PuppetSlave
Member
Wow Brawndo Addict, that is one hell of a post, I learned a lot.
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Juror says Zimmerman went "above and beyond" and has "learned a good lesson"
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iamshadowlark
Banned
Those are some pretty damning statistics. It pains me to see the people living in fairy tale world where racism is non-existent. Specially in law-enforcement. I mean this case alone produced multiple hicks with a voice, such as the cop in port canerval and his trayvon shooting targets. Trying to ignore it is almost as bad as committing it.
What impetus would they have to change exactly?
Prisons both private and public are financially beneficial to the people who own and staff them. Decriminalizing certain acts would only serve to reduce the demands that the state and federal justice system has to continue running current, and fund construction of new Prisons. This of course leading to job losses and or pay cuts. Something that will impact a politician and political group directly and will additionally lead to lower donations by impacted industries and lobbies.
On a broader scale for policy makers, on top of guaranteed donations from prison related industries and unions, being tough on crime has positive to neutral effects on popularity and minimal negative impact; therefore influencing the probability of winning further and higher offices. On the other hand, decriminalization has immediate impact due to negative campaign ads. And in the long run, if such lenient policies lead to tragedy by a former inmate released due to said policies, that politician's future career can be nullified immediately.
theignoramus
Member
she less guilty of egregious wrong doing than Zimmerman. yet she got 20 years. I wonder why?
Because refused to take 3 years with plea once she was found guilty of charges against her, and hence that automatically meant giving her out 20 years dictated in the Florida law for armed assault with a deadly weapon. Zimmerman would have received the exact same numbers if he was found guilty in the case.
theignoramus
Member
I doubt the letter of the law gets followed to the degree that it was with a white woman defending herself from a spouse with a history of domestic abuse.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to make such a lengthy reply. It was most informative. And I'm sorry my term "entertain" offended you. I make it a point to try not to adopt assertions as anything more unless there's data to back them up, and his assertion was dataless (until you provided the data). I looked up the violent crime statistics, because that was relevant to the topic at hand. After you post, I researched the drug issues myself, and my cursory research seems to corroborate your post. Therefore, at this point I do more than entertain--and now adopt--the assertion that black drug users and dealers are disproportionately affected by law enforcement as compared to white drug dealers and users.
As for me being a law student, recognize the emphasis on student. I've only taken one criminal law course so far, and that was focused purely on the law, and how courts apply it. Yet, either way, while I appreciate your helpful post, it should have come packaged in a less condescending form, IMO.
And finally, I least appreciate your insinuation (if I read your opening correctly) that I'm dismissive of racial discrimination. I acknowledged probably 5 or 6 times in just those two posts that the discrimination both exists and is significant. Yet, for some reason, just because I did not immediately adopt a dataless assertion that fortified that view without first questioning its validity, you dismissed my acknowledgments and asserted that I'm willfully turning a blind eye to racial discrimination. I do not believe in blindly adopting dataless assertions as fact, even if they reinforce what I already believe. In this instance, I already believed that heavy, significant discrimination exists; I mentioned the data that violent crime is disproportionately prevalent among the black demographic, due to a socioeconomic disadvantage; Vahagn asserted that the higher crime rate generally was due to disproportionate discriminatory enforcement, and gave drugs as an example; I reasserted that I was merely talking about violent crime, as we were discussing self-defense (although I did admittedly make passing mention of drugs); you then accused me of negligence regarding drug statistics, of which I did not claim to have any special knowledge; when faced with data, which I was able to corroborate through cursory research, I accepted the assertion.
I'm sorry for the conversation history I just outlined. It just irks me to no end, that after I take such care to try not to step on any toes with people misunderstanding what I'm saying, affirming over and over my acknowledgement of racial discrimination, that I get angry responses saying I'm not acknowledging racial discrimination. I'm sorry if my requirement for data before I adopt an assertion as fact bothers you, but it is not a practice I will give up.
Again, thank you for the informative post.
Once again, the garage was connected to the house. And the garage door failed to open (her husband said it was locked). She never left the house. She did not have a chance to get away.
Considering how many times this claim is repeated, I have to wonder who is spreading it and where people are hearing it.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
It is a racist thought if you are only going by the person's skin color. If any random black person on the planet can be deemed a possible criminal just because he has the same skin color as previous robbers, then I'm sorry but that's a racist act.
