The Zimmerman Affidavit

This thing is a joke and shows what  a weak case the prosecution has.

It reveals nothing that was not already in the public domain, and the affidavit does not even attempt to address the evidence already known to contradict the Martin narrative.  For starters, it makes a big deal about Zimmerman’s “profiling.”  This is not illegal.  He can think what he wants, call the cops when he wants, and ask whomever he wants what they’re doing in his neighborhood.  Not only is none of this illegal, but none of this implicates “stand your ground,” which is a nonissue in this case, as Zimmerman claims he was on the floor getting pounded to death after being suckerpunched by Martin and, in addition, that the struggle came to be over the gun he lawfully had on his person.  No possibility of retreat there, and thus no “stand your ground” issue. Traditional self defense law never required one to “avoid all confrontation” or “not ask questions” or “not think evil thoughts” as implied by the irresponsible Angela Corey’s affidavit.

The worst part of this affidavit centers on the physical confrontation Zimmerman and Martin had.  This is the heart of the matter.  Under the law of self defense, it is highly relevant who initiated force, how much force was used, and what the situation was immediately before Zimmerman pulled the trigger.  Instead, we get “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued.”  This is so deliberately unclear as to suggest the totality of physical and eyewitness evidence points in favor of Zimmerman’s account.

The affidavit is equally weak with respect to the mens rea components, i.e., the defendant’s mental state.  Second degree murder requires intentional unpremeditated killing or killing with a depraved mind not showing regard for human life.  Manslaughter is killing through “culpable negligence” or, alternately, “[w]hoever shall unnecessarily kill another, either while resisting an attempt by such other person to commit any felony, or to do any other unlawful act, or after such attempt shall have failed, shall be deemed guilty of manslaughter . . .”  So, when you have a fight or someone suspecting another of crime, that use of force may be illegal or potentially legal, but only if nondeadly.  If in the course of such a fight your use of deadly force is unreasonable, unnecessary, or disproportionate, it can be a case of manslaughter.  Man shoves you and calls you a jerk, and you shoot him:  not justifiable deadly force. Nowhere in this affidavit is the usual requirement of showing intentional killing, depraved mind, or the other hallmarks of murder.

This affidavit is being released six weeks after this killing took place.  Indeed, no eyewitnesses to the struggle are named, though the girlfriend and mother of Trayvon are given top billing.  This, even though we know at least one real eyewitness, John, saw Zimmerman crying for help, underneath Martin, in a great deal of distress.

What a totalitarian world we live in where a completely reasonable suspicion of a stranger acting strangely coupled with some possible deviation from a 911 dispatcher’s instructions is treated as a real crime–when it’s not–and where Maritn’s alleged aggravated battery is only mentioned in the passive voice, i.e., “a struggle ensued.”  I hope that a courageous judge dings this under Fla. Rule Crim. Pro. 3.113, which allows a probable cause determination within 21 days after an arrest by information or Rule 3.190, which allows a pretrial motion on the basis of the special immunity afforded under Florida’s self defense laws.  In my experience, such courage is short supply.

Such diverse observers as Alan Dershowitz and former prosecutor Andrew MacCarthy have noted the grave defects in this affidavit.  They all flow in my view from the same source:  Special Prosecutor Corey’s deep identification with the Martin family–the sweet people with whom she prayed–as well as her identification with Trayvon Martin himself and the various agitators who have gathered around this case.  She said at her strange press conference that she was seeking “justice for Travyon” even though, in a case like this, the question of justice must be a global one, justice simpliciter, as justice for Zimmerman depends a lot on the alleged bad acts of Trayvon that led to the shooting.  In other words, by self consciously “seeking justice for Trayvon,” she already prejudged the most central event of this case.

According to Zimmerman’s account and that of the only eyewitness to the actual fistfight that preceded the shooting, it was Trayvon who started this and continued this as an aggressor.  That makes Zimmeran’s acts self defense.  Corey should be ashamed of herself for pursuing this case under these circumstances.

Thank God for High Profile Cases

I’m basically happy with our justice system.  For the most part it works and, even in the worst of times with the craziest of prosecutors, you still get your day in court before a jury.  It’s good for people like me, who lean towards law and order conservatism, to occasionally see someone like me in the dock.  Zimmerman could be me or a brother or a friend.  Even people in bad neighborhoods who make mistakes are not always guilty of what they’re charged with.  They get off some times . . . because of juries.

