Often when someone says "I was misquoted," they really mean "I wish I hadn't said that." Getting misquoted can be painful, but getting quoted correctly when you said something that sounds dumb can be even more painful. A couple of days ago I got quoted correctly, but I'm afraid I sounded less than intelligent. I was being asked about the sounds of someone calling for help on the Zimmerman/Martin 911 tape, and the reporter quoted me as saying "It would be nice to know who was doing the calling for help, but identifying the caller is not necessarily going to definitively identify the wrongdoer, [but s]ituations sometimes arise where it is the wrongdoer calling for help." I started to elaborate on my comment, but decided I didn't need to further confuse the issue with additional comments.
The point I was trying to make was this: Sometimes the wrongdoer gets himself/herself into a pickle that he/she didn't anticipate and consequently starts calling for help. The incident I had in mind when I made the comment was the arrest of Ted Bundy in Pensacola. When David Lee attempted to handcuff Bundy, Bundy resisted violently and wound up getting pummelled. Bundy's cries for help did not exonerate him, and to decide the propriety of his arrest based on who was calling for help would have badly skewed the truth seeking process. Another example of this sort of thing comes from Genesis 39:6-20. When Potiphar's wife attempted to seduce Joseph, he ran away and she cried for help claiming that Joseph had tried to rape her.
You can read my comments in context here: (http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2012/04/02/media-take-on-police-like-role-in-martin-case).
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
MORE ON "STAND YOUR GROUND"
I'm getting a lot of inquiries from the media concerning the Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman case and particularly on Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law." Here's one of the latest:
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/kill_at_will_laws.html
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/kill_at_will_laws.html
Monday, March 26, 2012
THE COURT ROOM OR THE NEWS ROOM?
Departing from my usual habit of studiously ignoring 24 hour news channels, I watched one today. I saw an anchor ask Angela Corey if she knew where George Zimmerman was, and then act as though Corey had committed malfeasance in office when she said she did not. It's not the chief prosecutor's job to keep track of potential defendants, and it's no reflection on Corey because she didn't know. I prosecuted for almost 30 years and the only time I knew the location of one of my defendants was when he was in jail. As long as he came to court when summoned, I had no desire to know where he was.
Then I saw a "former prosecutor" ranting about how horrible it was that Zimmerman had not been arrested. If she would think back to her days as a prosecutor, I am sure she could come up with a number of good explanations for why the arrest hasn't been made yet. Unless a defendant was a severe flight risk, I was seldom in a hurry to make an arrest.
The police department, which felt it had good and sufficient reasons to delay the arrest, has felt the heat of the media frenzy and begun leaking details which tend to explain why they weren't eager to make an arrest before they got their case more thoroughly investigated. If I were the prosecutor on the case, I would be upset that this information has been disseminated, but I fully understand that the police felt they were acting in self defense.
Interestingly, one newscast I saw cherry picked a single fact from the leaked information to televise and ignored all the other leaked information. Instead of running the relevant facts, they decided to air the completely irrelevant fact that Trayvon Martin had gotten into trouble over some marijuana residue in his backpack.
One would suspect that the media is working to aggravate a situation which is volatile enough already. This case needs to be tried in the court room, not the news room. We all need to just take a deep breath, calm down, and wait to see how the case unfolds. There will be plenty of time to critique the police and prosecutors after the case is over.
Then I saw a "former prosecutor" ranting about how horrible it was that Zimmerman had not been arrested. If she would think back to her days as a prosecutor, I am sure she could come up with a number of good explanations for why the arrest hasn't been made yet. Unless a defendant was a severe flight risk, I was seldom in a hurry to make an arrest.
The police department, which felt it had good and sufficient reasons to delay the arrest, has felt the heat of the media frenzy and begun leaking details which tend to explain why they weren't eager to make an arrest before they got their case more thoroughly investigated. If I were the prosecutor on the case, I would be upset that this information has been disseminated, but I fully understand that the police felt they were acting in self defense.
Interestingly, one newscast I saw cherry picked a single fact from the leaked information to televise and ignored all the other leaked information. Instead of running the relevant facts, they decided to air the completely irrelevant fact that Trayvon Martin had gotten into trouble over some marijuana residue in his backpack.
One would suspect that the media is working to aggravate a situation which is volatile enough already. This case needs to be tried in the court room, not the news room. We all need to just take a deep breath, calm down, and wait to see how the case unfolds. There will be plenty of time to critique the police and prosecutors after the case is over.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
CHANGING THE HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM
This should probably be a tweet rather than a blog post, but I've been watching and reading the news lately (something I swore off several years back because it was so depressing) and I keep having the same thought over and over.
High schools (and colleges) nationwide should add a required course of study in effective thinking or informal logic. Given the state of public debate in the United States today, I can only conclude one of three things, none of which are encouraging--either our leaders are clueless, or they think we (the public) are clueless, or both we (the public) and our leaders are clueless. What passes for logic in public debate this day and age shows a dreadful lack of critical analysis. There is almost no appeal to logic in public debate, and what little "logic" I see is fallacious.
A celebrity's thoughts on [insert issue here] are no more profound than anyone else's. Expert opinions are no better than anyone else's when the expert is giving an opinion outside his/her area of expertise. Driving a particular brand of car, using a particular deodorant, or drinking a particular brand of alcohol is not going to cause members of the opposite sex to fling themselves at your feet. Describing your opponent in abusive language does not demonstrate that your opponent's position is wrong. All members of [insert group here] are not villains; but the fact that all members of the group are not villains doesn't mean that all members of the group are saints. Bad people can have good ideas, and good people can have bad ideas. I could go on, but then I might slip into the fallacy of argumentum verbosium.
