Althouse: The Scream.

July 5, 2013

The Scream.

Did everyone hear what he/she wanted to hear?

Arguably, no one lied.

44 comments:

pm317 said...: Put Obama on the stand and he will say, 'yeah, if I had a son, that is how he would have sounded'.; 7/5/13, 8:25 PM
pm317 said...: Was that a cry or scream?; 7/5/13, 8:27 PM
Wince said...: Did everyone hear what he/she wanted to hear?

I am just a poor boy.
Though my story's seldom told,
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles,
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.; 7/5/13, 8:27 PM
Sharc said...: ... other than Trayvon's father, of course.; 7/5/13, 8:28 PM
edutcher said...: I have a feeling if O'Mara wants a career in politics, he may be the next Rudy Giuliani.; 7/5/13, 8:33 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The mother's testimony reminded the jurors what this case is really about - a light skin puto killing a 17 year old defenseless child.; 7/5/13, 8:33 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Zimmerman is going to pay.; 7/5/13, 8:34 PM
edutcher said...: PS I know this is racist as Hell, but doesn't anybody in Trayvon Martin's family have a real first name (and, yes, I'd settle for something Koranic)?; 7/5/13, 8:34 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm going on the theory that I have been wrong in my predictions since sometime back when Bush won the second time and that was the last prediction I was right about.

So I'm going to predict the opposite of what every bone of my instinct is telling me.; 7/5/13, 8:40 PM
SteveR said...: Well I see some of you have made up your minds but clearly you've not checked in with Al Sharpton. Expert and unbiased observer of legal matters.; 7/5/13, 8:50 PM
JAL said...: The mind is pretty awesome. But esily influenced.

And dueling mothers ...

The witness Good saw the black guy in the hoodie pummeling the guy on the bottom who was yelling loudly for help. He told them to knock it off while he was calling 911.

Zimmerman, without a lawyer, walked the police through the episode describing what happened including that he was yelling for help when some guy came out and yelled at them to stop fighting ... but didn't come help him.

He did that not knowing that the yelling was being recorded on the 911 call.

Wow. Does that mean he is wickedly smart? Or what?; 7/5/13, 8:52 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: Another thread, another chance to say - this prosecution is an outrage.

Pandering to the mob.

A modern day Dreyfus Affair.

And wouldn't you just love to see someone slap that smug, fat-faced gutless judge? And how about her choice of hairdo. Wow. That's someone who just doesn't give a shit.; 7/5/13, 8:54 PM
CWJ said...: Oh, Bite me.

Give ONE unbiased reason to believe that it was TM screaming. Just one.

Just like, give me ONE reason why when TM got home, he doubled back rather than go through his front door.

I am so tired of idiotic speculation (GZ should have known how to fight I'm talking to you Peter), (GZ should never have gotten out of his car I'm talking to you ARM), or (this is what's required to show the world the truth I'm talking to you tradguy). Yeah, nice backpedaling trad guy, you should be a cornerback. None of this - NONE of this addresses the evidence available.; 7/5/13, 8:54 PM
Brian Brown said...: The suggestion that Martin is screaming is utterly ridiculous on its face.; 7/5/13, 8:59 PM
JAL said...: But it's the half brother who is probably equivocating on this. And the defense showed that.

The guy didn't live with Trayvon. Wasn't a Facebook friend. Didn't follow him on Twitter or tweet him ...

And wasn't sure really that that was Trayvon yelling, push come to shove. But it is funny how the further he got away from the screams the more it sounded like Trayvon. Besides, Mr. Crump said so.

If your mom / step mom whoever she is to him and dad / step dad whoever he is to him are convinced and Crump says this is worth a ton -- a ton -- of money to them?

Yeah well ...; 7/5/13, 9:04 PM
Pastafarian said...: It doesn't seem likely to me, that a mother would want to hear her son's screams, let alone delude herself into believing that someone else's screams are his. Even if hearing his scream would exonerate her son or convict his killer. That level of wanting something has to be guttural, not intellectualizable.

So one of the mothers is lying.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the guy screaming bloody murder is the one with a broken nose and deep cuts in the back of his head, and not the one with cuts on his knuckles. But only because I'm a racist and a bigot. I've been told I'm one so many times here that I've embraced it.; 7/5/13, 9:06 PM
Clyde said...: It is logical to deduce that the person screaming would be the one on the bottom getting the crap beaten out of him. That person was George Zimmerman. We know that from the ballistics of the bullet and the fact that Zimmerman's back was wet and Trayvon Martin's was not. Now, Trayvon might have been yelling, but he wouldn't have been letting out that kind of a bloodcurdling scream if he wasn't the one losing the fight. The only damage done to him was a bullet through the chest, so we know who was on both ends of the beatdown.

