I wondered if this would become a topic. Believe it or not, this comment is worth at least skimming. Honestly it's hard to tell, the weird thing is this is really about the legitimacy of [i]Stand Your Ground[/i] and/vs [i]Castle Doctrine[/i], not innocence or guilt. Stand Your Ground laws do not require citizens to warn their potential attacker, their is no [i]Duty to Retreat[/i]. In effect I could lure someone into a situation, kill them, claim self defense, and potentially get away with it if no witness survived.[spoiler]A couple things to take into account: Zimmerman followed Martin after being ordered not to; the part of his story regarding how the altercation began is jumbled (essentially he claims he was head-on pushed by Martin but resultingly ended up moving [b]forward[/b]); also he claims to have drawn his weapon and shot Martin in the chest during the climax of the fight. Imagine you're laying down, you draw and, with your elbow against the ground, have to angle your weapon roughly 90 degrees to shoot for the chest.[/spoiler]Zimmerman made no attempt to keep Martin alive (instead he tried restraining him... But doesn't mention when the body stopped moving), nor to instead wound him, nor to actively prevent the altercation from occurring, nor to cooperate with the 911 operator. He seems like a dolt, to be completely honest. Maybe he was just ignorant of his actions and the severity of the situation. Still, does ignorance grant innocence? There are no really reliable witnesses... And Zimmerman is arguably vague with details. Can anything be argued that the innuendo of his actions should guarantee a conviction? The verdict is a bit tricky. I doubt an actual, responsible gun toting BA, like Recon over here, would have reacted to the situation in the same way Zimmerman did. Since not all of us can haz Recon (this needs a bit of lightheartedness), a change of law is order to deter this, ignorant or otherwise, type of exploitation of legislation.