Posted on 07/25/2013 3:53:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The trauma nurses who took care of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after his arrest have a straightforward explanation. “I don’t get to pick and choose my patients,” one told the Boston Globe.
The three public defenders assigned to Tsarnaev would have been similarly constrained. But what about the two prominent defense lawyers who have offered their services? Why choose to represent a man accused of turning the Boston Marathon finish line into a war zone?
Likewise, how can the lawyers representing Cleveland’s Ariel Castro fight for the alleged serial kidnapper and rapist? And what about the attorneys for the recently acquitted but still controversial George Zimmerman? Do they really believe he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing in shooting an unarmed teen?
I have been a criminal defense lawyer for more than 30 years, first as a public defender and now as a law professor running a criminal defense clinic. My clients have included a young man who gunned down his neighbor in front of her 5-year-old daughter while trying to steal her car, a man who beat a young woman to death for failing to alert drug associates that police were coming and a woman who smothered her baby for no apparent reason. These are the kinds of cases that prompt people to ask: “How can you represent those people?” All criminal defense lawyers are asked this; it’s such a part of the criminal defense experience that it’s simply known as “the question.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Zimmerman is the Regime’s Goldstein.
My guess... Zimmerman might end up being the left’s nemesis. They look stupider and stupider piling up on him.
I can imagine that it is the sort of thing that would make your career if you succeed and generate publicity even if you fail, since you’d have a pretty good excuse.
My understanding is that the system really requires that EVERYONE have the best defense possible; if they are truly guilty the truth will out, unless the cops/prosecutor made a mistake.
“Better to have 100 SKM’s or Mansons walk free than one innocent person be punished” as my lawyer friends put it.
They aren't subtle. They really don't have to be.
How about “What motivates a reporter to write for a rag like The Washington Post?”
I think it must be hard to be a criminal defense attorney. But they are essential rocks against a tyrannical state. The State must be put to the test of proving guilt. DA’s have enormous power. Without being put to the test, out of control DA’s (and there are plenty of examples) will exercise that power for evil. Power will inevitably be abused.
That’s why I get so torqued at DA’s who overcharge and then pleading a defendant down to what they really wanted. It’s lazy and very prone to abuse. It’s a very serious watering down of the protection of right to trial by jury.
My observation is that only the extremes of the right or left really care. Most people I know feel he should have followed the advice of 911 and only observed, but also that Treyyvon was up to no good.
It makes good journalistic theater but I don’t know anyone personally who actually cares. One thug, one wannabe cop, IMHO.
I mean good thug=dead thug but what if someone shoots you or me and then claims ‘stand your ground’?
It would be very interesting what would happen to the law if it would be possible to “overdefend” as well. Like get damages back if your innocence can be shown to a “preponderance of the evidence.”
They know he is innocent but they do not care.
Well it was a risk, but GZ didn’t commit any crime and it seems the reason he was out of his truck is that he was looking for a street sign or house number to tell the NON emergency dispatcher, who ASKED the information, where he was.
The problem has been the focus on irrelevant arguments – some of which are actually unsupported by the evidence.
1. ‘GZ racially profiled TM’ There is no evidence of this.
2. ‘GZ disobeyed an order by the police’ * First off, it wasn’t “9-1-1” it was the non-emergency number. The civilian dispatcher, Sean Noffke, testified that he did not give GZ an order and, in fact, he, like his fellow dispatchers, are trained not make comments that sound like commands. * Noffke also testified under cross that, as a result of his asking GZ which way TM was going, GZ could have reasonably interpreted this as being asked to follow Martin. * It is also not a crime in Florida to disregard a comment made by a civilian dispatcher.
3. ‘GZ got out of his car’ Not a crime on public property and not negligent either.
4. ‘GZ followed TM’ Again, anyone can follow anyone on a public street unless the followee has obtained a restraining order against the follower and even there, the RS only places time, place, and manner restrictions on the person enjoined.
5. ‘GZ wasn’t really injured’ * Under Florida’s self-defense laws, one doesn’t have to be injured AT ALL to use deadly force * No one is required to refrain from defending himself while another is engaged in or attempting to commit a felony.
6. ‘TM is dead through no fault of his own’ * If you believe that TM assaulted GZ, then he IS dead as a result of his own actions.
7. ‘GZ could have left’ * Under Florida law, there is not a duty to withdraw rather than use deadly force * TM was straddling GZ so how the latter was supposed to leave the scene is unanswered.
8. ‘GZ was armed and TM wasn’t’ * One’s fists can be considered weapons and can result in severe bodily harm or death. * GZ was legally carrying a weapon * There is no requirement under the law that the same weapon be used by the assailant * A homeowner can kill an intruder whether or not he has been threatened * Those that attack cannot feign surprise if they are met with superior firepower.
9. ‘Stand Your Ground!’ * SYG is NOT at issue in this trial. * The defense is a classic self-defense case.
10. ‘Black men NEVER get to use SYG!’ * Wrong http://tinyurl.com/nboht35
11. ‘GZ is a man and TM was a boy!’ * As if ‘boys’ don’t commit murder, rape, and assault everyday in this country.
Scumbags, Why not line him up with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot?
Sheesh
I think you hit the nail on the head. Appearing in a widely publicized case is a time honored way to get advertisement. It used to be lawyers were forbidden to advertise so they would run for office, do pro bono work, take on a widely talked about matter etc.
