When Rachel Jeantel says 'cracker,' it's a cultural thing...

[WACF]

Your experiences and how you handle them is what you become.


I think Elvis' point may be more towards regardless of history...we are told to treat everyone equally.

Therefore...we should all be treated equally....but there are double standards.

Easy for me to say....I live on the prairies....I grew up in a white town.

At the same time I have experienced situations where me being a white male was a disadvantage...but I always had options.

My wife has experienced losing job postings due to her being white...preference given to First Nations...regardless of Union Seniority or Job Qualifications.

I do not hold a grudge against First Nations who slaughtered some of my French relatives over 300 years ago...I also do not hold a grudge against the British who treated my Irish relatives like garbage building Eastern Canada.

So....life is not always fair.


But....I will share one story with no real point.

In Mexico last year on a zip line excursion.

Very long line up going up the tower...slow moving.

Everybody is laughing having a good time....Mexicans, Canadians, American's, Europeans.

Hot as hell....everybody is thirsty.

A kid drops a water bottle...everybody makes jokes about jumping on it.

One middle aged guy yelled out N..... pile.

It got very quiet and awkward...he realized there was a negative reaction.

Did not even cross his mind that there where Blacks from various nations in the crowd when he opened his mouth.

I think as a whole....people are getting better....years ago there would have been laughter.

Eventually the fun started again but he stayed low key....for the most part nobody included him...message sent.

There will always be an asshole in the crowd.

[ELVIS]

Of course you would, but as usual you'd be wrong. The term has no power, nor 400-year history of oppression behind it. It's a false equivalence, and a stupid assertion.

jfail...

Keeping racism alive...

[Von Halen]

This is why racial epithets used against me don't upset me

Sesh, somebody called you a ******?

[Anonymous]

Sesh, somebody called you a ******?

What's ******? ******?

Cheers!

[Anonymous]

Oh, grate. Now noone will know what I asked.

Thanks a lot for the biased censorship, you wetback faggot chink honkey spic injun frogs crackers.

Cheers!

[ELVIS]

Dobber isn't a racial epithet...

[Anonymous]

Dobber isn't a racial epithet...

No, but ****** is.

Cheers!

[Anonymous]

It's auto-censorship!!!

What fags.

Cheers!

[ELVIS]

****'* ******* ******...

****** !!

[PETE'S BROTHER]

It's auto-censorship!!!

What fags.

Cheers!

sperm burpin', butt fuckin' fags?

[Anonymous]

sperm burpin', butt fuckin' fags?

Wetback spic drunken Irish kilt wearing cheapskate Scots cracker honkey chink cowardly frogs dago FAGS!

Cheers!

[jhale667]

The 800-pound elephant in the Sanford courtroom

There is an 800-pound elephant sitting in the courtroom at the George Zimmerman trial. The elephant sits stoically throughout much of the testimony.

Stoically, that is, except when a witness is asked to pick him out in a crowed courtroom; he stands proud as a peacock as if to say: “Hey, look over here, I’m over here, don’t you see me. I’m the one you came into court to talk about today,” then escapes back into his stoic stare.

There was even one brief moment this week when the 800-pound elephant came out of his stupor long enough to laugh out loud in court.

His college professor jokingly justified the actions of Zimmerman when he stated that a person should not wait until an attacker has almost killed them before resorting to deadly force to defend themselves from the attacker. The elephant laughed out loud in front of the parents of Trayvon Martin.

George Zimmerman is the 800-pound elephant, not fully grown but who thinks he is, looming over this trial. He is protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. This amendment prohibits the state from calling Mr. Zimmerman to the witness stand.

Although the jury in this case has heard his voice on audio tape recordings, seen him on video being interviewed by Sean Hannity, and seen his handwritten report of what happened the night he shot Trayvon Martin to death, it may never hear him in open court speak about why he did what he did when he encountered Martin walking in his neighborhood on Feb. 26, 2012.

However, Zimmerman, as any criminal defendant, can waive his rights under the Fifth Amendment and testify on his own behalf. Many legal commentators believe he will not waive this right and will use the Constitution as a shield to protect him from lead prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda.

Legal scholars who hold to this position believe that the state has introduced into evidence the various statements mentioned above. Therefore, Zimmerman’s account of what happened that night has already been placed into the record. That position is buttressed by the fact these statements are self-serving, in that they paint Zimmerman’s position in the most favorable light.

I no longer practice law, but when I did, I had a rather vigorous criminal defense practice. Following the successful or unsuccessful defense of a prosecution, I would seek out members of the jury and ask them what the main factor was in their decision to vote for acquittal? If the defendant had testified in the case, I often heard them say: “I believed your client when he said he did not do it.”

In cases where the defendant testified and the defendant was found guilty, I would often have jurors tell me: “Mr. Harvey, we just did not believe your client.”

Then, there were the bulk of my criminal cases, when I would not put the defendant on the witness stand. If the jury came back with a guilty verdict, almost always, one of the jurors with bowed head, would say, “I wish we could have heard from your client, Mr. Harvey.”

They would put their heads down because they knew they had taken an oath not to hold against the defendant the fact that he had evoked his rights under the Fifth Amendment.

In the above snapshot from my experiences, the jurors usually had not heard the defendant speak by way of the type of evidence that is before the Zimmerman jury. What motivated my clients was a mystery.