It's obvious to anyone who is not a race-huckstering demagogue that Zimmerman felt that he was in imminent danger of death or serious injury and he used his gun in self-defense. This trial is a farce and a huge waste of the taxpayers' money.; 7/5/13, 9:20 PM
Brian Brown said...: Well, let's compare this:

Uncle: "I said, that is George!"

MOM: "No one asked you to identify the voice?"

Uncle: "No, it just came on the TV. It hit me."

With the Martin family sitting around in a group with a race hustling lawyer who told them to listen to the tape until they believed it was Trayvon.; 7/5/13, 9:21 PM
pm317 said...: I have not followed this case. Anybody know if TM saw GZ had a gun and if he tried to take it?

Why are there only 6 jurors and not 12?; 7/5/13, 9:32 PM
pm317 said...: From Jeralyn (talkleft):
A common sense view of the other evidence in the case, particularly that the only person with injuries was Zimmerman, is compelling evidence it could only have been Zimmerman screaming.; 7/5/13, 9:39 PM
Pastafarian said...: Pm: GZ claims that he saw TM's eyes dart downward when his jacket fell open and he feared he'd seen the weapon when TM announced "you're going to die tonight, ass-cracker" or something like that.

And: 6 jurors because it's FL, and they have trouble enough finding six people who have the mental ability to sit quietly in one place and pretend to pay attention, take "notes" (draw pictures of dolphins jumping over rainbows), and make deliberative faces when actually squeezing out a silent-but-deadly. 12? You'd have to change the venue to someplace classy, like Kentucky.; 7/5/13, 9:48 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Listen to the recording, how the scream ends when the shot is fired, and -- especially -- the way the scream goes up in pitch just before that.

What does that mean?; 7/5/13, 9:48 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Arguably, everyone lied. But I think mostly they told he truth.

I think it helps the prosecution case that creepy-ass George Zimmerman was screaming like a little girl while suffering mostly self-inflicted head wounds as he rolled his own head around on the pavement to get out from under Trayvon Martin, who wasn't doing him any lethal harm.

What then happened was that Jonathan Good asked them to knock off the fighting while he called 911. And Trayvon let up, calling out, "You got it." Then the very angry and humiliated Zimmerman took the opportunity to shoot him.

The family lawyer made a big mistake by bringing in Al Sharpton rather than waiting for the original prosecutor to get a grand jury indictment. The prosecutor would get the manslaughter conviction 9 times out of 10 in the ordinary case, but in this case Zimmerman gets the benefit of the legal firepower bought by his Internet tip jar.; 7/5/13, 9:48 PM
pm317 said...: Thanks, Pastafarian..

I was on a 6 person jury but that was only because it was a traffic accident related case. The victim of a rear-end seeking compensation was a woman of foreign extraction. I and majority on the jury were women and with funny names.; 7/5/13, 9:59 PM
pm317 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/5/13, 10:01 PM
Revenant said...: It doesn't seem likely to me, that a mother would want to hear her son's screams, let alone delude herself into believing that someone else's screams are his.

Martin's family has ample reason to want to believe their son was an innocent victim. Zimmerman's family don't want to believe he murdered a boy. Both families have plenty of reason to hear what they want to hear. Their testimony is worthless.

The physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, however, make it clear that Martin was assaulting Zimmerman. Common sense indicates that Zimmerman would have been the one screaming for help.; 7/5/13, 10:03 PM
Known Unknown said...: Wait, Trayvon's mom doesn't have the last name Martin?

Shocking.

Maybe same-sex marriage is the answer to Fatherless America. Gay dads for all the at-risk inner city kids!; 7/5/13, 10:12 PM
Pastafarian said...: Althouse: the rise in pitch and loudness isn't just before the shot, it's a couple of seconds before, which is a significant amount of time in a struggle. I'd say either Martin landed a particularly good blow that prompted that scream, and helped GZ decide to pull the gun; or GZ wanted to give the screaming for help one more good try before taking that drastic step; or GZ had an excess of adrenaline at that moment knowing what he was about to do.

