Mark O’Mara, attorney for George Zimmerman, filed a pleading today stating he would call two witnesses from All Star Magic Bail Bonds at the June 29 hearing for bond.
I assume they will testify of the difficulty the family had in coming up with the $15,000. bond premium, as evidence that George and Shellie Zimmerman didn’t think of the money raised by the website as their money, but money earmarked for legal fees, living expenses while waiting for trial and creditors. O’Mara has said in the past that the Zimmerman’s didn’t fully appreciate that the money belonged to them.
O’Mara has said he explained to Zimmerman why his belief was wrong, and he now understands.
Shorter version: Zimmerman wasn’t lying, just mistaken, and had no intent to deceive the court.
Will he get another bond? Absolutely, in my view. First, he’s legally entitled to it. Second, he will have spent 29 days in jail for his mistake — that’s a steep enough penalty. The judge is not concerned Zimmerman is a flight risk. He may not even raise the bond amount since the money is no longer under Zimmerman’s control, but the control of a independent third party trustee.
Bail is not intended to be punishment. It’s intended to assure the person’s appearance at trial. Zimmerman, having ceded control of the raised funds to a trustee, is in no better financial condition today than when he was arrested on April 11.
O’Mara said at the June 1 hearing he still owed the bondsman $10,000. of the $15,000. premium on the first bond. Since the premium is the bondsman’s fee for making the bond, he might give George a break on a new bond, but I doubt he’ll forego his fee entirely. Local bondspersons use national insurance companies to underwrite the bonds, they don’t put their own money at risk. The national company has to get paid too, and it’s unlikely in my opinion, they would view Zimmerman as different than any other client.
Could the judge reinstate the old bond now that it’s been discharged and turned in? I’m not sure, but I think not, since that would again involve the national insurance company that underwrote the bond and their contract probably says their obligations end when the bond is discharged.
15 Jun
Zimmerman’s Bail Bond Agents to Testify at Bond Hearing
All this legal minutia is well over my head.
(I keep a law firm on retainer so THEY can deal with ….. whatever.)
But we are getting only one or two of the five blind men’s descriptions of the elephant.
We cannot make informed, much less intelligent opinions based on so little.
I am glad Zimmerman has the lawyer he has.
@Nan G: Don’t worry, Nan, the Flopping Aces Lynch Mob (FLAM) will be here any minute to explain to you why this means Zimmerman deserves capital punishment for daring to ask Matin, a notorious drug-dealer, what he was doing in Zimmerman’s neighborhood.
It’s all good.
Ivan:
Do you always speak from such an uninformed point of view? Just curious.
Your biggest fan
Ron. H
I am not sure that Lester will reinstate bond for Zimmerman. When he revoked Zimmerman’s bond, he did it with very little warning to the defense team. O’Mara asked for more time to at least be able to prepare a rebuttal to Angela Corey’s persecution team, and the judge denied it. Since when do judges deny a defense team adequate time to prepare a rebuttal? Since this case became a national issue, and the bottom feeders got involved.
The goal of the persecution team is to make sure that George Zimmerman is unable to make bond so that Corey can sate the baying hounds nipping at her heels (Crump, and the Justice Brothers). It is obvious Zimmerman is NOT a flight risk, the judge admitted that, but hey, in order to look good to the rebel rousers, gotta put the guy behind bars, right?
@Ron H.:
Ron,
Did you bring your rope? Is the FALM whore coming with you?
@Ivan:
Just for the sake of clarification, precisely which person on this site are you referring to as a whore?
Let’s see if you have the stonz to actually type the name.
Let’s just see.
Aye Ivan manages to bash everyone from Mata to Larry garnering support only from blind mice like Dr.J. and Ms. Bees. Classless ranting. Zero credulity.
Off subject—- Markets worst week followed by 2 extremely strong weeks.What say the gamblers with the strong armed monkies?
@retire05:
I had a few moments to conduct a detailed close read of 5 pages of the bond hearing transcripts (yes far far from enough). Some of Zimmerman’s wife’s pertinent testimony would seem to be accurate if one were to assume three things:
1) The website cash was not owned or controlled by George Zimmerman or his wife, say such as in an arrangement where the funds were held in a trust fund, which was administered by a third party.
2) Zimmerman’s wife was unable to make a full and accurate accounting for the funds but presumed the State’s attorney would obtain that full an accurate accounting from the brother-in-law administering the fund if the State’s attorney decided he needed that information.
