NAACP to petition the DoJ over Zimmerman verdict

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


ill ask the question even thought i know it will get me flack,would federal charges even be forthcoming if bush were still in office? are they more likely to suceed just because obama is in office.....things to ponder while we get bombarded with the racial issue over and over

reply to post by parkwoods21


Can you please explain just what that picture is and is supposed to mean?

We're not talking theory on this thread. This is actually HAPPENING. I'd prefer it wasn't, but these people...the NAACP...they aren't buffoons in a storefront office. If they demand something be done then SOME degree of action is GOING to happen. I just hope the report above mine here is in error in saying Obama has already made that phone call I mentioned ....and gotten it started.

reply to post by RalagaNarHallas

I'm not sure it would be any different between Bush and Obama, to be honest. Bush wouldn't have fanned the flames at the start...but then, other things happened during his Presidency that didn't require his comments to get totally out of hand.

If the same pressure were applied with the same political power some of that carries today? I think Bush may well do about the same thing for political expediency. Look at what he did to shaft the Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean. Politics ...and he was willing to hang people for it too.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


When will the NAACP fight for GZ's civil rights?

Ohhhh wait the NAACP only helps black people even though the "CP" stands for colored people. George Zimmerman is Hispanic and colored people should mean anything but white.

You're looking at this very differently than I am. I've never seen this as a racial thing, even if some of the outside interests do. Even at this point, if it proceeds on a federal criminal civil rights path, I'm not going to cry race. It's federal over-reach to feed special interest/political pressure. Same game, different player and about the typical short end for the normal person.

Hopefully, again, that one report is wrong. That would be good news to hear Obama isn't even considering, let alone doing such a thing as ordering those charges be pursued.

They'd better quit while they still have ONE shred of credibility left! Choosing worthy causes is the hallmark of healthy civil rights activism. Picking on an innocent man who was proven to be only defending himself is offensive to the thinking populace.

Give it up, NAACP. You lost. Pick up your toys and go home pouting.

So black right groups who say they want a " end to raceism" are stirring up trouble a tensions that could be passed on to another generation. Real smart....

Who elect these morons to be their spokeman anyway? If i was black I would not want anyone speaking on my behalf except me let alone these racist morons.

black Raceism at least where i live is going the way of the dinosours, there still a way to go but its dying, the only people who are keeping it alive and breathing life into it is people like those in the NAACP.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.

(Emphasis by me)
Source: FBI Civil Rights Statutes as Enforced

If that law is interpreted in that way, then it truly opens up a Pandora’s Box. If that is the way the law is going to be functionally used, then it is blatantly unconstitutional and needs to be struck down.

Because anyone that is in a position of legal authority, no mater by what means, would fall under that law. That even means a simple property owner, or home owner.

Remember, the authority of a private security guard is derived from the rights of the property owner on his own property. The property owner has a right to keep watch over his property and to deny entrance to people that he doesn’t want to be on the property. He can exercise that authority himself, or he can delegate it to trusted individuals. A private security guard gains his authority through the property owner’s authority. He has no abilities above what the property owner has. He can make a citizens arrest like any other person.

If the private security guard can be prosecuted by exercising legal authority that is a subset of the property owners legal authority. Then the property owner can definitely be prosecuted for exercising his full authority under the rule of law.

Let that sink in for a second. Everyone has authority of some type granted to them by the rule of law. In some way, shape, or form. The laws are there to protect the authority you derive from your constitutional rights

That means that you have the right to do things under the law, unless the people at the top do not like the way you are using your rights. They don’t have the ability to change the individual laws, so they get around it by saying you are liable to a higher authority if you dare to operate under authority of the laws that protect your rights.

Let me say it another way.

The reason those laws were put in place was to protect your constitutional rights. If you exercise that authority granted by the law that is derived from the constitution, then you open yourself up to prosecution. Thus, they are arbitrarily undercutting your constitutional right.

So, they are trying to protect people’s civil rights, unless it’s civil rights they don’t agree with.

