Zimmerman Prosecutor wants to add lesser charges, including child abuse....

[twoguns?]

Right, that again. If you have a judge for a father then if any charges are reduced against you like they are for millions of other people every year then it is obviously corruption. Zimmerman's brush with the law had happened quite a while back while Martin's own record of fighting had been recent. He had even talked about not making someone bleed enough and how he would make him bleed more next time. Zimmerman's record makes it sound like he got stupid when he got drunk when he was younger while Martin's makes him look like he sought out fights on purpose. Maybe that's why Zimmerman was an inept fighter while Martin was good at ground and pound.

Or he got clocked from behind, or he slipped on the wet grass, or he got jumped from behind....jusayin...

 

[Hobbes]

This whole thing has brought to my mind that situational awareness extends far beyond one's current surroundings. Everyone who carries should now consider that.

This post: Smarter than the average bear.

 

[alive5050]

They are always allowed, if they wish, to argue to the jury, "This guy committed first degree murder. But even if you don't believe he planned the murder, you should convict him of second degree murder because in that instant, he intended to kill the victim. But even if you don't believe that, his actions in firing the gun were criminally negligent and the victim died, so you should convict him of manslaughter. And even if you don't believe that, the evidence clearly shows he was guilty of discharging a firearm inside city limits."

What they cannot always do is amend the charges during trial. The reason for this is if charged only with first degree murder, the accused may decide upon a strategy to defeat the element of premeditation and admit the other offenses. It would obviously be detrimental to get halfway through trial only to be told that the state was adding the second degree charge. As long as they have indicted on all the lesser inlcudeds, though, no state that I know of forbids the practice of going into a trial with a run of lesser included offenses stemming from one act. If the jury comes back with convictions on all the counts, then they merge into one for conviction and sentencing purposes.