3) The Zimmermans, husband and/or wife, did not do something knuckle-headed such as co-mingling the trust fund assets with their own personal assets.
On points #1 and #3 the Zimmerman’s were mistaken. Their error regarding point #3 seems to be the most damaging.
Regarding point #2 however I was puzzled as to why the State’s attorney did not pursue Mrs. Zimmerman’s offer to arrange a telephone call with fund’s administrator. That information was obviously quite material to the court’s consideration. Did the State’s attorney make a mistake? … an oversight? Did he fail to follow up because he did not need the information because he already had some semblance of it? If so, was he setting Mrs. Zimmerman up?
If the prosecution team set up Mrs. Zimmerman, did they do so to blackmail George Zimmerman into pleading to manslaughter to save his wife?
@Ivan: Quit it Ivan. All you’re doing is trying to get under people’s skin. If you have a point about the case than make it without the unprovoked insults.
@Aye:
Who are you to order anyone around here, Aye?
You routinely, no, check that, reflexively, support the ILLEGAL prosecution of Zimmerman, yet always fail to address the FACT that Martin was an ILLEGAL DRUG DEALER.
Why, Aye, why do you always fail to comment on that? With you, it’s “Zimmerman bad”, 24/7. Yet nary a word on the conduct of Martin.
The fact is that this prosecution against Z is 100% political in nature. The Sheriff of Sanford County agreed that the shooting was in self-defense. It was only AFTER political pressure came from the White House was a political wh#re, Corey, appointed to rail-road Zimmerman to the metaphorical gallows.
You Aye are in part responsible, by your constant haranguing along with the likes of Sharpton and other bomb-throwers, for the unjust and illegal prosecution of Zimmerman.
Sure, you’ll escape justice here in our society for your part in this lynch mob, but in the end you’ll be held accountable for you actions by a judge who sees all and knows all, including the wrong in one’s heart.
@Curt: Okay, Curt. I apologize for referring to anyone by that name.
The case just makes me see red.
Again, I’m sorry, Curt.
@Ivan:
I knew that you didn’t have the stonz to be specific about who you were referring to.
You’ve publicly proven you’re nothing more than a spineless coward.
Congratulations on that.
@Mike O’Malley:
It seems that George/Shellie Zimmerman assumed that since the money had been solicited for “living expenses and legal fees” that there was some question as to whether they could use that money for a bondsman. Bond is not part of “legal” fees that are generated by their attorney.
As to #2: Team Persecution were fully aware of the jailhouse conversations between George and Shellie at the original bond hearing. Yet, they mentioned nothing about them. I would also bet that Team Persecution were in possession of the Zimmerman’s credit union statements at the same time. Yet, you are correct that when Shellie Zimmerman offered to let the court speak to her brother-in-law, both the judge, and Team Persecution did not take advantage of that offer. Why? Team Persecution had something else in mind.
But Mike, let’s not let Mark O’Hara off the hook. He had a responsibility to inform Shellie Zimmerman that if she was going to testify at the bond hearing, which Florida statute 90.504 says she is not required to do, she needed independent counsel as he could not represent both her and George. Had Shellie Zimmerman had independent counsel, she would have never testified. I am sure when she did, Angela Corey was overjoyed knowing that anything Shellie said could, AND WOULD, be used against the Zimmermans.
I am not impressed with George Zimmerman’s legal counsel. Yeah, O’Mara was great when he nailed the lead investigator to the barn wall, but since then, his actions have been less than stellar. He was blindsided at the second hearing when the persecution demanded GZ’s bond be revoked, and he was blindsided with the arrest of Shellie Zimmerman. I read yesterday that he had requested the persecution notify him prior to seeking any arrest warrent for Shellie. They stiffed him and he did not learn of her arrest until AFTER she had already posted bond. But Team Persecution did advise the media of the impending arrest of Shellie Zimmerman. O’Mara better wake up and realize that he is trying to fight fair and the Team Persecution is trying to stack the deck against him.
@retire05:
I’ll crib from Prof. Jacobson and his commenter:
This is what Corey told the court in the perjury affidavit of probable cause:
This is a quote from the full transcript with bold emphasis to illustrate what was omitted. It says:
Q= State prosecutor
A=Mrs. zimmerman
@Mike O’Malley, O’mara is planning an “explanation” that GZ didn’t believe he could use the website donations for his bond since he didn’t classify it as “legal fees” or “living expenses”.
