Lil' Kim went to prison for not snitchin', Michael Vick; Dog fighting. & then, there's George Zimmerman, a free man.

Michael Vick's dogs weren't trying to take his gun and kill him.

You mad bro? Get over the race issue and look at the facts, then and just then maybe you'll understand the LAW.

MSNBC, inciting racial hate and melting down

we'll see if stealing tv's heals the wounds of the opposition.

It's weird how Zimmerman was found not guilty in a town known for its racial problems, while over in Jacksonville, a black woman who fired warning shots at her husband wasn't standing her ground and got 20 years.

She had no prior record and had a protective order out against her husband. She claimed to have fired the warning shots to avoid a beating. Coincidentally, she also didn't have her bond revoked for lying to the court.

Amazing the difference a year makes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...warning-shots/

We should rename him Teflon Zimmerman. Nothing seems to stick to him... assaulting a police officer, domestic violence, shooting an unarmed kid... can't wait to see what's next for him. Won't be long until he fucks up again.

MSNBC is melting down much worse than FOX news after Obama's wins.

Sounds like she had no legal right to fire warning shots and got sucked into the mandatory minimum sentencing scam put in place by private prison owners to guarantee cell occupants.

FITTY tragic shootings that ended up in an acquittal based on self defense.

After watching this trial and listening to Mark Geragos on CNN I think I know why the woman in Jacksonville went to prison and Zimmerman did not.

Geragos pointed out that prosecuting attorneys work every day of the week against public defenders. They basically roll right over them. Hold back evidence, pull all kinds of shady shit on them & easily win their cases against a public defender with no money and no chance.

That is probably what happened to the woman in Jacksonville.

He pointed out that the prosecutor in the Zimmerman trial kept trying all those tricks too. But he was up against a bad ass real defense attorney who checkmated him at every turn.

THAT is the difference epitome...no matter how much "racism" you want there to be. If you get in trouble with the law you too will find your ass in prison...UNLESS you lawyer up big time and get a power defense attorney who won't let the state steamroll you.

When you go to court the deck is stacked against you. The state has all the resources and lots of "free money" to spend. They are also buddies with the cops and the judge.

And then you walk in with a public defender who isn't really good enough to play at the top levels and you end up in jail.

Get a bad ass defense attorney and it levels the playing field.

Don't forget about OJ.:2 cents:

This is so true. Many times the public defenders are so overworked that they are mostly just trying to tread water and they often suggest their clients just plea out and get it over with quickly. When they do go to trial they get a small budget for experts, investigators etc. When you can afford a real attorney, or someone that will work for you that knows what they are doing your odds greatly increase.

I have often said that in our court system you get the justice that you can afford.

That ain't no breaking news. Fuck that fool

It's good to see that the legal system and more specifically the jurors can still do what they are called to do regardless of the pressure from the media.

I didn't follow the trial at all, and other than what I read here and on Yahoo news only caught bits and pieces. It clearly seemed as the deck was heavily stacked against Zimmerman and the jury saw past it all and did what they believed was right.

Robbie, you know making sense on GFY is uncalled for :upsidedow

And the state/prosecutors play loose and fast with the "rules". They hide evidence, they bully the public defenders, etc.

I saw Alan Dershowitz on CNN this morning talking about it. He pointed out that the prosecution tried to hide exculpatory evidence over and over again during this trial, but attorney Don West called them on it every time and won the case.

That is the problem. Hiding evidence and pulling tricks like overcharging and trying to change the charges in the middle of the case are things that the State and prosecuting attorneys do every day across this country.

It perverts our entire justice system.

Want to know why so many young black men are in jail? Because it's hard to afford the kind of attorney that has the resources and the skills in court to be able to successfully defend you against that kind of crooked justice.

GZ would never have been able to afford his defense team on his own. The only reason he was able to get them was because of all the publicity that TM's attorneys and Al Sharpton brought to the case.

Once that kind of publicity is in play...EVERY big attorney wants that case.

But for me, you, and most people...we would never be able to get attorneys of that caliber.
Maybe if we have enough money we could get the best attorney in whatever shithole town we may live in. But that still isn't gonna probably be enough to beat the State juggernaut in court.

The State has unlimited resources and nothing but time.
An average citizen runs out of money pretty quickly trying to pay expensive lawyers.

Alan Dershowitz said today that Don West is seeking sanctions in court against the State and the prosecutors for illegally hiding evidence and other legal tricks they pulled in the court. He thinks heads will roll.

I think that needs to be looked at across the entire country.

We have police, prosecutors, and judges holding hands with a multi-billion dollar prison industry. And they are doing everything they can to put people in jail without a fair trial.

The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin was not minutes old when an outcry was heard over racial injustice and demands for yet another prosecution by the Obama Administration. There was even a call for President Barack Obama to address the nation from the Oval Office to promise action to quell projected violence. With the verdict, the George Zimmerman case entered the realm of legal mythology – a tale told by different groups in radically different ways for different meanings. Fax machines were activated with solicitations and soundbites previously programmed for this moment. The legal standards long ago seemed to be lost to the social symbolism of the case.

