Quote:
Originally Posted by NJblue
You seem to not understand the laws of self defense. Hopefully the jurors do. If this is the exact scenario that happened that night, even if Zimmerman actually confronted Martin and demanded to know why he was there and even if Zimmerman never identified himself as neighborhood watch, it does not give Martin the right to turn this into a physical attack and it certainly doesn't give him the right to sustain that attack for a minute while Zimmerman is crying for help. It definitely doesn't give him the right to escalate the attack into a potential life threatening attempt to bang his head against the sidewalk.
If the jurors see Zimmerman as the initial instigator and hence fully responsible for all events that transpired, that would be a travesty of justice.
Suppose I see Mike Tyson in a bar and I foolishly call him names and even start to push him - all the while Tyson tries to avoid the confrontation. However, suppose at some point Tyson loses his temper or just reacts from my physical confrontation and starts to beat me up. Once he has the upper hand and I no longer present any threat to him, he has an obligation to stop. He is not allowed to continue the attack just because he wasn't the one to initially provoke it. If he were to continue beating me, despite my cries for help, to the point that I feared for my life, I would then have the right to use lethal force to preserve my life - even though the entire incident would never had happened if I hadn't acted foolishly.
There are a lot of people here who seem to think that if Zimmerman's actions caused the confrontation that he forfeits his right to self defense. I hope the jurors are more schooled in the reality of the law.
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While I agree with the scenario as you presented it, I have other questions. You know/knew who Mike Tyson is, GZ didn't know TM or anything about him.
I see many of GZ's statements as outright lies and not inconsistencies, although some are simply inconsistencies. We only have the story as he has told it. That being said, he claims he was reaching in his pocket for his cell phone when face to face with TM. How did TM know it was a phone and not a gun? What is the relevance of which pocket he had put it into? He claims he forgot which pocket and it was in the one where he didn't normally put it. How would TM know where he normally put his phone? Why did he put it in any pocket if he were expecting a call at any minute from the police to tell them where he was at that time as he had asked the dispatcher to have them do? Even if it was because of the rain, he could have had his hand on it in his pocket.
There are two versions out there of the words that were exchanged. Not being sure who said what based on what GZ has said, as I asked previously, how did TM know that he was reaching for a phone and not a gun? Does he not then have the right to defend himself, especially from a rough looking character like GZ was that night, not the GZ you see in court presently? GZ never bothered to tell him who he was, why he was following him around, ask him if he could help, nothing...nothing. He had several opportunities to do so and didn't because "he was afraid". Just because TM already had the better of GZ, why would he let him up to maybe finish getting his gun, especially since GZ thought TM "may have seen it or felt it' when he had him down? Not being armed himself, this kid had the right to do whatever he could to save his own life if he felt that he was the one in danger.
Like I said before, too many questions and not enough answers.