In Self Defense Podcast 121: Legacy of the Zimmerman Verdict – Part 3

Attorney Michael Panella joins Don Wes and Shawn Vincent to discuss the ramifications of the Zimmerman trial 10 years after the verdict. Today’s conversation illustrates the importance of forensic evidence – especially in the context of the defender’s testimony. We also discuss what the case reveals about the importance of mindset and situational awareness for concealed carriers.

Transcript: 

Hey everybody, it’s Shawn Vincent. Thanks for listening-in to the podcast today. This is the third and final installment of my conversation with Don West and attorney Michael Pinella about the legacy of the George Zimmerman case, 10 years after the verdict. That verdict was in 2013. We recorded these sessions in June of 2023. That was 10 years after we were picking a jury for this high-profile case. This is the case of George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, lest you can forget. And Don West, he’s now National Trial Counsel for CCW Safe. He is a veteran criminal defense attorney. He was co-counsel on the George Zimmerman defense team. Michael Panella, he was a law student during most of the prosecution. He had just graduated with his law degree weeks before trial started. He was a law clerk for the defense. He was in on the team almost from the very beginning. He was on longer than Don West was, in fact, by just a couple of weeks. We’re all friends. 

We’ve done cases together in these last 10 years together, including self-defense cases. Our conversation so far, if you haven’t heard parts one and two, we talked about the press surrounding the case. We talked about security concerns we had with the controversy surrounding this high-profile case. We talked about jury selection. We had a long conversation about demystifying stand-your-ground and the realization that, despite all the controversy, that the Zimmerman case wasn’t actually even a stand-your-ground case.

We talked, at the end of our last podcast, about the decision that needs to be made about whether the accused is going to testify on their behalf at trial or at a self-defense immunity hearing. In the Zimmerman case, George did not testify. That was in part because the prosecutors decided to put in a lot of his previous statements. He made a number of them, including a walkthrough that was videotaped of the sequence of events from his point of view. It saved him from having to testify. It saved him from having to withstand a cross-examination on live television from the prosecutors.

And our conversation ended with the idea that in a self-defense case, often the defender has to make a statement, they have to testify in order to assert the claim. It was unclear legally whether there was enough evidence in the Zimmerman case for that claim to be made without those statements coming in. Don raised the question about some of the forensics that they were able to put together with the help of experts that showed that at the moment the trigger was pulled, in this case, that George Zimmerman was on his back, Trayvon Martin was demonstrably on top of him. Testimony says that Trayvon Martin was beating George Zimmerman while he was on top of him, and that goes a long way to making the self-defense claim.

We’re going to start our conversation with a little exploration of that forensic evidence. And then as the podcast goes on, we’re going to talk a little bit about beyond whether you’re legally justified in using deadly force. There’s always a question of did you put yourself in that position? Did you open the door to a conflict that might lead to the need for deadly force? And what’s your responsibility as a concealed carrier for that? There’s a lot to cover. I’m glad you’re here. This is one of my favorite podcasts that we’ve done. This is a great conversation. There’s a lot of lessons here for concealed carriers. So here we are. This is Don West, the esteemed Michael Pinella talking about the legacy of George Zimmerman after 10 years.

Don West:

We couldn’t prove at that point independently that Zimmerman was actually on his back with Martin on top of him at the moment the shot was fired, except for the forensic stuff. We had the testimony of Vincent DeMayo and we had the FDLE firearms expert that said that the hoodie shirt showed a contact blast from the gun because the fabric was shredded, which convinced everyone that the end of the muzzle was touching the hoodie at the moment that the shot was fired.

The medical examiner and the forensic pathologist, eminent pathologist, Vincent DeMayo, looked at Trayvon Martin’s skin and saw the gunshot residue markings, the stippling and the tattooing, he hadn’t even seen the clothing at that point, said that the muzzle distance was two to four inches away from the skin because of a distinct pattern, and no one really argued with that either. And you put the two of those together, and it took a while for us to figure that out. You put the two of those together, that means that Trayvon Martin’s shirt was two to four inches away from the skin, from his own skin on his chest, when the shot was fired.

