I was away from the Internet yesterday. Looks like it wasn’t a good day around here or in a few places in the South. Here’s an open thread.
Open Thread
by $8 blue check mistermix| 122 Comments
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Baud
Yep. Pretty craptacular. Amir Khalid had a fake birthday, if you’re looking for a silver lining.
lonesomerobot
Dear America,
I am over you.
Sincerely,
Me
maye
happy bastille day to those who celebrate it.
Thymezone
Yesterday seriously needs a fucking do-over.
Baud
The adage that bad news comes in threes was proven yesterday.
lonesomerobot
@Thymezone: You got that right. Actually, if I had a reset button, I’d set the date to November 7, 2000. Then I’d go to Florida and get ready to kick those Brooks Brothers Rioters asses.
YellowJournalism
@Thymezone: I was having that same thought last night.
Anyone remember the episode of Jetsons where George gets that device that rewinds time for a do-over where everything goes right? Would have come in handy yesterday.
Shortstop
Thinking about John this morning. All good wishes and vibes for peace and healing.
khead
Even my wife cried over Tunch. Awful news.
scav
@maye: hhmmmmmm. I can think of far too many donors of the impure blood to abreuve the traditional sillons . . . Should this go more properly to the gardening thread?
Elizabelle
I woke up sad, thinking about Tunch.
Sad for months over Trayvon. Verdict was unjust and surreal.
Now to get some coffee and cheer up.
Lurker
Crappy Sunday, waking up to the news of Tunch’s death. Can’t stop weeping about it.
currants
@maye: might as well.
rikyrah
Saw this: “Years ago Trayvon would’ve been killed for whistling at a white woman. Today we don’t even need reasons.”
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
So true, so sad, so infuriating.
The statement from the Coalition to End Gun Violence is very good:
CSGV STATEMENT ON VERDICT IN ZIMMERMAN TRIAL
Washington, DC—There can be no doubt after the Not Guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman that murder has now been legalized in half of the 50 states.
The traditional presumption in the law—from the advent of the Hebrew Bible through the creation of Roman law, English common law, and American law—has been that if you could spare human life, it was incumbent upon you to do so. With the “Stand Your Ground” law, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its partners in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have turned 3,000 years of jurisprudence on its head. Now you can provoke a fight, and if losing that fight, kill the person you attacked.
Turning the other cheek is supposed to be a sacred virtue. But by removing the duty to retreat from a confrontation in public when one can safely do so, the “Stand Your Ground” law allowed George Zimmerman to stalk and kill an unarmed teenager and walk away a free man. That’s a tragedy, because there can be no doubt that Zimmerman could have avoided a confrontation with Trayvon Martin on the evening of February 26, 2012.
The NRA’s law represents a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in the use of force in the public space, allowing individuals to kill when they merely fear “great bodily harm” (i.e., a fistfight, shoving match, etc.). The concept of responding with proportional force has been obliterated. In this case, the “harm” done to Zimmerman, by whatever source, was so minor that EMTs didn’t even offer him treatment minutes after the shooting.
Americans should also question why Zimmerman was allowed to carry a loaded gun in public in the first place. He has been previously arrested for assaulting a police officer and placed under a restraining order for a domestic battery involving a former fiancee. Again, Zimmerman had the NRA to thank. Their “Shall Issue” law in Florida awards concealed carry permits to individuals with minimal screening/training and removes any discretion law enforcement might have in approving applicants.
The message to would-be killers is now clear. You need not fear carrying your gun in public, or using it. If you do, just make sure you are the only one remaining to testify about the nature of the confrontation in question.
As much as the gruesome mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, the acquittal of George Zimmerman is confirmation that the American promise of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” will continue to be squandered until the NRA’s pernicious stranglehold on our legislatures is broken. Lawmakers in states with “Stand Your Ground” laws should immediately repeal these cancerous blights on American values, law and tradition.
Thymezone
@lonesomerobot:
Like.
Thymezone
@rikyrah:
Sad, and true.
