Liberal Dershowitz demolishes Zimmerman prosecution

Dave
Workman

5-20-12

After writing in the New
York Daily News that murder charges should be dropped
against George Zimmerman in the slaying of Trayvon Martin, liberal
law professor and author Alan
Dershowitz appeared on Fox News to reiterate his disgust for
Zimmerman’s prosecution by Florida State Attorney Angela Corey.

Dershowitz’ remarks shore up many observations from Northwest
gun rights and self-defense activists. While the Northwest
Firearms forum discusses how anti-gunners have withheld evidence,
Gun
Rights Media is continuing its poll on Zimmerman’s chances.
Seattle
Guns and WaGuns
members are also still talking about the case.

After writing in the New
York Daily News that murder charges should be dropped
against George Zimmerman in the slaying of Trayvon Martin, liberal
law professor and author Alan
Dershowitz appeared on Fox News to reiterate his disgust for
Zimmerman’s prosecution by Florida State Attorney Angela Corey.

Dershowitz’ remarks shore up many observations from Northwest
gun rights and self-defense activists. While the Northwest
Firearms forum discusses how anti-gunners have withheld evidence,
Gun
Rights Media is continuing its poll on Zimmerman’s chances.
Seattle
Guns and WaGuns
members are also still talking about the case.

As this column noted here
and here,
the case against Zimmerman is crumbling because of newly-released
evidence that Zimmerman had sustained a beating in his confrontation
with Martin. While Stand-Your-Ground (SYG) does not appear to have a
connection to this case — leaving anti-self-defense lobbyists
tilting at windmills — Dershowitz has presented a strong case for
Zimmerman’s actions. At the same time, he has slammed Corey for
having “a terrible reputation in Florida for always overcharging.”

“She was aware when she submitted an affidavit that it
did not contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
She deliberately withheld evidence that supported Zimmerman’s claim
of self-defense. The New York Times has reported that the police had
“a full face picture” of Zimmerman, before paramedics treated
him, that showed “a bloodied nose.” The prosecutor also had
photographic evidence of bruises to the back of his head.

But none of this was included in any affidavit.

Now there is much more extensive medical evidence that
would tend to support Zimmerman’s version of events. This version,
if true, would establish self-defense even if Zimmerman had
improperly followed, harassed and provoked Martin.

A defendant, under Florida law, loses his “stand your
ground” defense if he provoked the encounter — but he retains
traditional self-defense if he reasonably believed his life was in
danger and his only recourse was to employ deadly force.”—Alan
Dershowitz in the New York Daily News

Some pundits are already suggesting that as the case against
Zimmerman falls apart, the social groundwork for civil unrest as a
result — a’la the Rodney King riots — may be building.

Firing back at Dershowitz in the Daily
Beast, Cleveland’s Mansfield Frazier, a former newspaper
editor known for his anti-gun zeal, launched a diatribe not only
attacking the distinguished legal scholar but, naturally, the
firearms community. Indeed, his Sunday rant seems designed more to
blame the National Rifle Association for Martin’s death than
Zimmerman, while essentially insisting that a show trial is necessary
for justice to be served in the Florida slaying.

At heart, this case is really about the type of society
some want to have versus the one the National Rifle Association wants
to foist on an unsuspecting public. Just imagine for a minute that
Trayvon Martin was an adult instead of a juvenile; further, that he
was licensed to carry a concealed weapon; and still further, that he
had a gun on his person when Zimmerman approached him. Under “Stand
Your Ground” laws Martin could have just as easily shot and killed
Zimmerman instead, and (if not for the fact he was black, and that
laws—when race enters into the picture—have been applied
unequally in this country for centuries) he then could have made the
same self-defense claim. Under this type of Wild West mentality
fistfights can (and will) escalate into murders.

Nonetheless, more laws are being proposed in some states
to allow concealed weapons to be carried into bars, schools, and
public buildings, all in the name of creating a safer society.

According to a study published in the prestigious
American Journal of Epidemiology, however, “Those persons with guns
in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home
of dying from a homicide in the home …”

…Many gun nuts brag about how they could blow someone
away and sleep like babies, and for some of them that’s the gospel
truth. But for others (even case-hardened soldiers and police
officers) once they’ve taken the life of another human being
they’re forever changed—and not for the better. And there’s
really no way to know in advance how a person will be
affected.”—Mansfield Frazier

As this column has maintained since the beginning, anti-gunners
have tried to capitalize on the Martin killing to attack SYG laws,
which they despise.

Many in the firearms community are convinced that the
second-degree murder charge was filed against Zimmerman solely for
political appeasement, and Dershowitz is now making this a very
public battle.

How this new development will shake out in the week leading up to
Memorial Day could be very interesting. It may provide another
diversion from suspiciously rising gasoline prices in the West, and
the stagnant, if not crumbling economy that the Obama administration
knows will doom its re-election hopes as fast as the case against
Zimmerman now appears to be falling apart.