There was this highly controversial can of juice, iced tea or juice of some sort that was there. And the Skittles, of course, that’s what got all the attention until you put that can of juice in the pocket of the hoodie, which is where it was found, and you have Trayvon Martin leaning over George Zimmerman as John Good described, and obviously as George Zimmerman described too, hitting him when the shot was fired, we now have the weight of the can in a wet hoodie pulling the shirt away from Trayvon Martin’s body, perfectly consistent, lined up with the trajectory and the forensic evidence associated with that shot.

So all of those pieces fit together, but there still wasn’t an explanation of the detail without Zimmerman’s statement.

Michael:

Look, the state felt like there didn’t need to be. Obviously, they thought at this point, this is enough that the defense could choose not to put George on and go from here.

Don West:

But Mike, think about it, George’s statements were consistent enough, they were clear enough, they were credible enough and they were truthful. The state had nothing to gain from putting those statements on and then trying to impeach the statements. That’s where I thought their fatal logic was, that they thought they could put this stuff on and then essentially cross-examine those statements through other witnesses, and they failed miserably at that because what he said was proven.

In fact, I remember distinctly thinking about this case during the opening statement and throughout the case, George Zimmerman has been demonized at this point. The jury’s not going to like him, at least at first. They’re not going to want to believe him. And I thought from the beginning what the defense should do was at every opportunity, in addition to humanizing him, that every opportunity, we should emphasize all of the physical evidence and all of the other testimonial evidence that corroborated George Zimmerman’s statement to the police so that they bolstered what he said. And they didn’t have to just believe George. They could still dislike him, but they had to accept the fact that what he said made perfect sense and that it was true.

Now, it’s been 10 years. I’ve thought about this case a lot off and on since then. I think the three of us, if you put Mark in this room with us, the four of us would know more about this case than any four people in the world. The nuances, the bits and pieces of information and such. And I have never heard anyone, although many have tried, many have written books, many have launched their careers saying how guilty George Zimmerman was, I have never heard anyone articulate a theory that’s consistent with the physical evidence and the testimonial evidence that makes George Zimmerman guilty. He’s not guilty under the standard that our law imposes in a self-defense case.

Michael:

It’s a good thing that Don believes in his client’s case, huh, Shawn?

Shawn Vincent:

I love the passion.

Michael:

Because the fact is, you’re right, Don, but what I think from just a practical standpoint was the state, I think, was scared. I remember being upstairs in the commandeered prosecutor’s office that they had taken over with Mark, and the lead prosecutor had all of these written statements that George had given as I recall it. And part of my job that you guys gave me was go through all of George’s statements, find the inconsistencies. And I created a Word document and lined them up. There was like five statements or something like that if you counted the Hannity interview.

Don West:

Oh yeah, sure.

Michael:

The two or three he gave to law enforcement. Plus there was the phone call with nine one one in the first place and then what he was talking about. By the time it was over and we were going through these transcripts and the prosecutor, Bernie, was going through talking about which things are going to be irrelevant and redacted with Mark. And I just happened to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. And then we weren’t sure what he was going to do, but ultimately he introduced all of those and all the videos. The Hannity video, I think they played for the jury.

Don West:

Yes.

Michael:

And all this. And my only thought, Don, not that I disagree in any way, I just think you’re giving them more credit than they should, than you should, because I think in their minds, they thought the evidence was going in our favor and they thought George sounded so stupid on that Hannity interview that they were going to gain some points with the jury if they could play that and then play his statement to Serrano and show how the two didn’t line up on critical points. And then they could play his other statement that he gave to law enforcement.

Don West:

But they didn’t have… I agree with you, they may have thought that, but they didn’t have critical points.

Michael:

No, they didn’t do a good job.

Don West:

It’s stupid stuff.

Michael:

I agree.

Don West:

That may have been inconsistent, but it just didn’t matter.

Michael:

The stuff that mattered was whether Trayvon was beating the crap out of George at the time that he shot the weapon. And George was always consistent about that. In fact, the one…

Don West:

Everything was consistent.

