idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
gbaji wrote:
The recording of Zimmerman's call is the "best evidence" we have of the sequence of events at that portion of their encounter. You're free to conclude that this isn't "reliable evidence", if you want. But then I've got to ask what better evidence you have to argue that this isn't what happened? Other than you wanting things to have happened differently because it fits a narrative you've been told, that is.
The testimony of the defendant is never best evidence of anything. Ever.
Sure. But this isn't the testimony of the defendant. It's a recording of a call to police made before the shooting occurred. The reason testimony is always to be taken with some grain of salt is because it's what someone says about an event
after it happened. We recognize that this gives that person the opportunity to tailor their testimony to the event that happened in order to influence other people's perception of that event. But since this recording was what Zimmerman reported before the shooting, it is the "best evidence" of what happened during that time period. He had no ability to alter it after the fact.
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Even when you don't have contrary evidence, you don't just assume it's true. And in this case, we do have contrary evidence in the form of the testimony of the girlfriend, who was on the phone with Martin at the time. Which you've consistently forgotten exists.
I haven't forgotten it. I'm placing less weight on anything she might say which counters what's in the recording. Same rules apply to her testimony as well, right? She has the luxury of crafting her testimony *after* knowing what happened. This should always be given less weight than information we have that was generated prior to the event itself.
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When it comes down to it, her testimony, given under oath at a trial at which she has nothing to lose, is more reliable than his, given as his statement to the police after shooting a teenager, when he has everything to lose. That doesn't make her right and him wrong, but it would be more shocking for her to be lying. If you force me to make an inference, that's the one I'll make.
Ok. But, as I pointed out earlier, nothing in her testimony refutes the sequence of events that occurred in the phone call. She did not testify that Zimmerman followed Martin in his car. She didn't testify about when Martin ran from Zimmerman, much less why he ran. She did testify that Martin told him someone was following him and he was trying to get home, but this clearly occurred *after* Zimmerman left his car (so he was following Martin at that time, thus no contradiction between the two accounts).
I'm not sure what you think was in her testimony that acts as evidence that Zimmerman followed Martin in his car prior to Zimmerman getting out of the car and following Martin on foot. Just because there are two different accounts of events from two different "sides" of the issue, does not mean that the two are contradictory.
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And here's the grand part - I don't need to posit a new scenario in order to doubt Zimmerman's testimony. I'm perfectly within my rights to doubt the testimony of one man, offered without any substantiating evidence. You arguing otherwise is submitting to a relatively basic fallacy.
Again, it's not testimony. It's an audio recording. Unless you're suggesting that Zimmerman pre-planned this whole thing and faked everything in the phone call in order to allow him to then chase down and kill a black man? Cause that's a huge stretch.
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Furthermore, if you feel the need to reduce the scenario to something so ridiculous as Zimmerman just sitting in his car, twiddling his thumbs, while Martin bashes in windows and runs naked through the street in order to make your argument, you should probably seek mental help.
Huh? Why do you feel the need to invent a crazy description of what Martin was doing? Zimmerman never claimed he was doing those things, so why not accurately state what you are claiming is "ridiculous"?
Is it ridiculous to believe that a member of the neighborhood watch might be sitting in his car on a rainy night, see someone who appears to be acting suspiciously, and then continued to sit in his car, watching that person, and reporting what he saw to police? You label this as "ridiculous", but isn't that exactly what we'd expect a member of a watch to do?
Your cart is way out ahead of your horse IMO.
Edited, Aug 5th 2013 7:07pm by gbaji