> “And what about the attorneys for the recently acquitted but still controversial George Zimmerman? Do they really believe he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing in shooting an unarmed teen?”
Disgusting.
Very well stated, succinct summary. Thank you.
Life's tough, then you die.
The choice is actually: should you limit the power of the state or should you not?
To paraphrase Winston Churchill:
You have been offered the choice between liberty and security, you have chosen dishonor and you shall have tyranny.
What motivates a journalist to write for Hustler, the National Perspirer, or the Washington Post?
The thugs on the left have gone so far over the limits of decency that they are no longer entitled to a presumption of legitimacy. The far left fringe can compel us to do only what they have to power to enforce. They will get no willing compliance or cooperation from me.
Aren’t they clever...
I hope you point out the false assertions in what most people you know "feel".
911?
It was a call to a non-emergency number from what I remember.
He was observing, what do you think he was doing?
It is time to call it for what it is...
The main-stream-media is deliberately advancing an overtly racist agenda.
Well this is what happens when you don’t fight back against these lying evil bastards. They keep coming like some monster from a horror movie. MoM better get off his ass or direct Zimmerman to a pitbull who can defend him better in the media and take on all these liars. Also hiring a good PR firm would help. Something better than “We feel for Trayvon’s parents” blah blah blah.
How about coming out and saying “Trayvon is the reason he’s dead because he committed a violent assault on a man for no other reason than he didn’t like he was being watched, and on wrong hit to the head and Mr. Zimmerman would have been dead.”
Maybe you need to get caught up on the facts. This was a SELF DEFENSE case, SYG was not used in this trial.
Also, you need to fear being killed by souless thugs in the midst of a robbery or ‘just because’, and not worry so much about SYG laws letting someone get away with murder.
THAT is the key to all of this—money. If the loser pays or the “over zealous” prosecutors can be held accountable in some way, our legal system would change over night! Right now, they throw any and everything to see what sticks whether warranted or not. And the defendant pays and pays and pays. It’s whoever has the taller stack of cash that wins, even if they lose.
It’s unlikely the forefathers foresaw the courts turning into great money engines for lawyers, as I would see it. That fact is what finally goaded the Supreme Court into requiring public defenders.
If you aren’t even aware that GZ called the non-emergency number rather than 9-1-1, I’d suggest that your knowledge is a bit shaky at best. That’s an oft-repeated piece of misinformation.
Zimmerman’s main mistake, he articulated when he said, “These *&@% always get away.” That was a mistake because he was more right than he knew when he said he thought Martin was up to no good, or on drugs - Martin gave him the slip, all right, but he decided not to get away, but to confront, and assault, and batter, Zimmerman. The testimony of the only eye witness reinforces the physical evidence that Martin, tho 20 pounds lighter that Zimmerman, demonstrated the truth of the saying that “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”It makes good journalistic theater but I don’t know anyone personally who actually cares. One thug, one wannabe cop, IMHO.Zimmerman never made a mark on Martin until he finally - after crying out for help for a full 40 seconds, and sustaining several marks on his head in addition to a deformed nose - fired the fatal shot. Martin’s clothes indicated that he had been in the dominant position described by eye witness John Good the whole time, with Zimmerman lying on his back.
On top of everything else, there is the fact that John Good told “them” - told Martin - to stop, and he continued. When Good left to call 911 while Martin continued to batter Zimmerman, Zimmerman was left to understand that no one would help him until such time - if ever in his remaining lifetime - as the police finally arrived, he was on his own in a jungle situation. There were still cries for help - all the cries were by Zimmerman, as Martin was never in trouble until suddenly he was dying - but whether you believe the story about Martin finding the gun or not, something caused Zimmerman to decide he had to shoot Martin.
Zimmerman claimed that in the heat of the assault he didn’t even remember the gun until Martin found it - but whatever, he shot long after most of us think we would have in his position. There is nothing but fevered imaginings to suggest that the gun was ever a factor in the fight until the moment it was used.
I mean good thug=dead thug but what if someone shoots you or me and then claims ‘stand your ground’?
When John Good saw Zimmerman, Zimmerman had no ability to retreat. Put differently, he was retreating as much as he found it possible to do. SYG has nothing to do with the case. Nothing in the evidence required the jury to take into account Zimmerman’s interest in law enforcement as a career. The prosecution’s case was all innuendo, all the time. Well, except for the baseless accusations . . .
If you want to critique the law in a self-defense case, it does seem weird that the prosecution has to defend the “victim” beyond a reasonable doubt in order to win against a self-defense claim. But that’s the law and I’m not positive I can suggest anything unambiguously better.The other interesting constraint is that the jury isn’t informed of the penalty for any given verdict. All those wonderful “feelings” the jury had for the mother of the victim would have turned to ashes in their mouths if they had brought in a guilty verdict on the least of the “lesser included charges” in Murder 2, and learned that the sentence would mean that Zimmerman’s wife would in all likelihood have to divorce Zimmerman and find another husband, or else try to conceive late or go childless. All because it “wasn’t right” that a drug-addled thug who was on suspension from school got killed while committing a crime.
In six months, they'll have some sort of conspiracy theory that Zimmerman is secretly JOOOOOish. The white hispanic thing will disappear down the memory hole.
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