Gravenstone
Fuck, just getting back online myself after being gone all day yesterday. Yeah a pretty terrible day all around. I’m so sorry for your loss, John.
maye
My 17-year old son is latino and has very dark skin. He also wears a hooded sweatshirt almost every day of the year. He’s a long-distance runner, and a few weeks ago we were staying at a friend’s house in a very white, affluent community. I was secretly relieved when he decided not to run in that neighborhood. I don’t know where he is safe. Maybe nowhere.
geg6
Such a horrible sad day for Balloon Juice and, most especially, our blog host yesterday was. Just one of the worst. Stuck’s passing confirmed. Tunch, oh, poor dear Tunch! And then, like a disease, we find that racism is still embedded in the DNA of this country and continues to sicken and distort this society in the most poisonous of ways.
It’s just all too depressing. I have to hug my man and my Otis and Koda a lot today.
Hazel
In addition to Tunch, and Gen. Stuck, and the Zimmerman verdict, Cory Monteith was found dead at the age of 31 yesterday.
(He played “Finn” on Glee.)
I haven’t seen Glee for years, but wow, he was so young!
So much bad news all at once.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: Somebody tweeted “Only in America can a child be put on trial for his own killing”
Whatever excuses could be made for the defense attorneys doing their Constitutional duty were washed away by this, IMHO
WereBear
@gogol’s wife: Thank you, that is an excellent summing up of the legal issues.
I also wonder what Stand Your Ground might mean to abusive domestic situations. The Slacktivist had a discussion about the woman who had gotten 20 years for shooting a wall; legally, in Florida, she would have been better off outright murdering her ex.
Indeed, in what circumstances would it be WRONG, now, to shoot someone during an argument?
Valdivia
Still sad this am and I see also that the lead kid from Glee is dead. Yesterday was some fucked up planet alignment or something.
[email protected]Hazel: should have read the thread before adding my comment. Yes so sad.
Cacti
I was born in the 1970s, and missed the civil rights era, so the following belief is from my own limited perspective:
The murder of Trayvon Martin feels like this generation’s 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. A black kid was stalked and executed on the streets, for nothing other than his killer being offended by his existence.
Local law enforcement then did their best to make sure there were no consequences for it.
scav
@WereBear: “Indeed, in what circumstances would it be WRONG, now, to shoot someone during an argument?”
Easy Beasy. Our faetal betters are entirely off-limits.
D58826
@WereBear: That one is obvious. iI the shooter is black and the victim white, then it obviously is pre-mediated murder.
Cassidy
@Cacti: The difference is that generation did something. Ours will not. Voter suppression will continue to happen. The elected “leaders” on our government will offer platitudes of sadness and introduce no legislation to fix this. Bigoted, misogynistic assholes will continue to be elected in state races to continue the efforts to make women and minorities second class citizens.
The only impact this verdict has had is to increase Facebook usage today and maybe cause some people to get “unfriended”. ‘Merica. Fuck yeah.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
It’s not the acquittal that disturbs me so much – I think Booman and Coates crystallized the inability of the prosecution to make the case for murder – it’s that Zimmerman will be rewarded in some corners for his crime. Same for his disgusting lawyer. I can only hope the upcoming civil suit ruins him for the rest of his days.
Amir Khalid
Clearly, we’ve all been hit pretty hard. And there’s those of us, the less frequent visitors and those who skipped a day for other business, who will only be learning the tragic news about Tunch and the General today or tomorrow or even later. It’ll be a while before the pall of grief clears. In the meantime, we’ll need to be a little gentler with each other than usual — difficult, I know, for a place that can sometimes seem like the Argument Clinic with a bigger crowd.
rikyrah
IowaOldLady
I’ve been trying to call on my more hopeful, better angel, to quote Martin Luther King to myself about the long arc of history bending toward justice. I think it’s too soon. I’m sad and hopeless.
NickT
@Elizabelle:
My policy from now on is get mad – and get even. I want to reduce the GOP to rubble and then salt the ashes.
The Dangerman
I could be wrong (dangerously low caffeine levels), but Stand Your Ground had nothing to do with the verdict.
Yes, TM was stalked and, yes, Zimmerman was a shit for not following police directions, and yes, Zimmerman was even a bigger shit for being a neighborhood watcher that was packing, but there was, apparently, some altercation. Do I think Zimmerman had his life threatened and use of force was justified? No, but I can see the reasonable doubt. Simply ignoring the altercation and that doubt isn’t helpful.
