Who else you got?
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Maybe Lorena Bobbitt?
ReplyDeleteWhy not Rittenhouse or Zimmerman?
ReplyDeleteRittenhouse and Zimmerman shouldn't have been surprising to anyone familiar with the facts of those cases.
ReplyDeleteZimmerman was a shocker for sure. That guy picked a fight with a kid carrying candy and juice on his way home and when the kid defended himself, Zimmerman shot him dead. What a tremendous miscarriage of justice for that murderer to have been acquitted.
ReplyDeleteThere you go, I said "familiar with the facts," which you clearly are not.
ReplyDelete10:07 is spot on!
ReplyDelete@10:07/9:33 - brother, if you don't see it (what I wrote at 9:38am), then there is probably no use in talking about it. But, just for shits and giggles, why don't you read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Trayvon_Martin. It even has audio recordings of Zimmerman's call with police that day.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, Martin was doing nothing wrong. Zimmerman, for his own reasons, believed that Martin was suspicious. Zimmerman called the police. Zimmerman told the police dispatcher that he was following Martin. The police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to follow Martin any longer. Then a fight broke out and Zimmerman shot Martin.
The most charitable view of events is that, with Zimmerman following him, Martin confronted Zimmerman. A fight broke out between them, Martin got the better of Zimmerman, and Zimmerman shot Martin.
But three things are not in doubt: 1) there is no indication that Martin was breaking any laws, 2) Zimmerman initiated the encounter (even if all he did was follow Martin around), and 3) Zimmerman shot Martin dead.
Under these facts, even the most Zimmerman-friendly set of facts, Zimmerman is responsible for the murder of Martin. He started it. He finished it. Martin was just a kid walking home with skittles on a rainy night.
I don’t think Zimmerman. That was a pretty straight self defense case. Many involve some bad conduct by the shooter that contributed to escalation.
ReplyDeleteAnthony was a shocker.
You know what would be the biggest surprise in court? If Sam Alito ever gets the best of Pregolar. He tries and tries, but she owns him every time.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall the specifics of the Zimmerman case, so I won't comment there. But as to Rittenhouse, I don't believe that he should have been charged in the first place, given the video of his being attacked. In other words, I don't believe that the Rittenhouse verdict was a shocker at all.
ReplyDeleteZimmerman was not breaking the law either. Don’t forget that. Following somebody because they are suspicious, while wrong (sometimes), does not give license for the person to pummel the follower. Zimmerman was not without fault, but he clearly did not try to physically attack Martin or do anything that justified that action by Martin.
ReplyDeleteWas he following Martin because he was black and wearing a hoodie? Yes. Was that wrong? Yes. Did it permit Martin to attack him? No.
Yeah dead men tell no tales against Judge's Sonny Boy... smacked of privilege then, smacks of privilege now...
Delete12:29 writes: "Was he following Martin because he was black and wearing a hoodie? Yes. Was that wrong? Yes. Did it permit Martin to attack him? No."
ReplyDeleteAnd so here is our ultimate disagreement. Because I would change just one word in the above quote, and that word makes all the difference. "Was he following Martin because he was black and wearing a hoodie? Yes. Was that wrong? Yes. Did it permit Martin to attack him? [Yes.]"
Martin was acting in self defense. He was a high school kid being followed around by an armed vigilante on a dark and rainy night. Put yourself in his shoes. If I was Martin, I'd be scared for my life.
The audio recording of Zimmerman's call with the police shows that Martin first tried to run from the perceived danger (i.e., from Zimmerman), but that Zimmerman pursued (despite the fact that the police dispatcher told him not to). When Zimmerman pursued, and adopting Zimmerman's own version of events, Martin confronted him.
Again, put yourself in Martin's shoes. Some creep is staking you. You try to run away from him. He chases you and you can't get away. Of course you have the absolute right to confront him. And then when this dude shoots you dead he gets away with it on self defense grounds? That's nucking futs.
Martin is responsible for the entire chain of events, not just for "contributing to escalation."
I'm sorry, I said "Martin is responsible for the entire chain of events" but meant that "Zimmerman is responsible for the entire chain of events." Fast typing while avoiding real work. Oops.
