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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Does Constitution's double jeopardy ban protect Zimmerman?"

38 Comments -

1 – 38 of 38
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I suspect that Zimmerman will meet with some kind of unfortunate accident in custody.

That way the special prosecutor will be able to claim she brought him to justice and African Americans will be mollified.

Only whites will be unhappy, but they will damn well take what they are given.

4/11/12, 7:59 PM

Blogger AMac said...

As a technocratic aside, one of the selling points of tasers to city governments and PD brass is that they reduce disability and workman's comp claims. For cops, getting up close and personal with, um, energetic folks like Mr. King is fairly low on the Healthy Lifestyle Ideas list.

4/11/12, 8:09 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cinema is not dead. Top-notch. Bravo.

4/11/12, 8:11 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's what concerns me most: what jury member will return a "not guilty" verdict even if the evidence is weak after witnessing the violence, the threats, the calls for vengeance?

Jury members will always recall this and will fear for the lives of their families and themselves. All the fuss that led up to the arrest was not just to provoke the arrest but to ensure the "right" verdict.

4/11/12, 8:11 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"My turn of mind is probabilistic, future-oriented, and technocratic."

Me too! This is one of the main reasons that I like reading you.

4/11/12, 8:14 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

IRC, they tried Tazering King twice and he was resisting.

4/11/12, 8:14 PM

Blogger Geoff Matthews said...

Well, like Chris Rock said:

"Everybody knows if the police have to come and get you, they’re bringing an @ss kicking with them."

4/11/12, 8:21 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cinema is not dead. Top-notch. Bravo.

You're the weird guy who always posts off-topic stuff, right? Are you "Robert" or is that another guy that does the same thing?

4/11/12, 8:26 PM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

Yes, it's extremely off-topic but I let it through because he's right: it's a terrific movie.

4/11/12, 8:30 PM

Blogger gwern said...

So, I spent half an hour going through LexisNexis and Steve, you will be glad that my Google-fu is best: I found an AP article summarizing a LA Times article interviewing all the jurors, and *that* matches what you recall almost exactly:

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-04-23/news/mn-26321_1_jurors/2

An relevant excerpt:

> Jurors also played and replayed the best evidence in the case--the videotape of the beating that had been taken by an amateur and enhanced by the FBI.
>
> "We went through it frame by frame, slow-motion, fast-motion, God I don't know how many times we watched that thing," Juror No. 9 said.
>
> The tape, made by a bystander, could not answer all their questions. It was blurry at one crucial moment after King was struck and fell to the ground. Some jurors said they could see Powell using his baton to bash the fallen King in the head. But others had difficulty seeing head blows, even when the tape was viewed frame by frame.
>
> All could see a powerful blow that Powell later landed across King's chest. King was on the ground at the time, on his back.
>
> "That chest blow was unreasonable and we felt it was not to effect an arrest but just to hurt the guy," No. 9 said. "That convinced about a third of us."
>
> Powell's laughter while making a radio call to request an ambulance for King also contributed to jurors' impressions that he had acted callously. But the panel stopped short of taking a vote.

4/11/12, 8:30 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

In the Rodney King federal trial the juror watched the beating frame-by-frame - Stacey Koon and the defense said each of the 56 blows was justified. I think the problem was that RK had head wounds which were against LAPD policy and deemed excessive. Something like that anyway..

4/11/12, 8:31 PM

Anonymous Gene Berman said...

It's my opinion there won't be found basis for a federal charge against Zimmerman. It's different than with RK, where those charged were acting as agents of the state or local government.

And, with all the various stories about the incident, I don't think there's clear, compelling evidence that a crime occurred (other than the assault on Zimmerman).

4/11/12, 8:34 PM

Blogger David Davenport said...

"My turn of mind is probabilistic, future-oriented, and technocratic."

Why is that turn of mind a virtue? Please explain. Tell us why being judgmental, retrospective, and moralistic is wrong.


Cinema is not dead. Top-notch. Bravo.

He's trying to pretend that the Zimmerman-Martin case is only a movie. An attempt to deny reality ... unhealthy and not clever or witty.

4/11/12, 8:44 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zimmerman had no reason to go meddling with some kid. Then, why did Obama meddle in Libya? What did Gaddafi do to him?

4/11/12, 9:17 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It didn't do much good for Demanjuk either. When they couldn't get him for being Ivan the Terrible, they got him for something else.

