Call Me Mr. Wonderful

Bill Schmalfeldt of the Baltimore Liberal Examiner gives us some insight into the minds of the critics of the Sanford Police Department investigation into the killing of Trayvon Martin.

In a piece titled "Trayvon Martin Case: Leaked police report raises more questions than it answers", Mr. Schmalfeldt raises eighteen questions about the investigation and delivers this Big Finish:

There.  That is a total of 18 questions that need to be answered. It would be just wonderful if any of the conservative pundits rushing to judgement to blame Trayvon Martin for his own death had an answer to any one of these questions.

Call me Mr. Wonderful!  Or, The Answerman - that works:

3. Since January 1, 2011, Zimmerman had called Sanford cops 46 times to report "suspicious activities." Did the Sanford police have Zimmerman on any kind of "watch"? Did they have a file on him?

I have no idea about a police file; maybe in East Germany.  However, Mr. Zimmerman made those 46 phone calls between Jan 2004 and the present, not Jan 2011.  That misinformation has been widely broadcast but also somewhat widely debunked (by NPR!); the Sanford website has them all, with dates.

One down, seventeen to go.  Mr. Wonderful has time for one more:

8. When the cops arrived on the scene, they took the gun and cuffed Zimmerman. They put him in the back of a police cruiser. The responding officer wrote, "At no time did I question Zimmerman about the incident."  Why not?  Would that not be the job of an officer arriving at the scene of a shooting with the shooter in custody?

No, that would not be standard procedure; link to follow, but standard police practice would be for the escorting officer to listen to spontaneous outbursts and get the perp to the station house; the lead investigator will have more facts, an interview strategy, and recording equipment if desired.  Seriously, does any Law and Order fan think the big interviews are conducted in the back of a squad car by whatever officer was first to the scene?

Two down, sixteen to go. 

As to the remaining questions, I am as puzzled by the handling of the cell phone as anyone, so some of them are vexing.  Others are on the lines of "Is there a forensics report, and if not, why not?"  I assume, perhaps optimistically, that not everything has been leaked.

He closes with a call for a wholesale revision of the American justice system:

But they [these ignorant conservative apologists for Zimmerman] don't. No one does. Not even the conservatives here at The Examiner and elsewhere who write as if they knew for a fact that Trayvon Martin was just another black thug with trouble on his mind who was killed by a righteous guardian of the public safety in the line of duty.

It's nonsense, of course.

And no one will know for sure what happened until there's a proper investigation, arrest, and jury trial of George Zimmerman to determine the fatal sequence of events that took place that rainy evening on Feb. 26, 2012 in a gated community in Sanford, Florida.

Only a trial can establish the facts? What about prosecutorial discretion and innocent until proven guilty?  Is the State of Florida obliged to trample George Zimmerman and bring a case they don't think they can win just to placate Mr. Schmalfeldt?

Mr. Wonderful thinks he knows the answer.

LET'S PLAY 'ASK ME ANOTHER:

7. Much of the conservative "Blame Trayvon" noise includes the "fact" that he had been suspended three times from school over the last year....  But this raises the question, even if Trayvon Martin was the most prolific catburglar in his high school, did George Zimmerman know that, and what does any of this have to do with the shooting?  When he was killed all he had was the aforementioned candy and iced tea.

Well, granting the hypothesis for a moment, George Zimmerman claimed in his 911 call that Martin looked suspicious; maybe he has a flair for picking out the prolific catburglars and was engaging in cat-profiling rather than racial profiling.  That would surely be the defense claim, and I suppose the prosecution would have to insist it was a lucky guess.

I can quit anytime...

4. The recently temporarily self-suspended Sanford Police Chief, Bill Lee, said, "“Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that (Zimmerman acted in self defense), we don’t have the grounds to arrest him.” Why was his claim of self-defense considered sufficient? Why did the chief accept that assertion?

