[redwitch]

Going back to the original question, the use of language would be irrelevant to me. I think the final verdict will be determined by the jury instructions. I don't know Florida law enough to determine what actions/thoughts are needed to claim self-defense. As a juror, I would wonder why stand your ground is not being used as a defense since it seems that this law has a lesser burden of proof (even though I would know that I'm not to consider things not put into evidence, but the stand your ground law has been mentioned throughout the trial). I'd be wondering what it is that Zimmerman is hiding -- was there justification for Martin's action?

All in all, I'm very grateful that I'm not on this jury. I think that given the basic law of self-defense (and I'm assuming for the time being that Florida follows the basic elements) I'd have to find Zimmerman not guilty but I wouldn't be happy about it. I do believe that Zimmerman got the exact outcome he wanted. He did follow Martin just enough to provoke Martin to react, which gave Zimmerman an excuse to pull out his gun and use it. At the time, he thought he was protecting his neighborhood from another bad guy who would just get away whatever. Instead, he shot a kid who had gone to the store and was returning home -- that's the only thing he didn't expect (even though Martin wasn't exactly a model kid, so I'm sure Zimmerman feels some justification for the final outcome).

I don't like either of these characters but one of them might have grown up to become an upstanding citizen but, for now, there's little question that he was a punk by our definitions. The other one was a cop wannabe who got to do what few police officers ever do except in practice -- fire his gun to stop a "bad guy."