"If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon."

[Red Arrow]

Go ahead. Blame Al Gore.

Now we know why Prez Obama started the you didn't do it mess.  He wanted to make sure that everyone knew that AlGore couldn't be blamed because he couldn't have invented the internet.

[AquaMan]

The part I emboldened was my original point.

Actually, the vast majority can get a fair trial because most cases are not sensationalized to the point the media looks at their family background, what they ate two hours before the killing, their marital record, interviews with grade school teachers, etc.

Leaks to the media do impinge on someone's right to a trial in front of a fair and impartial jury, especially when a prosecutor leaks information which they know will help form some sort of prejudice.  I believe the right to a fair trial is far more important than a nosy public's right to "public records". 

Why do we really need to know any of the facts in the Martin/Zimmerman case until after it's been heard at trial, other than being nosy?

Why is People magazine or Tulsa People even published?  

Even local cases are now sensationalized to the point that one wonders who can get a fair trial at all. Its embarrassing to me to read about personal stuff or see family members and friends, of accused and prosecuted, interviewed on TV when you know the case hasn't even been scheduled. But that's how freedom of speech works. Once you strangle the press or more accurately, restrain them from doing what competition in a free society impels them to do, you lose some freedoms along the way. I'll agree there seemed to be a bit more integrity of the press back in the 40's/50's but that was a pretty repressive time period.

Our savior in law is the power of jury selection and the instructions to the jurors. I took my instructions seriously and was not popular on the jury I served on. It wasn't high profile but it became personal to us. My wife had the same experience in a civil case of racial discrimination. Some stuff just couldn't be considered.

Its so popular to hate the press and some of it is well deserved. But usually people only hate them when they tell them facts they don't want to hear. I just received an unsolicited e-mail describing the memoirs of a North Vietnam general who said our press during the war gave them victory when they were days away from surrender after TET and the bombing of Hanoi. He said they were ready to give up when they saw that the press had turned the American people against the war. It heartened them. No verification that the story was true and accurate. None. Media cannot get away with that. Even if true, the general's interpretation was so way off (the press reported the story, the American people were stunned to find out their general's had lied to them about the strength and resolve of the NV. That turned the popular opinion. Blame LBJ and the generals, not the messenger.)

Whoever sent me that hates the press and is willing accept a lower grade, unsubstantiated version of media.

[TulsaRufnex]

News in Photos
July 19, 2012
Sean Hannity Unable To Stop Smiling While Talking About Shooting Death Of Black Teen



http://www.theonion.com/articles/sean-hannity-unable-to-stop-smiling-while-talking,28827/

[nathanm]

Whoever sent me that hates the press and is willing accept a lower grade, unsubstantiated version of media.

It would be nice if they'd cover substantive stories, though. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there was anything wrong with reporting on this particular mess in the first place, a mess was being made after all. I'd rather read about tax policy and development subsidies so I can know more about how my country is being looted, though. I think we're all already aware that murder happens in this country, sometimes due to racial animosity, so harping on it seems unnecessary. (although occasional updates when major events in the case happen are welcome, of course)

The thing is that our media has always been muckraking. It's what they do now, it's what they did back in 1776, just at a slower pace. We got spoiled by 20 years of journalism that wasn't mainly muckraking and parroting whatever talking points the political parties were on that day.

[AquaMan]

It would be nice if they'd cover substantive stories, though. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there was anything wrong with reporting on this particular mess in the first place, a mess was being made after all. I'd rather read about tax policy and development subsidies so I can know more about how my country is being looted, though. I think we're all already aware that murder happens in this country, sometimes due to racial animosity, so harping on it seems unnecessary. (although occasional updates when major events in the case happen are welcome, of course)

The thing is that our media has always been muckraking. It's what they do now, it's what they did back in 1776, just at a slower pace. We got spoiled by 20 years of journalism that wasn't mainly muckraking and parroting whatever talking points the political parties were on that day.

I agree. Its hard to cover stories that the mainstream don't understand and don't have the patience to learn. And, I don't think the best and brightest are emigrating to journalism. The best looking with the brightest smile, yes.

[Teatownclown]

AM....advertising makes the world go round. Why do you think campaigns are so awkward?

It's gotten pathetic, but a necessary evil.

I recall when doctors were prohibited from advertising. Then look what happened.

Mister Zimmerman will get a fair trial.

Wait and we will see.

[patric]

The shooter "tried to retreat" before shooting (as opposed to fleeing or anything else that would have removed any sense of danger).
Mind you he was "retreating" with his gun drawn and aimed, just before opening fire.


MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A University of South Alabama freshman was running through the streets nearly naked, screaming obscenities and claiming he was on a "spiritual quest" not long before he was killed by a campus police officer, two acquaintances said Monday.

Authorities have said 18-year-old Gil Collar of Wetumpka assumed a "fighting stance" and chased a police officer before the officer shot him around 1:30 a.m. outside the campus police station. Police say Collar was naked when he was shot. His mother, Bonnie Smith Collar, told The Associated Press that she was told by someone involved in the investigation that surveillance video shows Collar never touched the officer.

School officials have said nothing to indicate he was armed. Campus officers typically also carry a baton and pepper spray, though university officials refused to say whether the officer who shot Collar was carrying either.

The university said the officer heard a bang on a window at campus police headquarters and went outside to investigate. The officer tried to retreat numerous times to defuse the situation before opening fire, the university said in a news release.

Collar's mother said she has received conflicting information about what might have happened before the shooting and declined to discuss it. But she asked people to withhold judgment until all the evidence comes out.
"Whatever caused the incident was something that made him act not in his normal personality," she said.