One can get into the nuances of “legal fees” (i.e. like you’d find in an attorney/client contract) and make the case that bond is not traditionally paid out of pocket by defense attorneys (and is illegal to do so in some cases) and therefore isn’t a “legal fee”. It becomes more vague to second guess GZ’s perspectives for bond as a “living expense”.
The problem with that argument is that if the case is to be made that GZ felt that money wasn’t for use for a bond, it’s countermanded by the fact that he used $5K of that very same money for his bond. Then the argument becomes if he believes $5K is okay to use for bond, why not $15K? In the prior Zimmerman discussions, he (paraphrased without the expletive) said “no way”, but that was when Ms. Z suggested using $100K of the money for the bond.
INRE your reading of the five page transcript… and the State’s Probable Cause for Perjury and the omitted text, the brief referred to the pages in the full transcript, which contained the omitted line of questioning INRE the brother in law. Generally references to extraneous documents in briefs mean they are attached as Exhibits to the brief for referral. It would be up to Judge Lester to refer to that Exhibit if he felt the statements, alone, did not support the PC Affidavit for SZ.
But as I pointed out before, it wasn’t as important that SZ did not have an accurate, and current balance for a website which could change minute to minute by incoming donations. Rather it was the one very defined question about “any estimate” of money that was “collected or obtained” that I think sealed her fate. There is a big difference in knowing the “current balance” and just providing an estimate of funds that you know have been run thru there to that moment. And there was no denying she was aware of money for their use.
As far as the State not availing themselves of the most current balance via the brother in law, I doubt that they went in to that hearing with the notion that even an estimate of the funds available were not going to be freely disclosed. If they had reviewed the jailhouse calls, they have no idea that $155 meant $155K.
Nor was there any reason to disbelieve what she would say at that time, since GZ has been cooperative and not a flight risk. Under those circumstances, I doubt the State felt an ever morphing fundraising account was a huge deal since any of us would have expected them to be upfront about their money. It was only after the amounts they had available surfaced later, surprising everyone – including their own attorney – that this came down.
I have no idea why you would think this was a “set up” by the State to coerce GZ into a plea bargain for a lesser charge. Their financial means for bond, living expenses or legal fees has absolutely nothing to do with Zimmerman’s decisions and choices that evening…. which is the heart of the 2nd degree murder charge.
Because of the way this came down, it is a hit to GZ’s credibility… even tho he was not the one testifying to the financial means. That testimony can now be used by the State in his trial, if they so choose to attempt to discredit any story of self-defense O’Mara chooses to evoke. But the State isn’t arguing anything positive or negative about GZ’s self defense. They are arguing that his actions and decisions created the dangerous conditions that led to him having to exercise any self defense at all… so it’s sort of a moot point for them.
Not sure what O’Mara wants to do with the two bail bondsmen coming in, but he’s added them to the hearing witness list for June 29th. O’Mara is also filing a motion, hoping to change the status of the jail cell calls to personal and confidential… likely so that the State will have less ammunition to make GZ’s self-defense attempt discredited. That’s going to be tough because outgoing jail house calls are preceded by warnings that the phone are recorded, they can be heard by any 3rd parties in the vicinity and only the attorney-client calls are considered confidential. But O’Mara wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t try.
Ultimately, I think that he will have a new bond set, just for more money.
@retire05:
Lots of juicy morsels to nibble on in your most recent spattering but we’ll start here:
90.504 does NOT say that the missus is exempt from testifying.
The only thing that statue offers is protection for husband-wife communications that were intended to be made in confidence.
When Z was booked into the jail he signed an intake form which made clear that all of his communications would be monitored.
Clearly Mr and Mrs Z knew that other ears would be privy to their conversations…and they demonstrated this knowledge thru the use of the clumsy code…thus those communications were not made with the expectation of confidentiality.
When you asked about estimates of monies “collected or obtained,” that was a loaded question. Money collected may be totally different than money obtained. So which was it? The money collected at the website, or the money obtained from the website.
You will also notice that Shellie Zimmerman’s answers were short, and direct. No explaination of anything.
@Aye:
Did you NOT see that Curt asked me to refrain from said comments?