It is absolute garbage that Obama and Holder will not drop this. If checks and balances were in place this could not happen, instead we have an executive branch that does what they want to fulfill their agenda. Gun control being one of their agendas, look at all the posts that call for an end to Stand Your Ground as a result of this. They got their trial and the jury made the right call. Anyone who weighed the facts and evidence with an open mind agrees with the verdict.

No doubt racism played a major role, that is blacks who are racist against everyone else. Where is the outrage when a black man shoots a black teen?

There is no evidence that Zimmerman profiled Martin because of his skin color. However police frequently profile people because of their skin, yet the NAACP does little to address that reality.

Zimmerman was found not guilty by a jury, the case should be closed.

reply to post by Mr Tranny

Remember, the authority of a private security guard is derived from the rights of the property owner on his own property. The property owner has a right to keep watch over his property and to deny entrance to people that he doesn’t want to be on the property. He can exercise that authority himself, or he can delegate it to trusted individuals.

That is precisely what I was looking through Statute law to find and had a cold feeling when I did. How low did the definition go? You're absolutely right. A Security Guard has absolutely no authority or power beyond that of the land owner or business he's representing on their property. Which, as you note, means the property owner or business manager themselves could be held to the same standards as they are interchangeable for the rights and authority either has to exercise.

It's a very disturbing bit of wording and phrase to be a part of that and really bothers me a lot. Where would that have left me if I had to account for use of force during the time I was a Safety volunteer with Occupy STL? We won't even talk more about that after reading that little gem of a definition. I don't think it's entirely wise to.... Terrible way we have to think, isn't it?

So much for double jeopardy. I get the legal distinctions and technical lines they have for this not falling under it ...but it blows the spirit of the law and Constitutional meaning all to hell and back, doesn't it?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


That is the problem with how a law is functionally implemented vs how it’s written.

The law may be written in a harmless way, but is functionally applied in a way that the people that agreed to it could have never imagined.

It’s like going after someone for breaking one law, and if failing that, you go after them for breaking another law that has the same sentence.

If the government had a record of fully implementing, and enforcing both laws, then there would be nothing sinister about that. But…… If law #2 was almost never enforced, except on the rare occasion that they could not win a conviction against the person for law #1, then the functional implementation, and enforcement, of those two laws becomes the functional equivalent of double jeopardy.

They never go after someone for breaking law #2 except for when they fail to win a prosecution for law #1 when they “Truly believe he is guilty of breaking law #1” So they punish him for breaking law #1 via the proxy of law #2

That is the primary danger of all of these rarely enforced and commonly broken laws on the books. They make the system ripe for abuse when the person prosecuting the case “believes you should be punished” for a crime he believes you committed. Even though the jury found you innocent.

That is because there is very few people in this country that have managed to avoid breaking some strange and arcane law because of shear ignorance, or disregard. When you break that rarely enforced law, it opens you up to retribution if something happens a year or two down the road and they want to hold you liable for it. if they can’t hold you directly liable for it, then they hold you liable via proxy by going after the rarely used law you did break a year or two ago. While all the other people that break that same law on a daily basis are never punished for it.

That at best becomes the functional equivalent of double jeopardy. At worst, it allows them to use the law to prosecute people who are totally innocent of breaking the specified law via proxy charges.

Originally posted by parkwoods21
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

This should settle that.

edit on 14-7-2013 by parkwoods21 because: (no reason given)

It should. But it won't.

It's going to be interesting how they are going to parse it all to their wishes. I think the jury got it right, but that Zimmerman did a bad thing. Of course, killing anyone is a bad thing.....but that doesn't make it a crime every time it happens. He was acquitted of all charges, that should suffice. But the race card will now be played in an attempt to make someone's civil rights of more worth than another's.

As to the authority, that might be dicey. He was a volunteer within a volunteer organization. Usually these things have very few, if any rules. If you have no rules within an organization, how can you be held to a standard? You really can't, or at least shouldn't. He acted as a volunteer, therefore on his own authority only. And he was acquitted as a private citizen, therefore the case should be over.

reply to post by Zaanny


A certain O.J. Simpson comes to mind.