Uhh, it's not what you believe, it's what you can prove? Surely that staple of crime fiction reflects the reality of the prosecutorial process.  By my good luck, here is Ta Nehesi Coates making precisely that point:

The Case to Be Made Against George Zimmerman

It will not be an easy one. I received the following note from a former homicide prosecutor in Florida. He is responding to the latest account given, in which Trayvon Martin, evidently for kicks, decks Zimmerman with one punch and starts ramming his head into the concrete:

A couple of thoughts: 

1.) I don't believe Mr. Zimmerman's story (presuming that what is in the report is truly what he told the police), but more importantly, 

2.) What prosecutors believe is not nearly as important as what they can prove. I can not stress this enough, and my mind is about to explode with all of nonsense being written about what the government can and cannot do. It is up to the government, not anyone else, to prove that Zimmerman is lying.

Ta Nehesi Coates is a liberal and he understands this, so I know it is not hopelessly complicated.

5. We understand why Trayvon's body was checked for drugs or alcohol.  Standard procedure with a DOA with violence. What were the results?

I am sure that "standard procedure" is to respect the privacy of all involved.  However, I am confident the family could obtain and release those results the moment they were available.  One might presume they have their own reasons for keeping those results quiet, but why not ask them?  After all, they did keep his school records quiet until an inappropriate leak scuttled that strategy.

2. Authorities say Zimmerman's account of what happened was corroborated by "several witnesses."  Who are these witnesses?  What did they say?

The witnesses are free to self-identify, but protecting witness privacy is standard procedure; given the New Black Panther bounties and Spike Lee home address tweets, I think we can understand why supportive witnesses are not identifying themselves.

4....Did they take Zimmerman's gun?  Did they give it back if they did? If they did not, where is the gun now?

At some point canwe penalize Bill for failure to do his homework?  From the last page of the police report at the Sanford website:

And maybe they later gave it back - I heard police do that in highly politicized shooting investigations.  No I didn't.

BILL SPEAKS!  I am graced with a response in the comments at his site:

It's an evolving story, Tom. I have neither the time or inclination to go back and rework every story I've written when some new fact is revealed.

My opinion os his credibilty has actually stopped evolving but my advice remains the same.  Do your homework!

AND NOW A TOUGH ONE:  Ok, where is the wound on the back of Zimmerman's head on this ABC News video?  The best view is at the 1:01 mark, and I don't even see anything that looks like a band-aid.

Minimal damage would not have surprised me, especially to the face - normally broken noses and black eyes reach their flowering the next morning, so clean off his face and he might look fine that night. But the cut to the back of the head mentioned in the police report?  Where is that?

Well, unless this is a massive police cover-up with phony reports released to the public, someone saw blood.  Hmm, 'Truthers' become 'Trayvoners'...

Interesting to-and-fro with the police leaks - today, the "Get George" people are dropping their bombs.

Comments

[Strawman Cometh]

Now I feel bad. Did they arrest Martin? I scrolled up , cheked Drudge. WTF is ongoing? Can't a man clean out his garage wtout the entire country going to shit?

[East Bay Jay]

Seems to me some sort of reckless endangerment charge should be the answer. No trial, George pleads out and disappears. A trial would be bad for everybody. Even Sharpton knows that.

[Stephanie]

The ABC tape is from the night of the shooting when they brought him to HQ for questioning.

Guess they were anticipating a run for the border... racists. /sarc

Actually, in a case where death results, handcuffs are SOP to bring the person into HQ for questioning whether it be for murder or vehicular accidents where the facts are not in focus.

[narciso]

I think they brought him in for questioning, took witness statements, but no charges were
filed,

Sharpton's career began with false accusations of rape, and moved on to incitement to violence,

[Threadkiller]

Sorry for the confusion, Strawman. This is why I don't clean my garage and possibly why Daddy leaves his wide open.

[Eric in Boise]

Sounds like we're having another "national conversation" on race. Deja vu - didn't we do this before?

Also sounds like it's not going exactly as planned for certain, (ahem), constituencies.

Wihch, IIRC, is the way it turned out last time as well.

Hmmmm...

[Eric in Boise]

**Which**

Damn.

[jimmyk]

The video is too grainy to see cleaned-up injuries. The interesting thing is that at about 0:53 one of the cops steps behind Zimmerman and seems to be peering at the back of his head. That would suggest there was something, or at least that he was looking for something. Then at about 1:10 his back is to the camera, and there does appear to be some irregularity in the back of his head, but it's hard to say for sure.

