Neighborhood watch shooter released from Fla. jail (at midnight)

[seafan]

Source: Tampa Bay Times

MIAMI (AP) -- In a low-key event, George Zimmerman was released from a Florida jail on $150,000 bail as he awaits his second-degree murder trial in the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin.

The neighborhood watch volunteer was wearing a brown jacket and blue jeans and carrying a paper bag as he walked out of the Seminole County jail around midnight Sunday. He was following another man and didn't look over at photographers gathered outside. The two then got into a white BMW car and drove away. .....
As with the July 2011 release of Casey Anthony, the Florida woman acquitted of murder in the death of her young daughter, Zimmerman was released around midnight.

.....

Bail is not unheard of in second-degree murder cases, and legal experts had predicted it would be granted for Zimmerman because of his ties to the community, because he turned himself in after he was charged last week, and because he has never been convicted of a serious crime.

Prosecutors had asked for $1 million bail, citing two previous scrapes Zimmerman had with the law, neither of which resulted in charges. In 2005, he had to take anger management courses after he was accused of attacking an undercover officer who was trying to arrest Zimmerman's friend. In another incident, a girlfriend accused him of attacking her.

Read more: http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NEIGHBORHOOD_WATCH?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEM

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George Zimmerman, left, walks out of the intake building at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility with an unidentified man on Sunday, April 22, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman posted bail on a $150,000 bond on a second degree murder charge in the February shooting death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin In Sanford, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)




With a history of assaulting a police officer; domestic violence accusations against him; required anger management courses.... cold-blooded murder of an unarmed black child... who in the world might think George Zimmerman ought to have stayed in jail while awaiting his trial?

Nah. No risk to the community here.

[dtexdem]

1. Skulking out of the courthouse at night -- looks suspicious.

I feel threatened! Should I just report him, or should I follow him and confront him?

;-)

[lbrtbell]

2. Whatever one may think of Zimmerman

Trayvon was a teenager, not a "child". This sort of sexism really gets to me, because an unarmed female of Trayvon's age could get raped and murdered, and people would call her a "woman".

Over the age of 13 and under the age of 20, you're a teen...not a child or a woman.

Why does nobody care when violent crime happens to women? Name one woman who is armed when she is raped or killed...you'd have a hard time doing so. Yet when a young male is unarmed, it's The World's Biggest Tragedy.

I'm not diminishing what has happened here, just dismayed at the sexism being displayed throughout the media coverage of Trayvon's death. Why is an unarmed, murdered teen boy a "child", while a murdered or raped teen girl is never called a child? The unarmed Natalee Holloway was never called a "child" by anybody, and she was about Trayvon's age. Unless a female murder victim is the age of Jon Benet or Caylee Anthony, she is never called a child.

In fact, I've noticed that when there's a media frenzy over a female victim, DU'ers often mock it...I remember one even went so far as to call Jon Benet "Aryan", just because she was blonde and blue-eyed. I nearly threw up.

It's bad enough that we women must deal with this sort of sexism from the media. Can we please not be forced to deal with it at DU? Trayvon's death is tragic, but he's a "teen" or a "boy", not a child. And when a female teen is a victim, she's a teen or a girl...not a woman. And she's not Aryan, even if she is a blonde.

Thank you.

[No Elephants]

3. Women who are under age under the terms of the rape statute are called children.

In fact, the charge is often technically called "rape of a child."

If, however, the state statute says consensual sex is okay after the age of 15, calling the 15 year old a child is not only legally incorrect, but is saying the accused is GUILTY of statutory rape. By definition, statutory rape is a crime, whether or not the female consented. So, if the accused's defense is "consent," calling the victim a child may be libeling him by saying he is guilty of a crime before a jury has had a chance to rule on it. So, it is legally impermissible. For that reason, rape is very different from other contexts.

For example, if the female had entered into a contract at age 16, she would be excused from the contract because she entered into it when she was "a minor child," or simply "a minor," which means child. Ditto if someone sold her liquor, they would be guilty of selling liquor to a minor child.

Trayvon had turned seventeen a very short time before his death. Legally, he was very much still "a minor child" when he died.

That said, I do believe the term "child" is being used to make a point about Zimmerman's choices. If we were talking about Trayvon's graduation, I feel fairly certain he'd be referred to as a "young man." However, the intent of calling a murder victim a child is not sexist. And the term is being used in a legally correct way and not in a way that could expose anyone to a libel suit if Zimmerman is found not guilty.


Not to mention that, in most situations, many females who have turned 17 would find it sexist to be called a child, as opposed to a woman or a young woman. After all, the biggest imposition of sexism on women by statute was to treat them like minor children under the law. No matter how old they got, if married, they had to have the consent of their husband before their contracts were valid, they never got old enough to vote, etc.