That said, SYG laws do need to go.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
I hear you
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@khead: Tunch was everybody’s cat around here. Hell I just bought the Revolution Will Be Supervised mug in his honor. And it’s a damn shame about Stuck too. Sadly I expected the Zimmerman verdict. The ground was stood upon. The only way to deal with this now, is to shift the ground being stood upon.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Don’t give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
Oh, I’m sorry. This is Abuse.
currants
@WereBear:
In FL? Um….
BudP
So very sorry to hear about Tunch. We’ve got four dogs now and have had to say goodbye to five over the years. You make a cosmic bargain; you get a year or five or ten of companionship and joy, but you pay for it with grief when your friend passes. You’re in our thoughts today.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
It’s hard to control an open forum, but most of the regulars here are decent people, IMHO.
WereBear
I don’t understand. If you don’t think he had his life threatened, then there isn’t any doubt.
And Stand Your Ground had EVERYTHING to do with how Zimmerman got acquitted. In New York, I could follow someone around with my gun, provoke a confrontation, and shoot them dead… and it would not be something I would walk away from.
Kay
@The Dangerman:
Ordinary FL self defense, not SYG, requires the state to.prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was NOT self-defense.
It wasn’t SYG, as you said.
I continue to think it is going to be very difficult for the state to prove it was NOT self defense in these armed/unarmed scenarios, because one party is dead.
Baud
@IowaOldLady:
I’m going to poorly channel General Stuck here, and say that I still think the right-wing elements are losing, and they know it. Unfortunately, there will still be tragedies because they are intent on blowing up as many bridges in their retreat as they can to slow the march of progress.
jeffreyw
Go ahead. I’ve got your back.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Most of us are, yes; However, a small but not-insignificant contingent, you know whom I mean, are indecent people.
The Dangerman
@WereBear:
Not for me, but for the jurors.
jenn
@WereBear: I think he’s saying he doesn’t doubt, but he can see where someone else might have reasonable doubt.
beltane
@WereBear: I think we should all realize the fact that large swaths of this country constitute “those places”, i.e. the benighted regions of the world where evil reigns supreme.
Poopyman
@WereBear: “Wrong” and “illegal” are, sadly, about as far from one another as they’ve ever been in this country.
Kay
@WereBear:
He didn’t raise SYG.He used ordinary FL self defense. The state has to prove that it was NOT self defense beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s the ordinary FL self defense law.
WereBear
@jenn: Thanks, I see.
The Dangerman
@Kay:
Yes, not only does SYG need to go, but the self defense laws need to be tightened, too. So clearly benefiting from killing the other party in what might have been a simple fight is bullshit.
aangus
@The Dangerman:
This!
Baud
@Kay:
I understand what you’re saying about the actual defense at trial, but isn’t it SYG that allowed Zimmerman to follow Martin rather than keep his distance and wait for the cops to arrive?
jayackroyd
Re Tunch:
Like a shot to the gut. Had to read it three times.
D58826
Lisa Bloom on MSNBC doesn’t understand why the prosecution did not offer their own narrative of what happened that night and allowed the defense to frame the case as Zimmerman the victim and Martin the dangerous black thug. She thinks at least part of the reason is that they also accepted the defense framing. I wonder if the prosecutors were just going thru the motions. It may be a stretch to stay they threw the case, but they really didn’t want to be there
Cacti
@Baud:
The tide is turning demographically and the re-election of Obama by comfortable margin cemented that fact. They have seen the beginning of the end of the white supremacist power structure, and they’re not going to let it go without making sure they hurt as many “others” as they can on their way down.
the lost puppy
@lonesomerobot:
THAT!
Shortstop
@The Dangerman: You urge us not to “ignore the altercation” as though it sprang up magically, as a standalone event without context. Do you really not understand that it would not have occurred but for Zimmerman’s actions? He was the initial aggressor. He made a series of choices that resulted in an unarmed kid being shot through the heart. These facts are not in dispute. Reasonable doubt for manslaughter my ass.
burnspbesq
@Cassidy:
Only if we let it happen. If we match the assholes in money, organization, and intensity, we will win, because we outnumber them.
Cacti
@Shortstop:
Last night he was saying that Zimmerman having to “look over his shoulder” now was worse than being incarcerated.
Smh.
Kay
@The Dangerman:
I have so.many problems with it. Say Martin hadn’t died at the scene but was somehow incapacitated, couldn’t tell his side. Say the state then charged Martin with attempted murder. Could they prove THAT beyond a reasonable doubt based on what we heard?