Because she didnt shoot to kill. You cant do warning shots with guns.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Why does it seem like this chart intimidates some people? Does it make those people feel uncomfortable?
Omegasquash
Member
Because when confronted with facts they're forced to try to find another way to justify their view. Shaky ground makes people uncomfortable.
This reminds me when I was at a Regal showing and one of those "don't do this shit while watching the movies" disclaimer ads come on, and they show people talking loudly, texting, etc. And those people are all normal, but when they show the person recording the movie, he's all suspicious looking and wearing a hoodie. It was weird. Why is that now the standard "suspicious - probably criminal - person" attire in the mainstream public conscious?
My cousin called the cops on some punk kid that was shooting up heroin in his car parked in front of my cousins house.
The cop that arrived found the guy passed out in the car with a needle hanging out of his arm. Kid was white and from a nice neighborhood. Now guess what happened next. Did the cop;
a. Arrested the kid and take him to jail.
B. Call a family member to pick him up and issue a verbal warming.
You mean to say 80 percent of criminals are black. Which is eye raising but not absolutely damning in itself. But when you begin to contextualize the stats and the narrative doesn't change, you are willfully ignorant not to see what is going on. Things like a much higher sentence rate for minorities for the exact same crime as whites is a huge red flag.
Zoe
Member
Now? It's been that way as long as I can remember.
Maninthemirror
Banned
I dont know if this constitutes a new thread but
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/justice/zimmerman-verdict-aftermath/
Backtrack 180
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/justice/zimmerman-verdict-aftermath/
Backtrack 180
When you get out of your little world you realize you might have said things that pissed people off.
The more I read about this case, the more I think the prosecution were idiots for going after murder 2. They should have gone for manslaughter from the get go, and put everything they had behind proving that. Or criminally negligent homicide. They carry about the same penalty and both would have been infinitely easier to prove than murder 2.
dorkimoe
Gold Member
watched the interview with anderson cooper the other day. The lady sounded like such an idiot. She seriously made it sound like she was contradicting herself. She voted not guilty but almost everything she said made it sound like she thought he was guilty.
Battersea Power Station
Member
The way she makes it sound is that they were instructed so narrowly and specifically that there wasn't any judgement to make at all but just a paraphrasing of the defense, which confirms my suspicion that the prosecution was incompetent to an unbelievable degree.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
She also said that they applied the stand your ground law, even though they weren't supposed to.
She just means duty to retreat I'd imagine. The Florida stand your ground law is just about civil and criminal immunity granted during a pre-trial hearing.
Dude Abides
Banned
It also eliminates the duty to retreat (unless the defendant was the aggressor). Hence the name - you don't have to retreat, you can stand your ground.
Did the law remove the duty to retreat or was that always Florida law? Trying to find the actual bill but I'm having trouble.
EDIT
Found it: http://archive.flsenate.gov/cgi-bin...te/bills/billtext/html&Tab=session&Submenu=1&
You're right, it has a line in there about removing the duty to retreat when a person is "in a place where he or she has a right to be".
One of the clearest demonstrations of that fact:
In 2002, a team of researchers at the University of Washington decided to take the defenses of the drug war seriously, by subjecting the arguments to empirical testing in a major study of drug-law enforcement in a racially mixed city - Seattle. The study found that, contrary to the prevailing "common sense," the high arrest rates of African Americans in drug-law enforcement could not be explained by rates of offending; nor could they be explained by other standard excuses, such as the ease and efficiency of policing open-air drug markets, citizen complaints, crime rates, or drug-related violence. The study also debunked the assumption that white drug dealers deal indoors, making their criminal activity more difficult to detect.
