Zimmerman Self-Defense Trial off to Acceptable Start :)

[gunsmith]

Can't we all just get along?

[gunsmith]

Last night's Trayvon demonstrations.

What do we want?
BIG SCREENS
When do we want them?
NOW

What do we want?
NIKES
When do we want them?
NOW

What do we want?
FOODSTAMPS
When do we want them?
NOW

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... op-freeway

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES
Protesters ran through Los Angeles streets, stopping traffic, breaking windows and at one point raiding a Wal-Mart store, and a major freeway was blocked in the San Francisco Bay Area in the third night of protests in California over George Zimmerman's Florida acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

[tenmilmag]

A N I M A L s behave more humane

[Grappler]

Not sure if I trust this source aparently things got interesting in Oakland and L.A. last night.

http://rt.com/usa/california-zimmerman- ... olice-152/

[Heffay]

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES
Protesters ran through Los Angeles streets, stopping traffic, breaking windows and at one point raiding a Wal-Mart store, and a major freeway was blocked in the San Francisco Bay Area in the third night of protests in California over George Zimmerman's Florida acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Wal-mart, eh? I read they wiped the shelves clean. Officials estimate losses range into the hundreds of dollars.

[XDM45]

XDM45 is disgusts me with these comments, I can't believe he would come on here and speak of the dead that way...as if gold teeth and a little pot smoking is a capital offense. The jury made the right verdict, but classless dancing on graves really shows XDM45's character here.

He's trying to justify stupid comments now, sort of like the thread where he listed the range rules he thinks should be in place.

"s if gold teeth and a little pot smoking is a capital offense. The jury made the right verdict, but classless dancing on graves really shows XDM45's character here."

1) Trayvon is a completely different person and not involved in the situations listed above.
2) "stupid comments" and "justification" are done on here all the time, and in your opinion, mine fit your definition, so be it. Who am I to tell you you opinion? I disagree with your opinion.
3) I unapologeticlaly speak ill of the dead of the two a-hats I wrote about above, and they certainty deserved to die more than Trayvon did. My only regret is they didn't suffer more than they did.

[Mn01r6]

2) GZ did the World a favor by taking out a gold-teeth-wearing, pot-smoking, illegal-possession-of-a-firearm, thug. Good for him!! Maybe if that happened more often, people wouldn't be so quick to do crime because they'd be dead versus cycling in and out of the system as they commit crimes.

Your words pal. No grave dancing there huh?

[jdege]

Obligatory SF Reference:

He had singled me out again. "Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house ... and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken -- whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment, please?"

"Why ... that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!"

"I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?"

"Uh ... why, mine, I guess."

"Again I agree. But I'm not guessing."

-- Robert Heinlein, "Starship Troopers"

I find it reprehensible that so many kids, today, are growing up without moral instruction, and end up as worthless reprobates whose sole contribution to society is to present a danger to themselves and others.

From all I've learned, concerning Trayvon Martin, it seems likely that he was one such kid.

I don't blame him for it. I blame his parents, his school, the myriad law enforcement organizations with which he dealt, and mostly, the generations of leftists who have been perpetuating the lie that morality is relative.

And while I place no stock in the idea of rehabilitation, I am fully aware that every human being, regardless of moral stature, contains a capacity for redemption. Other ruined children, from circumstances as bad or worse as Trayvon's, have managed to find their way to being healthy and productive members of society. If he'd been luckier, he might have lived long enough to grow out of the horrid mess in which he was born.

But the simple fact was that he chose actions that resulted in his posing an immediate threat of death or grievous bodily injury to another, and that that other was fully justified in ending the threat.

I see no reason to rejoice in that, other than simple relief that no innocent person was permanently injured.

[jshuberg]

Well said

[XDM45]

2) GZ did the World a favor by taking out a gold-teeth-wearing, pot-smoking, illegal-possession-of-a-firearm, thug. Good for him!! Maybe if that happened more often, people wouldn't be so quick to do crime because they'd be dead versus cycling in and out of the system as they commit crimes.

Your words pal. No grave dancing there huh?

Yup.

My words.

Yup.

Grave dancing.

I'm ok with both and can sleep well at night.

[gunsmith]

Tried Googleing this but found nothing....Defense wanted to introduce many texts by thug.

I've been hearing that Thug was going to buy a gun the day after he got himself shot....any verification of that? Those texts must be pubished somewhere, can't find them.

TIA

[XDM45]

Tried Googleing this but found nothing....Defense wanted to introduce many texts by thug.

I've been hearing that Thug was going to buy a gun the day after he got himself shot....any verification of that? Those texts must be pubished somewhere, can't find them.

TIA

hmph.. Didn't think fine, upstanding children non-thugs likle Trayvon could buy handguns legally at 17. He's never do anything illegal...