This is not a nation of laws but nation of lawyers.

4/11/12, 9:21 PM

Anonymous Thomas said...

The chokehold doesn't close off the windpipe, it closes off the carotid arteries. Just a minor technical point.

4/11/12, 9:27 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

re: car chases--We talked about the Fitch barrier on that economist/foodie's site; anyone know if a version of the spike strip existed before the 90s (the proof-of-concept seems to be Donald Kilgrow's with the Utah state troopers)? In retrospect seems like a "well duh" invention.

4/11/12, 9:40 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It would seem that Zimmerman has done everything in his power to become a martyr for the White cause.

Perhaps the media is to blame of helping him along.

4/11/12, 9:47 PM

Blogger Eric Rasmusen said...

Very nice post. I come away thinking the second Rodney King trial result probably was correct. Jurors scared of riots don't have to look at each frame of a movie to decide. And it is correct to convict if the criminal is subdued and the policeman decides to whomp him an extra time unreasonably --- and for a unanimous jury to have to decide it was unreasonably.

I was foreman of an LA jury, in a cocaine case back in 1988 or so, and was very impressed with the earnestness of my highly diverse fellow jurors. Maybe it was because jury duty was essentially optional--- I think if you didn't respond to the letter, nothing bad happened to you.

4/11/12, 9:52 PM

Blogger Truth said...

Steve-O, you "forgot" to mention OJ's double jeopardy.

4/11/12, 9:52 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, it's extremely off-topic but I let it through because he's right: it's a terrific movie.

Personally, I don't mind the off-topic comments. I just noted it because there seems to be this guy who always makes them here and on other HBD blogs. Similar style.

4/11/12, 10:01 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's a spike strip patent from 1972:
uspto.gov link
-but I actually don't recall ever hearing of their use in the early 1980s. (and high-speed automotive chases were quite the staple of the late night news, not just in Hazzard County mind you)

4/11/12, 10:44 PM

Anonymous Truth = blab first, form premise later said...

Truth-O, are you REALLY unclear on the difference between a criminal trial and a civil suit?

4/11/12, 10:45 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

As we all know, the American legal system is based on that of England, and 'double jeopardy' was an ancient right enshrined in the English common law dating back to the time of the Norman kings.
It stood the test of centuries - that is until Britain's god-awful, fascist, dictatorial, nation wrecking, economy wrecking, New Labour regime took power.
The right no longer exists - a defendant can be tried by the Crown an infinite number of times on the same charge now.
Ironically this was due to the lefties of New Labour responding to another media whipped up black martyrdom, the Stephen Lawrence case.
The case gainst Lawrence's murderers is so weak and flawed that they are bound to be released on appeal in the near future to the considerable embarrassment of the British state.

4/12/12, 12:23 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve-O, you "forgot" to mention OJ's double jeopardy.

The plaintiff there was Fred MacGoldman, so it didn't count.

4/12/12, 2:09 AM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

"Why is that turn of mind a virtue? Please explain. Tell us why being judgmental, retrospective, and moralistic is wrong."

I didn't say the way I am is a virtue. But it is the way I am. If more people were like me, you wouldn't come here to find the unusual ideas I come up with, because they'd be everywhere.

4/12/12, 2:43 AM

Blogger Chris said...

Have you ever come down from a real adrenaline high and laughed? I have, even the thing I did was frightening rather than fun. I think a little laughter is a normal response to something like a fight when you emerge without injury.

Somebody needs to right a book on these sorts of psychological and verbal reactions and idiosyncrasies that can get misinterpreted in legal cases. It's especially important now that every word and deed is recorded somewhere.

4/12/12, 6:34 AM

Anonymous Paul Mendez said...

(Plus, they'd been chasing him at 100 mph, so whomping him just seemed like a good idea at the time.)

At the time the Rodney King video first made news, an acquaintance in law enforcement in a major East-Coast city told me that certain elements of the population lack the ability to connect present behaviors(crimes) with future consequences (jail 6 months from now). Therefore, they benefit from immediate negative reinforcement (beat downs)of undesirable behaviors.

Just like you wouldn't punish your dog next week for peeing on the carpet today.

4/12/12, 7:38 AM

Anonymous Bill said...

But you can't let criminals escape just by driving away fast. So, the best thing to do is to discourage criminals from, in the first place, trying to get away by driving 100 mph. How? By making sure they almost always get caught.