Michael:

Well, the other fact that we haven’t mentioned at all today was George said that actually, and this might’ve been a bridge too far, I don’t know, the only person in the world that would know is George, but he said that at the moment he shot it was because he perceived Trayvon to be going for his gun because where his shirt was, Trayvon being on top, it was coming up and the firearm was exposed and that he perceived Trayvon to be going for it. And only then did George actually use it.

Shawn Vincent:

And if that’s true, and I believe that, that means that George was willing to endure …

Michael:

A ground impound.

Shawn Vincent:

… a minute-plus long beating and didn’t think that that was worth shooting someone for. It was only when he knew that the attacker saw his gun and now that his gun could become the gun and used against him that something happened.

Don West:

That’s really fascinating. I don’t agree with you. I think that would be the logical way that people would look at this, and that made a lot of sense that finally it got to the point that George, in his own mind, I have to stop this before I lose consciousness. I have to stop this before I’m dead. So now’s the time. I think during the trauma of being sucker punched, knocked to the ground, having his head banged, being punched in the face, wrestled with, I think he forgot he had the gun on him. And it wasn’t until that moment when it became the gun that he not only realized that it was there, but that Trayvon Martin was going to get it and it all … He was dazed by then too. Now it could be either one, neither … It doesn’t matter which one it was, he had the right to use the firearm in the manner that he did at the time that he did.

Michael:

It could be either of those.

Don West:

A lot of people would’ve used it before then.

Michael:

It could have been that George was actually trying to go for it the whole time and just couldn’t get there, also.

Don West:

That’s a good point for our listeners. When you’re hit in the face a few times and knocked on the ground and during the adrenaline rush of trying to understand what’s happening, save your own life, scream for help and nobody helps you. How clearly are you thinking? How linear is your thinking and how capable are you exercising that sort of reason, step-by-step judgment it takes to assemble all of that at one point.

Shawn Vincent:

Well, and so that’s why over and over again and the lessons that we draw from the cases that we look at, whether we’re involved with them or we’re just covering them for CCW Safe and seeing what’s publicly available is you have to have awareness that you’re an armed carrier. You have to know that that’s there, and you have to have situational awareness. Mike, you were talking earlier about how you can’t put yourself in that position where you may need to fight, right? We were talking about a case where somebody took a weapon to a confrontation to someone who had already attacked them. And it’s tough to say that it’s self-defense when he put himself in that position, right?

Michael:

Yeah. It’s one of those things where that duty to retreat becomes pretty salient because if someone does violence to you, but that event is over, then your reasonableness on the imminence necessary, those types of ideas are over. It’s no longer necessary to defend yourself against something that isn’t happening anymore. Instead, what I often see is when someone shoots too late or goes back after they just got bested, it’s painted out as revenge rather than self-defense or defense of others. And that’s what’s so tricky because if you really reasonably believe that someone’s about to kill you and they try and then it’s over and then you go try to defend yourself and kill them, you are a murderer. 

Don West:

Certainly, the threat isn’t imminent, isn’t it?

Michael:

Exactly. If it’s not imminent, it’s not self-defense.

Don West:

If the prosecutor can show any one of those elements isn’t present, doesn’t take all of them, just takes any one of them, then you don’t have a claim of self-defense. And because you have already admitted everything first in order to claim self-defense, “I’m the guy that was involved. I’m not claiming alibi. I’m the guy that pulled the trigger. I’m the guy that intended to pull the trigger because I was defending myself, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If the person died, it was because I killed him, et cetera, et cetera.” And all of that becomes part and parcel of a self-defense claim that if it’s justified, then it’s lawful. On the other hand, if you don’t have a self-defense claim, you have just admitted to some serious felony from aggravated battery to murder without a defense. So it’s an all-or-nothing claim, obviously. It’s almost like, was it Goldilocks and the three beers, not …

Michael:

Just right.

Shawn Vincent:

Just right.

Don West:

Yeah, not too cold, not too hot, just right.

