(Talking about the George Zimmerman verdict)
This begs the most obvious question: why wasn’t he charged with manslaughter when this was a textbook case of the offense? I think the key to this puzzle lies with the all female jury. I’ll lay long odds that if a simulation of this trial were presented before a separate host of male and females jurors, that the males would reach a verdict of guilty 90% of the time while the females would reach the opposite verdict 90% of the time. To most sane and rational men, Tulio’s position up there rings true. However, to most women born and bred on rape culture paranoia, Zimmerman’s actions were morally justifiable, or atleast to a point where they did not elicit a guilty verdict. Since the entire setting occurred at night, in isolation, with one party dominating the other, the female jury quite possibly perceived it as a ”rape analogy” (to borrow a phrase from a friend). Those that have spent time at University would be adequately familiar with female paranoia.
Western women are paranoid, schizophrenic, and possess an inflated victim-hood complex. A few months ago Joe Salazar got into trouble for remarking that women on campus should not be allowed to carry concealed firearms as they were likely to act on their paranoia and shoot an innocent passerby. The feminist thought police were all over him, predictably so, and the man had to issue an apology for stating the obvious. Between the bogus rape culture and the inflated victim-hood, it seems unlikely that western women are capable of thinking rationally. Their moral particularism and solipsism casts additional doubt on their capacity to reason with a clear mind. Sadly, the high cost of political correctness must be borne as Zimmerman walks free while American society has yet to bear the burden of another mockery of justice.
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why wasn’t he charged with manslaughter when this was a textbook case of the offense?
He was charged with murder. You probably meant "why wasn't he convicted of murder". Well, for one thing, the main witness against him was dead.
The jury doesn't charge anyone with anything, the prosecutor does.
Was it an all female jury? Shouldn't a jury be a cross-section of society? It ought to be about 48 percent men, 48 percent women and 4 percent other.
Those "sane and rational" men are born and bred in the same rape culture, stupid. Many men are even so deeply inculcated that they believe that men can not be raped by women. The thought that there are half-crazy men out there with guns, is not an endearing thing to women. If the female jury had perceived a rape analogy, they would certainly have convicted him.
Women are taught to fear rape from a very early age, and are often blamed for rapes that we are victims of. We are taught that a Real Rape is a stranger jumping at you in a dark park, even though most people are raped indoors by people they know. How can we NOT end up a bit paranoid?
The high cost of political correctness? No, the high cost of your dangerous and outdated gun laws.
This begs the most obvious question: why wasn’t he charged with manslaughter when this was a textbook case of the offense?
I've never seen anyone come to the right conclusion from such wrong-headed logic. If this had been a physics problem in school, you would get a zero on this one. The correct answers (IMO) are because a) the kid he shot was black, and b) Zimmerman was the only witness so he could pretty much claim whatever he wanted.
@John:He was charged with murder. You probably meant "why wasn't he convicted of murder". Well, for one thing, the main witness against him was dead.
He was also charged with manslaughter as a lesser included charge. Conventional wisdom before the trial was they probably wouldn't convict on murder, but there was a good chance they'd find him guilty of manslaughter.
@Swede : Was it an all female jury? Shouldn't a jury be a cross-section of society? It ought to be about 48 percent men, 48 percent women and 4 percent other.
Yeah, it was 6 women. There's no requirement to make the jury match the demographics of the community/country. 5 were white, and one latino from what I remember. Both the prosecution and defense get some say in the jury selection, and it may be that both sides thought they had a better chance with a woman than a man in this case.
I see. He should have been convicted of manslaughter, despite what jury members say they were told, but Zimmerman's current legal troubles over violence towards the women in his life are all the fault of the ladies. Either way, he seems nice; Dota, too.
A jury isn't even selected until long after charges are filed.
I'm a Western woman, justifiably "paranoid" about rape, and yet it never crossed my mind that the Martin shooting was analogous to rape in any way. I do think Zimmerman might have been convicted if he'd been charged with manslaughter.
'Western women are paranoid, schizophrenic, and possess an inflated victim-hood complex.'
What? Why do you just assume 'Oh, they were born 16+ years go. They're all insane and think they're victims.'
Have you actually met any women? (actually, he probably scares them off with his insane ramblings)
Your first two sentences demonstrate your utter ignorance.
"This begs the most obvious question: why wasn't he charged with manslaughter when this was a textbook case of the offense? I think the key to this puzzle lies with the all female jury."
