have gone to court. If Zimmerman was black it would have never come to light. Its only valuable to black american race pimps and the Obama administration for its ability to cause strife and division.
I will not stop coming to the site and posting. I cannot understand AJ’s delusion over this case, but I still like the guy and enjoy his other posts.
Make it a trifecta – why there will be no successful Civil Rights prosecution on the Federal Level. (can’t guarantee they wont’ try, but I can guarantee any effort would fail miserably, and all of the professionals in the DOJ know this)
Civil Rights prosecutions are based on the State of Mind (specific intent, Mens Rhea, however you want to characterize it) of the defendant at the time of the alleged offense. Which means that to get a conviction, the Prosecution has to 1) Show that the defendant INTENDED the criminal action before it happened, because of a “depraved heart”. This was the Murder 2 standard which has already failed at trial. But that is not enough – for a Civil Rights charge, the Prosecution then has to PROVE that this was done BECAUSE of a Racial Animus or Racial Bias, and that “but for” the race of the victim, the defendant would not have taken these actions.
Proving the state of mind of a defendant on any single incident is virtually impossible for a single incident like this, *Especially* in a case where there are no direct witnesses. The State of Florida just spent 5 weeks demonstrating that no one can prove what actually happened in the last moments, but now some want DOJ to go in and not only prove exactly what happened, but to prove WHY it happened?
Ridiculous.
As the prosecutors (and even AJ himself) began to realize at the very end, this case was massively overcharged from the start, and at most should have been manslaughter, more likely negligent homicide. But charge like that can NEVER be the basis for a civil rights violation, because by their very nature they acknowledge that the requisite guilty Mens Rhea is absent from the event.
One other thing about manslaughter and negligent homicide – EVERY self defense case ever brought has the requisite elements of both of those charges inherent in it. Self Defense comes into play when you have a situation which *would be* manslaughter or negligent homicide, EXCEPT that the common law right of self defense or the various Self Defense statutes of the States (Florida has a particularly strong one) provide a bar to prosecution and an immunity for the defendant.
And again, in the matter of proof – the defendant does not have to prove that he acted in self defense, the State has to PROVE he did not! And they already tried to do that and failed.
Interestingly, the Stand your Ground law actually never came into play in this trial, even though it was talked about. Once the prosecution admitted that Trayvon was on top of George (and the forensic testimony was damning here) then the self defense aspect was in full play. Remember, with self defense, a defendant just has to be reasonably afraid of bodily injury, and then under Florida law he is authorized to use any force necessary to defend himself.
When the State admitted in court that Martin was on top (the infamous dummy spectacle) their case was over.
AJ says:
“The vigilante who killed a kid is going to burn in hell. He may have side stepped justice for now, but he is damaged goods. Watching his father in court, I am pretty sure he knows his son killed Martin without justification. The killing of Trayvon will haunt ZImmerman and his family forever, and I for one hope it burns the entire time. He took a life without good cause.”
………….uh somebody is bitter. This is really a sad comment AJ.
Shame on you AJ for that bitter rant. I’m deleting your site from my favorites; I’m not coming back.
I have to wonder whether AJ being the intelligent person that he is isn’t doing some kind of sting here.
His comments are so off the wall and over the top and inconsistent with the facts in this case the only explanation is that he’s doing some kind of reverse psychology on his readers.
The only other explanation is that he is insane, perhaps as a result of some kind of encounter himself with someone he sees as a vigilante.
He refuses to acknowledge the lies of his star witness. Who wasn’t a juvenile as she originally claimed, didn’t go to the hospital as a result of the incident as she claimed, couldn’t read the cursive note she supposedly wrote herself, who didn’t go the police with her story but instead appeared through the ambulance chasers that adopted the Travon case as their road to riches. Why believe any of her story then.
AJ refuses to acknowledge the actual witness that saw Travon on top of Zimmerman. His testimony alone creates the reasonable doubt necessary to acquit. That was a prosecution witness btw.
If your posts are legit AJ you really need some professional help.