Criminal cases make for perfect and often dangerous vehicles for social expression. They allow long-standing social and racial issues to be personified in villains and victims. We simplify facts and characters – discarding those facts that do not fit our narrative. We pile meanings on the outcome that soon make the actual murder secondary to the message. George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin became proxies in a long-standing our unresolved national debate over race.

Before the case is lost forever to the artistic license of social commentary, a few legal observations should be considered, even if unpopular, before condemning this jury.

First, many of us from the first day of the indictment criticized State Attorney Angela Corey for overcharging the case as second-degree murder. While Corey publicly proclaimed that she was above public pressure, her prosecution decisions suggested otherwise. Investigators incorporated the family in key interviews. For example, one key witness was first interviewed by an attorney for Martin’s family and then talked to prosecutors in the home of Martin’s mother. The prosecutors were accused of withholding evidence from the defense until shortly before trial — a delay that the defense said denied them the ability to use text messages that portrayed Martin in a more violent image.

However, the widespread protests and anger over the shooting seemed to have its greatest impact on Corey’s decision to charge the case as murder in the second degree. This was clearly a challenging case even for manslaughter and the decision to push second-degree murder (while satisfying to many in the public) was legally and tactically unwise. The facts simply did not support a claim beyond a reasonable doubt that George Zimmerman acted with intent and a “depraved mind, hatred, malice, evil intent or ill will.” Had Corey charged manslaughter, the case might have been closer but would have still been a challenge.

Many people were highly critical of the prosecution for putting on what seemed like a case for Zimmerman. The prosecution clearly made its share of mistakes like leading its case with the testimony of Trayvon Martin’s friend, Rachel Jeantel. Jeantel was a disastrous witness who had to admit to lying previously under oath and produced conflicted testimony. She also stated that just as Zimmerman was accused of calling Martin a derogatory name, Martin called Zimmerman a “cracker.”

The prosecution consistently overplayed its hand in a desperate attempt to overcome its own witnesses, such as handling the damaging testimony from the detective that Martin’s father clearly denied that it was his son calling for help (He later changed his mind after listening to the tape 20 times). Even after being criticized by many experts for overcharging the case, the prosecution proceeded to make a demand at the end of the trial that the jury be able to convict Zimmerman on a different crime: third degree murder based on child abuse. The judge wisely rejected that demand but allowed the jury to consider manslaughter as a lesser charge.

However, in the end it was the case and not the prosecution that was demonstrably weak. The fact is that we had no better an idea of what happened that night at the end of this trial than we had at the end of that fateful night. Jurors don’t make social judgments or guesses on verdicts. While many have criticized Zimmerman for following Martin, citizens are allowed to follow people in their neighborhood. That is not unlawful. It was also lawful for Zimmerman to be armed. The question comes down to who started the fight and whether Zimmerman was acting in self-defense.

Various witnesses said that Martin was on top of Zimmerman and said that they believed that Zimmerman was the man calling for help. Zimmerman had injuries. Not serious injuries but injuries to his head from the struggle. Does that mean that he was clearly the victim. No. It does create added doubt on the question of the use of lethal force.

There is also no evidence as to who threw the first punch or committed the first physical act in the struggle. A juror could not simply assume Zimmerman was the aggressor. Zimmerman was largely consistent in his accounts and his account was consistent with some witnesses. After 38 prosecution witnesses, there was nothing more than a call for the jury to assume the worst facts against Zimmerman without any objective piece of evidence. That is the opposite of the standard of a presumption of innocence in a criminal trial. There was evidence to support both accounts but that evidence remained in equipoise, leaving the jury with no objective basis to reject one over the other.

Even for manslaughter, the jury had to find that George Zimmerman intentionally committed an act or acts that caused the death of Trayvon Martin. but was told that “a killing that is excusable or was committed by the use of justifiable deadly force is lawful.” The jury instruction on deadly force states in part: “A person is justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself.” That lesser charge still brings the jury back to the question of who started the fight and how the fight unfolded. The prosecutors never had evidence to answer that question in a reasonably definitive way. In the end, the jury had no serious alternative to acquittal. That does not mean that they liked Zimmerman or his actions. It does not even mean that they believed Zimmerman. It means that they could not convict a man based on a presumption of guilt.

Of course, little of this matters in the wake of a high-profile case. The case and its characters long ago took on the qualities of legend. A legend is defined as “a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.” People will make what they will of the murder trial of George Zimmerman. However, this jury proved that the justice system remains a matter not of legend but law.

Several years ago I watched a documentary about a case in Florida where a couple from Europe was on vacation and the wife was killed by a young black guy who was trying to rob her. Her husband saw it go down from a distance and called 911. Basically, the guy walked up to the wife who was standing outside their hotel room and tried to grab her purse. When she fought back he pulled a gun and shot her. She died.