Michael:

Exactly. And how can we expect someone listening to know to strike that balance? And I think that’s the hard part, right? And all we can say, I know you guys do a great job of talking about that on a consistent basis, but all I can say is so often the good person is charged with a serious crime because they thought they were doing the right thing by themself or someone else, and they ended up inserting themselves into a situation where it really wasn’t necessary to use deadly force. And it all comes down to that nuance thing. In your mind at the time, it seems so clear. But then afterward, when it’s six people looking at you and your actions and determining whether they’re reasonable, man, that’s a little bit… It looks and feels different in that sterile environment, and that’s the environment that it’s analyzed in.

Shawn Vincent:

So my least favorite television personality of almost all time, Piers Morgan, after the verdict put out a tweet that I’m going to roughly paraphrase it here, but it said, “The fact remains that if Zimmerman hadn’t gotten out of the car, none of this would’ve happened.” And I remember seeing it, it had some 52,000 retweets on Twitter. Right?

Michael:

So logically, that’s a terrible logical argument.

Shawn Vincent:

Well be that as it may …

Michael:

If Trayvon hadn’t gotten up that morning, it wouldn’t have happened.

Shawn Vincent:

Well, so “proximate cause,” is that what you’re trying to get at here?

Michael:

That’s exactly right. Which is legally irrelevant.

Shawn Vincent:

So legally irrelevant, correct, because we got the right verdict from the jury. But when we talk about … I remember that because I think it fits a sentiment that clearly a lot of people had. And even when they came to accept, even if they were rooting for a conviction and they came to accept the acquittal, I had a reporter who covered it, said that they thought that George was legally correct, but maybe morally at fault for it. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but the idea of injecting yourself into a situation that could be dangerous, that you don’t need to inject yourself in, can lead to a situation where now as an armed defender, you’ll be put in a situation where you have to make that life or death decision.

And Don, you and I have talked over and over again where we’ve seen cases where at the moment the defender pulled the trigger, we’re pretty convinced that that threat to their life or their body was imminent and serious and justified the use of force. But just 10 seconds earlier, there were some decisions that they could have made clearly and reasonably that would’ve precluded the entire encounter in the first place.

Don West:

Yes. And I think in the sense that we have supported the idea that at the moment in time that George Zimmerman fired the gun to defend himself against the physical and brutal attack of Trayvon Martin — when he was lying flat on his back, being pummeled at risk of losing consciousness and being seriously injured or killed. And the risk of a firearm being grabbed and used against him that makes that moment lawful, legally justified. It checks all the boxes on the right to use deadly force in a self-defense context.

What that doesn’t address is some of the things you’re talking about, and that is where along the way … We’re not saying that at all moments from the beginning of this, and we can go back several minutes, at least several minutes, because the encounter with Trayvon Martin was several minutes before the shot was fired. And a good bit of that is actually recorded on audio tape, if nothing else, because of the calls that were made to the Sheriff’s Office.

Michael:

George’s own call is recorded for several minutes talking to the non-emergency operator.

Shawn Vincent:

And just for our listeners who don’t know, those several minutes, he made that non-emergency call. You can hear on that call, he gets out of the car and you hear the dispatcher say, “Are you following him?” And he says, “Yes.” And he says, “Okay, we don’t need you to do that.” And that’s where, famously, all the reporters stopped the call. We know that for some time after that, he said, “Okay,” stopped following, and then stayed where he was to wait for police who had already been dispatched.

Michael:

And it’s been a minute since I’ve gone through the discovery in this case, but the remainder of that call, as I recall it, is a good three and a half minutes long. Of him talking to him, giving his address, saying, “Actually, I don’t want to give my address. I don’t know where this guy is. He might be able to hear me.” It’s clear from the context of the call that George doesn’t know where Trayvon is. He thinks that he’s lost him through the back …

Don West:

Yeah. Let’s put a little bigger context on this because while we support and justify legally, factually the decision that was made at the moment that the … notwithstanding the fact that it’s tragedy, he still legally was allowed to defend himself in the way that he did. That doesn’t mean that everything he did was good or proper. It may have been legal, it may also have been bad judgment, bad tactics that put him in that position. And I think what we’re talking about is there were lots of moments for different decisions to be made. One of the biggest decisions or lack of judgment, I think, or insight, was that I don’t think that George Zimmerman appreciated what his own conduct, how it might affect Trayvon Martin …

Michael:

For sure.