Travon is dead because HE chose to teach the “creepy ass cracker” (Travon’s words from your star witness) a lesson, not expecting the guy to protect himself. I’ll give Travon the benefit of doubt in that it was proven he had drugs in his system and his fruit drink (NOT TEA) skittles cocktail aka the Lean that Travon talked about on his facebook page. It was Zimmerman that called 911 not Travon and not his girl friend. Why would he do that if he intended to assassinate Travon. No injuries on the back of Travon’s head indicating he was the one being beaten. the prosecution withheld evidence favorable to Zimmerman for which the whistleblower has now been fired.
I have a question regarding the trial evidence.
Did TM actually purchase the skiddles, and where they found after shooting? If so, where were they found?
Thanks
OL
People, embroiled in making the Martin/Zimmerman case into a civil rights one, hold up the recorded comment of Zimmerman, “Effing punks always get away,” as being 100% proof of his animus and hatred for blacks. This one exasperated utterance seems to contain just enough finger-pointing material, for many, to take away all of Zimmerman’s humanity, in one fell swoop. And, yet, what fades conveniently into the background was the assault of burglaries and break-ins this community had been under, with descriptions of the perpetrators being black youth.
Real fear and concerns for people’s safety was ongoing in this community, which is why a neighborhood watch was created. Hence, Zimmerman’s response, to seeing another black youth aimlessly drifting around in the rain, might seem a little more legitimate if tied into these other factors. BTW, did Martin’s father or his girlfriend ever think of warning Trayvon about these heightened tensions, and even attempt to dissuade this “child” from going out in inclement evening weather just to buy candy?
Nevertheless, the criminal activity and increased neighborhood vigilance to deter it, seemed to become completely irrelevant and lost in the wake of hyper-focusing on black/“white”, “child”/adult, skittles, ice tea/gun dynamics — comparisons and contrasts that were emotionally tuned, mischaracterized and then attached to what played out.
NBC first put out erroneous information by altering the non-emergency 911 recorded call. Then, Zimmerman’s race was miscast as white, rather than mixed white/Hispanic. Martin’s first published image was of younger boy. His real current life appearance, though, was of a tall youth, who, if he had killed Zimmerman would have been tried as an adult, not a “child.. Finally, the confrontation was between fists and a gun, not skittles, ice tea and a gun. It involved someone younger, fitter, with street smarts and fighting skills having an advantage over another, battering their head on the edge of a concrete path, and ending with a shot through the heart of the one on top, delivering the blows.
Public dismay, though, was not channeled through any of these demonstrable ‘facts.’ Instead it was shuttled through the fantasy of Zimmerman as the angry, aggressive racist and Martin as a meandering, innocent “child”. The fact, though, that Zimmerman mentored black youth, one of his best friends and many neighbors were black never seemed to enter the equation, making the charge of him being a racist ludicrous. The fact that he volunteered for a neighborhood job, but declined all the bells and whistles of authority, such as a car with lights, uniform etc., also became unknown incidentals to the majority judging his character and intentions. For, if this had been emphasized it would have created weakness in the incessant claim that Zimmerman was a fanatical want-to-be-cop. The fact that Trayvon Martin was a street fighter who fought for blood, was photographed with burglar tools, jewelry, a gun, called himself a “gansta,” and prolifically used foul language in his own personal texts and conversations was not entered into evidence, and not brought up by an incurious press who had already convicted Zimmerman.
I just went back and looked a little at AJ’s post – the ignorance is astounding. Take this line: “The prosecutions one big mistake was going for Murder 2, which relied on them proving what happened absent Zimmerman’s concocted story.”
Of course it was mistake, but you still got it wrong, Champ: EVERY criminal case ever filed in this country for the last 230 years has required that the prosecution prove what happened absent the defendant’s story!!! That’s what the absolute constitutional right against self discrimination is all about!
And yet another idiotic line: “But the jury apparently decided that they could not prove what did happen.
Well of course, because that’s what EVERY jury in EVERY criminal trial ever held in this country is required to do!!!! HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW THAT????
Oneal
The palpable bile in that AJ excerpt you posted gives me chills.
Both families are going to forever be effected by Trayvon Martin’s early death. However, the insanity of how this event was processed, prosecuted, described by the media and racist hacks like Jackson, Sharpton etc., and now transformed into a civil rights claim, by the NAACP, is just pouring gasoline onto not only wounded families but also a newly agitated and increasingly divided society.
