Has Zimmerman Waived His Right to a Pre-Trial "Stand-Your-Gr

[lawofselfdefense]

I realize the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case is in Florida, and this (obviously) is a Virginia forum, but I've seen a tsunami of headlines by the mainstream media this past week about how George Zimmerman has allegedly waived his right to a pre-trial "Stand-Your-Ground" hearing, and speculation on their part that this is yet "another" sign of how desperately week his self defense case is.

As usual, the mainstream media have it completely wrong, on every count.

First, Zimmerman didn't waive anything, he simply let a tentatively assigned date for the hearing go, so the court knew it could use that date for other purposes. He's still free to make a motion for the pre-trial hearing at a later date (subject, as always, to the judge's discretion, but Judge Nelson in the video I've seen certainly seems favorably inclined to such a motion). The actual trial isn't scheduled to begin until June 10. (In the same video one case see the prosecution flailing desperately to have the record reflect some kind of "waiver" by Zimmerman on the issue, but the judge clearly shuts that down.)

Second, the prosecution doesn't seem to really know what it's talking about. Although they refer to the pre-trial hearing as a "Stand-Your-Ground" hearing, there is no such thing under Florida law. Instead, the pre-trial hearing is to ascertain whether Zimmerman qualifies under Florida's self-defense immunity statute. If he does, the charges against him would be immediately dismissed (and, incidentally, he would be immunized against civil claims, as well). When the prosecution can't keep its statutes and pre-trial hearings straight, it doesn't exactly make me think they've got the upper hand on the defense.

Third, there are good strategic reasons why the defense might wish to delay the pre-trial hearing or even to wait until the actual trial to make a motion for self defense immunity, so any such delay or even a "waiver" of the pre-trial hearing does not mean the defense is necessarily weak. For example, it's pretty common knowledge that the prosecution has been "slow-rolling" the defense on discovery matters, and when that's the case it's usually in the best interests of the defense to delay as long as possible, so that they can collect as much discovery as possible, before the "shooting" part of the legal battle begins.

Anyway, I was just completely astonished at how badly the mainstream media had read this thing (although I know I shouldn't have been, it's not like they get much else right, and they want Zimmerman to be found guilty so bad they can taste it), and I thought it might be worthwhile to throw in some informed two-cents, for those who are interested.

For those interested in the legal details backing up everything I've stated above, feel free to take a look at my blog entry on it, which includes all relevant cases and statutes, and even some video of the judge smacking down the prosecution. The blog post can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/d8nyb5a

Andrew

[GeneFrenkle]

Good information and much appreciated.

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[slsc98]

First off, thanks for the synopsis (I was unawares of any of the latest);

secondly, yeah: it used to be "No news is good news" and, now,

"It doesn't matter what the news is, as long as we can make it fit OUR (liberal) agenda!"

[lawofselfdefense]

Good information and much appreciated.

Thanks for the kind welcome.

Next time I'll try to post something more VA-specific.

[VBshooter]

Thanks,,Much appreciated,.

[SHMIV]

Op, we like to know what's going on in the rest of the country, too, lol. Thanks for posting.

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[Monkey]

Op, we like to know what's going on in the rest of the country, too, lol. Thanks for posting.

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What SHMIV said.

These days, No news isn't good news, it's "What the hell are they trying to pull over on us" news.

Problem is, it's not always easy to trust the sources of information out there.

Interesting Blog, BTW.

ATB,
Monkey

[lawofselfdefense]

Interesting Blog, BTW.

Thanks!

[GeneFrenkle]

LOSD- why, in some instances, would a defense, prosecution, or the judge object to jurors wanting a dictionary? What rights do a jory have wrt requesting resources such as a dictionary?

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[lawofselfdefense]

LOSD- why, in some instances, would a defense, prosecution, or the judge object to jurors wanting a dictionary? What rights do a jory have wrt requesting resources such as a dictionary?

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I'm sorry, but I simply can't give you a blanket response. What the courts allow jurors to do and not do, to have access to and not have access to, varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, even from court room to court room. Some allow the taking of notes, others don't allow the taking of notes. Some allow the taking of notes during the trial, but then they take the notes away from the jurors when they go into deliberations. I know, it seems crazy.

The bottom line is all courts want to maintain rigorous control over the information on which juries base their verdicts. To a large extent a criminal trial is a mechanism for filtering the pieces of information that the jury will be allowed to consider and the pieces they will not be allowed to consider. In some cases, few people know LESS about the facts of the case under consideration than does the jury, especially if they've been sequestered.

If I were to place a guess on the dictionary matter, I'd say the judge probably figured there's so much irrelevant content in a dictionary that there's a high probability it will result in the jury getting misdirected, dragging out their deliberations. After all, he has a golf game to get to this afternoon.

[GeneFrenkle]

Much appreciated. The reason I asked is about a case in Culpeper where the jurors wanted the defn of "malice". This was the thread: http://vagunforum.net/general-discussio ... 16564.html

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[lawofselfdefense]

Much appreciated. The reason I asked is about a case in Culpeper where the jurors wanted the defn of "malice". This was the thread: http://vagunforum.net/general-discussio ... 16564.html

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In such a case I would have expected the judge to provide the jury with a legal definition of "malice", no need for a dictionary, with all those extra words in it.

For example:

"Malice inheres in the doing of a wrongful act intentionally or without just cause or excuse, or as a result of ill will."
Wooden v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 758, 284 S.E.2d 811 (1981).

[If you're interested in seeing that whole case you can either Google it (I guess, haven't tried it, I use lawyer-type databases), or you can find it at my blog here: http://bit.ly/14PiRgM]

Andrew

[GeneFrenkle]

Andrew - Thank You!

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