Much of this case came down to speculation versus fact. We saw it in the trial, we saw it in the prosecution’s case, we see it even in comments on this blog. In the spring of 2012, in the question/answer session that followed the CATO Institute “Stand Your Ground Symposium”, a sincere young man who happened to be African-American asked me if SYG protection would have been in effect for Trayvon Martin if he had been violently attacked by George Zimmerman, and had killed Zimmerman in self-defense. My answer was “Yes, of course.” And I would give the same answer now.
The only problem with that hypothetical is, there is nothing to substantiate it, and there is a large body of facts in evidence to support the jury’s verdict that Zimmerman was not guilty of murder, or any lesser included offense. A large body of collective evidence showing that it was Martin who attacked Zimmerman, and not vice-versa.
“What if Zimmerman hadn’t gotten out of his car, and just driven on to his destination, the Target store?” Well, certainly, the confrontation would not have occurred. But that pales in comparison to what if Trayvon Martin had not attacked him and smashed his head into the sidewalk? In following a strange man who was looking into windows in a community riven by burglaries and even a home invasion, Zimmerman never broke the law. Indeed, had it not ended in death, most would have appreciated him taking notice and calling the authorities…as people had done earlier, when the head of the homeowner’s association in that community had chased down and captured a burglary suspect.
“What if Zimmerman had avoided any danger by not getting involved at all?” Well, if the nineteen firefighters killed last month in Arizona hadn’t “gotten involved,” they wouldn’t have died either. Does that make them responsible for their own deaths? Review the case of Kitty Genovese and then get back to me with your “Don’t get involved” argument. But take a long look in the mirror, first, and ask yourself how long you’d want to live with looking in the mirror of the face of someone who “didn’t get involved” enough to pick up a phone to help Kitty Genovese, and didn’t do what a reasonable and prudent person would construe the voice of authority on that phone asked you to do.
“What if Zimmerman hadn’t carried that evil gun?” Well, with Zimmerman having his head smashed against the sidewalk and being unable to escape, Trayvon Martin would probably have stood trial for the murder of George Zimmerman. The evidence and testimony are consistent with Zimmerman’s account of what happened. So is something the jury never learned of during trial: the lie detector test (voice stress analysis) which Zimmerman passed shortly after the shooting, and which confirmed that he was telling the truth. He also passed the “bullshit detector test” of not one but two veteran police officers who expertly and vigorously interrogated him, without defense counsel present.
“What if it turned out that Zimmerman had made the first confrontation and pulled his gun on Martin, causing Martin to jump him and beat him in self-defense?” That WOULD have been justifiable for Martin…but there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE TO INDICATE THAT IT DID HAPPEN. Stop and think: would a man hungry to kill, with a loaded gun already in his hand, have taken the savage beating Zimmerman did, for at least 40 seconds, before firing?
“What if” is not the standard of the law, nor the standard of logic. “WHAT IS” remains the standard for both. The evidence, not a hypothetical “theory of the case,” is what counts in every aspect of the real world…the real world of the courts, and the real world of the streets.
A duly empanelled jury determined the truth from the facts in evidence and the testimony presented. Even the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses overwhelmingly favored the defense.
And that was only the evidence the jury was allowed to see. There was much more evidence which was confirmatory to Zimmerman’s account of a clear-cut self-defense shooting. We’ll get to that soon in this space…and why the jury was not allowed to see it.
Sarah,
Do you believe a member of the neighborhood watch has the same authority as a law enforcement officer? As far as being a “regular citizen”, GZ was on his way to the store when he noticed TM. Activities don’t get much more “regular” than that?
Do you believe that GZ was under no obligation to exercise a “higher standard of care” as a concealed carry holder, just because he was a member of the neighborhood watch?
Mr. Ayoob,
In your book, The Gun Digest Book of Concealed Carry, you clearly lay out some key principles that every concealed carry permit holder must be cognizant of, and comply with when they decide to arm themselves.
In that book you wrote, “When you are armed with a lethal weapon, you carry the burden of what the Courts call a “higher standard of care.” In your opinion, did GZ violate the “higher standard of care” principle when he left his vehicle to further investigate the whereabouts of TM?
You also mention a principle known as “….the totality of the circumstances.” “Therefore, each individual’s actions in the short time frame leading up to the encounter can be used by the jury to determine who seemed most likely to have committed a reckless act that disregarded the value of human life.” Do you believe the judge’s instructions to the jury to “… judge him by the circumstances by which he was surrounded at the time the force was used.”, disregarded the totality of the circumstances principle in regards to GZ’s questionable decision to exit his vehicle to gain more information on TM?
Are “higher standard of care” and “totality of the circumstances” legally binding principles or merely guidelines that do not always carry much weight in a criminal trial?
CCL, apart from prior bad acts issues and character issues already discussed here, I thought the totality of the circumstances were very well presented to the jury. The higher standard of care issue ran subtly and sometimes not so subtly through the state’s whole case theory presented as “armed man against unarmed boy.”
No need for “Mr.,” by the way, it’s just Mas.