Charges are levied against a defendant BEFORE a jury is selected. The jury has no influence at all on what the charges are.
With that level of ignorance on your part, there's no reason to take anything else even remotely seriously.
The reason the guy wasn't convicted with murder or manslaughter was that the evidence was not water tight, and the prosecution did a shitty job. It's basically Casey Anthony all over again- not enough proof, regardless of whether or not it happened. As my dad said: "All the defense needs to do is put a reasonable doubt into someone's head. Just one thought of 'Hey, I'm not sure about this' is enough."
That being said, I really don't know where the fuck feminism or rape comes into this. I really don't.
Swede, juries, in theory, are randomly selected. An all-female jury makes up for the times there is an all-male jury. If you have a quota for gender, then you need one on race, and one on religion, and one on political position etc... When you include that they can't have knowledge about the case before hand, they can't be especially prejudiced against the individual, and they can't have a job that is vital to the public welfare, that's gonna make it ridiculously hard to find jurors.
The case didn't go through because a) the prosecution half-assed it, and b) Florida law is DESIGNED to make it extremely challenging to convict a person for a gun crime when the prosecutors don't want to (but still easy when they do want to, like a black woman killing her abusive, attacking boyfriend). So every one of those women could have said, Yeah, he did it, it was wrong, it was murder and they still couldn't call him guilty because under the LAW, he wasn't.
Of all the things wrong with that trial you latch on to the possibility an all-female jury was chosen because they might automatically percieve a lone black man in the night as a potential rapist and attribute it not to racist supposition (both percieving a black man as a threat and assuming everyone else also percieves a black man as a threat on some level) but some lunatic inversion of rape-excuse culture? I'm far more concerned with the jury being half the normal size for a murder trial than it being all women.
I can list from start to finish nearly everything wrong with that case, how it was handled, and how the details were portrayed in the media. That rambling idiocy wouldn't be anywhere on it.
@ Grogs
He was also charged with manslaughter as a lesser included charge. Conventional wisdom before the trial was they probably wouldn't convict on murder, but there was a good chance they'd find him guilty of manslaughter.
Actually, no he wasn't. Despite a half-dozen other legal infraction Zimmerman committed that night including unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, and vigilantism there was only the 2nd degree murder charge and they didn't even try to lessen to manslaughter or negligent homicide. That's on the list of things that were wrong with the trial.
@ Basiorana
It's not as random as you'd think. Due to the need to be tried by a group of your "peers" there is an element of planning and demographic targetting to narrow the jury selection pool. To what extent is normal I couldn't say. This particular trial was never normal, however.
@Musicalbookworm
"It was the law not the jury that was flawed. They essentially had no choice under the "stand your ground" laws."
Actually they did as Zimmerman was proven to be stalking him against 911 police advice. Trayvon was the only one being threatened here, Trayvon had the right to beat Zimmerman down. I'd feel pushed to kick Zimmermans ass under the conditions Zimmerman admits to.
To all you power hungry wannabe cops in neighborhood watch programs. "Go fuck yourself" is the proper response to all you all. What is it about the word watch you didn't fuckin get? I mention this because this was the right wing media defense for Zimmerman, that he had authority, obviously the jury wrongly agreed with that.
Stand Your Ground in no way implies you can purposely bother someone or infringe on their free movement until they have to do something to stop you. "Zimmerman walks free while American society has yet to bear the burden of another mockery of justice."
P.S. It helps when you have a retired judge in the family, you can really walk free of jail for repeated offenses when the laws had orders to treat you as special.
It is sort of like this:
A person accused of a crime has a right to trial by jury. The jury, not the judge, not the police, decides the facts of the matter. Only if the jury decides that the defendant is guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" is the defended convicted. Otherwise he is acquitted.
The jury in this case found that there was insufficient evidence to convict Z. Hence, he was acquitted and set free. He remains innocent forever in the eyes of the law. Whether he actually was actually guilty or innocent is moot at this point.
No, he is not innocent forever. New evidence could come to light that lets a more competent prosecutor try him again.
One example of this is the Byron de la Beckwith case. It took three trials to convict him of assassinating Medgar Evers.
But it was done, eventually.
As long as there's no statue of limitation on murder (or potentially a civil rights violation), this little scumbucket Zimmerman can still be tried AGAIN.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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