Zimmerman Martin Case

Southpaw there is substantial statistical evidence to say that race does indeed play a part in US courts. Although that can be difficult to prove in individual cases, I think the evidence is quite strong in general. We do have methods in place to redress these issues (for example, the distinction between crack and cocaine in terms of mandatory sentencing minimums...), but it is premature to say that we have eliminated all racial bias in our legal system. I would be happy to have a longer conversation with you about it, but I'm not sure if this is a derail.
 
I do support that right, but just calling out everyone in Martin's "community" (and by that I am guessing he means the black community) doesn't show a toughness or something to fear, it only makes you look like a keyboard warrior. Someone breaks into your home and you shoot them? Fine, the law fully supports this act as self defense with the "Castle Doctrine", outside of that you MUST understand that even if you are in the right that you will still at the very least do some time waiting for your trial as Zimmerman did, so it's not a win win situation. You have training and a guy attacks you and you feel that he intends to harm you? Fine, break a limb, knock him out, but after that, it's over... time to call the cops and let them do their work. We, or at least I do not train for excessive force. It's to stop a threat AFTER it has become a threat to me, attempting to punch, push me, or just the gut feeling that it's not a situation that i'm going to get out of without a physical confrontation, I don't completely feel Zimmerman did all he could to avoid the conflict, rather did more to pursue it. I don't know I would have been following the kid to begin with. Is he high and acting like he's stoned? He's not an immediate threat to me if so... I don't smoke pot and while it's not IMO the best idea... it's proven that it causes less problems than alcohol... so in that sense it's the lesser of 2 evils and I don't care if he's doing it. I'll call him in and again... let the cops handle it. That's their job.
 
No matter how nice we play and dignified we try to be, many people will ALWAYS have race in mind. That's the way it is... it's in front of us everyday on tv, the papers, whatever. Even hidden racial messages. It's just an ingrained thing that is passed down through parents to kids or picked up by bad experiences. A shame that it has to be like that, but it is. Racism will sadly NEVER go away.
 
I think that's a bad attitude to be honest. I agree that individuals will always be racist, but I think that at the moment the US criminal justice system is a racist institution in the sense that it doles out both harsher and more frequent penalties to blacks. This legal inequity perpetuates further social inequalities as a result of incarceration and recidivism. The scary thing is that I don't think these racist institutions are a result of any individual malevolence, but a product of historic momentum, making them much harder to arrest. I think that it is possible though, and am optimistic about it getting better in the future.
 
Do you have any evidence that black people are receiving worse penalties than white people with similar criminal records for the same crimes? Because that's a pretty bold claim you're making.
 
You may find this interesting reading:

http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_sentencing_review.pdf

The evidence would suggest that none whites are given harsher sentences for similar crimes.
 
Here's my sources.

http://www.civilrights.org/publications/justice-on-trial/sentencing.html

"Some of these aggregate statistics do not control for a defendant’s prior criminal record, but even that is not a neutral basis for comparison because racial profiling, prosecutorial discretion and juvenile justice decision-making make minorities more likely to acquire a criminal record than their white counterparts. And at least one study that examined only defendants without criminal records found that Hispanics and blacks with no prior record were disproportionately likely to be sentenced to prison than white defendants with no prior record. Indeed, Hispanics were twice as likely as whites to draw a prison term as opposed to probation, a fine or time in a county jail."

Here's another:

http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_sentencing_review.pdf

This is interesting but more about drug usage:

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0508_1.pdf

Finally a metastudy:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208129.pdf




Lol, beat me to the punch!
 
No problem man, thank you for reading! I tell this to a lot of people and they don't believe me. I had real trouble believing it myself when I first started reading about it. It's pretty terrifying and sad stuff.

"African Americans now serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (57.2 months) as whites do for a violent offense (58.8 months)." (From the sentencingproject thingy).

:[
 
I haven't read the whole thread yet, so this may have been answered already, but;

The answer is that a civil case has a different evidential standard than a criminal case. Civil=preponderance of the evidence (51%+), Criminal is of course beyond a reasonable doubt. So even with a not-guilty, there still may be enough to convince a jury by the preponderance of the evidence in tort.

Best,

G
 
The 2 things that strik me here are:

1) It's always termed as Martin attacked and Zimmerman "Stood his ground". How about, Z was following M, M feared for his life and "Stood his ground"

2) If we are to believe the account, M was stradling Z's chest and pounding his head on the sidewalk. At which point, Z reached around M's legs, reached for his gun, brought his arm back and shot M. One cool cucumber while getting the crap beat out of him.
 
1)It has never been a stand your ground case and the defense did not even bring that up.

2)Or desperation which was what the defense was stating.
 
Perhaps so, but in every narrative, it's about M attacking Z and Z defending himself. It is enterely concievble that M's action were borne out of fear/



You try it. reach around someone's thigh all the way to your waist with enough strength to get a full grip on a gun. That assumes a carry to the front or side of the hip. Any type of towards the back carry and you now also have to lift your body. Now try it while getting your head pounded into concrete. Something just does not add up.
 
But, WE will not know what happened.
This is only speculation.

IF Z stayed in his car, (which perhaps he lost observation sight of M to get out, hence his statement he was walking back to his car).

IF, M came out of hiding and punch Z in the face, they went to fighting, at that point, Z did not think about the gun, until after he was getting hurt and in his mind, severely to pull the weapon.

IF Z didnt have a gun, he could have been pummeled severely

M, had gun where he was from, so IF Z was in the town of M, M would have shot/killed Z

IF, people will only realise to stop thinking of IF, but look at the evidence or lack of.
 
It is a possibility that Martin struck first out of fear but the problem is he didn’t stop.

I have done this with different weapons it is part of the training I teach while rolling (and we include striking).

If you want some fun do it with shock knifes.
 
Not and entire race, just a suspicious looking character that I am not familiar with. You cannot absolutely state, that if you are black in a totally black neighborhood, and a non-black comes in, that there will be no thoughts of the why. Like the blacks in that area, will not think-prejudge the non-black as a cop, government, official, or cracker? (I've been in these areas and got the stares, slurs thrown at me, and harassment). The racial card is shown both ways, but many want to hold it for their own
 
Can you see how being prejudged to be a cop, government employee, official or random white person is qualitatively different than being prejudged to be a criminal? Most of the examples you've used have some form of institutional authority. I think that this is a very good example of white privilege.



I don't think that this really contributes to the discussion.
 
Wouldnt. I would call the police.

To confront someone following you is stupid and goes agianst a basic fundemental of SD 101
 
Or that people refuse to believe that M wanted to be a gangsta and looked for a fight as per striking Z first

As I said before, this is two people with the wrong attitudes, with the wrong timing, makes for a situation no matter what
 
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