One could argue that it is not clear from the evidence what exactly Zimmerman was thinking during the time he decided to report Martin’s presence in the neighborhood until the first officer arrived upon the scene. And the only person who can clear up the discrepancies is the defendant, George Zimmerman.

When the dust settles on the prosecution’s case this weekend, lawyers Mark O’Mara and Don West will have to take into account this 800-pound elephant sitting and laughing in the courtroom.

He looms ominously over these proceedings, and although his words have been placed into evidence, the jury’s unconscious appetite to hear the defendant speak out loud in court has not been satisfied.

Presumably, the jury now knows Zimmerman can laugh. I’m betting that all six also want to know if he can speak live in the courtroom.

[jhale667]

If jury acquits Zimmerman, should we blame the prosecution? Stunning last witness upset

As with any major tragedy or high-profile crime, several conspiracy theories are circulating about the George Zimmerman murder trial, and looking at the prosecution case this past week, I can understand why.

The state seemed hell-bent on fueling these theories, for the level of incompetence is so overwhelming that many will ask, are they trying to lose this case?

One of the most stunning upsets in the courtroom happened Friday with medical examiner Dr. Shiping Bao, who performed the autopsy on Trayvon Martin. The decision to put him on last as the state wrapped up its case is highly questionable, as one would have hoped the prosecution would end with the emotional testimony of Martin’s family members instead of a scientist—whose testimony tend to be cold and technically complicated.

But his performance on the stand is even more shocking. I think the prosecution thought the scientific evidence would be so compelling that leaving him as the last witness the jury heard would bolster or even seal their second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman.

And to be fair, the first part of his testimony was compelling, where he spoke of how 17-year-old Martin died from a single gunshot to the heart. He spoke of finding no blood on the teen’s hands or under his fingernails. He said there were also no abrasions on Martin’s body except a tiny cut on a finger on his left hand.

Martin was right-handed, so this would refute defendant Zimmerman’s claims that he shot Martin in self-defense because he was being beaten to death. Having only one tiny cut on his left finger also turns the defense claims of the killing being self-defense from the teen’s battering on its head.

It would also discount the then 28-year-old Zimmerman’s claims that 17-year-old Martin was smothering him by pressing his hands over his mouth and nose. Remember, Zimmerman had a bloody nose, and if Martin was responsible for punching him in the face, his hands should have been covered in the defendant’s blood.

Bao went on to explain what intermediary and intermediate meant in terms of how close Zimmerman was when he pulled the trigger that sent the deadly hollow-point bullet, meant to maximize fatal damage, through Martin’s chest. He gave Martin’s height as 72 inches and his body weight as 158 pounds.

Then a proverbial bomb exploded in the courtroom when defense attorney Don West asked him what he was reading from when he answered a question about memory. The medical examiner said it was his private notes, and West asked to see them.

This witness was clearly not pleased and refused. This opened up an avalanche of legal wrangling—all leaning in the defense’s favor. West must have felt giddy with excitement when he saw the medical examiner reading from private notes he and the prosecution weren’t privy to.

At this contentious point, Judge Debra Nelson sent the jury to lunch, for this was clearly a huge breach of courtroom rules. Which begs the question: Why did Bao come to court with personal notes without the prosecution knowing about it?

With his experience, shouldn’t he know better? More importantly, why didn’t the prosecution know that their key witness closing out their side of the argument had personal notes he was going to openly use, thus introduce to the court and the defense?

This brings up witness Rachel Jeantel and how painfully unprepared she was for the courtroom, adding to a common theme that has appeared to run throughout this trial thus far. The state seemed shockingly incompetent, the stuff of which heady dreams are made for any defense team.

After lunch, Bao returned to the stand for more awkward dueling with defense lawyer West, who picked apart his earlier testimony. Most of what he had said was swiftly dissected and what had seemed powerful before was slowly being diluted.

This is an epic disaster for the prosecution and a bonanza for Zimmerman’s defense, for West was handed a gift on a platter by the prosecution. He is now using Bao’s notes to throw him off kilter.

West has gotten the medical examiner to change his statement of Martin being alive 10 minutes after being shot through the heart and feeling pain, to the time being three minutes or less.

West has used Bao’s notes to get him to admit he had changed his opinion on traces of marijuana found in Martin not being a factor, to now conclude it may have affected his mental state.

This is a stunning upset for the state, for the jury will be left with this witness’s strong testimony disintegrating into a conflicting, bungling statements on cross-examination.

What was the prosecution thinking? This witness is acting like a greenhorn who has never set foot in a courtroom before. Moreover, where were all the vital questions about Zimmerman throughout the trial?

The defense also made heavy blunders, like when Mark O’Mara asked Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, if she hoped her dead child had not done anything to contribute to his death. Beating up on the victim’s mom is a clear-cut negative.

But the burden of proof rests on the prosecution, not the defense, and they needed to bring their A game at all times. All the defense needs to do is create reasonable doubt. Did the prosecution hand them that reasonable doubt?

Check out some of my questions here.

What do you think: Now that the state’s case has come to an end, did they convince you that neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin or did they fall short of that mark?

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Such a complex case, so many variables...

The more I watch, the more I think it'll be knocked down to manslaughter....

I'd be stunned, strictly based on the evidence presented to date, if he's convicted of 2nd degree murder.....

[ELVIS]