Don West:

When he was following him in the car. George saw him, called the police, and as Trayvon Martin was walking through the neighborhood, he basically followed him in the car, calling it in. But at the same time, here’s the kid walking through the neighborhood and sees a guy in a truck following him. There’s eye contact, there’s movement, there’s a discussion on the phone. Now he’s looking at me, now he put his hand in his pants as if he had a gun or something. And leading up to that, Zimmerman’s still in the car. Zimmerman never rolls the window down to say, “Hey, man, I don’t know you. I’m with Neighborhood Watch. Are you lost? Do you need a ride? I’m just checking out to be sure that everybody’s supposed to be here,” kind of thing. He could have done it better than I did, but the whole idea would’ve been he could have engaged him in a way that might’ve been disarming instead of escalating conduct that became more concerning I think, to everybody.

And then at a point in time, and we know this because it’s recorded on the phone, Trayvon Martin has enough of it, whatever it is they’re doing, standing off, giving each other the stink guy. Trayvon Martin has enough of it and takes off running. Well, George Zimmerman is still in his truck at that point. And then as Trayvon Martin runs into the darkness, takes it upon himself, even while he’s still on the phone, to get out of the truck and follow Trayvon Martin. George said credibly — not to chase him, to catch him or to engage him, but to get a look at where he was going so I could tell the police that were on their way where he was.

Michael:

They were also asking him that.

Don West:

Exactly.

Shawn Vincent:

They were asking him that.

Don West:

Where’d he go? Which way did he go?

Michael:

Which way did he go. And you can hear on the call that George does stop when the dispatcher tells him, we don’t need you to follow him.

Don West:

You can hear the chime of the door. So when the door opened exactly when he got out, can hear the wind.

Michael:

You know when he’s following him, and you can hear the wind stop when he doesn’t.

Don West:

Exactly. And you can hear his exchange with the police department and then from that point of him getting out of the car until the shots fired. Well, yes, almost four minutes from the time Trayvon Martin runs off from where George was parked until he reemerges from the darkness and hits him until the shots fired, is almost four minutes.

Michael:

But Don and Shawn, I’m glad you brought this up because 10 years later reflecting on this case, I’m with you both. You talked about all the things that George could have done, and I think that maybe there’s room to have a conversation to talk about the things George should have done differently, in fact. And I think to your point about Piers Morgan’s quote, and I’m sitting here saying it’s irrelevant, my mindset in that context was talking about the legal analysis of what is self-defense and what isn’t. That’s what I’ve been talking about this whole time.

But if we’re talking about what is right and what is wrong, I think that’s an entirely different question. At the end of the day, I think that the way it went down was just simply a tragedy. I think Trayvon’s perception of George … Trayvon wasn’t totally wrong, in my opinion. I think George was creeping him out, and I think that Trayvon was like, I have had enough of this. And unfortunately, Trayvon isn’t here for us to ask him what was going through his mind. That’s what I really think.

And I think that George did piss Trayvon off. And honestly, I’ve never been in Trayvon’s position before at 17 in a different city that I actually am not from and whatever else with a guy following me, like a whack job, in a slow-moving car. And maybe George should have, to your point, appreciated what his actions, the perception his actions may have caused to someone else more than he did. And maybe all of that. And so I think that there were things that George probably should have done differently if the goal is ending in no one dying.

Shawn Vincent:

But you talked about how you’ve worked with and defended good-natured people with big hearts and good intentions who find themselves in these situations that they’re in big trouble, right?

Michael:

Yes.

