So by throwing the first punch, Martin gave up his right to Stand his Ground?
Ironbite-wow.
When does Stand your ground start to apply? Some reports claim that Zimmerman showed his gun and clearly intimidated and baited Martin to fight. If a stranger follows a teenager around, shows that he is armed and dares the teen to grab his gun I don't see how that does not qualify as a threat. In fact if punching a person counts as a lethal threat then doesn't an ACTUAL GUN count as a lethal threat?
There's no good reports on exactly what occurred during the initial face-to-face confrontation before the fight. All we have are the witness statements, and as far as I can tell none of them came from anyone who actually watched the whole thing from beginning to end. The most that we know for a fact is that the two of them got into a verbal argument and then a fight started. Martin was most likely the one to throw the first punch.
However, Martin couldn't have gotten Stand Your Ground simply from being intimidated by a guy that he thought was a criminal looking for an opportunity. Unless Zimmerman actually engaged in threatening behavior, Martin couldn't have done anything but ran, told him to leave (possibly on pain of death if he was armed), or called for help. Like I said, that "threatening behavior" could have been as little as showing that he had a gun.
Technically Martin was in the wrong for throwing the first punch, but generally police will be lenient in cases like this if they think that the person was legitimately scared. You're not SUPPOSED to kick the guy in the balls just for following you, but police typically won't bother to pursue any charges against you for that unless they've personally got it in for you. They understand intimidation just as well as civilians.
