Here’s an example of going beyond what we actually know, as I pointed out in this post. Donald Sensing remarks:
What happened that night in Sanford is awful. Martin’s death was tragic even though his slayer, George Zimmerman, was found to have acted in justifiable self defense according to Florida law.
But only one man broke the law that night, and it was not George Zimmerman. I have written that much, if not all of the moral culpability for Martin’s death rests upon Zimmerman, but moral culpability and legal transgression are not the same thing.
As they say, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. And the inconvenient fact of the night that Barack Obama ignored, along with all the others on the Left working feverishly to make Martin a national cause, is that Trayvon Martin committed a felony immediately before he died.
Zimmerman never attacked Martin. It was Martin who committed felony assault and battery when he violently attacked Zimmerman, pinned him to the ground and began pounding his head into the sidewalk.
With all due respect to Rev. Sensing we don’t actually know that. All we really know is that George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin and that he was acquitted of murdering him on the grounds of self defense. It’s a reasonable inference, based on a single person’s eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence, i.e. just slightly beyond what we actually know, that Trayvon Martin “pinned him to the ground and began pounding his head into the sidewalk”.
But we don’t know that Trayvon Martin committed a felony because we don’t know the antecedent events any more than we know that George Zimmerman racially profiled Trayvon Martin or that Trayvon Martin was just walking back from the store.
It might well be that, had charges been brought against him, Trayvon Martin would have been acquitted of assault. Or not. We just don’t know. Thinking that we do know, as I said in that earlier post, is in our heads.
Nearly all Zimmerman supporters seem to believe it has been proved that Martin attacked Zimmerman. There were no witnesses for that part of the fight. For all we know, Zimmerman started the fight, then started losing it. For this reason alone, I thought a trial was merited.
Steve
This whole incident, the trial, and it’s aftermath has been politicized, exploited, and now is just being used as a wedge issue. Racial inequities cannot be addressed nor resolved by indicting cases like this one. It’s a shame that the real problems are sidelined in lieu of distorting a tragedy such as this one. All that will come of this is more racial hostility, and fewer people wanting to get involved with neighborhood problems or calls for help….
I think its more likely than not that Martin attacked first, but that’s because there is no evidence that Zimmerman attacked first and some evidence that Martin did. Evidence: Zimmerman’s statements, corroborating physical evidence, physical location of the struggle, ear witness testimony from neighbors, and finally Zimmerman’s story was attested to by the chief investigator as credible.
The Judge also ruled that there was no evidence that Zimmerman initiated the conflict and the one juror that spoke out said she thought Martin struck the first blow.
I would not say Martin committed a crime since that is a more complicated question, its a legal conclusion that would have to be drawn from many facts. There is also the complication that the”aggravated battery” prong of self-defense was not presented to the jury, but stricken from the instructions at the request of the defendants. The defense said it was not their theory that Zimmerman used deadly force to prevent an imminent aggravated battery (as opposed to imminent death or great bodily harm).
That’s my very point, PD. Once you stick closely to the facts and inferences that stem directly from those facts rather than from your own imaginings and preconceived notions many of the claims about this trial simply disappear.
To be clear, I don’t think anybody has to reach the same conclusion I have (noting that I made a more-likely-than-not conclusion). I only wrote to note that its not an unreasonable one, and if you define the issue as who struck first, you largely avoid the “excluded middle” issue. (I suspect that was why sam brought it up; there were a lot of people opining the lack of evidence of A, meant B. The more complicated the proposition, the more likely I think an “excluded middle” problem is overlooked)
I have to agree with steve, unless there is a witness (and even then that is not a reliable as many claim). May be Martin did attack first, maybe he knocked Zimmerman down and that is how his head was injured. I’ve seen the pictures and didn’t look that bad.
To write that after claiming people are not entitled to facts leaves one in a rather dubious position, I’m afraid. Sensing is in such a position. Therefore, everything after that that he writes is also dubious.