Others agreed the actions were out of character for the normally quiet and reserved Collar, whom friends described as a popular and good-looking high school wrestler with a slight build, standing 5-foot-7 and 135 pounds. Collar wasn't someone to make enemies and even befriended his opponents on the wrestling mat, said his high school wrestling coach, Jeff Glass.
Collar wasn't known as a troublemaker and had only two minor scrapes with the law, according to court records: a speeding ticket and a citation for being a minor in possession of three cigarettes in March. He paid a $25 fine for the tobacco possession.

However, two people who knew Collar said he was out of sorts and appeared intoxicated from alcohol or something else the night he was killed. He was screaming profanities in the street and running around wearing only his boxer shorts, said South Alabama student Bronte Harber, 18, of Columbus, Ohio.
Sarah Hay, 18, of Dallas, said she saw Collar shirtless outside her on-campus residence shortly before Harber encountered him. Collar was the loudest of a group of four or five young men, she said, and some of the others were trying to get him to calm down.
Neither Harber nor Hay said they witnessed the confrontation between Collar and the officer.

A candlelight vigil is planned for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Wetumpka High School. Collar's mother said funeral arrangements have not yet been made yet.

[Conan71]

Do you not know how to start a new topic?  This is about as related to the Trayvon Martin case as it is the 2012 presidential election.

[Hoss]

Do you not know how to start a new topic?  This is about as related to the Trayvon Martin case as it is the 2012 presidential election.

Stop it!  Don't you know I'm the forum police around here?

[Conan71]

Stop it!  Don't you know I'm the forum police around here?

Sorry Ang, I just wanted to be the big shot, just once...

[patric]

This is about as related to the Trayvon Martin case as it is the 2012 presidential election.

Here, let me adjust the focus...

The law of self-defense is at its core about reasonableness. If a person reasonably perceives a serious threat of harm, and uses reasonable force to meet that threat, the law justifies even deadly force, and it does so even if it turns out that the perceived threat was illusory.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/21/opinion/bellin-stand-your-ground-law/index.html
People have differing views of what's reasonable and, as a consequence, self-defense laws (which vary by jurisdiction) have always attempted to further define the concept. Until very recently, Florida's definition of reasonableness, as in many states, incorporated a longstanding principle, the "duty to retreat."

This principle required that someone who found themselves in a violent confrontation had to try to defuse the situation and retreat "to the wall" before resorting to deadly force.
In other words, deadly force was only permitted as a last resort. The basic idea was simple: If more people backed down, retreated or stepped aside, fewer people would be killed.

The "duty to retreat" also made it easier for prosecutors to prove that a killing was not in self-defense. The facts that can be proven are often murky (particularly when of the two people who know what happened, one is the defendant and the other is dead) and prosecutors could often, by pointing to a defendant's failure to retreat, obtain a conviction even without establishing the precise facts.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Speaking of Manson. I always thought that his sentence was all for the public. The old, Make a example of him. Kind of like what Hitler, Hussein or Gadhafi would have got here in the U.S. Judicial system. He just plotted the crimes with no blood on his hands and the actual killers are now free citizens. The ones that are still alive.
Plenty of worse crimes are played out everyday and life with "NEVER" parole usually is not what is handed down. So yes I believe that the News and public opinion in that case was the Judge and Jury. Plus him being bat sh!t nuts in Court didn't help any.

He was sentenced to death because he was the one who directed the activities.  All of them got the death penalty which was commuted by the CA Supreme Court.

Worse crimes?  Yeah, quite possibly...but those were fairly hardcore.  Plus the follow on murders.  They all deserved to die - but didn't.

[patric]

Maybe this is clearer:


Piers Morgan, anchor of CNN's "Piers Morgan tonight", is weighing in on the death of University of South Alabama freshman Gil Collar calling the shooting, "another gun, another senseless loss of life".

Morgan spoke of the case in Monday evening's edition of "Only in America", admitting there were numerous unanswered questions, but stating that he knew "a naked, 5 foot 7 inch, 135 pound 18-year-old college freshman does not pose a significant risk to a police officer to justify being shot dead."

The CNN host said he did not believe the Collar shooting would gain the nationwide attention of cases like that of Treyvon Martin or the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre. But he added, "Gilbert Collar could have been my son. He could have been your son."

[Conan71]

Maybe this is clearer:


Piers Morgan, anchor of CNN's "Piers Morgan tonight", is weighing in on the death of University of South Alabama freshman Gil Collar calling the shooting, "another gun, another senseless loss of life".

Morgan spoke of the case in Monday evening's edition of "Only in America", admitting there were numerous unanswered questions, but stating that he knew "a naked, 5 foot 7 inch, 135 pound 18-year-old college freshman does not pose a significant risk to a police officer to justify being shot dead."

The CNN host said he did not believe the Collar shooting would gain the nationwide attention of cases like that of Treyvon Martin or the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre. But he added, "Gilbert Collar could have been my son. He could have been your son."

Senseless loss of life is about as close as these two cases come.  Otherwise polar opposites.

[patric]

Senseless loss of life is about as close as these two cases come.  Otherwise polar opposites.

Im inclined to disagree.
Apparently at no time during the 20-minute videotaped confrontation did university police officer Trevis Austin (nor the other officer present) attempt to retreat back into their office to obtain any number of less-lethal weapons they normally carry.  In fact, the only mention of a "retreat" to de-escallate the situation came from the university-prepared press release the day after the killing.

Zimmerman, likewise, ignored his legal obligation to retreat, advanced on Martin (gun in hand) and killed him, also claiming self-defense.