The criminal courts should punish the guilty and protect the innocent.  This is why juries work so well in criminal trials; most people feel this way.  Sometimes tribal loyalties undo this, as in the twin extremes of the Jim Crow South or the modern day Bronx.  But mostly they work, and the demographics of Seminole Country are such that Zimmerman should be able to get  a reasonably favorable jury.  Prosecutors are part of this process, but they often fail.  But their word is not final, the jury has the final say.

A Sacrificial Lamb

George Zimmerman is being prosecuted to appease the tribal forces of hatred unleashed by media lies, the propaganda of Al Sharpton, and a totally unjust sense of identification by the “black community” with violent thugs like Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman was a man any of us would want as a neighbor.  He volunteered in his community and took a stand when most people do the bare minimum.  Seeing a suspicious individual he called the police and looked into what was happening.  Seeing him flee, he continued to gather information so the cops could find him.  Facing a violent beatdown by a young man with a well-documented attitude problem, he shot the perpetrator in the chest after screaming for his life for over a minute.

Wanting to be a cop some day, he trusted law enforcement, interviewed with them at length the night of the shooting, the day after the shooting, and, according to his former lawyers, as recently as this week.  Knowing he was innocent, he thought that the truth would surely move the special prosecutor in the same sensible direction as the original prosecutor.  He forgot that America of 2012 does not care about him.  He’s a second class citizen at best, not because he’s Hispanic, but because he’s non-black, a gun owner, and has become the object of organized hatred.  Hence, mutatis mutandis, this minority man, a registered Democrat, who volunteered to mentor black kids becomes a “white Hispanic” racist overnight.

This woman Corey is demented.  She somehow thinks it’s her job to hug and kiss Trayvon’s parents, ignore the “reasonable doubt” standard that applies to self defense, and push this weak case in spite of its manifest flaws.  Her supersilious smile shows a woman without proper moral instincts.  She talked about this prosecution the way you’d tell a class of third graders they’re going on a fieldtrip.  She’s all about praying with Trayvon’s parents and hugging and kissing these “sweet people” and all sorts of other bullshit.  No discussion of what tipped the scales that might make the public think:  hey, maybe it wasn’t a real case of self-defense.  Facts be damned, second degree murder here we come.

This ain’t about Trayvon’s parents who clearly were failing at raising this kid.  This ain’t about how much Corey loves her staff and fellow lawyers. She was frankly somewhat dishonest, pretending to maintain an aloof neutrality, even as she has set in motion a process that already threatens George Zimmerman with a 30 year minimum  prison sentence, and even as she showed an inappropriate emotional identification with the “victim’s” parents.  She doesn’t represent them or victims for that matter; she represents the state of Florida and its laws, not Trayvon’s grandstanding divorced parents.

She is Zimmerman’s enemy.  She is the enemy of anyone and everyone that, faced with a violent assault, would use a firearm in self defense. She is the enemy of common sense and justice and real victims of real criminals.

For her, and many other prosecutors, “criminal” is not a type of person or someone committing a certain type of behavior.  Rather, it’s anyone she can by hook or by crook nail with a conviction.  I saw this with my own eyes while clerking for a federal judge:  prosecutors who “push the envelope” with people who were so far from criminal it was mind-boggling.  The only people I’m praying for in this drama are Zimmerman and the future jury; God just let them have a modicum of common sense and decency.  For God’s sake, if Casey Anthony can get off on reasonable doubt, surely this guy can!

I’m so pissed off about this I can barely talk.  But if there’s one lesson to anyone that may shoot someone in self defense it’s this:  shut up.  Don’t yap to the cops.  Once you’re standing over a dead body, they are not your friends; they and the prosecutors seek to rack up points above all else.  If they’re not that way, good for you, but you have to assume the worst.  For the most part, this is the human type involved.  Think Nancy Grace.  They can’t be trusted, and they’re not your friends at that moment.  You probably think criminals are one group, and you are in another group. “Hey cops, I’m like you; I hate crooks, that’s why I just shot one!”  But once you’re on their radar, anyone who can possibly be prosecuted is in the same group, the criminal group, the group that has much to fear from prosecutors.  Get a lawyer, and shut your trap.

