Forum Post: ALEC & Koch Bros 'Shoot First' Laws VS Justice ~ RW Social Engineering Blow-Back
Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 8, 2013, 1:50 a.m. EST by WSmith
(2698)
from Cornelius, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
ALEC and Koch Bros contributors (self-entitled and crowned big $ Kings) did not go to all that trouble and invest all their money into the monstrous ("Shoot First") Stand Your Ground social engineering law just to have a subhuman racist like GZ screw it all up!
No Way!
So, just like they "Fixed" getting SYG on the books in some (unbelievable) 27 states http://smartgunlaws.org/shoot-first-laws-policy-summary/ evidence shows that the Trayvon Martin murder trial was "Fixed," too, and, if you "follow the money," it's easy to see by whom.
10 Reasons Lawyers Say Florida's Law Enforcement Threw Away George Zimmerman's Case
A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts say Zimmerman didn't face anything like a serious trial.
August 6, 2013 | Steven Rosenfeld
Florida law enforcement, from the local police to the special prosecutor overseeing the Trayvon Martin case, did not want to see George Zimmerman convicted of murder and deliberately threw away the case, allowing their prosecution to crumble. A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts who know jury trials and courtroom procedure say this is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the parade of otherwise incoherent missteps by George Zimmerman’s prosecutors.
“I find it personally difficult to believe it was not thrown,” said Warren Ingber, a New York-based attorney who has practiced law for decades. “I am far from alone in this assessment, and it reveals even harder truth why this case was a miscarriage of justice.”
Ingber detailed his reasons in a letter sent to a NPR’s "Left, Right and Center" program after its liberal analysts would not touch that possibility. But there’s been a growing chorus saying the Zimmerman prosecution was not merely incompetent, but going through the motions and intentionally losing. This includes Florida talk radio host Randi Rhodes, who covered the trial daily, to New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial writer Jarvis DeBerry whose source canvassed 20 local prosecutors, to celebrity lawyers like Alan Dershowitz and other legal analysts, and longtime lawyers like Ingber who was indignant at NPR’s commentators ceding too much ground to right-wingers.
Here are 10 key points the lawyers in these reports cite behind this conclusion.
1. There was enough evidence to convict, despite biased police work. That assessment “is itself a miracle,” Ingber wrote, citing how the Sanford, Florida police handled the killing. “Martin’s body lay in the morgue as a John Doe for three days while his mother was asking for his whereabouts. His cell phone records indicated he was on the phone as he was being killed. The person he was on with had no idea where he was. Meanwhile his admitted killer was on the loose and allowed to produce exculpatory evidence while crime scene evidence was deteriorating. It appears from videos of Zimmerman ‘strolling’ into custody that he was not that badly hurt. But in Florida the right of self-defense includes, for whites, the freedom to exculpate oneself. And when that wasn’t enough, the police stepped in, as when the lead detective Chris Serino told Zimmerman the screams for help were his, not Martin’s, over his objection.”
2. The governor’s handpicked prosecutor enters with an agenda. “No account of this trial is complete if it does not start with how the deck was stacked before the trial took place,” Ingber said. “But it continues in the identity of the person that Florida’s [Republican] Gov. Rick Scott selected to prosecute the case: Angela Corey, the prosecutor who sentenced Marissa Alexander [a black woman] to 20 years for firing a gun into the air in her own garage in defense against a convicted abuser of women. I’ll leave it to Alan Dershowitz, who knows the law of defamation, to describe her professional lapses that ‘bordered on criminal conduct.’”
3. No change of venue was demanded. There were a series of decisions made by the prosecutors that incrementally lowered their chances of obtaining a conviction. The first concerned not seeking a jury trial in another county. More:
4. The early mishandling of the jury. Prosecutors meekly tried to remove two jurors with very strong pro-Zimmerman biases, but did not use more forceful “preemptory challenges,” DeBerry noted. “Juror B-37… should never have been let onto the jury after she said there were ‘riots’ in Sanford over this case,” Ingber added. “How was that allowed to occur? B-37’s interview is worth a listen.” She called Martin a “boy of color” (at 10.41) and mentioned “rioting” twice (12.12 and 14.32), calling it “organized” by Martin supporters and adding that she didn’t trust mainstream media. More:
5. There were no men on the jury. DeBerry, citing a former prosecutor who “handled hundreds of homicide cases over his career,” said opposing an all-female jury was “prosecuting 101. In a fatal fight between men, you fight to get men on the jury. Men are more likely to convict.” More:
6. The jury was improperly sequestered. More:
7.) Missteps with the state’s witnesses. The prosecution failed to adequately prepare its witnesses, such as Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with Martin during the confrontation “and was the closest thing the state had to a star witness,” DeBerry wrote. More:
8.) More missteps with Zimmerman’s witnesses. If your side’s witnesses are falling down, lawyers usually work even harder to undermine their opponent’s case. But exactly the opposite unfolded. More:
9.) Florida’s abysmal laws compounded the botched prosecution. Many media outlets analyzed Zimmerman’s acquittal by saying that the state overcharged him—because second-degree murder has a higher standard of proof than the lesser charge of manslaughter. The lawyer-critics don’t buy that analysis, however. More:
10.) Florida wanted to get rid of the case, not win it. The Times-Picayune’s DeBerry said his ex-prosecutor source “said he’s polled about 20 prosecutors in New Orleans, and though all aren’t sure that they would have been able to get Zimmerman convicted as charged, each of them is convinced that he or she could have gotten more than an acquittal. It was a clear case of tanking, he argued: ‘They didn’t want to win this case.’” More:
Who wins when the state deliberately loses? (Follow the Money)
It is clear that the details of the Trayvon Martin case will not be forgotten by people who watched the trial or heard it described in detail by radio hosts such as Randi Rhodes http://www.randirhodes.com/main.html , who understand how Florida’s legal system can be stacked in favor of white defendants. The striking conclusion after listening to these lawyers is that even with all the state’s policing and courtroom errors, there was enough to obtain a conviction.
“It takes no partisan slant to see the procedural injustice in this case,” Ingber said. “It is not hard to make the case that the evidence supported a manslaughter verdict beyond a reasonable doubt. This was another O.J. [Simpson] case, except this was not a case of jury nullification. It is to the Emmett Till case what modern-day voter suppression is to the poll tax. You need to drill down to see it for what it is.” [ALEC & Koch Bros win]
Stand Your Ground Laws or License to Kill Without a Cause?
John Rosenthal | Posted: 08/06/2013 5:59 pm
The Trayvon Martin case has shed light not only on the effects of a misguided and inherently dangerous law, but also on the psychological effects of carrying a gun and the paranoia and/or bravado that may result. First, let's make no mistake. The verdict in the George Zimmerman case had everything to do with the effects of the Stand Your Ground legislation passed in Florida and 30 U.S. states. When Circuit Judge Debra Nelson's instructions to the jury included the statement that Zimmerman had no duty to retreat, as would have been required prior to the passage of such a law, the dangerous "shoot first" law became the basis for the verdict.
The fact that this crime ever happened is a travesty in and of itself. Research has found that wielding a gun increases a person's bias to see a gun in the hands of others. The very fact that George Zimmerman was armed increased the chance that the encounter would escalate and potentially become lethal. Had Zimmerman remained in the car as police ordered him to do (retreat) and had he not believed that Florida law would support a claim of self-defense if he "felt threatened" vs. was actually threatened, Trayvon Martin would be alive today.
CONTINUED: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rosenthal/stand-your-ground-laws_b_3714874.html
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