Are you just a troll looking for a fight and engaging in personal attacks all the time?
Why Curt tolerates you here with you constant insults to those who happen to disagree with you is beyond the imagination.
But tell you what, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones and put all the past animus behind us.
Are you will to take up my offer to not insult ANYONE here and treat EVERYONE with respect? In return, I will do the same (as long as they treat me with respect in return).
I extend this offer to Mata and Ron H.
Are you game?
Ivan
Aye,
I asked you a couple questions in my post about Martin. Could you answer those questions?
Thanks!
Ivan
@MataHarley:
Yes, I would expect that is true. You “have no idea … ”
Retire05 and others including one of America’s most renowned law professors do however believe that Angela Corey is unethically attempting to coerce GZ into a plea bargain for a lesser charge. Perhaps I can’t help you there.
And the State prosecutors bringing the charges, and the presiding judge who was at the hearing, and have seen and heard the phone calls disagree with all of you – feeling the perjury charge is appropriate. So I can’t help you there… LOL The judge and the State have reviewed the jail house calls and the records. The rest of you haven’t. One more time, your and their opinion is irrelevant. But Dershowitz, Merritt and Jacobson are accomplishing their own agenda… they are staying in the media limelight. That is their prime vested interest.
“But Dershowitz, Merritt and Jacobson are accomplishing their own agenda…they are staying in the media limelight. That is their prime vested interest.”
Unlike Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Benjamin Crump as associates, Raul Julison and yes, even Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. who said if he had a son that son would look like Trayvon Martin?
I don’t disagree with that in the slightest, retire05. There is the legal business, there is the heartbreak and stress for both families, and then there are pundits, civil rights leaders, politicians and bloggers who are exploiting it for their own reasons. That’s the way we roll in this nation. Gotta love it.
@retire05:
One wonders why Dershowitz would need the Zimmerman incident to stay in the media spotlight. Dershowitz would seem to have other fish to fry. One wonder’s what sort of airtime Prof. Jacobson expects.
Unlike Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Benjamin Crump and associates, Raul Julison and yes, even Barack Hussein Obama, who have pockets to fill and voter turnout to worry about.
BTW, Mike, you said:
I haven’t seen where Dershowitz expressed this notion that charging Ms. Z is an effective way to force GZ into a plea bargain. Got a link, ‘cus I’d sure like to read that one. Dershowitz is always entertaining, especially as he’s generally a one man “community organizer” of discontent against the judicial system and the process. As Harry I. Subin said in his intro to Dershowitz’s book, “The Best Defense”, he elicits a potpourri of emotions since
I see quite a few commenters making this claim that the perjury charge against one defendant is supposed to force a completely different defendant in a different lawsuit to plea bargain in various blogs, but the true origination of this seems to be elusive with a source link. Since you’re hanging that precious gem of an observation on “one of America’s most renowned law professors” … link please?
I will go ahead and apologize to the wider audience here for the OT distraction, but I have one little minor housekeeping matter to resolve with Ivan.
@Ivan:
That crocodile smile looks very familiar… I know that I’ve seen it somewhere before. It’s like dejavu all over again… Hmmm… I know I’ve seen it somewhere… Oh… there it is:
Then, before the ink was dry on the apology bytes, it all fell apart. (Thanks Mata for assembling and summarizing the archived history into one nice, neat comment that can be easily accessed when needed):
Since your April 2011 Apology Tour, we’ve been treated to innumerable gems of “civility” from you…the guy who is always and forever bellyaching about how other people are always picking on him.
I could go through the 47 pages of comments you’ve made since your last “apology” in order to copy/paste boatloads of examples of your bile but, frankly, I don’t find you worthy of my time or effort.
@Ivan:
You’ll note that I’ve been pretty much just ignoring your commentary entirely since I honestly think the bandwidth is too valuable to waste on you.
Your luck in that vein turned south however when you decided to refer to someone here as a FALM whore.
Considering that there’s only one female member of your self-designated FALM, it’s pretty damned clear who you intended it for…even if you did chicken out when offered the opportunity to stand by your slur. I was always taught to treat ladies better than that.
Of course, I was also taught not to call people “cheese dick” or “race traitor” or any of the other varied and sundry invectives you’ve squeezed out of your rectum and smeared onto these pages.