It wouldn’t happen, because Martin would be charged under juvenile laws (probably) but could they prove the allegations Zimmerman made if Martin were charged? I don’t think they could.
khead
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
My wife hates politics so she skips a lot of threads. But she loved her some Tunch.
Amir Khalid
@Kay:
Aside from any weaknesses inherent in the case, I have a sense that the prosecution team tended to pull its punches during the trial, not arguing the case as well as they could or should have. Would you agree, or was the case just unwinnable for them?
aimai
@The Dangerman: SYG had something to do with the verdict because it had something to do with the trial itself–Zimmerman wasn’t originally charged with anything because SYG makes it very hard for the police to charge in the first instance. I believe there is a provision for the citizen murderer to sue the police for wrongful prosecution so they are quite leery of charging where you would think that a situation involving a dead teen would lead necessarily to some kind of charge.
The climate in Florida is nuts and the “shall issue” and SYG laws have contributed to this circus of hysteria and fear. Its unbelievable to me that the police ever released Zimmerman in the first place. A child was dead and the police had reason to believe that Zimmerman was acting inappropriately and stalking him before even the commission of the act. I get that juries are forced to deal with very small slices of reality and are instructed (all the time) to ignore plain common sense but its weird to me that they were, basically, asked to consider Zimmerman’s intentions which were formed prior to the encounter and yet instructed to ignore the circumstances and intentions which led to the encounter. The setting mattered for some legal purposes, and not for others. Yet the setting, the encounter, were entirely in Zimmerman’s hands. Absent his malevolent intentions he never would have even crossed paths with Martin.
wrb
So now Greenwald is threatening massive damage to the US if Snowden is harmed. So all any power that wants to bring aqbout the damage has to do is kill Snowden.
What extraordinary idiots.
Baud
@Shortstop:
I was under the impression that the problem is that the context doesn’t matter under Florida law. Or at least that’s how the jury was instructed — all that mattered was whether Zimmerman believed he was in danger at the exact time he shot Martin.
Maude
So sorry about Tunch.
Now General Stuck can always look down on the Republicans from where he is located.
D58826
@Kay: There was a long piece about the package of changes to the self-defense laws that includes SYG. The centuries long standard was that a person has a responsibility to try to deescalate a confrontation before resorting to deadly force. The changes made in 2005 reversed that and said you do not have to deescalate. So even if you are not making an explicit SYG defense, the change in the law has broadened the scope of self defense to the point that if you feel threated by some one looking at you sideways you can use deadly force.
MomSense
@Kay:
I have read some arguments that say that SYG contributed to the failure of the police department to properly collect forensic evidence and do a proper investigation of the scene.
BTW I also just learned that one of the police officers went house to house asking if people had heard Zimmerman’s screams–essentially prejudicing all the witnesses.
Shortstop
@Kay: Do ordinary self-defense laws not provide for the context of the killing? I’m not even considering SYG here. How is it possible for an armed person to successfully claim self-defense after forcing a confrontation with an unarmed person? Is there literally nothing mitigating people’s ability to claim SD as long as there was demonstrable conflict?
JPL
@Cacti: Heard on the news today that Zimmerman’s brother is afraid that George will be attacked by vigilantes.. WTF… Zimmerman was the vigilante and now he has an excuse to continue his way.
Mary Brown
Oh John, I am so sorry about Tunch – just can’t quite believe it. You’re in my thoughts. Peace and healing to you.
The Dangerman
@Shortstop:
I think it’s clear that Zimmerman started the fight, morally, if not legally (I assume the law might say the person who through the first punch started it, and Martin may have thrown down first, but clearly Zimmerman’s actions started the fight). It appears, however, that it doesn’t matter who started the fight in this matter. It should, but it doesn’t and, again, laws need to get changed.
MomSense
@Kay:
And apparently he was only able to raise self defense because the State entered into evidence 7 different times examples where he said he didn’t do_______. If the State hadn’t introduced these exhibits, Zimmerman would have had to take the stand which obviously would have made him address many of the issues in the trial.
MHP had an excellent segment with several attorneys and prosecutors commenting on this.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
Perhaps you should go back and read what I said, which was, roughly, that’d I’d prefer to be behind bars than have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my days. What would have been worse for Zimmerman, I have no clue.