The credulous Zimmerman, believing in law enforcement that he idolized to the end, likely sealed his own fate with some slight discrepancy in his story.  That’s all it takes.  With his belief in race blindness and the American way, he forgot that the special prosecutor was out for blood to prevent a riot, to show their politically correct bona fides, and because prosecutors really don’t give a shit about you once you are anywhere near a crime scene.  If there’s a dead body, get ready to be cuffed, no matter what.  Indeed, Zimmerman had faced exactly that from the much-maligned Sanford PD.  But prosecutors are supposed to create an additional layer of professionalism not focused on winning, but rather on  pursuing the truth.  In reality, like most advocates, most just want to win.  Why else are you always seeing them exposed for some violation or another of their ethical mandate to share exculpatory evidence and the like?

Zimmerman’s about to learn the meaning of the old adage, “It’s better to be judged by twelve, than carried by six.”  Let’s hope to God the jury realizes what a raw deal this guy has gotten and is continuing to get in this case.

National Review Engages in Human Sacrifice

National Review, once a stalwart conservative publication, has offered up John Derbyshire as a sacrifice to the unappeasable gods of political correctness.  Refusing even to engage his points intellectually, Rich Lowry (its chief editor) instead has labeled one of his columns “racist” and now NR is done with it.  John is a fine, funny, and altogether interesting writer.  He is intellectually honest, even when offending conservative or liberal taboos, on issues like religion or race respectively.

His public firing has occurred in the same manner as those of the left, which rarely engages the substance of conservative heterodoxy on race or much else, instead preferring to scream, condemn, ostracize, and engage in other anti-intellectual means of social control.  Ask Juan Williams or Jimmy the Greek.  The left and the pseudoconservatives on the right don’t believe in intellectual engagement; for them, we’re engaged in an inexorable moral progress defined by liberal goals that permamently removes certain views from polite discussion. Those who hold them are little more than cranks at best and enemies of the people at worst.  This is all wrong.  What is needed is more, not less, candor on matters of race and much else!  This need does not mean that every or event most expressions of Derbyshire on such issues are completely agreeable, but what he said in the offending column is hardly beyond the pale, and it is far more agreeable and closer to reality than much of what passes for race discussion among liberals and self-titled conservatives.

Lowry has weakened NR in countless ways:  not only is the magazine not recognizably conservative these days, but it’s boring, predictable, and unserious.  It ceased to be worth reading five or ten years ago, and even today is only worthwhile for the writings of Heather MacDonald, Andrew MacCarthy, and a few others. 

What a sad and cowardly end to a publication that began by “standing athwart history, yelling stop.”

Why Wasn’t Zimmerman Charged?

In all the endless talk of hoodies and race and skittles and “white privilege” and other assorted nonsense in the Zimmerman/Martin case, it’s more and more obvious how useless the mainstream media is.  In all of the discussions, not one source (other than blogger David Kopel) has talked about a special Florida law that makes the usual cop approach of arrest-and-figure-it-out-later different in self-defense cases. Instead there was a big focus on “stand your ground,” which really has no bearing on this case.  However, under Florida law, if there is a colorable self-defense claim, charges are not allowed until probable cause exists; because of Florida’s (majority view) requiring proof of the case and disproof of any affirmative defense, there must be probable cause both that deadly force was employed and that it was unlawful.  In some jurisdictions the self defense claim is an affirmative defense on which the claiming party has a burden of proof, but in Florida the prosecutor must disprove that too “beyond a reasonable doubt” once evidence of self defense is raised.   In other words, if there’s a toss up in Florida, there cannot be an arrest and prosecution.  The statute below simply reiterates this requirement.

Florida Stat. Sec. 776.032 says, “person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force . . . A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.” The statute also, unusually for a criminal matter, allows the award of attorneys’ fees to defendants wrongfully arrested or prosecuted when they have the statutory immunity.

It would have been nice if someone had spoken intelligently about this 2005 statute before we all wondered why in the devil the prosecutor might have been extra cautious in this (and similar) cases and before we heard the anti-stand-your-ground propaganda, even though that allowance not to retreat is the law in many states either through their common law or as a statute.

On another note, the media is finally learning the value of maps.* The NY Times at its interactive feature, unfortunately, neglects to highlight the one and only eyewitness of the two fighting (a man named “John”) who saw Martin pummeling Zimmerman, heard Zimmerman crying for help, and corroborated the bulk of Zimmerman’s story.  Instead, post-shooting eyewitnesses, the boy who lost sight of the fight, and the “earwitness” who “felt it was Trayvon” screaming are featured as being of equal value.

The Wagist blog has does a better job analytically of addressing the 911 calls, physical scene, and various witnesses, and it does not seem as results-oriented in its editing.