To me, the screaming sounds like GZ. He has a Hispanic tenor to his voice that's pretty distinctive.

The alternative explanation would be that the rise in pitch and volume was from TM, because he saw the gun; and he'd been screaming because his knuckles hurt so bad from pummeling GZ's face.; 7/5/13, 10:13 PM
heyboom said...: Listen to the recording, how the scream ends when the shot is fired, and -- especially -- the way the scream goes up in pitch just before that.

What does that mean?

It is more than reasonable to believe that Zimmerman was screaming and at the moment the pitch went up was the moment he realized his life was in danger and he then took action. After the shot the duress was eliminated and there was no reason to scream anymore.; 7/5/13, 10:14 PM
Known Unknown said...: Why are there only 6 jurors and not 12?

These chicks are twice as good at deliberating than us regular schmoes.; 7/5/13, 10:15 PM
Pastafarian said...: Left bank: I'm going to guess that you've never been punched in the nose whilst the back of your head is on concrete.

And: just what do Floridians use for the aggregates in their concrete sidewalks, that you can get deep cuts by just rolling your own head around on them? Discarded razor blades?

How bad would GZ's injuries have had to have been, to justify the use of his weapon? Something incapacitating, preventing him from using it?; 7/5/13, 10:21 PM
pm317 said...: That Uncle Meza's testimony about the scream as being GZ's seemed powerful.; 7/5/13, 11:14 PM
Dr Weevil said...: The Catch-22 argument that GZ had no right to shoot as long as he hadn't been hit hard enough to incapitate him has been reminding me of something, and I just remembered what it is:

According to Suetonius, the Roman Emperor Domitian used to say that one of the worst things about being emperor was that no one would believe that any of the assassination plots against you was real until one of them succeeded. (Since you asked, yes, Domitian was eventually assassinated.); 7/5/13, 11:22 PM
Dr Weevil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/5/13, 11:23 PM
Anonymous said...: "How bad would GZ's injuries have had to have been, to justify the use of his weapon?"

By "justify" do you mean legally justified? Under Florida law, GZ did not have to suffer any injuries at all to claim self-defense, only the FEAR of suffering grave injury or death.; 7/6/13, 12:16 AM
Evi L. Bloggerlady said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/6/13, 12:47 AM
campy said...: And: just what do Floridians use for the aggregates in their concrete sidewalks, that you can get deep cuts by just rolling your own head around on them?

Probably seashells.; 7/6/13, 5:59 AM
DEEBEE said...: Belief heals all facts; 7/6/13, 6:45 AM
pauld said...: Several years ago I was in my home and heard screams of agony from a child outside. My first thought was who is that and what happened. When I ran outside, I found that my son had broken his arm in a skateboard accident. I also noticed every other parent in the neighborhood was outside to see what had happened and whether the screams were from their child.

The bottom line is that screams are hard to identify. I think mother's know this and understand that it is false that "every mother knows her child's cry."; 7/6/13, 8:14 AM
kentuckyliz said...: I agree with pastafarian about the Hispanic timbre of the voice. It is not a black voice.; 7/6/13, 10:07 AM
Matt Sablan said...: I doubt that they're lying; they really believe they are hearing what they are hearing.

But, then again, most people find it hard to believe both lines are the same length.; 7/6/13, 10:10 AM
kentuckyliz said...: Pasta!!! Kentucky would be a good place for this trial. The citizens of the commonwealth love their guns and belief in self defense and property rights. Our state flag features a frontiersman (Daniel Boone?) with a gunpowder bag on his belt. Lest you think he's out of control, he is shaking hands with a gentleman/statesman (Henry Clay?) in a most peaceful and civilized manner.

Kentucky people have good common sense about this kind of stuff.; 7/6/13, 10:14 AM
kentuckyliz said...: I find it interesting to split attestations of fact from the interpretation with each witness. Those with a side-taking motive get weighted lower except for those parts that work against their story, like it's an unguarded oopsie of facts against their truth. Good is a powerful eyewitness and corroboration of who was doing what where when comes from the cell phone times and the oopsie/non-interpretation bits of testimony from RJ and JS. I spelled out my own timeline and filled in objective verifiable and corroborated details first and it makes it quite clear who is the aggressor and where it happened.; 7/6/13, 10:18 AM
ErnieG said...: Both mothers swearing that their sons were screaming doesn't require that the jury believe one or the other. Sounds like reasonable doubt to me.; 7/6/13, 3:08 PM