Last edited Tue Jul 10, 2012, 07:56 PM - Edit history (1)
Were yelling epitaphs, insulting him and his family for some miles as he drove up the road. They were driving recklessly, quite possibly drunk. He stopped at a flashing light in the center of town. It was not the kind that one had to wait to turn green and there was hardly any traffic at any time there. So he could have kept going.
They got out of their car and walked to his door, no doubt continuing their foolish game. They were both unarmed. He reached for his gun out of his glove box, left the vehicle and as they 'stood their ground' and would not leave, he took them out. They were clearly asking for trouble, and I don't know how it would have ended if he hadn't ended it. There were other options I'd have taken, such as staying in the car with locked doors and windows or taking off. But then, I'm speaking from the infinite luxury of not being him.
I don't know how that's not standing your ground when he could have stayed in the car and took off to get away, so no, he didn't exhaust all his options. Maybe he would have been convicted of manslaughter with SYG.
Being threatened in front of his family was part of the reason why the jury decided as they did. In that area, being polite was mandatory, it's hard to explain the way people thought there. This is the same area where they sent a man to prison for stealing a loaf of bread from a grocery store and convicted cattle rustlers, too.
We don't know if SYG supercedes the regular ways of trying cases of self-defense. It didn't work for the guy in Houston, he was violating the other people's 'ground.' Was this man's 'ground' his car, or the intersection he stepped out into as he killed these two contestants trying for the Darwin award?
The juries make a big difference. If we're going into this regarding Zimmerman, I'd say he violated standard self-defense laws and SYG, having had LEOs on the phone. In the case of the rural incident, there was no one to call to protect the man. The sheriff was 50 miles away. This was before people carried cell phones everywhere.
It's based on the situation. I was told if someone crossed onto my property, they were 'fair game.' If someone was making threats, I could hide under the bed and wait half a hour, literally, for the sheriff's deputy to come. Or use my shotgun as they wouldn't get there in time. I knew that and LEOs knew it, too.
This has to be taken into account and is the reason rural people are strong about the second amendment. Violent, one on one crimes, by strangers, do occur in the countryside where there are no LEOs available. In Zimmerman's case, he didn't have that excuse.
Do you think the alternatives to shooting are related to the proximity of police in the area?
Because SYG based on no other alternative, as you make the argument, has different meanings to me. I've just given you two somewhat conflicting cases, but I believe the law was meant for someone who had no other choice due to no other protection. Self-defense is a larger area than SYG.
Where I live now, shooting someone instead of calling the police would be overkill, since the LEOs are minutes away and they patrol all our streets night and day. They are around all the time, ever present. Criminals are caught quickly here, since the police have good relations with the community, and inform on them.
SYG is not an issue when the police stand your ground for you at a moment's notice. Back to Z, he had all the options or help he needed.
I've lived in areas where break-ins, strong arm robberies, rapes, murders, kidnappings, carjackings and violent home invasions happened. It changes the way you behave to survive, what areas or times you avoid, how you plot our your routes, the kind of places you will go, how many locks you have, even the vehicles you drive, etc. In some places, burglaries are considered low-priority by police as they just part of life, until someone is raped, beaten or killed in their home during the burglary. Life in the big city.
I still don't see that applying to Zimmerman, he had a lot of options beyond what the man in the small town had, or what I had, what a lot of people have. I suppose Z's attorney is within his rights to say that Trayvon's behavior was an issue although I don't believe Z or his defenders.
The two who were harassing the man in my example were behaving as criminals and it put them in the wrong. They were committing a crime even though at that time the crime had no name. The people the guy in Houston was covicted of killing were not committing a crime. A similar case in Houston was closer to your SYG example, and not that far off the Trayvon case, but not, since Trayvon was not caught in the commission of a crime but only suspected. And most likely, only by Zimmerman, who appears to be a mental case, anyway. Another argument for ending the punitive way that mental illness is treated in our benighted nation for so many years. that the ACA may address.
In that case, a guy shot two burglars who were leaving the scene of their action next door. He tried to get them to surrender but they refused and turned to confront him and he was found to be within his rights under castle doctrine. Although he would not have been found to have acted properly under your definition of no alternatives and the SYG laws.
You haven't addressed, except in the title of your OP the racial aspect of the three cases I'm going with. The last was seen to be the commission of a race based killing. The one who killed his neighbors on their property, was not going after a minority. The first one I mention, shows that a black person can be protected under self-defense laws. I don't see any reason to believe that a black person can't be found innocent or justified in such a case.
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