I wonder just how many people realize that Zimmerman is of:

a family that his father has described as "multiracial;" his father is a white American of German descent and his mother is Peruvian with some black ancestry through her Afro-Peruvian maternal grandfather.

Yeah, it was about race....

reply to post by Ameilia


Well said Ameila.

Whether I agree or disagree with the verdict is irrelevant and has no bearing on the fact that if Federal charges are brought against Zimmerman, a very dangerous precedent will be set by the justice system and this slippery slope has far reaching implications.

Many cite the fact that the officers in the Rodney King incident faced Federal charges, let me share some knowledge:

After the riots, the United States Department of Justice reinstated the investigation and obtained an indictment of violations of federal civil rights against the four officers in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The federal trial focused more on the evidence as to the training of officers instead of just relying on the videotape of the incident. On March 9 of the 1993 trial, King took the witness stand and described to the jury the events as he remembered them. The jury found Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon guilty, and they were subsequently sentenced to 32 months in prison, while Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno were acquitted of all charges.

During the three-hour sentencing hearing, the Federal trial judge, John Davies, accepted much of the defense version of the beating. He strongly criticized King, who he said provoked the officers' initial actions.
Judge Davies stated that only the final six or so baton blows by Powell were unlawful. The first 55 seconds of the videotaped portion of the incident, during which the vast majority of the blows were delivered, was within the law because the officers were attempting to subdue a suspect who was resisting efforts to take him into custody.
King's provocative behavior began with his "remarkable consumption of alcoholic beverage" and continued through a high-speed chase, refusal to submit to police orders and an aggressive charge toward Powell.

Davies made several findings in support of the officers' version of events. He concluded that Officer Powell never intentionally struck King in the head, and "Powell's baton blow that broke King's leg was not illegal because King was still resisting and rolling around on the ground, and breaking bones in resisting suspects is permissible under police policy."

Mitigation cited by the judge in determining the length of the prison sentence included the suffering the officers had undergone because of the extensive publicity their case had received, the impending loss of their careers as police officers, their vulnerability to abuse in prison and their having been subjected to two trials.

The judge acknowledged that having two such trials did not legally constitute double jeopardy, but nonetheless it "raised the specter of unfairness."

Source: en.wikipedia.org...

According to Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz

“In general, the Justice Department does not investigate civil rights violations committed by one individual against another unless that individual works for the state or federal government,” Dershowitz said.

Dershowitz continued that “George Zimmerman can’t really alone violate the civil rights of an individual even if he were to be guilty of the crime.”

Source: www.theblaze.com...

It is also critical to highlight the following:
FBI records: agents found no evidence that Zimmerman was racist
Source: www.mcclatchydc.com...

After interviewing nearly three dozen people in the George Zimmerman murder case, the FBI found no evidence that racial bias was a motivating factor in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, records released Thursday show.

Even the lead detective in the case, Sanford Det. Chris Serino, told agents that he thought Zimmerman profiled Trayvon because of his attire and the circumstances — but not his race.

Setting a precedent where if many disagree with a verdict forces Federal criminal litigation is very dangerous and goes against the foundation of our system of justice and the Constitution.

reply to post by Gazrok


I've always felt that if folks insist on calling Zimmerman White or White-Hispanic, they should apply the same standards to President Obama who under their logic is White or White-African-American...

Originally posted by NickDC202
reply to post by Ameilia

 

...Whether I agree or disagree with the verdict is irrelevant and has no bearing on the fact that if Federal charges are brought against Zimmerman, a very dangerous precedent will be set by the justice system and this slippery slope has far reaching implications.
...
...According to Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz

“In general, the Justice Department does not investigate civil rights violations committed by one individual against another unless that individual works for the state or federal government,” Dershowitz said.
...Dershowitz continued that “George Zimmerman can’t really alone violate the civil rights of an individual even if he were to be guilty of the crime.”

Excellent contribution/s NickDC202...
As Always!