Shawn Vincent:

And I believe …  George helped his neighbors and he changed the locks on that old lady’s house because she was concerned about security, couldn’t do it herself. He was concerned about keeping his neighborhood safe. He knew that there had been break-ins. And so I think-

Don West:

He was well-liked by the people that knew him. People depended on him for those kinds of things. And that wasn’t divided by race. He had white friends and black friends and interacted just as freely with everyone in the community. That was a disservice to the nation, I thought, a disservice to the nation to paint this case as a race case. I didn’t see any of that anywhere. Now after the fact, stupid things are said, people are angry, they’re hurt, they’re traumatized. But when this case started until the end of the trial, there was no race aspect of the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

Michael:

The non-emergency call was specifically edited to make it appear that it was about race when that wasn’t the context of what George said. Intentional, malicious act by the media.

Shawn Vincent:

I think so. But what I wanted to get at is you’ve illustrated a point where I think George believes himself to be a good actor here. He’s acting with the intention to keep his neighborhood safe. Trayvon is just trying to get home in the rain from his trip to the 7-Eleven, and he is in a strange neighborhood. Neither one of them was able to look at the situation from the other one’s perspective. And we’ve seen case after case of that often when a drunk person shows up at somebody’s front door trying to get in because they’re confused, lost, and drunk and high.

So when we talk about responsibility, as an armed defender, this is what this show is about a lot, as a concealed carrier or an armed defender, I think you have a responsibility now to try to put yourself in the shoes of the other people around you and understand how your actions are perceived. Understand that when you’re in a situation where there’s uncertainty and there’s potential conflict that they may not see you the way you see them or you see yourself, and the way you see them might not be the same. You have to open your mind to different circumstances. And to a point that you made before, engage with verbal, not commands necessarily, but maybe even ask a question. Posture, space, distance. Those are things that would disambiguate what the other person’s motivations are. And if you’re wrong, then you’ve averted a catastrophe. And if you’re right and they continue to threaten you or attack you despite those things, you’ve just made your defense claim all that much better, because you’re that much more certain that their intentions are nefarious.

Don West:

Exactly right. Very well said.

Michael:

I agree. Perhaps it comes down to giving a little bit of the benefit of the doubt to the other on the front end until it’s confirmed that they don’t deserve it anymore, rather than jumping to the conclusion that there is no benefit of the doubt that should be extended to them.

Shawn Vincent:

And so Don and I were having a conversation about this the other night, and this is why we love to have so many of the tactical experts on our show, who can talk about just the mechanics of operating what they call “the machine,” the firearm that… And Steve Moses says a lot that the more confidence you have with the firearm, then the less eager you are to go to it, because you know you can get to it when you need to and you know when that situation arises. If you’re not trained in that, you don’t know how far away someone really can be before they really cause that imminent threat. If you don’t think you can get it clear from your garment and out in time inside of that distance, you’re perhaps compelled to get it out now so that you don’t have to take that risk. And then at that point, now it’s out and the confrontation escalated and things can go sideways real funny.

And you and I know a lot of guys who are very, very capable. They don’t get into fights. They don’t have to prove they can win a fight, they already know they can win the fight, and it’s really easy for them to walk away. They know they’re doing the other person a favor. They know in some instances they’re saving their life. And having that confidence, if you choose to be a carrier, you don’t have to be a world-class marksman or a firearms instructor, but if you decide to carry and you go seek out some of these guys, get that training, not just to operate the machine, but also to recognize, answer questions like how far do I need to keep someone away to be safe? To know what your draw time is, right? These are things that are going to get you thinking before you enter those.

Don West:

What can I do to buy a little more time to help me make that decision? Can I go around something? Can I get behind something? Can I yell something? It might be embarrassing, but that’s a lot better than shooting somebody that’s not a real threat. You used my new favorite word, “disambiguate.” I like that.

Shawn Vincent:

I like to confuse people with the word that’s about making it less confusing.

Don West:

But that’s really the goal, isn’t it? If your goal is not to shoot somebody and you’re not quite sure that you need to, well, you want to be sure, but you want to be sure safely. You maintain your own safety while you’re trying to sort this out and it’s a complex layered process of thinking and perceiving and taking in new information and processing it, assessing your own skill level. What can you do if you need to? How long is it going to take? And pretty soon you make a decision.

Michael:

See, I think it’s two different, but related analyses. If the question is, my goal is not to kill someone, I think that sets in motion different ways of acting than if the only question you’re trying to answer is, how do I kill someone and make sure it’s self-defense. I think it’s two different things, but they’re related.