* I noticed in the NY Times map was oriented North down.  Huh?  Is this some new way of not showing the dominance and ethnocentrism of Europeans and the Northern Hemisphere.  Who the heck does that?  Anyway, I confirmed on google maps that there is indeed a 7-11 in that shopping center where indicated; it’s a pure convenience store without gas pumps.  It’s curious, of course, we’ve not seen surveillance footage of Trayvon nor an interview with the “last person to see him alive!” Was he shoplifting? Did he even go to the store?

The Jaundiced Eye

One of the most insidious kinds of lies, a “lie” that is only apparent when seen in context, is the propaganda technique of giving disproportionate attention to an outlier event while downplaying the more dominant and numerous trend.  We see it in the media’s obsession with American war crimes, while paying little attention to those of the Taliban.  We saw it a great deal in the Cold War, as in the left’s continuing obsession with the crimes of Pinochet (who killed about 3,500) while ignoring those of the Communists (who killed 100mm plus).  But nowhere is this lie more salient today than in the intersection of race, crime, and disorder. 

Blacks commit 7-10X more violent crime than whites on a per capita basis.  This is a fact, and that is a big difference in crime rates.  It is 700% to 1000% more.  It wasn’t always such, but it’s gotten this way.  This is a problem for America.  It is a problem for blacks, the most decent and vulnerable of whom are often victimized by violence.  But it’s a problems for whites too, who are subject at times to unusual cruelty, which surely has some relationship to their nonstop demonization.  It is the reason so many of our cities are “no go” zones and so much money must be invested in fleeing to “safe” communities with “good” schools.  It’s the reason so many people are in prison, and it’s the reason so many people’s lives are damaged by violence.

But why then does the “man bites dog” story of George Zimmerman get so much attention?  White on black crime is miniscule today.  It’s not a trend and, taken as a class of crimes, it is not a problem. The goal of such attention is to create a misimpression, indeed, one of a sacred victims and a demonic perpetrator class. Why else the misleading photos and audio and tales of Trayvon the drug dealer being an honor student. Regardless of Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence, it’s all so hamhanded and insulting to the intelligence!  It’s as if our WWII curriculum spent weeks and weeks on the alleged war crimes of the Finns during their 1940 spat with the Soviet Union, while the cruelty of the Nazis (and the Soviets as well), and indeed, the entire terrible confrontation of Allies and Axis, were treated as a minor affair worthy of a lesson or two and much less attention than the crimes of the Perfidious Finns!

Ossetia Movie Banned

America’s neoconservatives are always critical of Russia and its allegedly nascent authoritarianism.  Yet the United States gave birth to an egregious propaganda film re: the Ossetian War, Five Days of War, which included a blatant lie that Russian forces began the war by shelling peaceful Georgians, when, in reality, and as was acknowledged in the EU’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, Georgian forces shelled Ossetia’s capital on the first day of the Olympics in an attempt to reconquer the separatist province, injured a number of Russian peacekeepers and Ossetian civilians in the process,  and briefly occupied parts of Ossetia, including its capital Tschkinvalli, prior to be expelled by superior Russian forces that came racing through the Roki Tunnel.

Now a new movie is out with a more balanced perspective, a pro-Russian and pro-Ossetian perspective to be truthful, and it’s banned in the Ukraine and Georgia as well!  These are the “free” countries whom we uphold as counterparts to Russian authoritarianism?  This is what freedom of speech now means? Even at the height of the Iraq War, the US did nothing to stop the nonstop anti-American perspectives of al Jazeera, European news agencies, and the like, and it is to our credit our actions were subject to such criticism, fair and otherwise.

There are many ways the modern west has de facto censorship, whether it is in hate campaigns such as that launched on George Zimmerman, ignoring stories that deserve a fair hearing, or refusing to give alternative views a publisher or translator as the case may be.  It is to our shame these practices continue, but it is worse that we are blind to them and ignore them and are not even aware of them in many cases.

August 8, like Olimpius Inferno, sounds like an interesting movie that deserves a wide audience.  Even Germans got to portray the heroism of their fighting men in Das Boot and Stalingrad.  But instead, we still have a great number of people worldwide and in the US who labor under the misimpression that Saakashvili and the Georgians were anything other than the aggressors on 8/8/08.  This would all only be of academic interest, however, but for the fact certain US politicians persist in seeking unnecessary confrontation with a nation that is not a natural enemy of the United States and that, indeed, shares many similar interests and a common enemy in the form of militant Islam.