In any case, it doesn't seem worth speculating about, since this will be cleared up by the police report (except to the conspiracy theorists).

[Kathy Kattenburg]

Only a trial can establish the facts?

An investigation, an arrest, and then a trial, is what your quoted source wrote. And yes, those are the only ways to determine the facts. How else would one determine the facts in the case of an unarmed teenager who was shot dead by a security guard with no police authority?

What about prosecutorial discretion ...

What *about* prosecutorial discretion? It's precisely prosecutorial discretion that's being questioned here, given those of the available facts that are not in dispute; i.e., that George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed teenager after following him, even though he had been told by a 911 dispatcher not to follow him. The prosecutor's discretion is being questioned, and it should be, because given the available facts, there was and is enough evidence for an arrest to be not just legitimate and appropriate.

... and innocent until proven guilty?

Doesn't it usually require a trial by jury to prove guilt? How can one prove guilt without a trial? Of course Zimmerman is innocent until proven guilty, but how is that even relevant when he hasn't even been arrested or charged with a crime?

Treyvon's parents are not asking for a summary guilty charge and execution at dawn. They're not calling for a lynching. They are asking simply for the most elementary level of justice: a self-appointed security guard followed and then shot to death THEIR 17-YEAR-OLD SON, who was unarmed and who had not been doing anything to justify being followed other than walking through an apartment community while being black -- and all his parents are asking for is for the man to be arrested, for christ's sake, and then tried by a jury of his peers. And why that seems like too much for those devastated, heartbroken, anguished parents to expect, is really totally beyond my comprehension.

[jimmyk]

And in fact, now I see one of the commenters at that Mediaite site linked to a blowup of that 1:10 view showing the "irregularity":

http://i40.tinypic.com/2lu4f90.jpg

[Stephanie]

Guys, Obama didn't even write his own syllabus. The prose is sophisticated, the grammar is flawless, and the punctuation is good - heck, there are several semicolons used, and used correctly. In other words, the syllabus is everything that every other sample of genuine Obama-written prose is not. It isn't the same voice. It isn't the same author. Period.

Every sample of genuine Obama-written prose in existence is HORRIFIC in terms of prose, grammar and punctuation. Agonizingly horrific. Please see Jack Cashill's body of work, including several new pieces at AmericanThinker.com .

Look at the course structure itself. Obama only had to bluff his way through four actual class periods, with most of those class periods consisting of student discussion. Students were explicitly graded on their participation in these four class sessions. The other six sessions were "small group project" presentations by the students. Obama wouldn't have to say or do anything in those class periods except play the part of the "wise professor." Total scammage.

I think Obama was (and is) so stupid, and such a fraud that he had to have someone else prepare his course for him, including what little bit of lecture he delivered in those four class sessions.

Who might have prepared a course syllabus and light lecture notes on constitutional race issues with an emphasis toward education and race?

LUN

[Stephanie]

Are y'all looking at different video than the one that Diane S showed on the evening news?

The one I posted didn't show the back of his head - but it was the total vid shown on the evening news broadcast as described by Diane Sawyer and is posted on ABC website.

There's more to the video than the media is letting on. The deuce you say!

[bgates]

Of course Zimmerman is innocent until proven guilty, but how is that even relevant when he hasn't even been arrested or charged with a crime?

It's relevant because your political allies are raising money to have him kidnapped.

who had not been doing anything to justify being followed other than walking through an apartment community while being black

Is that a fact? I ask because you seem to consider it established while we're still in the pre-trial phase.

[jimmyk]

Stephanie, I was looking at the one TM linked to at Mediaite.

[Stephanie]

Missed the update, thanks!

What I get for fast scrolling to the bottom of the post to see new comments.

TM would do well to post a comment when he updates a post to let the commenters know that an update has occurred. I leave the thread open and usually just check for new comments... as I suspect many here do.