Perhaps your Mom and Dad didn’t instill those higher standards in you. Maybe you just weren’t taught any better. Or perhaps, and I think vastly more likely, you simply choose to be a despicable sack of human flesh in spite of what you were taught.
I think, perhaps, real life for you is dull, boring, routine, and vanilla. You’re away from home. Away from your wife and children. So, you come here to spice things up a little. You come here to add a little excitement and delight to your non-descript cookie cutter lifestyle at the expense of the good, decent, erudite people who find themselves on the receiving end of your barbs.
Dunno for sure why you are where you are…but there you are.
Congratulations on that.
In light of today’s events, and how quickly things devolved the last time you “apologized” I have to say that I’m not interested in more empty words and worthless promises from you.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire
I see a whole lot of lip flappin’ going on about Dershowitz and Merritt speaking up regarding Zimmerman.
Those who are invoking the names of these attorneys are jumping to the false conclusion that if these attorneys are letting their voices be heard that must mean that Zimmerman is innocent.
Alan Dershowitz is famous for defending OJ Simpson. Jeralyn Merritt’s claim to fame is defending Timothy McVeigh.
Does anyone think that Simpson and McVeigh were innocent of what they were accused of simply because these particular attorneys spoke on their behalf?
In his memoir The Best Defense, Dershowitz said “almost all of my clients have been guilty.” In the memoir Dershowitz also said “Once I decide to take a case…I have only one agenda: I want to win. I will try, by every fair and legal means, to get my client off–without regard to the consequences.”
So, I have to pose the question: Are these attorneys speaking up for Z because he’s innocent…or are they speaking up because that’s just what they do?
And, if they really thought he was innocent, then why haven’t they volunteered to come to his defense pro bono and actually put deeds behind their words?
Sadly our own local media in Orlando is treating the Z’s like Bonni and Clyde. What happened is a sad event but I don’t think any of us is prepared for what transpired. Media feeding frezy. Also, last night among other murders in Orlando, a black football player from Texas was killed. I feel sorry in that case too, but where is the media out rage? Sorry that was a black on black shooting that doesn’t count does it.
Technically, Aye, Dershowitz was only an adviser to the OJ “Dream Team” for any appellate purposes. Since OJ was acquitted, his counsel INRE an appeal turned out to be unnecessary. In other words, Dershowitz’s only role was to lend advice for the next stage, were a next stage necessary.
But it’s interesting you provide Dershowitz’s quote about the quest to win. He may have a serious disagreement with Jeralyn Merritt, who took a commenter to task when they said a prosecutor’s job was to get a conviction. She replied:
Pitting a Dershowitz defense against a Jeralyn prosecution would then result in a prosecutor seeking justice done against a criminal lawyer bent on doing any and everything to win… which, as both will be the first to admit, is not necessarily accomplishing “justice” at all. As a 1985 Subin white paper – “The Lawyer as Superego: Disclosure of Client Confidences to Prevent Harm” – defense lawyers in all fields often find themselves in the difficult position of being in knowledge of client activities and culpability which conflicts with their duties to the judicial process and court. Hence the fertile field for judicial corruption.
BTW, I’m still waiting to see what revered legal beagle is credited for the suggesting that charging Ms Z with perjury was a ploy to get GZ to plea bargain. ????
While her bond testimony can remain as admissible in GZ’s trial, if it is relevant to the State’s prosecution of Second Degree Murder, she may claim spousal immunity at any stage in the trial. So I’d sure like to see how that ploy is supposed to put any pressure on GZ for a plea bargain.
Is someone laboring under the impression that GZ will give up his defense and take a felony of first degree (Martin was under 18) lower charge if the State will drop the perjury charges against Ms. Z? For Zimmerman, this means he’d be trading a max life sentence, if convicted, for guaranteed jail time with a max 30 years sentence.. all just to spare his wife a max of 5 years.
Don’t see it happening… sorry.
Mata, you’re wrong. Take the case of a prosecutor who has brought charges against a defendent for a crime, but then obtains evidence that the defendent they are prosecuting was innocent of that crime. The prosecutor then has a responsibility to drop the case against the defendent in the persuit of justice, not just a conviction.
Jeralyn Merritt was right; that you did not know that is sad.