Kay
@The Dangerman:
Also, and it doesn’t matter at all for FL self defense, Zimmerman didn’t have to be injured AT ALL, but the truth is Zimmerman was not injured seriously. He just wasn’t. We had a fight on a school bus between two teenagers with worse injuries.
But it doesn’t matter, at all, under FL self defense law. Zimmerman can raise it without an injury of any kind.
Cacti
@MomSense:
Everything about the initial Sanford PD investigation shows that they had already decided who was the victim and who was the suspect in the encounter. Zimmerman’s clothing wasn’t collected and he wasn’t tested for the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Pretty damn strange when Zimmerman had just finished putting a bullet hole in a kid’s chest.
Shortstop
@aimai: @Baud: Ah, I see. But can’t believe.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
Zimmerman’s brother was on NPR this morning, stating that Trayvon was armed.
With a sidewalk.
beltane
@Shortstop: It would seem that in Florida at least, any armed asshole can kill with impunity just by threatening any random person to the point where they provoke a response. This flies in the face of all concepts of “civil society”, but we’re not talking about one of the civilized regions of the world, we’re talking about the steaming dung pile of lawlessness and corruption know as the Sunshine State.
Amir Khalid
One thread up, mistermix links to a Wisconsin lawyer’s take on Florida self-defence law. It’s disturbing to read.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
I can tell you with rock solid certainty that Zimmerman would have to be separated from the general prison population, or he would be a dead man the day he arrived.
MomSense
@Cacti:
I know–and it is too late now. Horrifying.
The Dangerman
@Kay:
Mildly confused about your scenario, but it sounds like a reasonable doubt case all around. It’s fucked up (and the Sanford PD fucked it up, too, but that seems a secondary problem)
CarolDuhart2
@Baud: I agree. This is ALEC’s last stand. But they have a “Sampson” complex where they want to destroy as much as they can before it goes-and then blame us for the collapse.
Kay
@MomSense:
I don’t know what to think. I saw an interesting comment from a FL defense lawyer. He/she said FL has starved funding for appointed defense counsel. They have huge caseloads so they plead everyone. The result of that is prosecutors never have to go to trial, so they’re complacent and (literally!) out of practice.
Cacti
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yep. All you have to believe is that getting your head “slammed” into the sidewalk “20-30 times” would only leave 2 tiny cuts, and no skull fractures or brain trauma.
khead
@The Dangerman:
Well, sure. It’s not like an inmate ever has to look over their shoulder.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
And that supports your previous castigation of me how? Just curious.
But, yes, he would probably not be in Gen Pop.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Can you regale us again with your theory of how race had nothing to do with the verdict?
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
How about reading next post upstairs? See any mention of race there? No? Very good.
beltane
@Cacti: Perhaps Zimmerman’s skull does not contain a brain cavity. That would explain a lot.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s sort of grimly amusing because Zimmerman’s Online Defense Team are always screaming he’s being “hung in the media!”
They must have missed how Zimmerman’s “friend” has made a career out of trashing the dead kid on tv.
Nice that the brother is out there too.
SIA
My brain writhed until the early hours between the three great horriblenesses of 7/13/13, finally slept and woke up with a fog of grief and pessimism. My darling Romeo died similarly to Tunch this time of year several summers ago. One grief beings back all the others.
I know the reality is much, much better than it feels right now. I’m hanging my hat on that.
JohnCole, I’m glad Walt got in touch. I was hoping last night he’d be around. One day at a time.
piratedan
@Kay: well the police didn’t treat it at first as a homicide, which starts the whole kit and kaboodle into the dumper, the whole presumed guilt thing with how the local cops approached the crime to begin with. How in the fuck do you start with a dead unarmed dead kid and not immediately look at the guy who owns the gun at the scene as a prime suspect is where this is whole fiasco begins. The cops didn’t want to charge Zimmerman, but his own statements and the evidence of his conversation with the 911 dispatcher all point to this entire event being provoked by him. Local law enforcement screwed the pooch and then, instead of doing proper due diligence, the local judiciary then went in half assed as well. The focal points, while perhaps having their basis in what you can and can’t use in a courtroom still come down to this incredibly not being the focal point….
why did you get out of the car when the police dispatcher told you not to….
he stays in the car, Martin is alive… the rest is all pretty much bullshit to me, am sure that our legal beagle crew can show me how that matters not in the eyes of the law, all I am is simply a potential juror.