[Strawman Cometh]

Kathy,
These are very high info voters/bloggers over here. Busy peeps. If you have a moment, please, show us your work (yes, I'm starting to like that phrase) from DLX.
Gracia

[Strawman Cometh]

and all his parents are asking for is for the man to be arrested, for christ's sake,

Yes, bring the power of the state down on the unfortunate man whom my son was pounding into the concrete.

[Stephanie]

Ayers’ wrote: “Our neighbors include Muhammad Ali, former mayor Eugene Sawyer, poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Elizabeth Alexander, and writer Barack Obama. Minister Louis Farrakhan lives a block from our home and adds, we think, a unique dimension to the idea of ‘safe neighborhood watch’: the Fruit of Islam, his security force, has an eye on things twenty-four-hours a day.”

Neighborhood watch for me and not for thee!

Some animals ARE more equal than others.

LUN

[Strawman Cometh]

really totally beyond my comprehension.

A low bar.

[narciso]

You know I guess I wasn't that cynical, then again I don't work in commodities, there's only so far 'down the looking glass' I'm willing to go, and the Derrick Bell primer
was the Rosetta in that syllabi. Considering
how they spent a good number of weeks on Bob
McDonnell's thesis at Bob Jones, one wonders

[Stephanie]

Interesting find, eh narciso?

That syllabus is one reason why liberal lawyers (and young lawyers from liberal bastions of higher ed) can't argue effectively in the Supreme Court. rse can attest to the effects of social justice course work and the loss of the socratic method in law schools and the outcomes they will provide.

Law of unintended consequences strikes again.

[bunkerbuster]

Zimmerman's guilt isn't at issue here, probable cause is. The voices of reason all say a trail is in order to establish the facts because probable cause is indisputable and the initial investigation left too many questions unanswered.
Wingnuts who insist they know Zimmerman's innocent and see no probable cause -- and even now recite a fabricated narrative of what took place on that day -- are admitting their analytical method requires neither fact nor reason.
And if identity conservatives were sincerely convinced of Zimmerman's innocence, they would of course welcome a trial -- as would Zimmerman himself -- as the best, most thorough way to clear his name once and for all.
To suggest that the accused's own testimony and a single witness (not under oath, and not cross examined) -- both of which are contradicted by at least two other witnesses -- are sufficient to disprove probable cause is without substance.
I see no good reason to believe Martin did or did not attack Zimmerman. Yet we know for a fact Zimmerman pulled the trigger. That, along with the 911 call and his NW record of calls, clearly establishes probable cause for murder.

[narciso]

Well I brought it up, when I first found it,
although Charles Johnson, the good one who won the Breindel prize, and now works for Breitbart really brought it to wider public knowledge. It really is an embarassing piece of work, that Charles Hamilton Houston, the real pioneer on Civil Rights legislation, would laugh at.

[narciso]

I really had thought Wright had hit the wall, on foolishness, then this fellow Schmalfest (sic) takes it another step down, I'll have to wait for Krugman or Kristof, to go 'turtles
all the way down'

[Threadkiller]

And if identity conservatives commies were sincerely convinced of Zimmerman's innocence Obama's citizenship, they would of course welcome a trial -- as would Zimmerman Obama himself -- as the best, most thorough way to clear his name once and for all.

[narciso]

Well there's a touch of irony there, TK, recall the pressure that Klein and co, went
through in tracking snippets of Obama's trail,
but these are the same folks who confidently vouch for terrorist detained at Gitmo, even
after they've blown up something.

[Threadkiller]

The kind of irony that helps me sleep well.

Goodnight narciso

[narciso]

Yes, they only want a trial, why do you ask, in the LUN.

[Stephanie]

Caro and anyone else who is curious:

I checked with K to find out who the libs are doing their papers on and got back the following:

MLK
Princess Di
Bono
Sean Penn
George Clooney
Rosie O'Donnell

LOL.

She said she figured she'd text me for a 'real' choice as these were some of the offerings provided by the Prof and jumped on by the sheep.

They were actually supposed to pick an advocate for SJ - not a victim as I thought, but y'all managed to come up with examples of those who actually operated from a real 'truth to power' so she got a two fer.

