Reasonable doubt?
The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman “narrative” keeps shape-shifting. Ferreting out the truth at this point seems pretty much impossible, but it needs to be attempted.
The trial will disclose much more. That’s part of what trials are for, although the truth can often remain a very, very difficult quarry in a situation in which intents and perceptions are important, and there are no witnesses (or very few good ones) to the initial confrontation and the crucial events surrounding it. Forensics can help, of course, but they can’t tell us everything we need to know.
Take this set of facts:
One of those inconsistencies [between Zimmerman’s story and the evidence]: Zimmerman told police Trayvon had his hand over Zimmerman’s mouth during their fight on the night he shot Trayvon.
The Sentinel’s source confirmed that Zimmerman’s statements include that allegation. But authorities do not believe that happened, the source told the Sentinel, because on one 911 call, someone can be heard screaming for help. If it were Zimmerman, as he claims, his cries were not muffled, the source said.
And this commentary by the Martin family attorney:
Reached in Birmingham, Ala., Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump said Thursday that Zimmerman’s claim that he was screaming in the 911 call and that his mouth was covered by the teen don’t add up.
“[Trayvon’s father] Tracy Martin told me that that’s what [police] told him,” Crump said, of Zimmerman making those statements to police.
“It’s either one or the other, it can’t be both,” Crump said.
Of course it can be both. It’s hard to cover a person’s mouth effectively while fighting without taking your hand off his mouth once in a while. Why couldn’t the screams have occurred during such an interval or intervals?
These are just small details, but I mention them to illustrate the larger point of how a case like this, aired in the MSM, is mostly garbage in, garbage out at this stage. But that doesn’t stop the partisans from making propaganda galore out of rumor and logic based on incomplete information. And how many people will ever learn otherwise? Don’t first impressions count an awful lot in these things?
Other news today brought home the same idea. Remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn? First a rapist, then a mere purveyor of paid quickie sex (or not-sex, in the Clintonian sense)? In France, rather than New York, the allegations keep flying and the legal battles go on, but not about the Sofitel incident. Read this is you’re interested, but don’t say I didn’t warn you; it’s not exactly family fare.
It’s not in any real dispute any more that Strauss-Kahn likes to have paid sex in hotels, sometimes in a twosome and sometimes in groups. Even that much information gives a picture of the man that makes John Edwards look like an old-fashioned romantic. But is Strauss-Kahn a rapist, or are the new accusers just piling on, as it were? There is no way to know yet; your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps if I sat in the courtroom for the entire trial and heard all the evidence (with a translator!) I might come to a pretty strong conclusion. But I don’t think that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” is good enough.
And then there’s someone like Herman Cain. Remember him? He’s been awfully quiet lately, and the allegations against him have just faded away. When they were big news, I wrote about the issue at some length, and came to the conclusion that…that…we don’t know, although the accusers had serious credibility problems.
Jurors in a courtroom are told to weigh the evidence and to only find a defendant guilty if culpability is established beyond a reasonable doubt. But the “reasonable doubt” standard is really a judgment call, and is not amenable to strict definitions, although definitions are certainly attempted:
The standard that must be met by the prosecution’s evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
If the jurors or judge have no doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, or if their only doubts are unreasonable doubts, then the prosecutor has proven the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the defendant should be pronounced guilty.
The term connotes that evidence establishes a particular point to a moral certainty and that it is beyond dispute that any reasonable alternative is possible. It does not mean that no doubt exists as to the accused’s guilt, but only that no Reasonable Doubt is possible from the evidence presented.
But anyone who follows trials and verdicts knows that the standard isn’t always applied that way; sometimes logical and possible alternative explanations are rejected as improbable, based on jurors’ hunches. In practice, isn’t “reasonable” really what any individual juror feels it to be? And don’t we all tend to think that we are the reasonable ones?
“The trial will disclose much more. That’s part of what trials are for, although the truth can often remain a very, very difficult quarry in a situation in which intents and perceptions are important, and there are no witnesses (or very few good ones) to the initial confrontation and the crucial events surrounding it.”
I usually do not pay much attention to criminal trials but I am very curious to hear what evidence emerges during the proceedings. Something to remember is that if it turns out that Zimmerman did act in self-defense he will still pay a heavy price in turns of the stress he is undergoing, and criminal defense attorneys don’t come cheap.
This is what juries in New York State are told about reasonable doubt. I think it covers the subject rather well.
“The law uses the term, “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” to tell you how convincing the evidence of guilt must be to permit a verdict of guilty. The law recognizes that, in dealing with human affairs, there are very few things in this world that we know with absolute certainty. Therefore, the law does not require the People to prove a defendant guilty beyond all possible doubt. On the other hand, it is not sufficient to prove that the defendant is probably guilty. In a criminal case, the proof of guilt must be stronger than that. It must be beyond a reasonable doubt.
“A reasonable doubt is an honest doubt of the defendant’s guilt for which a reason exists based upon the nature and quality of the evidence. It is an actual doubt, not an imaginary doubt. It is a doubt that a reasonable person, acting in a matter of this importance, would be likely to entertain because of the evidence that was presented or because of the lack of convincing evidence.
“Proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you so firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt that you have no reasonable doubt of the existence of any element of the crime or of the defendant’s identity as the person who committed the crime.