Nothing is being honored nor achieved here, but further grief and disruption. Zimmerman and his family are being pounded into the ground. Martin is being held up as some kind of (undeserving) civil rights icon, akin to MLK, while his primary family is being continually exploited in order to keep the vitriol alive.
It’s crazy…..
BTW, there has never been any proof that Zimmerman’s gun was ever drawn or visible until it was used to shoot Martin. IMO, Martin was totally unaware of Zimmerman having a concealed weapon, which is why Zimmerman may have appeared vulnerable and easy to overcome in a one-on-one fist fight. While Martin was on top of Zimmerman, though, it is entirely probable that, at some time during the fight, he felt the hardness of the gun on his opponent (perhaps his knee jammed up against it), and that is when the fight changed to the gun taking a life and death center stage.
Also, the effects of THC, which were found in Trayvon’s system, via the toxicology report, heightens the emotions of what people are feeling. If one is in a good mood, it becomes better under the effects of this drug. However, if they are paranoid or distressed in any way, that mood is the one which becomes exacerbated.
Through the phone conversation Trayvon had with his female friend, it is known that Trayvon’s state of mind was one that was irritable, saying to her that a “cracker” was following him, as well as paranoid when he picked up the pace to lose him. This is different than ‘fear,’ because if that were the case he would have ‘run’ back to the place he was staying. To me, Trayvon seemed to be annoyed and then angry that someone was following him, which bears out Zimmerman’s story that Martin confronted him, out of the darkness, and then socked him in the face.
Does AJ personally know George Zimmerman?
AJ is just too bitter and proud to admit that he was wrong about this case from day one. He’s not even reading the comments anymore, he’s scared to because at some level he realizes what a fool he has made of himself, and he doesn’t have the integrity required to face up to it.
He made up all these detailed posts showing how supposedly, Zimmerman’s story was fabricated, but ooops – witnesses during the trial, including and especially one of the top Forensics examiners in the country, blew all of that out of the water, up to the point that the State admitted in court that Trayvon was on top of GZ during the final confrontation. Some people, when the evidence shows that they are wrong, can man up and admit it. Some, like AJ, choose to retreat into bitter paranoia and lash out at anyone and anything that reminds them of what fools they have been.
All these claims that “Zimmerman lied” does someone forget that Zimmerman did not testify in this case? He could not have “lied’ if he never took the stand. Any story of his that made the testimony was done by others and it was their testimony that made the jury confident that no case was proven. The local Sanford police obviously knew he couldn’t be convicted on the gathered evidence, so they didn’t bring charges. All this about ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. Anyone can call it what they want, it matters not. If a defendant is found ‘not guilty’ then according to the law, they are innocent of the suspected crime.
WWS said:
“AJ is just too bitter and proud to admit that he was wrong about this case from day one. He’s not even reading the comments anymore,”
wonder if this would be true had the verdict come out differently. Just wondering.
I wish more people would get the word out that George Zimmerman is white, Hispanic, and Afro-Peruvian. He is 25% black, which the news media has been trying desperately to keep under wraps, as that blows the entire “white guy kills black kid” narrative out of the water. He has more African blood than Plessy did (Plessy vs. Ferguson, which enshrined “separate but equal”). Plessy was 1/8th black.
I don’t know if AJ is aware of all the things on Trayvon’s phone that were excluded from evidence – you know, the MMA fight boasting, the request from his younger brother that Trayvon teach him how to fight, the general lawlessness…or if he is aware that the NBC 911 tape was deliberately edited to make Zimmerman out to be a racist. What about the Justice Department actually spending money on the protests last year and bussing in protesters?
Up to this point I’ve enjoyed AJ’s commentary and analysis on a number of issues, from Climate Change to Able Danger. This particular case is an anomaly for him and I can only assume, like some of the other commenters, that there are some sort of emotional blinders in place. The evidence was never there to convict Zimmerman; it was concocted from the first to gin up the African American vote and if Zimmerman had had the last name Hernandez we never would have heard about it.
I’ll keep coming back, albeit not as often, as I do enjoy AJ’s commentary. I just don’t understand how he’s getting this one so wrong.