Well done JOMers! Woot!

BTW, the professor asked her not to get 'too graphic' in her PP presentation.

Can you imagine her reaction if K had said Gianna Jessen?

I think it might make her little head explode to find out that multi culti tolerance is a polished turd.

We are talking about a liberal mind, though, Oh, well. One can hope for change. ;)

Should I help find some pics for the PP presentation? :evil grin:

If Kevin Jenning's "Fisting for First Graders" is not porn but a teachable moment for tolerance then actual pics of FGM must be, too... and pics of victims of honor killings, stonings, beheadings and victims of necklacing... and pics of the Saudi school girls who burned alive because the Mutaween wouldn't let them out of a burning building in the alltogether without going back for their burkas first.

Wow! It feels good sticking it to the man!
Alinsky Rules! /60s Jane Fonda voice off

[Stephanie]

I must have missed it. Sorry, narc. H/T to you then. :)

[Stephanie]

Geek joke for daddy that K told me tonight...

How is a liberal like a mobius strip?

They are both non-orientable and have a ruled surface.

[bunkerbuster]

From Fox news interview with Zimmerman's father:
``In doing so, his firearm was shown. Trayvon Martin said something to the effect of 'you're going to die now,' or 'you're going to die tonight.' Or something to that effect. He continued to beat George and at some point George pulled his pistol and did what he did," Robert Zimmerman said.''
Hmmm. A physically fit teen is astride a middle-aged fat man he's just decked with a blow to the face. As he is pummeling the guy, he sees a firearm and, then, makes a death threat, but doesn't grab the gun. In fact, he then allows the guy he just cold-cocked and is now pummeling to grab the gun instead and fire it into his chest.
Possible/ Only in the sense that anything's possible. Plausible? Not by any means.
If Zimmerman's lawyers are letting his Dad say this stuff, you know they're extremely desperate to the point of grasping at straws.
The bottom line remains: anyone who shoots an unarmed teenager with an automatic handgun, then claims self-defense, has a LOT of explaining to do. Seems to me Papa Zimmerman's story spells doom for his son…

[bunkerbuster]

make that a semi-auto handgun.

[Gus]

It's amazing what a LIBTARD like ButtBuster will come up with.
It's also sad.
Liberalism is so dysfunctional, and people like ButtBuster will believe AND concoct all sorts of silly bullsh!t for ego's sake.
Dan Rather is on Rachel Maddow's show.

WOW. HOW SAD.

[bunkerbuster]

Thanks Gus, each of us contributes what we can to the discussion...

[Jane (Bad says Obama sucks)]

I really don't get your " probable cause" argument Bubu. Could you flesh it out for us?

[Lightwave]

Let me see if I have this straight.

The same folks that dismiss questions about the President's birth certificate as ridiculous and even racist have no problem believing an entire American police department (of unionized local government employees no less) conspired in a massive cover up of the death of one black teenager who had been suspended from school multiple times, at least once on drug-related stuff.

And people wonder why liberalism is viewed by a majority of Americans as a mental deficiency.

[Jane (Where is Jon Corzine?)]

Good point Lightwave.

[Cecil Turner]

And why that seems like too much for those devastated, heartbroken, anguished parents to expect, is really totally beyond my comprehension.

Yes, but that's because you're convinced Zimmerman is guilty. And since the next step is proving that guilt, obviously a trial is necessary.

If there were any room in your mind for the mere possibility Zimmerman was, in fact, innocent, you'd recognize the witnesses and the physical evidence backing up his story--along with the presumption of innocence and burden of proof--make a conviction problematic at best. And a prosecutor who declines to spend millions on a lost cause might actually be on the right track.

[bunkerbuster]

Jane: What part don't you get? And for whom are you presuming to ask?

[Jane (Where is Jon Corzine?)]

Hey! It's PD's Birthday! Happy Birthday PD!

[Jane (Where is Jon Corzine?)]

Bubu: What facts constitute probable cause to you.

[Clarice]

HB , PD!!!

[henry]

HB PD!

[rse]

abc led last night with that zimmerman tape along with an audio interview of trayvon's very inarticulate girlfriend. He was supposedly on the phone with her complaining about zimmerman following him.

