Nearly off of us long ago concluded GZ is likely guilty or likely not guilty. Now we just present and repeat everything over and over and over - then someone knew starts at square one and we all go thru it again.
1. Want "fact" (or circumstantially based speculation) MOST caused your decision,
2. Outside of statutory law, do you have some personal opinion that forms your moral decision on the incident and,
3. Is your moral/ethical view of the case different than what you think the legal outcome should be in law?
I had stated for weeks that one piece of evidence unknown would make my decision - the forensics report on TM's body. Specifically was there "fight" injury against TM and more importantly what was the range of the gunshot?
Personally, I think TM and GZ were both losers. TM was a look-at-me! defiant punk. GZ was a lower than average (half of people are) nobody and failure in life trying to find anything to make him valuable. In my opinion, both stupidly proactively walked into potential violence neither were prepared to deal with. "A man has got to know his limitations."
I don't care if GZ's story has contradictions. Everyone lies to protect themselves and no one can give a full recount of a fight - even those in it. The last real fight I was in that person told the investigator that I just kept hitting and beating on him - though actually it was likely less than 3 seconds I was hitting him. Though he believed what he said 100%. He wasn't lying to his mind, and his story did change in details otherwise as he retold it. So I don't care about inconsistencies in what GZ or anyone else said.
Since the facts do show 1.) GZ was on the ground and 2.) he has fight damage and TM did not, the decisive question then was the range of the gun shot. If within inches or a couple feet, there is at least reasonable doubt that he fired in self defense against an assailant (I don't care if later examination determined it life-threatening or not). If it was at a range of many feet, it was not self defense, it was minimally retailatory - thus manslaughter or murder.
My decision then made when it learned the shot was fired at nearly point-blank range. And only 1 shot fired.
I think my opinion is consistent with Florida criminal law.
My ethics are a bit different from law. I think if two men both proactively enter into an aggressive and violent situation, however it turns out is just between them. It is not our concern of the outcome and certainly not to spend millions of we-the-people's money on it. There are millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of victims of violence that they did not proactively get her/himself into and instead hopelessly did everything possible to avoid it. So since GZ and TM both proactively entered the events leading to violent, I don't care that TM died and wouldn't if instead it had been GZ. I have no interest is splitting hairs in the context of non-existence utopian nature of how men should behave when it becomes violent between them.
What "fact" or aspect of the case made the decision for you (unless you just let the initial media reports do it for you from the start)? Since most of us are 100% familiar with each other's overall opinion and on all specific "issues" too, what DETAIL most matters to YOU?