The authors found that it was untrue stereotypes about crack markets, crack dealers, and crack babies - not facts - that were driving discretionary decision making by the Seattle Police Department. The facts were as follows: Seattle residents were far more likely to report suspected narcotics activity in residences - not outdoors - but police devoted their resources to open-air drug markets and to the one precinct that was least likely to be identified as the site of suspected drug activity in citizen complaints. In fact, although hundreds of outdoor drug transactions were recorded in predominantly white areas of Seattle, police concentrated their drug enforcement efforts in one downtown drug market where the frequency of drug transactions was much lower. In racially mixed open-air drug markets, black dealers were far more likely to be arrested than whites, even though white dealers were present and visible. And the department focused overwhelmingly on crack - the one drug in Seattle more likely to be sold by African Americans - despite the fact that local hospital records indicated that overdose deaths involving heroin were more numerous than all overdose deaths for crack and powder cocaine combined. Local police acknowledged that no significant level of violence was associated with crack in Seattle and that other drugs were causing more hospitalizations, but steadfastly maintained that their deployment decisions were nondiscriminatory.
The study's authors concluded, based on their review and analysis of the empirical evidence, that the Seattle Police Department's decision to focus so heavily on crack, to the near exclusion of other drugs, and to concentrate its efforts on outdoor drug markets in downtown areas rather than drug markets located indoors or in predominantly white communities, reflect "a racialized conception of the drug problem." As the authors put it: "[The Seattle Police Department's] foucs on black and Latino individuals and on the drug most strongly associated with 'blackness' suggest that law enforcement policies and practices are predicated on the assumption that the drug problem is, in fact, a black and Latino one, and that crack, the drug most strongly associated with urban blacks, is 'the worst.' This racialized cultural script about who and what constitutes the drug problem renders illegal drug activity by whites invisible. "White people," the study's author's observed, "are simply not perceived as drug offenders by Seattle police officers.
The authors found that it was untrue stereotypes about crack markets, crack dealers, and crack babies - not facts - that were driving discretionary decision making by the Seattle Police Department. The facts were as follows: Seattle residents were far more likely to report suspected narcotics activity in residences - not outdoors - but police devoted their resources to open-air drug markets and to the one precinct that was least likely to be identified as the site of suspected drug activity in citizen complaints. In fact, although hundreds of outdoor drug transactions were recorded in predominantly white areas of Seattle, police concentrated their drug enforcement efforts in one downtown drug market where the frequency of drug transactions was much lower. In racially mixed open-air drug markets, black dealers were far more likely to be arrested than whites, even though white dealers were present and visible. And the department focused overwhelmingly on crack - the one drug in Seattle more likely to be sold by African Americans - despite the fact that local hospital records indicated that overdose deaths involving heroin were more numerous than all overdose deaths for crack and powder cocaine combined. Local police acknowledged that no significant level of violence was associated with crack in Seattle and that other drugs were causing more hospitalizations, but steadfastly maintained that their deployment decisions were nondiscriminatory.
The study's authors concluded, based on their review and analysis of the empirical evidence, that the Seattle Police Department's decision to focus so heavily on crack, to the near exclusion of other drugs, and to concentrate its efforts on outdoor drug markets in downtown areas rather than drug markets located indoors or in predominantly white communities, reflect "a racialized conception of the drug problem." As the authors put it: "[The Seattle Police Department's] foucs on black and Latino individuals and on the drug most strongly associated with 'blackness' suggest that law enforcement policies and practices are predicated on the assumption that the drug problem is, in fact, a black and Latino one, and that crack, the drug most strongly associated with urban blacks, is 'the worst.' This racialized cultural script about who and what constitutes the drug problem renders illegal drug activity by whites invisible. "White people," the study's author's observed, "are simply not perceived as drug offenders by Seattle police officers.
And this is completely unsurprising because:
A survey was conducted in 1995 asking the following question: "Would you close your eyes, envision a drug user, and describe that person to me?" The startling results were published in the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education. Ninety-five percent of respondents pictured a black drug user, while only 5 percent imagined other racial groups. These results contrasted sharply with the reality of drug crime in America. African Americans constituted only 15 percent of current drug users in 1995, and they constitute roughly the same percentage today. Whites constituted the vast majority of drug users then (and now), but almost no one pictured a white person when asked to imagine what a drug user looks like. The same group of respondents also perceived the typical drug trafficker as black.
There is no reason to believe that the survey results would have been any different if police officers or prosecutors - rather than the general public - had been the respondents. Law enforcement officials, no less than the rest of us, have been exposed to the racially charged political rhetoric and media imagery associated with the drug war. In fact, for nearly three decades news stories regarding virtually all street crime have disproportionately featured African American offenders. One study suggests that the standard crime news "script" is so prevalent and so thoroughly racialized that viewers imagine a black perpetrator even when none exists. In that study, 60 percent of viewers who saw a story with no image falsely recalled seeing one, and 70 percent of those viewers believed the perpetrator to be African American.