I’m firmly with Sarah on this and also believe strongly that questioning Zimmerman’s actions or state of mind is blaming the victim. The parallel with rape victims occurred to me too before seeing it brought several times elsewhere.
The need to steer clear of trouble for CCW holders (higher standard of care) is there, and I initially thought that Zimmerman was someone who placed himself into a shooting situation. But the facts of the case indicate otherwise to me: should he have put his gun away before carrying out his neighborhood watch duties (you don’t stop being a concerned citizen because you’re not on the clock, by the way)? Should he secure his weapon every time he spots something/somebody suspicious? What’s the point in being armed for self-protection, then?
Zimmerman didn’t give chase or engage in LE activities. Some people seem to think he should’ve locked himself in the car or run home upon noticing Martin, and that’s downplaying the latter’s responsibility in the shooting. It’s not a kid on his way home with candy who got shot – it’s a punk who turned around to teach a nosy neighborhood watchman a lesson, and brought his fists to a gunfight.
Someone asked me what would’ve happened had Zimmerman not been armed (the anti-Zimmerman argument is very much an anti-CCW one). He’d be dead, let’s be honest about this, and there was no reason for the attack. He wasn’t cruising the ghetto for thrills, he wasn’t riding the NY subway at night challenging punks to rob him, he was on his way to the store in his own neighborhood. The ‘vigilante’ and ‘cop wannabe’ accusations are lies. And all we came to learn about Martin confirmed that Zimmerman’s gut feeling was right, ‘innocent’ soft drink and candy notwithstanding.
Alonzo, you said it better than I did. Hindsight is always 20/20 and to blame someone for not seeing the future is unfair to say the least. Zimmerman had no way of knowing that Martin was going to come back and attack him, did nothing to provoke an attack on himself, and indeed the idea that someone can “make” another person violent goes directly to the heart of why we need the right to bodily integrity and the right of self defense. This misguided concept is rife in rape cases: “she led him on”, “she shouldn’t have been there”, “she did x, y, and z” – always focusing on the victim’s behavior as causal instead of the perpetrator’s. Zimmerman did not lead Martin on, had every reason to take the actions that he did, and had every right to be where he was. If I were Zimmerman, I would be thanking God I had a gun on me that night.
There is one legal point to the Zimmerman-Martin case that I have not seen discussed and yet it goes a long way toward debunking the “It was all Zimmerman’s fault because he got out of his truck in violation of police orders” line of thought. It is a tenet of law that a previous dispute does not justify a new dispute. One can see why this tenet is necessary. Otherwise old grudges would let people be justified in “Hatfield and McCoy” behavior. A dispute is assumed to be over when one party clearly indicates that they no longer want to continue the dispute and, furthermore, the amount of time between disputes is not a factor. It could be five years or only five seconds. Even if one accepts that Martin initially felt threatened by Zimmerman, that first dispute ended if (as Zimmerman states and as is supported by the evidence) Zimmerman stopped following Martin and, instead, walked back toward his vehicle. Those actions clearly ended the first dispute and Zimmerman was no longer a threat to Martin. So, if the physical fight was started by Martin who doubled back to confront Zimmerman and then punch him in the face, then Martin was starting a whole, new dispute and Martin was the “aggressor” in this new dispute. The previous actions of Zimmerman to “profile Martin” (if that occurred) or to get out of his vehicle and follow him are irrelevent and immaterial to the case since they happened in a previous (and now closed) dispute. In this case, only the events that happened in the second dispute (starting with the punch to the face) are germane to Zimmerman’s claim of Self-Defense.
Whenever I hear the “should have stayed in his car” line I remember a lady in Fargo ND that did just that. One of the gang walked up beside her car with a shotgun and killed her while she was waiting for the police to arrive. Simplistic answers to a complex, quickly developing situation are usually inaccurate or misleading.
Terry, that tenet is likely very useful for determining motive, intent, premeditation, etc., but I am not sure it actually goes to the fundamental right of self defense. To give an extreme example, for instance if I as a woman decide to act belligerent on the street, perhaps yelling at someone or following them around shouting and trying to provoke them, and then that person gets angry and begins beating me for it, my right to self defense remains valid and intact. In other words, I have the right to fight back no matter whether the other person was “provoked” or not. (I should be hauled in for disturbing the peace maybe, but being physically attacked is not a legal remedy.) Also, if I am suddenly in MORTAL danger (i.e. perhaps my head is being slammed against the concrete) I still also retain the right to pull my gun and shoot in self defense. Not saying any of this behavior is a good idea, but legally speaking you cannot make someone else responsible for your own behavior. Provocation may figure into the type of charges filed or perhaps sentencing later, but it wouldn’t change the fact that my life was now suddenly on the line. The person who attacked did not do so out of fear for their own life: they did it because they were angry and would prefer to beat me into the ground rather than call the cops to report a woman disturbing the peace. You could even take this example a step further. Perhaps a smaller person (yes, unadvisedly) starts a fist fight with someone larger than them (for real life scenario picture a woman angry at a man) – the tables turn and that man begins beating her badly, to the point where she may lose her life. Has she lost her right to self defense? Has she lost her right to protect her life? Nope.
