Quote:
Originally Posted by Misto
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He should of gotten manslaughter
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What was Zimmerman doing that was illegal prior to being attacked by Martin? Was Zimmerman legally allowed to be at the location the scuffle+shooting took place?
If he wasn't doing anything illegal, and he was legally allowed to be at that location, he should have been immune to criminal prosecution (and should be immune to civil suit too), unless I'm not reading FL's statutes correctly or there's caselaw that interprets the statutory language differently than the plain meaning.
And as to whether Zimmerman's use of deadly force was justified? Well, if he reasonably believed that deadly force was necessary to prevent, at a minimum, "great bodily harm to himself," then it was justified. FL seems to leave it to a jury to decide what great bodily harm is, but assuming we believe that Zimmerman was getting his head bashed into concrete... well... concussions are serious business, way more serious than scrapes and bruises that FL caselaw says are NOT great bodily harm. It's not a stretch at all for a jury to decide the way they did.