Steve Benson for July 11, 2013

“Utter bunk here. Google a CURRENT picture of poor lil Trayvon and tell me he doesn’t look like a thug.”It doesn’t matter if he looked like the scariest thug on Earth. It doesn’t change the fact that Zimmerman was expressly told to stay in his car. He disobeyed those orders, pursued an unarmed teen 1/2 his size, and then shot him.

Even if he’s found guilty, he’ll have grounds for an appeal because of his incompetent defense attorney. I mean, really, telling a bad joke in his opening statement……then again, good planning – maybe he’s not so stupid, after all!

Sure, in your mind it’s OK to create a hostile situation and then shoot anyone you provoke. If Zimmereman is the epitome of the “stand your ground” law, everyone in Florida is at risk of being shot where ever they are.

I would hope George Zimmerman will at least serve time for manslaughter. As incompetently as the trial seems to be run, the jury should at least be allowed to rule that it was his actions that led to Trayvon Martin’s death. He needs to be held accountable for that.

It’s quite possible that the jury will find that there’s insufficient evidence to find Zimmerman guilty of second-degree murder, and possible that they will acquit entirely. We shall see. But beyond this particular case, can we agree that Martin would be alive today and Zimmerman wouldn’t be on trial for murder if he hadn’t been carrying a gun?

Martin, who was doing nothing wrong, was being pursued by an armed man. He was Martin you could claim self-defense under the stand-your-ground law of Florida.

God forbid I ever go ‘round your neighborhood on a day I don’t shave properly. You’d just shoot me because I LOOK like a thug? Really?Are you paying any attention to this at all?

So why was Zimmerman carrying a firearm in this neighborhood? Vigilante thinking? I’m glad our neighborhood watch folks only observe and call proper authorities when something is suspicious. This should have been a manslaughter case.

Not one note. He still followed Martin around, disobeyed an order, and confronted him. I still find it dubious that he was getting back in his car – but no witnesses so who can say. In any case, Zimmerman wasn’t taking an innocent stroll down the street; Martin was, and Zimmerman accosted him. So essentially, he was doing exactly what you claim Zimmerman was, so Martin had the right to defend himself with deadly force? As much as I don’t like the idea of the Big Brother style video surveillance like they have in London, that is the only thing that could actually prove or disprove Zimmerman’s claims.My main point is still this – Zimmerman made a decision that ultimately led to another person’s death at his hands.

Zimmerman had no right to do anything other than call the police and report a suspicious person. Had he done that, Martin would have either allowed the police to question him, or bolted, vindicating Zimmerman’s suspicions. What makes you believe he got out of the car in a non-confrontational manner? I get followed by someone, I would have had the police on the phone the moment that door opened, but I’m not a black teen who may or may not have a sketchy past. Zimmerman is not a cop. He overstepped his bounds by confronting a suspect on the street, and it resulted in said person’s death. Why do Republicans and conservatives harp on personal responsibility, except in this case? Let Zimmerman be a man and accept responsibility for causing the death of a kid?

Zimmerman had a couple of prior brushes with lawenforcement , even shoved an officer in one instance.His wife had a restraining order against him ( he counteredby getting a restraining order against her – citizen of the yearhere, folks ). So would it be likely that this guy would have a chip on hisshoulder and tragically misjudge Trayvon Martin as a“suspicious character "? Would someone with Zimmerman’sbackground be likely to ignore a 911 operator who toldhim something he obviously didn’t want to hear ?There was definitely a right of self defense that came into play here – Trayvon Martin’s . Zimmerman had the gun andthe chip on his shoulder. Martin had a can of iced tea and abag of candy.

Watched more of the trial than necessary to question the competence of all the attorneys a bit. The defense wonks would have been hilarious, if their client’s guilt wasn’t so obvious from the police reports, let alone testimony. I was reminded of a trial I sat on as a juror. The prosecution had a rather weak case for assault as opposed to “self defense”. Then the DEFENSE called a witness, a friend of the accused, who had to be released from jail where he was serving an assault charge penalty. HE testified the guy had four people to back him up as he started the fight, then he backed the victim against the bar, and bit his nose off! The DEFENSE testimony convicted the guy, kinda’ like Zimmerman.

BTW, AFTER the trial, we found out this was the fourth time the guy had started a fight and bitten his victim, He had been a weight class wrestling state champion three times btw, and was hardly “defenseless”. Also, one of the people he’d bitten was an 88 pound girl, and the other was a cop trying to arrest and handcuff him after he’d committed another assault.

The parallels to the Zimmerman case, are startlling.

I wish people wouldn’t try these cases in public. A friend of mine who is an experienced trial lawyer told me once that it’s almost impossible for those who are outside of the courtroom to have a good idea of what goes on inside the courtroom. As bystanders we are very likely to interpret what little we do hear according to our prejudices. We’ve got a judge and a jury, let them do their job and hope they do it well.

They could have had the greatest attorneys in the universe to handle this “case,” and they still wouldn’t have been able to prove Zimmerman’s guilt—since there WAS NO PROOF. Benson is a mindless drone with an easel.

I didn’t realize Zimmerman was so large, or is that some type of hate thing?