WereBear
@Kay: Holy crap. If someone tried to screw up an entire state, they couldn’t have picked a better plan.
MomSense
@Kay:
I think this is the case in many, many places.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
As proven by this statement from Zimmerman’s brother:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/stay-classy-robert-zimmerman/277774/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: I almost threw up when I saw O’Mara with that piece of concrete and said Trayvon Martin was ‘not an unarmed teenager’ (edited). I was stunned when the MSNBC attorneys on a panel all agreed that this was an “effective” moment. And how does no one in the Zimmerman family or legal camp not have the brains to tell his brother to Shut The Fuck Up?
debbie
@Cacti:
Spending the rest of his life looking over his shoulder? Serves him right. Karmic justice.
Cacti
Heartbreaking artwork of Trayvon Martin with Emmett Till.
Cacti
@MomSense:
If every accused person demanded their right to trial, the Court system would be backlogged for years, and a number of cases would likely be dismissed for lack of timely prosecution.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
Hello almost birthday dude.
From Ta Nehisi Coates today, The Killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman
MomSense
@Cacti:
I’m not saying it is wrong to plead at all. Kay and I are just talking about why the prosecution made certain decisions.
D58826
@Amir Khalid: Based on two events in Texas last week, I think the country has really gone off the rails. In the first incident a group of people showed up at the state house carrying loaded ar15’s. Their goal was not to intimidate but to show folks that it was quite normal for people to be walking around with loaded assault rifles and there was nothing to fear. The other incident was when the capital police confiscated tampons and tampex from women entering the building as they could be used as weapons. On the other hand people with loaded handguns were waived right thru.
CaseyL
On a somewhat happier note, here are photos from the Seattle BJ Meetup last night. We drank many toasts to Tunch and General Stuck:
http://s737.photobucket.com/user/CaseyL2010/library/BJ%20Seattle%20Meetup%20July%2013%202013
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA:
I had a similar night, with fitfully sleep punctuated by the Most.Bizarre.Dreams.
ThresherK
@maye: I recently was skimming across the teevee when an “All In The Family” happened on, in which Lionel Jefferson joked about how he had to wait for Mike Stivic to get suited up, because it wasn’t safe for a black youth to go jogging in the Queens neighborhood alone, or people would suspect he was up to something.
That was made some 40 years ago, back when Rob Reiner had hair, and was thin enough to seem like he could be a recreational runner.
It’ll take a long time for that bit of videotape to be wry, let alone funny, again.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Fitful. Not fitfully. Why does autocorrect do that stupid stuff?
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: As I read your comment, one of my dreams came back, two people, one got shot point blank, and the victim staring at me with his mouth the same as Munch’s subject. Hope Things lift a bit soon, feels pretty bleak right now. :(
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: It was home-schooled.
kdaug
@Baud:
Speak for yourself, jackass.
Cacti
@MomSense:
I hate the plea-bargain assembly line system of criminal justice that prevails in the courts today. I’d like to see every accused demand their right to trial as it would force reform.
lojasmo
@The Dangerman:
Zimmerman would very likely have been murdered in jail.
raven
@CaseyL: Who’s the young fella in the glasses? Who’s everybody?
Violet
@Hazel: I did not hear about Cory Monteith until you posted. Oh, how sad. So, so young. Sheesh, what a crappy day yesterday was.
lojasmo
@CaseyL:
Psi +73 under the table?
sparky
@gogol’s wife: Wow. Thanks for sharing.
(Gogol would be pleased . . . again.) ; )
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: I think, sadly, that TNC is quite right — Zimmerman’s unembellished story would have gotten him off the hook too. To me, though, that raises the issue of why Zimmerman added all those details. At a minimum, it suggests anxiety or guilt. To which I say, good. And I hope it plagues him forever.
gogol's wife
@Cacti:
I was forced to listen to some of the trial while waiting in a medical facility waiting room, and I actually heard the defense say that. Martin was armed with the sidewalk.
Emerald
@FlipYrWhig: It won’t plague him at all. Minds like Zimmerman’s are well-tuned to avoid blame and foist it onto anyone else but themselves.
In his mind by this time every lie he told was the truth. It’s how he remembers it now. And, like his brother, no doubt he believes Trayvon was a thug drug dealer. He just cleaned up his neighborhood! He’s a hero!