General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: BREAKING-Judge Revokes Zimmerman's Bond! [View all]Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)The requirement that a defendant must prove self-defense (notwithstanding the greater burden of the prosecution to prove overall guilt) was not done simply to make things hard for a defendant. (That would be antithetical to the notion of traditional due process.)
Rather, it's because otherwise it forces the prosecution to create a strawman if they are to disprove self-defense. In theory, all the defendant would have to say is that it argues self-defense, but if there's no burden, they don't have to put on any evidence to support that theory. So it would then be up to the prosecution to have to create what they would assume is the defense's theory of self-defense, and then have to disprove their own anti-theory.
It's woefully inefficient and a waste of time and judicial resources.
There's a difference between a regular defense and what is called an affirmative defense. A regular defense is a denial--such as, "I didn't do it....it was the one-armed man."
An affirmative defense, on the other hand, is what I like to call a "Yes, but...." defense. As in, "Yes, I killed him....but it was self defense." Affirmative defenses add new facts and new evidence to the case.
Thus, since it is the defense bringing those new facts and new evidence into the case, naturally you would think it would be their burden to prove their theory with such facts and evidence.
And that would be the case....except, apparently, when the NRA does its bidding....