What are you babbling about now, retire05? I don’t disagree with Merritt a lick that a trial is the quest for justice and (hopefully) truth in it’s intent. What Dershowitz’s quote points out is that criminal defense lawyers are often in the position of defending the guilty.. and oft time may be in possession of that knowledge via client/attorney communications. This puts them in the precarious position of duty to client, and duty to the judicial process and court. Hazards of the gig. They still attempt to achieve freedom for their client… even when guilty. Or perhaps plea bargain.
What is sad is your reading disability, for you accuse me of a position that not only do I not hold, but never said I did. Perhaps all that venom and spittle was getting in your eyes.
Richard Wheeler
can you spell CREDULY? AGAIN I THINK YOU ARE THE CLASSLESS ONE HERE,
DR JOHN IS TOO SMART FOR YOU, AND IT ENRAGE YOU, AND FOR MYSELF I AM TO KIND FOR YOU,
AND IT PUT YOU BENEATH MY PERSONA.
MATA
I don’t think it’s the case of ANGELA to help GEORGE ZIMMERMAN, SHE JUST WANT TO PUT HIM IN JAIL FOE MANY YEARS AND BREAK HIS REPUTATION FOR LIFE, LIKE SHE DID FOR MARISSA, AND OTHER
THERE IS NOW A NEW ONE ON A NEW LINK DEMANDING ANGELA TO STFU
Bees, it’s the job of prosecutors to seek justice and prosecute those they believe are guilty of a crime, It is the job of the defense attorney to protect the rights of his client, the accused. Each side has their own legal representation… the prosecutor representing the State and the law, and the defense representing the accused. Of course a prosecutor isn’t going to do the defense attorney’s job. However any evidence – favorable or unfavorable – is provided as the law requires. Most especially in Florida where everything is in the public domain.
You act like this is something personal and a vendetta. Prosecutors see many sad tales, as well as law enforcement. There is no shortage of tragedy for both sides of the coin, and they are not immune to seeing that. You are projecting your own emotions on to a professional, which is not much of a help in the debate.
Bees I merely noted you’ve continued to back Ivan in spite of the venom he’s spewed at Mata and Aye.
Honestly, what does that say about you?
I’ve always got a big kick out of the Dr. and his defense of the likes of Gaddafi. He’s a hoot and clearly needs treatment for ODS.
AYE
ALAN DERSHOWITZ IS DOING HIS JOB AS A LAWYER WHOM HE TAKE THE CASE, THAT IS WHAT A LAWYER IS THERE FOR, HE SURELY MUST HAVE BEEN TIRED OF HEARING OF ANGELA SINKING THE MANY SOME INNOCENT, AND FELT HE HAS TO GET IN,
THERE ARE TIME WHEN A PERSON CAN NO MORE BE SILENT ON INJUSTICE,
I like when he said not half justice, that was very telling,
ANGELA will not be there active too long after all the people demanding for he to depart.
SHE HAS DONE SOME BIG WRONGS TO MANY PEOPLE
Richard Wheeler
you haven’t learn to take people for not for what they say but for what is transpiring behind their words
and guess what, I LEARNED IT FROM MATA FROM THE BEGINNING,
SHE IS THE MOST TOLERANT PERSON KNOWN IN ALL THESE POSTS.
BECAUSE SHE RESPECT THE PERSON WHO COME HERE TO COMMENT
@MataHarley:
It is clear that you, and Mata, assume that George Zimmerman is guilty of the charge of Murder 2. Otherwise, how do you explain that every argument to the contrary, you dismiss? Mata claims to support our system of justice, with all its flaws, yet doesn’t seem to apply “Innocent until found guilty” to George Zimmerman.
I don’t care what the marijuana level was in Trayvon Martin’s blood and urine was. The point is that either that night, or sometime recently, Trayvon Martin was a pot user. Angelic pilot wannabe teenagers generally don’t use drugs, of any description. Trayvon Martin was a drug user, and that you have proven ably.
Does it not bother you that the narrative of what actually happened that night has been tainted to the point where we may never know the truth, spun by a bunch of bottom feeders who stand to gain financially? Does it bother you that the first reports were that Trayvon Martin went to the store to get “tea” and “Skittles for his little brother” when Chad Green is not his brother, or that he went during 1/2 time when the game actually started AFTER Trayvon Martin was shot? Or that Crump, prior to any information being released by the SPD, came out with the “tea and Skittles” information, when he was not legally privy to that information due to an ongoing investigation? Or how George Zimmerman was referred to as “white” to add a racial component to the shooting, when actually, George Zimmerman is considered Hispanic and a minority himself?