Shawn Vincent:

And I think that’s where you were talking about how sometimes someone will call you up and say, “What if this happens and I used deadly force, am I justified?”

Michael:

You’re wrong.

Shawn Vincent:

And I love what you said.

Michael:

I don’t care what the scenario is.

Shawn Vincent:

You’re wrong because now you’ve contemplated it, so if you see that situation arise, you should by now have other solutions to that problem that’s not killing that guy. And so we have firearms instructors who would say the idea of “how do I not kill this person,” they might argue that that puts you in a position where you might get killed because you’re not… They deal with people who turn out … are a little nervous of the gun and actually not willing to take somebody’s life. And they need to get them over that real quick if you’re going to be an armed carrier.

Michael:

The most dangerous armed carrier there could be, they’re going to die or take the wrong person’s life.

Shawn Vincent:

But to your point, and what you really mean and what these instructors mean is, yes, our goal is to end this… The best of them say the goal of self-defense is to break contact, not to kill someone, not even to shoot them, right? And if you can break contact without shooting them, that is always a better choice, every time. But there are people who allow a situation to open because they think, oh, in this circumstance I’ll be justified and this son of a bitch has it coming. And if you find yourself thinking that, just walk away because …

Don West:

Mike’s characterization of that is basically, can I shoot this person and get away with it? What you mean is, if I were to shoot this person in this context, is it …

Shawn Vincent:

Do I have a legal out?

Don West:

Yes, legal self-defense? Have you checked all the boxes on it? As compared with what Shawn is saying, I think is must I shoot this person? Which means essentially you’ve exhausted every other possibility of breaking contact, of retreating, avoiding, whatever it would take not to have to shoot this person. And there’s quite a gap a lot of times, especially in the stand-your-ground states, when you don’t have a legal obligation to retreat, you might very well say to yourself, yeah, I can shoot this guy. Do I have to shoot this guy? Must I shoot this guy? Not yet. I can do all of these other things first. And don’t we think that we’re really in the “should” or “must” camp, that we don’t want anybody unless you absolutely-

Michael:

We don’t want anyone to die unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Shawn Vincent:

Does everyone agree with that? Because …

Don West:

Not only does that save a life, but I can tell you as a defense lawyer, as you can as well, Mike and Shawn, you can from picking juries in murder cases, that’s your single best chance of being acquitted is when everybody says that, “man, this guy had no choice. I’d have done the same thing. Look what he did. A, B, C, and D.”

Shawn Vincent:

Exactly.

Don West:

Nothing worked. This guy kept coming up the stairs with the cat of nine tails and… Nothing else.

Michael:

If your mindset is the preservation of life, and ultimately you are in a scenario where, God forbid and unfortunately and tragically you take one, then incidentally it helps your defense because your mindset was in the right place in the first place.

Shawn Vincent:

It is demonstrated in all the little micro-decisions and actions you make. If that really is your concern and you really want to avoid it at all costs, then you do things even subconsciously that will demonstrate that that was your intent. And in the end, what’s fascinating about these self-defense cases is all the forensic evidence is there. We’re looking for the juror to look into the heart of the defender and say, “Were you reasonably in fear for your life or for great bodily injury? Or were you just mad? Or were you unreasonably scared?” And that makes a big difference on the rest of your life. And they’re going to use little clues, little telegraphs all along the way.

So Mike, I mean, yes, the mindset’s everything. If you have the mindset that I’m confident with my weapon, I know I’ll use it if I have to, but I’ll do everything reasonable to avoid having me use it. That shows in all of your actions and I think you’re going to find that if you ever do need to use it, you’ll have done so justifiably.

Michael:

Yep. I think it gives you the best chance.

Don West:

Very well said. Yes.

Shawn Vincent:

All right, everybody, that’s our podcast for today. Thanks for sticking around to the end. Maybe in 2033, if we’re still around, we’ll get back together and look at the legacy of Zimmerman after 20 years. Until then, be smart, stay safe, and take care.