“In determining whether or not the People have proven the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, you should be guided solely by a full and fair evaluation of the evidence. After carefully evaluating the evidence, each of you must decide whether or not that evidence convinces you beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt.
Whatever your verdict may be, it must not rest upon baseless speculations. Nor may it be influenced in any way by bias, prejudice, sympathy, or by a desire to bring an end to your deliberations or to avoid an unpleasant duty.”
Barkeater: it covers it well. But my point is that people apply it in idiosyncratic ways, and often to justify what they happen to think is reasonable, not in an objective way. It’s a hard measure to apply objectively—which is not the law’s fault. It’s just the way human beings are. The law makes a valiant attempt, and that’s all it can do.
Maybe the reason why Martin put his hand over Zimmerman’s mouth was because he was calling for help.
I am a bit defensive about “partisans”, b/c I have forcefully spoken out about the current public evidence being strongly on Zimmerman’s side, and I am a partisan in opposition to various left agendas which are in play: racial narrative, expansion of gun control, even expansion of government.
However, the key to opposing those agendas does not lie in demonstrating that Zimmerman is innocent in this one single anecdotal example. One single anecdotal instance is not a meaningful representation of anything.
In this instance, my partisanship is principally aimed at showing that left + media have misrepresented facts. The larger point = further demonstration that much of left + media consider it good tactics to misrepresent facts in service of their agenda. That larger point hints at an unspoken truth: re their racial agenda and their gun control agenda, et al, they are not confident that facts and reasoning are on their side. Or, they are not confident that their fellow citizens are competent at assimilating facts and reasoning.
In summation: I am a partisan, but I am not a partisan FOR either conviction or acquittal of Zimmerman. I am a partisan for truth, and I am a partisan who is calling out the widely spread horse manure left side manipulations of the publicly known circumstances of this case.
If George Zimmerman is guilt, then he ought be fully punished. Yet, so far, the public evidence is heavily on George Zimmerman’s side. The Trayvon Martin vultures, from Trayvon’s lawyers, through the civil rights preeners, on through the major media, and down to the most obscure leftist reader of Media Matters, are a bunch of damnable liars. Of that, there is little doubt.
gcotharn,
I agree that what we can know to date strongly supports Zimmerman was acting in self-defense. It certainly seems this has become a rally point for the leftist agendas on racial conflict and gun control. This incident will be used to increase racial tensions no matter the outcome. So much for BHO the post-racial president.
This is just what the Left does to prepare the way for ensuring that you cannot claim self defense. Because if you do, and you do it against one of the Chosen Elect of the Left, you will be punished. And it won’t matter what the “law” says because the law and the Constitution behind that law, will be D. E. A. D.
And the Left will have killed it. Because obviously a lot of Americans thought the LEft was harmless.
Herman Cain was on the Sean Hannity Radio show yesterday. Apparently he is doing some sort of speaking tours at colleges. He, or his people, regularly post / link to things on facebook of a political nature. He has been hitting the energy policy side of things a bit lately in that venue. Had one article talking about the East coast refineries shutting down and EPA regs. The east coast appears to be in for a world of hurt worse than the center of the country….He is not being quiet, its just that much of the media are not interested in him right now….they have already run him out of the race.
Cain also just released a new book, had a similiar title to another recent book release by someone else…oops
This has been the best place for genuine investigative reporting on this case:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/
Go to the right sidebar to “Choose a Topic”, then pick Trayvon Martin from the drop down list. There are over 100 posts about it, and some of them contain information I’ve seen nowhere else. They are heavily documented with links.
I am also eager to follow this case closely as I am hoping we can sort through the facts instead of the half truths, rumors, speculation and outright agenda driven lies we are subjected to regarding this incident. One thing I’m interested in learning has to do with voice analysis. I thought I had read that 1 independent “experts” did a voice analysis of the 911 tape and determined it was NOT Zimmerman’s voice calling for help. So how accurate is voice analysis. Martin’s father first told police it was not his son Treyvon calling for help before later changing his mind and then saying it was. Zimmerman’s story even at the scene was that he, Zimmerman, was calling for help as he was getting beat up but no one would come to help. I also am sick of the obvious media manipulation in showing a 5 year old boyish picture of Treyvon, provided by the family, taken when he was only 12 years old but passed along as if it is current.
It’s only obvious to those that it doesn’t work against. To the many millions it does work against it, it is much more subtle. That’s how propaganda works when paid for by the federal government.
I think the reasonable doubt standard subjectivity will very much be in play in interpreting Zimmerman’s self-defense claim. He shot Trayvon, we know that much. But what did Zimmerman perceive, reasonably, was going on? Did he really think he was about to suffer death or severe bodily harm? It could be really a close call with massive consequences. If he unreasonably feared for his safety- subjectively, yes, but objectively should not, he goes to prison. But reasonable doubt, one would think, would push the jurors to err on the side of Zimmerman; it is certainly reasonably plausible that he feared for himself in a serious way. However, if jurors see the whole chain of events and see Zimmerman as somehow causing himself to be put into that situation (like instigating a bar fight), how much doubt will be reasonable at that point?
Frankly, I think there will never be enough evidence to convict here and the prosecutor knows it. In a self-defense case where there’s only one living witness, how can you refute that person’s testimony?
holmes: one way to refute such a person’s testimony is to point out inaccuracies and/or inconsistencies in it. That’s what they’re trying to do here with Zimmerman.