I’m not surprised the jury didn’t convict Zimmerman of 2nd Degree Murder. I am surprised it doesn’t qualify as manslaughter. The law in Florida has some peculiarities which heavily favored Zimmerman. But this was a situation he created through actions that I don’t think anyone can credibly argue weren’t reckless and showing extremely poor judgment. If a kid who was literally minding his own business ends up dead as the result, it’s hard for me to see it as a just outcome if there’s no criminal culpability whatsoever.
TPM Reader DD writes in from Wisconsin. Going on the below, I’d be curious to hear from lawyers in other jurisdictions how distinct Florida law seems from how a case with a similar set of facts would have been adjudicated in their jurisdictions …
I’m a criminal defense lawyer in Wisconsin, but I’ll tell you my reaction to the Zimmerman verdict today. I’ve had friends in Florida asking for my take. I haven’t watched the trial very closely (it seems like an ordinary criminal case to me in many respects). But I was astounded that the defense would put on a “self-defense” argument without the defendant testifying. In most civilized jurisdictions, the burden is on the defense to prove, at least more likely than not, that the law breaking was done for reasons of self-defense. I couldn’t figure out how they could do this without the defendant’s testimony.
Quite telling that in the immediate aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict, Zimmerman’s lawyer is going off about reverse racism and his brother is suggesting that Martin was a drug dealer and gun runner.
[We’re discussing the verdict here at TPMPrime.]
Glenn Greenwald says the documents Edward Snowden has not released contain the ‘blueprints’ for the entirety of the NSA’s signals intelligence and data collection operations – information that “would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it.”
This is shaping up as a week of reckoning in the Senate. Either Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans relent and allow the president to exercise his power to appoint people to positions at the NLRB and CFPB so that they can function as Congress intended, or Harry Reid and Senate Democrats finally push the nuclear button on filibuster reform.
Important to keep in mind that filibuster reform would be a result of this reckoning, but not precisely the point of it. Filibuster reform is the tool Democrats are waving about — the threat of it, to be exact — but the narrow objective is to get the NLRB and CFPB up and running. If Democrats can achieve that short of changing Senate filibuster rules, they would leap at the chance. For that reason, I suspect we’ll see some kind of deal struck between Reid and McConnell, but it’s hard to conceive of a deal in which both sides are truly happy with the result. Someone is bound to lose here.
As immigration reform looks set to die a slow death in the House, TPM Reader JS looks to history to try to square the circle …
So as the wheels look like they’ve almost come off of immigration reform, and the 40 year urban-rural farm bill detente seems to have collapsed, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Compromise of 1850.
Why Texas Republicans aren’t trusted to protect minority voting rights.
The busiest abortion clinic in Virginia has been forced to close because of stringent new state regulations.
And this is likely coming to red and reddish states across the country.
Over the last couple months we’ve seen an increasing desire – centered on the House GOP – to kill immigration reform with a growing belief that Republicans can continue to win elections simply by doubling down on white voters. In other words, the supposed ‘lesson’ of the 2012 election is rapidly being forgotten. Let’s remember, for all the growth in minority population numbers, whites still make up the overwhelming majority of Americans, and especially American voters. And if Republicans can expand their share of the white vote even as the overall white vote declines, perhaps it’s doable? Read More