Sarah, I respectfully disagree with the point that you are making. In order to claim legitimate self-defense, the defender must maintain a “mantle of innocence”. He or she cannot be engaged in any crime that rises to the status of a felony at the time of the incident. For example, suppose a thief breaks into a home. He thinks no one is at home and his intent is only to steal. However, the homeowner is at home. The homeowner becomes aware of the intruder, grabs a gun and takes a shot at the thief. This shot misses. The thief, who is also armed, returns fire and kills the homeowner. By your logic, the thief can claim legitimate self-defense for the killing because he was truly in fear of death or grave bodily harm at the time he returned fire. In fact, under the law, he cannot claim self-defense and he is guilty of felony murder. If Zimmerman had begun the fight and committed the felony of assaulting Martin (either with his hands or his gun), then Zimmerman would have lost the “mantle of innocence” and would have been guilty of either manslaughter or murder (depending upon the circumstances of the event and the intent of Zimmerman). On the other hand (as I pointed out above), if Martin began the fight by assaulting Zimmerman, then Zimmerman has committed no felony, retains the “mantle of innocence” and can legitimately claim self-defence providing that he was truly in fear of death or grave bodily harm at the moment he pulled the trigger.
Terry, I don’t believe my logic says anything of the kind. You cannot simply take one situation described and extrapolate out that I mean the same in every situation. It is not a law of nature I was describing.
The action of breaking into a home is a far more serious crime than a fist fight, someone “following”, or someone yelling in the street. Your example scenario is far too different from mine to be a valid comparison – apples and oranges. Burglars have, can, and do sometimes claim self defense in such situations, but as in everything legal, the devil is in the details. It really depends upon the exact situation, and as you point out, courts hardly sympathize with an armed intruder into a home and would generally convict of felony murder. But all of that has very little to do with my point about provocation in an argument.
While the act of breaking into a home could be said to be provocative, the fact that it is provocative is not the reason the home owner has the right to shoot the intruder. The owner has the right simply *because* it is his home and the home is seen as a special case/situation.
My original point is that there is a world of difference between a fist fight that is not taken to the degree of mortal danger and one that is. In one that is taken to that deadly extreme, the person in danger does have the right to defend themselves from being killed, no matter who started the fight, or who provoked who. If you do not believe I am correct about *this* example, then please give me your reasons why.
Sarah, you are correct in that there can be cases where there is no clear-cut good guy and bad guy. Cases in the “grey zone” where both parties are partially responsible for the conflict. In these cases, the jury must decide who is the most innocent (or least guilty) in starting the conflict. However, IMHO it is very dangerous for someone claiming self-defense to enter the “grey zone”. A person claiming self-defense starts out with two strikes against them. By its very nature, they have to admit that (A) a homicide did occur and (B) they caused the homicide. If they also step into the grey zone and admit that they might have been, at least partially, responsible for the incident that ended in a killing, then they may find themselves also stepping to a jail cell! You will notice that Zimmerman carefully avoided the grey zone. His account clearly paints himself as the good guy. He says that he stopped following Martin. That Martin approached him. That Martim threw the first punch. That Martin pinned him to the ground and tried to inflict a serious head wound. That Martin threatened to kill him and then reached for his (Zimmerman’s) gun. All of which makes Martin out to be the bad guy and cloaks Zimmerman in the “mantle of innocence”. Also, since dead men tell no tales, Martin was not around to dispute any of this account. To be fair, the majority of the evidence and the independent witness acounts also backed up Zimmerman’s story. Given the political pressure to convict Zimmerman, I think that if he had gone into the “grey zone” and admitted any part in starting the conflict, then he would have been convicted. His “good guy” story held up and that is why he was found “not guilty”.
Terry, you are absolutely correct that there is a huge existing bias against those who defend themselves with a gun. And because of that, lawyers spend a large part of their time trying to exclude as much negative information as possible while making their client look as good as possible. Of course they do, that’s their job. But for the purposes of discussion you have to decide whether you are describing prejudice, bias, preconceptions of the public (and of juries and the media) or whether you are speaking of what the law says. I was speaking of what the laws generally allow, and about the actual right of self defense, not how it all appears to the general gun-fearful public, or to a jury. No matter who started it, if it escalates to mortal danger, a person always has the right to keep themselves from being killed. I was NOT saying it will always turn out great in court later on.
I get what you mean. You are saying that there are many mitigating factors that a person has to think about and plan for when carrying a firearm for self defense. Of course. That’s a fact of life and I am not in any way disputing it. It is even a worthy subject on it’s own. I fully understand that juries (and as we saw prosecutors, politicians, and the media) can be horribly ignorant, misguided, and intentionally manipulative of the facts. I fully understand that trials can have unconscionably unfair verdicts and that innocent people go to jail or even are put to death. But it doesn’t change the fact that a person still has the right to defend themselves from being killed. At least until the bastards win and they change the law. 🙂