Does it bother you that Tracy Martin told the police the shouts of “help” were not from his son, but changed his story AFTER he lawyered up with Benjamin Crump or that a full blown PR campaign was started to make George Zimmerman look guilty by Raul Julison? How about Tracy Martin refusing to give the SPD the password to unlock Trayvon’s cell phone until AFTER he talked to his bottom feeding lawyer? Or the photos of a young teen (12-14) when Trayvon Martin was actually a 17 year old “No Limit Nigga” who had a rail and tats? Why the need to portray Trayvon Martin as something he was not?
I do not know what transpired that night. I do know that George Zimmerman sustained injuries inflicted by Trayvon Martin. I do know that if there had been a fight where GZ lobbed the first blows, there would have been cuts, or at least some bruising on Martin. There were none. I do know that you refuse to answer the question I continue to put to you about what you would have done had you been in Zimmerman’s situation.
MATA
it mean that may the better one win the case,
this is scary, if the wrong one win for ZIMMERMAN,
I will pursue his but with the most imflammatory words for as long as he live,
and always keep in in the public eye as the wrong one.
bye
Bees, Dershowitz has nothing to do with this case. He was busy with his own “consulting” job to Wikileaks Julian Assange, who was trying to appeal his impending extradition to Sweden to the British Supreme Court. This won’t be one of Dershowitz’s victories as his final appeal was exhausted, and Assange will be on his way soon and likely to be imprisoned for a very long time.
His commentary on the GZ case is nothing more than talking head opinions. And as is usual with the Dershowitz style, he likes to be sort of a legal shock jock.
There is no injustice for GZ. He is getting his due process, as he should. The fact that Zimmerman is on trial is not the fault of Angela Corey or Judge Lester. It’s because he killed a teen.
Haven’t a clue who you are addressing here, but since I’m identified twice, I figure I’m supposedly in the mix somewhere.
What I assume is that there is strong enough evidence for Zimmerman to be tried. Whether he is guilty is up to a jury of his peers. My “arguments to the contrary”, as you put it, revolve around what the State has to prove for a Second Degree Murder conviction, which is going to be an uphill battle for Zimmerman and O’Mara simply because of a few simple realities… he did not return to his vehicle immediately, and he continued to follow a “suspicious person” that was obviously retreating and trying to avoid all contact. That’s it. As I’ve said, I’m fine with the process. If he walks, I’m fine. If he’s convicted, I’m also fine. Personally don’t care about the man. Just royally PO’ed at the damage he’s done to our RKBA by being an irresponsible CCW and gun owner.
To your second question, were I Zimmerman….
First: I never would have gotten out of the car to follow Martin to begin with… especially if I’m supposedly so afraid for my life.
Secondly: if I did have a moment of utter stupidity and irresponsibility, I would have turned my butt around the very second the dispatcher said following wasn’t necessary, given concise and easy directions to where my SUV was parked on Twin Trees Lane in plain site, or met the LEO at the mailboxes.
Third: if for some reason I did encounter Martin, I would have simply and politely identified myself as the neighborhood watch, and since I didn’t recognize him, just thought he’d see what was up. Would have been oh so simple to diffuse the entire situation with some polite communication.
Martin would be alive and home, without committing any crime (except in your mind for smoking or drinking some cough syrup and a ton of sugar), and I wouldn’t be on trial for Second Degree Murder.
All your other “does it bother you” stuff is extraneous opinions with no value, save to again make your judgement call on Martin’s character.
@retire05:
Yes, the autopsy report indicated that Trayvon Martin’s body showed damage to his knuckles and the bullet wound. That is consistent only with a scenario where Martin initiated the attack.
@MataHarley:
You can present all the hypothesis that you want (you would not have gotten out of your car; you would not have followed him; you would have been polite [that is the funniest part] and simply explained who you were and why you were following him that you said you would not have done in the first place, but………….
that was not the question. The question is: what would you have done if you were getting your head bashed into a concrete sidewalk?
Deflection of the question doesn’t work, Mata. The question is simple. Your answer should be, as well.
@Mike O’Malley:
Not to mention that the photos of George Zimmerman, taken the night of the shooting, shows absolutely NO damage to Zimmerman’s hands, not even simple bruising, that would have indicated that he ever landed a punch.