If everyone had at least been exposed to a course of rigorous instruction in critical thinking skills, maybe our leaders wouldn't be so quick to make such poor arguments, and maybe we wouldn't be hoodwinked if they did.
High schools (and colleges) nationwide should add a required course of study in effective thinking or informal logic. Given the state of public debate in the United States today, I can only conclude one of three things, none of which are encouraging--either our leaders are clueless, or they think we (the public) are clueless, or both we (the public) and our leaders are clueless. What passes for logic in public debate this day and age shows a dreadful lack of critical analysis. There is almost no appeal to logic in public debate, and what little "logic" I see is fallacious.
A celebrity's thoughts on [insert issue here] are no more profound than anyone else's. Expert opinions are no better than anyone else's when the expert is giving an opinion outside his/her area of expertise. Driving a particular brand of car, using a particular deodorant, or drinking a particular brand of alcohol is not going to cause members of the opposite sex to fling themselves at your feet. Describing your opponent in abusive language does not demonstrate that your opponent's position is wrong. All members of [insert group here] are not villains; but the fact that all members of the group are not villains doesn't mean that all members of the group are saints. Bad people can have good ideas, and good people can have bad ideas. I could go on, but then I might slip into the fallacy of argumentum verbosium.
If everyone had at least been exposed to a course of rigorous instruction in critical thinking skills, maybe our leaders wouldn't be so quick to make such poor arguments, and maybe we wouldn't be hoodwinked if they did.
Friday, March 23, 2012
STAND YOUR GROUND: GET AWAY WITH MURDER
Let's perform a thought experiment. Let's say that I am a world class sprinter (I'm not) walking down the sidewalk. I see a 5'2" 350 pounder with a limp and a smoker's cough hobbling toward me. He obviously cannot run fast or far, but he has a club in his hand and, between wheezing gasps for breath, he is shouting threats to brain me with the club. He's 30 yards away when I first see him. I can obviously save my life and spare his by turning around and running away. What should I do? Florida Statute 776.012 says that I am perfectly within my rights to "stand my ground" and shoot him dead without taking a backward step. And Florida Statute 776.032(2) warns investigating law officers not to arrest me.
There has been a huge outcry against law enforcement for not making an arrest in the recent Trayvon Williams shooting. There have even been suggestions that the failure to arrest was the product of racism. Although the shooting may have been the product of racism, the failure to arrest was a logical consequence of applying the law of Florida as it now exists. When there are no witnesses to a killing and the killer gives an unimpeached statement that crime was in self defense, then you are bound by law to treat that statement as true. The police had an unwitnessed killing and a statement by the killer that the killing was in self defense. They have to accept that statement until they can amass enough evidence to prove it is untrue. With no proof that the statement is untrue, they will violate Florida Statute 776.032(2) by arresting the killer. Before "Stand Your Ground" was enacted, they could have carried him to jail because he didn't try to avoid the killing by retreating. I'm sure that law enforcement is hard at work trying to find evidence to impeach the claim of self defense, but until they do they cannot arrest.
What can be done to fix this? Nothing in the case of Trayvon Martin, but for the protection of future potential victims like him, Florida should restore the duty to retreat outside one's home prior to using deadly force in self defense. We should not value macho conceit over human life. If it's a choice between feeling like a wimp because I ran away and killing someone needlessly, go ahead and call me a wimp. And Florida Statute 776.032 should be repealed in its entirety. Section 776.032's warning against arresting killers isn't the only thing wrong with the statute.
And one other thing. Some people are blaming Martin's death on the fact that he was wearing a hoodie. That's like blaming a rape victim for the way she dressed.
There has been a huge outcry against law enforcement for not making an arrest in the recent Trayvon Williams shooting. There have even been suggestions that the failure to arrest was the product of racism. Although the shooting may have been the product of racism, the failure to arrest was a logical consequence of applying the law of Florida as it now exists. When there are no witnesses to a killing and the killer gives an unimpeached statement that crime was in self defense, then you are bound by law to treat that statement as true. The police had an unwitnessed killing and a statement by the killer that the killing was in self defense. They have to accept that statement until they can amass enough evidence to prove it is untrue. With no proof that the statement is untrue, they will violate Florida Statute 776.032(2) by arresting the killer. Before "Stand Your Ground" was enacted, they could have carried him to jail because he didn't try to avoid the killing by retreating. I'm sure that law enforcement is hard at work trying to find evidence to impeach the claim of self defense, but until they do they cannot arrest.
What can be done to fix this? Nothing in the case of Trayvon Martin, but for the protection of future potential victims like him, Florida should restore the duty to retreat outside one's home prior to using deadly force in self defense. We should not value macho conceit over human life. If it's a choice between feeling like a wimp because I ran away and killing someone needlessly, go ahead and call me a wimp. And Florida Statute 776.032 should be repealed in its entirety. Section 776.032's warning against arresting killers isn't the only thing wrong with the statute.
And one other thing. Some people are blaming Martin's death on the fact that he was wearing a hoodie. That's like blaming a rape victim for the way she dressed.
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