Decades of cognitive bias research demonstrates that both unconscious and conscious biases lead to discriminatory actions, even when an individual does not want to discriminate. The quotation commonly attributed to Nietzsche, that "there is no immaculate perception," perfectly captures how cognitive schemas - thought structures - influence what we notice and how the things we notice get interpreted. Studies have shown that racial schemas operate not only as a part of conscious, rational deliberations, but also automatically - without conscious awareness or intent. One study, for example, involved a video game that placed photographs of black and white individuals holding either a gun or other object (such as a wallet, soda can, or cell phone) into various photographic backgrounds. Participants were told to decide as quickly as possible whether to shoot the target. Consistent with earlier studies, participants were more likely to mistake a black target as armed when he was not, and mistake a white target as unarmed, when in fact he was armed. This pattern of discrimination reflected automatic, unconscious thought processes, not careful deliberations.
There is no reason to believe that the survey results would have been any different if police officers or prosecutors - rather than the general public - had been the respondents. Law enforcement officials, no less than the rest of us, have been exposed to the racially charged political rhetoric and media imagery associated with the drug war. In fact, for nearly three decades news stories regarding virtually all street crime have disproportionately featured African American offenders. One study suggests that the standard crime news "script" is so prevalent and so thoroughly racialized that viewers imagine a black perpetrator even when none exists. In that study, 60 percent of viewers who saw a story with no image falsely recalled seeing one, and 70 percent of those viewers believed the perpetrator to be African American.
Decades of cognitive bias research demonstrates that both unconscious and conscious biases lead to discriminatory actions, even when an individual does not want to discriminate. The quotation commonly attributed to Nietzsche, that "there is no immaculate perception," perfectly captures how cognitive schemas - thought structures - influence what we notice and how the things we notice get interpreted. Studies have shown that racial schemas operate not only as a part of conscious, rational deliberations, but also automatically - without conscious awareness or intent. One study, for example, involved a video game that placed photographs of black and white individuals holding either a gun or other object (such as a wallet, soda can, or cell phone) into various photographic backgrounds. Participants were told to decide as quickly as possible whether to shoot the target. Consistent with earlier studies, participants were more likely to mistake a black target as armed when he was not, and mistake a white target as unarmed, when in fact he was armed. This pattern of discrimination reflected automatic, unconscious thought processes, not careful deliberations.
Dude Abides
Banned
That's what stand your ground generally means, so I assume that's what it did here. This article suggests that was the case with Florida.
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/03/20/deaths-nearly-triple-since-stand-your-ground-enacted/
It's about time the NRA chimed in.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...s-after-zimmerman-verdict/?cmpid=cmty_plus_fn
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...s-after-zimmerman-verdict/?cmpid=cmty_plus_fn
Big Baybee
Member
Dat backtrack. Damn.
Link
The Autumn Wind
Sounds like someone is trying to get her book deal back.
Audible Phonetics
Member
This is all honestly just crazy.
I don't mind duty to retreat when in public, but even with a duty to retreat Zimmerman's argument was that at the time of the shooting itself he was restrained and didn't have the ability to retreat.
The defense covered their bases because if Zimmerman instigated the confrontation (which he did) then he would have had a duty to retreat.
The defense covered their bases because if Zimmerman instigated the confrontation (which he did) then he would have had a duty to retreat.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
After sleeping it off its pretty obvious I really overreacted and was venting built up frustration at someone who didn't cause it. Freaking out over the word entertain was hyperbolic and I apologize for imputing ill will on your use of it. It's a common phrase and there was no indication whatsoever you were using it otherwise.
What I have not changed my mind on is my belief that you do have a moral responsibility to know or educate yourself on these critical issues of legal justice if you want to be a lawyer. You chose to go to law school and I don't care if its for tax or business or whatever. Lawyers have a special status in our society and hold much greater power and influence than most advanced professions. Most people who meet you will treat you as an ambassador of the law and you will represent, fairly or unfairly, its flaws and virtues. Your opinions and comments will shape the way people think about the law and the problems caused by it because you'll be the expert to them; your knowledge will carry the most weight. If you are not even aware of systemic problems within the law, what kind of message does that send to people about the legitimacy of the issue?