@retire05:
That’s Ryan Julison. Julison took down his website not long after conservatives began questioning the role of a media firm in the case.
Sadly around 8,000 Black males are murdered in the USA each year, around 95% + of whom are murdered by other black males. How often are media firms engaged after those murders to obtain “justice”for the dead? It would seem that the involvement of Ryan Julison is this case would strike all observers as odd. What else makes this case unique? Was it because the shooter is a “cracker” with a registered gun? That false perception was undoubtedly the work of Ryan Julison. Is it because the shooter got out of his vehicle before the shooting? Oddly that seems to be the argument leaving one to wonder whether if the shooter, say a black or Hispanic Jorge Z., had remained in his vehicle and then killed Martin in front of the 7-11 during a drive-by whether some Ryan Julison and Co. media company would have gotten a contract as a result of the shooting. I expect not. I also expect that few if any would care about the death of troubled small time criminal. Would not the killing have been written-off as a drug related killing of out-of-town competition? One might expect so.
Since Trayvon Martin died of his gunshot wound, over 2,300 blacks have been killed in the USA.
Maybe the wheels of justice are slow, but they do move forward.
If some here spent as much time and energy trying to bring other shooters of blacks to justice as they are doing in this case, maybe a few killers would be taken off the streets.
A few of these might be gangbangers.
Others might be drug dealers.
Some just get so stoned or drunk that they kill when they are disagreed with.
We learned in CA with the 3 strikes law that when you get the real recidivists off the streets you cut down crime a whole bunch!
What’s the problem?
What’s stopping you all?
Is it that 9 out of 10 black deaths at the hands of another is committed by one of their fellow blacks?
Well that would be nice, Nan G. But we’re not prosecutors, nor LEO, working on specific cases. So we are not “trying to bring” anyone to justice. We are merely discussing the progress of one case.
BTW, I don’t believe that the spike in crime rates in parts of Southern Cal exactly jives with your cut down on crime comment. While your Orange County isn’t included in here, ten southern Cal counties all saw an uptick in violent crime between 2010 and 2011. So I guess it’s a perspective from your front yard.
@MataHarley:
To the second question, were I Zimmerman….
First: I very well may have gotten out of the car to observe Martin to begin with… especially if I’m mindful of the home invasion in my neighborhood some months earlier which put the life of a young mother and her child on the line..
Secondly: I might very well have ignored the dispatcher who said following wasn’t necessary… especially if I’m mindful of the home invasion in my neighborhood some months earlier which put the life of a young mother and her child on the line.
Third: if for some reason I did encounter Martin, I would be unarmed because I do not own a gun. I would have simply and politely identified myself as the neighborhood watch, and I ‘d say that I was looking for a suspicious acting person and ask if he had seen such a person. If he did not punch me in response to my initial display of vulnerability I’d try to get him to tell me who he was and if and where he lived in the neighborhood. Now as Martin was a drug using gangsta wannabe with some history of violence things would likely have gotten dicey pretty quick. Keep in mind that Martin would know I I would be isolated and alone. He would rightly presume I would be unarmed as he no doubt did with Zimmerman. Maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe I’d get killed.
Would Martin have been caught and charged as an adult for my murder? Maybe. Given his apparent abdication of paternal discipline the day of the shooting I doubt that his father, Tracy Martin, would care about my fate nor would I expect that a sense of civic or paternal responsibility would motivate Tracy Martin to get to the bottom of things. If by some chance the murder would remain unsolved it is hard to see how Trayvon Martin would be deflected from his escalating self-destructive anti-social behavior short of a serious crisis in his life.
@Nan G:
But they don’t have the firm of Ryan Julison and Co. working for their justice.
Mata:
From your link:
1. Our own Neighborhood Watch was warned about gang initiation crimes.
This is a whole next-generation criminal.
Young men who got off through their juvi years by liberal teachers, parents and police who wanted to keep giving them one more chance, again and again.
Now they are adults.
And
2. There has been an influx of (what do you want to call them?) Illegals? Undocumenteds? Some more PC label? These are not always worker types, especially now that there are so few jobs. These are neer-do-wells. Some are even part of the big Mexican drug cartels, setting up shop, taking over pot farms in the ”mountains,” enforcing for their prison-time serving bosses, etc. The big gangs, like MS-13 from El Salvador, commit a few crimes and it impacts our stats big-time.