They also did a story laying out all the current benefits that would be lost if obamacare is struck down.

Oh and let everyone know robin roberts was doing a national dialogue on race and justice at 7 on abc radio.

Stephanie-the real problem with the social justice emphasis is less the college indoctrination of post-adolescents. It's making it the major criteria for the ed degree and the graduate degrees to be an administrator.

I really think that since that's the foundation for the Ed Leadership degree, we should be calling these principals and supers "comrade" instead of "doctor".

Doctor simply bolsters their authority to screw with the kids' minds. While living off OPM of course.

[Chubby]

((,,,as would Zimmerman himself -- as the best, most thorough way to clear his name once and for all.
))

The only outcome you will find acceptable from a trial is to have Z. found guilty of murdering an innocent child, because that is the only narrative you accept as true.

so why pretend otherwise?

[Jane (Where is Jon Corzine?)]

This is a great summary of liberals in general and why they were so shocked at what happened in the SC this week.

A taste: Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker and CNN confidently asserted on Charlie Rose at the beginning of the week that the court would rule 7-2, maybe even 8-1 in favor of ObamaCare. The previous week, he called the anti-ObamaCare arguments “really weak.”

His view was echoed by an equally confident op-ed assertion by the veteran court reporter Linda Greenhouse, who in The New York Times declared the case against ObamaCare “analytically so weak that it dissolves on close inspection.”

It was quite a change, then, to see Toobin emerge almost hysterical from the Supreme Court chamber after two hours of argument on Tuesday and declare the proceedings “a train wreck for the Obama administration.”

[Clarice]

Toobin should spend less time with his hairstylist and make up artist and more time reading Volokh. Had he done so he'd have seen how strong Andy Barnett's arguments were.

[pagar]

Happy Birthday, PD!

[Rob Crawford]

Probable cause?! Who fed you those words, bubu? They didn't do you any favors.

Reality: in Florida it's legal to use lethal force to defend yourself if you're in fear for your life. There is no evidence that Zimmerman did anything that would invalidate self defense, and there is evidence that he was attackked. He therefore did not commit a crime, and we generally frown on arresting people who did not commit a crime.

Yes, it was a tragedy. But not every tragedy requires someone go to prison.

[Michael]

I take it then, that the Eric "Let's pardon Marc Rich" Holder Justice Department has STILL NOT begun an investigation into the NBPP's call to kidnap George Zimmerman and do God knows what to him.

Probably no chance they would see their raising of funds for a bounty as part of a conspiracy to kidnap, eh ?

[Captain Hate]

Bubu: What facts constitute probable cause to you.

The identity imbecile doesn't understand what a "fact" is so your question has confused it. A better question is if it would support Zimmerman if he was in the country illegally.

HP PD

[Captain Hate]

I meant HB PD

[Janet]

Happy Birthday, PD!!!

[NK]

Clarice-- Toobin would also be better served by not fornicating with collegues' young daughters, impregnanting them and saying "adios". He's a pig.

[centralcal]

Happy birthday, PD.

So Michelle and her daughters are vacationing again: Mount Rushmore, S.D. and Las Vegas.

[Threadkiller]

Happy birthday PD!

[Threadkiller]

I think Michelle's secret service code name is "reparations".

[narciso]

Happy birthday, PD

[Jane (Where is Jon Corzine?)]

Had he done so he'd have seen how strong Andy Barnett's arguments were.

I thought the whole thing was shocking. I brought it up on the air this morning and Dick was sure he was just spinning in advance. I am completely sure he wasn't.

[PD]

Wow, thanks folks!

[Porchlight]

Happy birthday, PD! March birthdays are the best. :)

[Clarice]

Well, Jane, Dick probably thought we were just spinning when we said the law was a stinker.
New thread BTW.

[Stephanie]

Stephanie-the real problem with the social justice emphasis is less the college indoctrination of post-adolescents. It's making it the major criteria for the ed degree and the graduate degrees to be an administrator.

They are an education school for WV... QED

[Kathy Kattenburg]

"It's relevant because your political allies are raising money to have him kidnapped."