Well, not anymore anyway. Thanks GZ!!

Maybe GZ used a gun to keep a gun off the street in the hands of a thug. If you ever find those text, sure would validate some points and opinions made about Trayvon by many people.

[gunsmith]

The hearing where the judge walked out was about the texts...she couldn't 'authenticate' them...they referred to fighting / buying a gun and 'if you could punch a guy in the nose you could win a fight.

Ok found this:

On Tuesday night after the jury left the courtroom for the evening, computer forensic expert Richard Connor, who found evidence on Martin's phone, was proffered. Defense attorney Don West sought to enter texts about acquiring firearms, fighting experience that Connor found on Martin's cellphone.

West said a Facebook message, in which Martin's half-brother asked him "When you going to teach me how to fight?" was also sought to be included.

Connor then read the text messages from Martin’s phone, in which Martin says he was sore from a fight and talked about winning the second and third rounds. Conner said the messages on Martin’s cellphone showed he was trying to buy or sell a gun.

Nelson said she had authentication issues with the text messages and photos because she says she has no identifying factor to show it was Martin himself sending the text messages. West said if the state turned over phone records sooner they could have tracked down the people Martin was texting and confirmed it was Martin sending the texts.

Nelson had previously ruled that information about Martin's interest in guns and fighting couldn't be used during opening statements. But had she left open the possibility that they could be introduced later.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/judge- ... index.html

But I want to see the actual texts.

[mnmike59]

Some of you are acting no better than the misinformed TM group.

[gunsmith]

This is very lawyerly detail but it shows the Prosecution (and the judge) are acting in bad faith....the State had these TEXTS IN JANURARY AND JUST DELIVERED THEM WEEKS AGO.

There is a legal citation of Florida case law that shows the proper way to 'authenticate' the texts....they would have shown Traybabie as as thug and she excluded them.

I'd like to see the texts.

In my post last night I noted a near shouting match between defense attorney Don West and Judge Debra Nelson over whether text messages on Trayvon Martin’s phone regarding fighting were “authenticated.”

Judge Nelson stated that there was no evidence that Trayvon typed the texts even though the messages were on his phone and stored in double-password protected format using phone apps. Judge Nelson read from the bench from what appeared to be a treatise on evidence.

The defense countered that its computer forensic expert, who testified, was able to track hundreds if not thousand of text messages on the phone and that the flow of conversations indicated it was Trayvon in context. The defense also vigorously complained that because the State held back evidence and the defense’s request to postpone the trial was denied, the defense did not have the time to track down and call as witnesses the people with whom Trayvon was texting to personally authenticate the conversations.

Although we will not get her ruling until after court starts this morning, it appears that Judge Nelson is on the verge of reversible error if she excludes the text messages on authentication grounds (there may be other grounds to exclude them, I’m just dealing with authentication).

A reader forwarded to me the case of State v. Lumarque, 44 So.3d 171, Fla.App. 3 Dist.,2010, in which a Florida appeals court reversed a trial court’s decision to exclude text messages on authentication grounds. Here’s the pertinent part of the holding (emphasis mine):

On the appeal, we conclude the trial court abused its discretion by concluding that exhibits 5-9 and 11-15 are not admissible in the trial of this case. The State sought to admit into evidence two sexually suggestive images and eleven text messages between the ex-wife and a boyfriend, found on the defendant’s cellular telephone. The ex-wife testified that prior to the assault by the defendant, he showed her the two images and one of the text messages. There also is evidence in the record from which one might infer the defendant examined the ex-wife’s cellular telephone on the morning or afternoon before the alleged incident when he was alone in the house for a brief period after returning their children back to his ex-wife’s home.

At an in limine hearing, the trial court found the two images and one text message the ex-wife testified to admissible, but concluded the remaining exhibits inadmissible as the ex-wife could not authenticate them. The court erred. The images and text messages were found on the defendant’s cellular telephone, seized pursuant to a search of the defendant’s home through a warrant shortly after the alleged incident. This fact, testified by the State’s forensics expert, is sufficient to authenticate these exhibits. U.S. v. Caldwell, 776 F.2d 989, 1001-02 (11th Cir.1985) (holding that authentication of evidence merely requires a finding that the evidence is what it purports to be). It also is immaterial that the ex-wife could not identify each of the messages being shown to her on the night of the incident. Regardless how these images and text messages might have found their way onto the defendant’s cellular telephone, the State has presented sufficient evidence at this stage that these exhibits constitute evidence of motive. Craig v. State, 510 So.2d 857, 863 (Fla.1987) (stating that evidence of motive is admissible when it would help the jury understand other evidence). Accordingly, they are admissible into evidence at the trial of this case upon the State laying the proper predicates as indicated by this opinion….

As much as the State wants to keep out the text messages, reversible error due to an improper authentication ruling is not the way to go.