ReplyDeleteI get it, but that is not the rules we live by. Martin never called 911, he was on a call with his girl and confronted/engaged Zimmerman. I think you are right that he was in part scared, but that doesn’t permit resorting to violence. We can’t live in a world where there is license to attack people out of fear.
ReplyDeleteThe whole think sucked.
@135 - but those are the rules we live by. Isn't that what Stand your Ground is all about? That's the disgusting irony of it. Martin was the one lawfully standing his ground in self defense.
ReplyDelete776.012 Use or threatened use of force in defense of person.—
(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force.
Martin was being chased around by Zimmerman. He was therefore "justified in using . . . force . . . against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself . . . against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force."
The law doesn't require Martin to have actually been attacked by Zimmerman before he punched Zimmerman in lawful self-defense.
Too many young people reading this blog. One of the most famous "got away with murder" killings was when Lana Turner's daughter stabbed her ganster boyfriend Johnny Stompanoto. An LA inquest cleared the daughter but speculation was rampant that Lana did the dirty deed and her daughter covered for her. And let's not forget Sal Magluta and Willie Falcone getting acquitted here in Miami after they paid off a juror.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty funny 10:57. Prelogar was a mess in the Fisher OA.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/what-was-the-solicitor-general-thinking-in-the-january-6-argument/
Hi 2:50. You may be the only one who thinks that. In my humble opinion, she was masterful as usual.
ReplyDeleteWillie and Sal was a pretty big surprise.
ReplyDeleteI got Stu Markus, in one of the biggest "surprise" verdicts in the history of the Metro Justice Building.
ReplyDeleteState v. Johnny Saunders.
For the state - Russell Penfield.
Presiding Judge - Ron Dresnick.
For the Defense - A handsome and charismatic STU MARKUS!
The year - December 1996. (At the time a young David O. Markus was an aspiring law student - at Harvard - as Stu was wont to remind me, with irrepressible pride.)
Charges: Battery on a law enforcement officer; resisting with violence; cocaine possession.
The state tagged Johnny as an Habitual Offender. Accordingly, he was looking at a double digit minimum mandatory sentence if convicted.
The case was unwinnable and tried in anonymity. I watched the trial because Johnny had a second case - occupied burglary with an assault or battery therein - on which I was the appointed Public Defender. The state desperately wanted a conviction on Stu's case to use to further launch Johnny, were he to be convicted on the case on which I represented him.
The state paraded in the obligatory 3 or 4 officers to testify about Johnny's conduct. I think the incident had occurred while Johnny was in jail pending trial on the case on which I represented him, so the jury knew he was incarcerated. Stu hadn't taken any depositions. He had a single manilla folder that had plenty of room remaining in it.
His cross examinations were terse. And devasting. But it was still the officers' words against, well, nothing, as Johnny couldn't testify due in part, I imagine, to his fulsome resume and his accommodations at the time of the incident giving rise to the charges on trial.
Stu had seated six people of retirement age, or close to it. The Jurors were old enough to remember the Wendy's commercial...."WHERE'S THE BEEF?!" Which was the kernel of Stu's closing. And it worked. A successful race to closing argument.
The pictures of Johnny hugging Stu, and of Stu walking past me and saying, "OK kid, it's up to you now," with the slightest of grins at the corners of his mouth, remain embedded in my mind's eye.
-Paul Calli
Thank you for posting this. It gave me such a big smile.
DeleteGreat story Paul.
ReplyDeletePhil Davis courtroom defendant walked out the door by the late great Alcee Hastings who didn’t even sit through most of the trial and still won it with a devastating closing. Happened right here in our own federal courthouse.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Falcon and Maglutta acquittals but if you’re only asking for legit verdicts and not ones where jurors were bribed then not this one.
Great story, well told, and without maligning the opposing counsel, the judge, or the witnesses.
ReplyDeleteWhen Marcia Giordano walked Carvajal on his Ninth DUI and he offered her a hot dog from his stand near the courthouse in response to sweet Judge Crespo telling him that she saved his life!
ReplyDeleteNice pictures. I did not know that Roy Black represented Steve Case.
ReplyDelete4:03, you read about these all-star lineups like that or in the OJ case. I remember at the PDs office we would go into courtrooms in a crowd to watch and learn from even lesser lights handling a part of a case. Thinking "oh wow, I wonder if I could ever do it that well." Even if not, the inspiring examples helped.
ReplyDelete