The police arrive and they end up arresting this 17-year-old kid who was walking down the road somewhat near the hotel. The husband ID'd him as the shooter. The kid claimed he was on his way to a job interview (something that was later verified).

The case got a lot press and this big shot defense attorney took on the kids case because he felt he was innocent. He was able to put up the kind of fight needed to get the kid off. As it turns out there was a ton of evidence the proved it couldn't be the kid that did this crime, but prosecution tried to manipulate some of it and keep some of it out of court. The kid's lawyer successfully fought it and the kid was found not guilty.

Sometime later they actually got the real shooter who turned out to look nothing like the kid.

Had that kid just had a public defender he likely would still be sitting in jail today. When you talk about how so many poor black guys are in jail simply because they didn't have fantastic attorneys, I believe it 100%.

For a head-banging pornographer you're a pretty astute guy.


.

Perhaps completely unrelated depending on the prism used to view it, but a bit ago I was reading some commentary about how political the States Attorney Office is by nature, since it's an elected position and the winds can change any time so they make more political than practical decisions.

We need to figure out something else for this. SAO should not be politicized. Judges should not have to be elected, either. Just not sure what the solution could be. Even if bar members were the ones voting and no real campaigning was allowed, I still do not know how that wouldn't become politicized.

I get why its politicized, the justice system is actually based on opinions. This is partly due to something you crusade against often, which is there are just too many damned laws. It shouldn't be that way though.

I would have hated to have been on the OJ trial and the Zimmerman trial. I view a lot of these cases from afar -- and usually get filtered information -- and all I ever think is I'm glad its not me that has to vote on their guilt or innocence. I'd be the guy that wouldn't bend just to go home and in unclear cases like this I'd be the one causing a hung jury.

There is a great example of how the politics of the DA's office can play into how cases are tried.

A handful of years back in Atlanta there was a case where a guy had been convicted of rape (I think) and was coming to court to get sentenced. He was going away for a long time. He was taken into a room so he could change out of his prison outfit and into a suit. While in there he overpowered the guard, shot that guard, shot a few others and shot the judge then fled the courthouse.

During his escape he carjacked a few people and eventually took a woman hostage and had her take him to her place where he held her for a few days. She eventually talked him into turning himself in.

So, this turns into a huge mess. All of the public defenders and judges in the area recuse themselves because they know the judge and others who were killed by this guy during his escape. They end up bringing in a lawyer from New York to be this guy's defense attorney. The DA himself will be the prosecutor. The indictment alone is over 900 pages long. There are hundreds of witnesses, thousands of pieces of evidence and dozens of crime scenes. When the defense attorney sees this he talks to his client, gets his okay then meets with the DA. He tells the DA that his client will plead guilty to anything he wants him to plea to so long as he gets life without parole and not the death penalty. The DA tells him he can't do that because if he doesn't go after death with this guy it will be used against him during the next election and he could lose.

So, they go to trial. The trial lasts about two years because they keep running out of money for the defense and must put things on hold. In the end the guy is found guilty of many charges, but the jury thinks he was not of sound mind when he did these things and they give him life in jail without parole instead of death.

So millions of dollars were spent and years of time were wasted all because of this guy's political career. We are seeing it again in Colorado with the guy who shot up the Batman movie. The prosecutor is playing politics and going for the death penalty so now the defense is arguing insanity.

Police want arrests because it makes them look good in the public's eye especially the chief.

The DA's office wants either guilty pleas or wins in court because it helps the DA get reelected and the prosecutors can use their conviction record to either get better jobs or if they have political aspirations.

Politicians wants harsher penalties and more jail time for criminals because it is an easy sell to the voters and makes them look tough on crime.

Private jail owners want more convictions because it puts money in their pockets.

The system has very little to do with actually seeking justice, rehabilitating criminals and trying to punish and prevent crime. It is now a system set up for various people to use for personal gain and when their personal interests gets in the way of doing what is right it makes for a messed up system.

During the last election cycle I was looking at all the billboards for people wanting my vote.

And as I looked at the ones for the judges for different districts I noticed a pattern. They all were bragging about how they are "endorsed" by the Sheriff, or the Police Chief, or the Union for Law Enforcement.

And it hit me...the govt. has us so scared of damn near everything, that we are actually voting for a judge because Law Enforcement endorsed them as being "tough".

Sounds good right?

Not when you really think about it.

I don't want a judge who is in bed with the cops and the prosecutors. I want a judge that is impartial and actually JUDGES as opposed to rubber stamping whatever the cops and prosecution say.

Remember, most "trials" don't have a jury. Go to traffic court. Or get a DUI. Etc. , etc.

The LAST thing we should want is a judge who is endorsed by the people who are trying to prosecute you!

And yet, those are the ones we vote in to the job over and over and over!

Free speech. Giving the stoopid a voice since 1791.

:1orglaugh:2 cents::1orglaugh