I hadn't heard about that. Can you provide a link to a reasonably credible source, please?

who had not been doing anything to justify being followed other than walking through an apartment community while being black

"Is that a fact? I ask because you seem to consider it established while we're still in the pre-trial phase."

I think it's reasonable to call it a fact, unless you are questioning the legitimacy of the tape recording George Zimmerman's call to 911.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

Additional to my reply to bgates: Also, we are not in "the pre-trial phase" because George Zimmerman has not been arrested or charged with any crime. He's just an ordinary regular citizen like you and me right now. You can't have a pre-trial phase when there isn't going to be any trial.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

"Yes, bring the power of the state down on the unfortunate man whom my son was pounding into the concrete."

There is no factual evidence that Treyvon Martin was doing that, and given the facts we have to date, there is no logical or rational reason to believe that Treyvon Martin was doing that.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

Bunkerbuster: I read your comment and felt such a flood of relief that someone who comments at this blog has some common sense.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

"Yes, but that's because you're convinced Zimmerman is guilty. And since the next step is proving that guilt, obviously a trial is necessary."

I'm convinced there's enough undisputed factual evidence to justify an arrest, charges, and a trial. Whatever I believe or don't believe about Zimmerman's guilt is irrelevant to my sense of compassion for his parents and horror at what they're going through right now. And whatever I believe or don't believe about Zimmerman's guilt is irrelevant to his legal innocence until proved guilty, which can only be established by having a trial by jury.

That's the point here. A 26-year-old man who had appointed himself as a security guard followed and accosted an unarmed 17-year-old teenager and shot him dead. You say he did it in justifiable self-defense, which is not supported by the facts as we know them, but aside from that, the question of whether Zimmerman acted in self-defense is precisely the issue that must be determined, legally, and the only way to do that is by having a trial.

[sbw]

Stephanie, you say your daughter's class had to find an advocated for social justice and one chose [snicker] George Clooney. She can feed this blog entry of mine to her prof if she has the brass: Good night, modern liberalism. It fisks Clooney.

You cannot fairly advocate for anything if you lie.

Nor can you fairly advocate for anything if you bullsh*t -- the difference being that with a lie, you care about truth or falsity.

[Patriot4Freedom]

Kathy K -

In response to "It's relevant because your political allies are raising money to have him kidnapped."... you said that "I hadn't heard about that. Can you provide a link to a reasonably credible source, please?"
Claiming to be unaware of the NBPP's so-called "bounty" is simply beyond any semblance of credibility.

"There is no factual evidence that... (and)there is no logical or rational reason to believe that Treyvon [sic] Martin was (pounding a man into the concrete)."
I guess two witnesses who spoke to the police, and GZ's claim, does not constitute factual evidence to you, right?

"I'm convinced there's enough undisputed factual evidence to justify an arrest, charges, and a trial."
Yet, you apparently dispute the accounts of Trayvon beating Zimmerman, the witness accounts, the police report, and the treatment given GZ by the paramedics.

"Zimmerman's legal innocence... can only be established by having a trial by jury."
You apparently do not understand the fundamental premise of our criminal justice system, in that he remains legally innocent UNTIL proven guilty at trial.

"A 26-year-old... followed and accosted an unarmed 17-year-old teenager and shot him dead. You say he did it in justifiable self-defense, which is not supported by the facts as we know them"...
You say he accosted TM, not justifiably, yet you have NO evidence to support that allegation, which is central to your claim that he did not act in self defense. TM's own girlfriend admits that Trayvon initiated the contact with GZ that night. You then dismiss the witness testimony that does not comport with your preconceived viewpoint.

And finally, "whether Zimmerman acted in self-defense is precisely the issue that must be determined, legally, and the only way to do that is by having a trial."
You are also apparently unaware that prosecutors make determinations like that EVERY DAY throughout the country WITHOUT going to trial. They analyze the evidence, confirm the testimony to be had, and consult the law to determine if they can legitimately prosecute a prospective defendant. I'm sorry, but that is our system of law, however much you appear to be willing to subvert it.