George Zimmerman Acquitted on All Charges!

[jordan179]

A great moment for American criminal justice today, as George Zimmerman was acquitted on all charges in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, despite the obvious attempt, orchestrated from the White House and US Justice Department, to convict Zimmerman as a political maneuver.  George Zimmerman walks free, now able to recoup the money he was forced

Comments

[polaris93]

Saw something today on HuffPost that the White House and Eric Holder are going to try pressing federal charges against Zimmerman. That's double jeapordy, but Obama doesn't care.

[mrmeval]

The priests of the supCt have ruled it is not oh hallowed be the priests.

[akilika]

Wish I knew where my schoolbooks were for this one--but I believe double jeopardy doesn't obtain when speaking of (for instance) different states with jurisdiction over the same murder. It doesn't seem like it'd be a stretch for the federal to be able to do the same.

(The case cited in question of this, in my books, was a man who'd hired hitmen to kill his wife; they kidnapped her in (I think) Alabama, then brought her to (again, I think) Florida do to do the deed. The fact that the one state (which didn't have the death penalty) had convicted didn't prevent the other from trying its own case.)

(Reading all the "I thinks"... dang, I REALLY wish I even remembered which textbook that had been in...)

[kalance]

Double Jeopardy within a single jurisdiction definitely doesn't extend to criminal verses civil trials. Zimmerman won the criminal case; so until new evidence is brought to light, he's safe. BUT he CAN still be tried for the same incident in a civil(eg: wrongful death) suit. Case in point: OJ Simpson; who was found not guilty at trial, but still had to pay out the nose when he lost the follow-up civil case.

And I believe that the case the DoJ is looking to bring against Zimmerman is a civil one. Something about "violating Martin's civil rights" or some such.

[akilika]

That's always made sense to me--civil charges very rarely cover exactly the same territory as criminal charges (even remarkably similar criminal charges can be found to be different enough that they can both obtain), and civil charges have a different standard of proof regardless (preponderance of the evidence versus beyond a reasonable doubt.)

Also, the clause specifically mentions that a man cannot be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; I think civil court entirely is found to be outside of that.

So... yeah. Speaking not at all to the present circumstance (I would need to know a little more about the proposed civil charge, but I doubt I'd support the application), the process seems legit.

[polaris93]

You know more than I do. But it still galls me that Obama & Co. are still using this incident to play to the mob.

[akilika]

In total agreement on that one!