Or, by whomping them?

4/12/12, 10:26 AM

Anonymous Svigor said...

The chokehold doesn't close off the windpipe, it closes off the carotid arteries. Just a minor technical point.

It's really easy to try one and get the other. They're about two inches apart.

Of course, if you do the carotid choke properly, the subject should be unconscious in about ten seconds, IIRC.

4/12/12, 11:58 AM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Why is that turn of mind a virtue? Please explain. Tell us why being judgmental, retrospective, and moralistic is wrong.

Typical judgmental projection: assuming he was saying it's wrong.

:) (I'm a "judger" myself: INTJ)

4/12/12, 12:01 PM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Very nice post. I come away thinking the second Rodney King trial result probably was correct. Jurors scared of riots don't have to look at each frame of a movie to decide.

What drivel. Absolute, complete bullshit.

Agonizing over minutiae in a desperate attempt to find something to "justify" one's foregone conclusion is precisely what people with heavy consciences do.

4/12/12, 12:05 PM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Steve-O, you "forgot" to mention OJ's double jeopardy.

Are you referring to the civil suit?

If that's double jeopardy, then we could easily see triple jeopardy for George:

1.) State criminal case
2.) Federal criminal case
3.) Civil suit brought by Mr. "child abandonment" Martin, Sr.

4/12/12, 12:08 PM

Anonymous Kylie said...

"If more people were like me, you wouldn't come here to find the unusual ideas I come up with, because they'd be everywhere."

I think you're underestimating your personal charisma here.

4/12/12, 12:44 PM

Blogger Truth said...

"Anonymous said...

Zimmerman had no reason to go meddling with some kid. Then, why did Obama meddle in Libya? What did Gaddafi do to him?"

Dude, whoever you are, please place all of your computers, home, work, mobile, including your smartphone in a box, and deposit in in the nearest lake. I don't think you're worthy of the privilege of chatboard discussion. Thank you.

4/12/12, 9:19 PM

Anonymous Londoner said...

An intelligent and interesting question. Also an irrelevant one. There are of course only two relevant questions. They are "who?" and "whom?".

4/13/12, 7:35 AM

Anonymous NOTA said...

It's clear to me that we can cut back on the number of police beatings that happen in a bunch of ways:

a. When confronted by the police, be nonthreatening and polite even if they're assholes, which they can get away with being. Just like if you were detained by the police in Russia or Mexico, your rightness and wrongness don't come into whether you emerge from the confrontation with all your teeth.

b. For applied statistics reasons, men can be threatening a lot more easily than women, young men more easily than old men, young black men more easily than young white men, anyone dressed ghetto more easily than anyone in a suit and tie, etc. If you are a hulking bad-ass in a leather jacket with tattoos all over your body, you'll want to be completely calm and polite and friendly, without a hint of menace, because scared people with guns and clubs can be dangerous. Similarly, if you're a 55 year old Chinese lady in formal businesswear, you can probably curse the cop out without risking much more than him writing you the ticket instead of letting you off with a warning, though you'd be smarter not to.

c. Police should only be put into high-adrenaline situations when there is a good reason. For individuals, that means don't do stupid shit like high speed car chases. At a policy level, that means we need to stop usung SWAT team raids for small-time crap like poker games and drug possession or small-time dealing arrests.

d. Police who are inclined to lose it and beat the hell out of somene when sufficiently pissed off and scared need to be gotten off the police force, and into some other line of work. Dash cameras and letting the public videotape police in public, and not protecting cops who beat people up, all probably help decrease the number of cops inclined to do that stuff.

4/14/12, 9:15 AM

Anonymous Simon in London said...

"The problem was that cops would periodically choke people to death, especially black guys who had really pissed them off. Was this because cops were seized by an irrational, uncaused hatred of black guys or because black guys tend more often to do things that really piss cops off? The first answer is the only socially acceptable one."

A lot of black men have died this way in England too. My impression is that white cops overrate black resilience/underrate black fragility, and are not keyed to black complexion indicators so often miss the signs that a black man is choking.

Anecdotally, I've often watched boxing on TV where a white man fights a black man: the white man looks battered, bruised and bloody. The black man looks unharmed to me - until he keels over. I think a similar dynamic is at work when white cops use excessive force on black men.

4/16/12, 2:06 PM

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