I am being deathly serious about this. If I had not posted about it, how long would it have taken for you to begin to learn about the racism behind the drug war? Would you have ever taken a proactive step to educate yourself about it? Or would your assumptions have gone unchallenged until someone called you out on it? Racism in the legal system is systemic and institutionalized, and I hope you will strive to continue learning about it so that you can change minds by challenging the system and people within it whenever you have the opportunity.
Battersea Power Station
Member
Can someone "explain like I'm five" something to me?
If the jurors could not consider anything leading up to the altercation in evaluating a manslaughter charge, does that mean than a person in Florida can provoke a fight and, if fearing for his life, legally kill the other?
I'm not asking if that was the case here; I'm curious as to what the reasoning was for not considering the actions that lead to the fight.
If the jurors could not consider anything leading up to the altercation in evaluating a manslaughter charge, does that mean than a person in Florida can provoke a fight and, if fearing for his life, legally kill the other?
I'm not asking if that was the case here; I'm curious as to what the reasoning was for not considering the actions that lead to the fight.
Only if that person doesn't doesn't initiate the first physical contact.
Devolution
Member
Or there is no proof of who did apparently.
Battersea Power Station
Member
What if the killer says "I have a gun and I'll kill you" and the other punches him, trying to buy time to flee?
I'd guess that in that case, it DOES matter what happened before the fight. So there must be some kind of spectrum. It was wrong, I think, for the instructions to the jury to exclude the preceeding actions. Could the prosecution have fought for that?
A person can provoke a fight, but at that point they have a duty to retreat before being allowed to legally defend themselves with force. For instance if you were to slap someone and then they pulled a gun on you, you would need to attempt to retreat before you would legally be allowed to defend yourself with force. I think the two specific requirements are making it clear you're disengaging but the other person continues the violence OR you try to retreat but are prevented from doing so.
He can provoke a fight but has a duty to retreat if he did provoke the fight. If he cannot escape the fight and is in a situation where a reasonable person believes they are in danger of permanent bodily harm or death they may use deadly force.
I think pulling the gun and threatening already counts as some form of assault, but if you take the gun out of the equation, you can technically just harass the shit out of someone verbally and wait for the first punch, and then shoot in self defense.
Which is probably what happened in this particular case.
Battersea Power Station
Member
What does duty to retreat mean? If there's a scuffle, by default you're in a position where retreat is hindered. So that means you immediately and in every scuffle may shoot the person your provoked. I'm asking earnestly, by the way, because I'm interested in precedent.
It has to be a credible threat. I'm not sure just a statement without brandishing qualifies as a credible threat to justify force.
I think the meaning might be trying to exhaust all avenues to de-escalate the confrontation before you shoot someone. In theory it sounds reasonable, in practice, I just can't see it working out well.
Reasonable fear of death also can be interpreted in a multitude of ways.
From: http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/justice/zimmerman-verdict-aftermath/
I'd be hiding too if I knew I had done wrong, murdered a kid in a confrontation I started, and then got away with it.
It's good to know that in Florida, anyone can follow me around for any reason, come up to me when I'm trying to get away from them and force a confrontation, then kill me in cold blood if I do anything, with their word being that they were acting in "self-defense." Of course, at that point, I'd be dead, so my word wouldn't matter.
I'd be hiding too if I knew I had done wrong, murdered a kid in a confrontation I started, and then got away with it.
It's good to know that in Florida, anyone can follow me around for any reason, come up to me when I'm trying to get away from them and force a confrontation, then kill me in cold blood if I do anything, with their word being that they were acting in "self-defense." Of course, at that point, I'd be dead, so my word wouldn't matter.
Nah, unless someone is holding you down you can bolt, unless they continue to chase you, and if a reasonable person wouldn't fear for their lives in the same situation you cannot employ deadly force to stop them.
Originally it was meant that if your home was attacked you had no duty to flee
"It is not now and never has been the law that a man assailed in his own dwelling is bound to retreat. If assailed there, he may stand his ground and resist the attack. He is under no duty to take to the fields and the highways, a fugitive from his own home."
Florida has extended this to any public place you are lawfully at.
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