Oh, and I wanted to ask something about your update, where you said that MOM said George didn't have the ability to "retreat or escape". Even though that's one of the keys to SYG -- that you don't HAVE to try to "retreat or escape" -- surely you can still use the SYG hearing to argue the case should be dismissed? I mean, George has a STRONGER argument than SYG. He's got traditional self-defense. Surely he can't be penalized (by NOT being able to have a SYG hearing) for that, can he?

It's easy to view his injuries from the cheap seats, but what would Zimmerman's injuries have been had he not stopped the fight with a bullet?

Zimmerman was screaming for help. That is a fact. Martin was on top of Zimmerman at the least, restraining him. That is a fact. Zimmerman had injuries consistent with a beating. That is a fact.

Zimmerman had no way to know what his injuries actually were or where Martin would have stopped. You have dismissed a man's credibility based on what you know having had time to thoroughly analyze the evidence. Zimmerman had to do this while on the ground fearing for his life (as evidenced by the calls for help).

And read the aggressor statute and case law a little more closely. You misquote and misinterpret it. Your interpretation is flawed, as is your recounting of the facts of what people say they saw and heard.

The statute says a person who initially provokes the use of force against himself can respond with deadly force if:

Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm.

You keep insisting GZ's injuries weren't serious enough. That's not the test. It's whether he reasonably believed he was in imminent danger of great bodily harm -- which includes not only what had already been inflicted on him but what he anticipated would happen to him if the attack did not stop. One example: He said he feared losing consciousness. Imminent means about to happen or likely to happen soon. So his belief doesn't have to rest on the damage that has already been inflicted.

And he didn't say Trayvon saw the gun. He said he thought Trayvon saw or felt the gun. TM was on top of him, straddling him. He could have felt the gun and decided to reach for it. GZ said he felt TM's hand going for the gun -- he said TM took one hand off GZ's mouth to do so.

My view: If Zimmerman was not the aggressor, he was  justified in fatally shooting Trayvon if he reasonably believed he was in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death. The danger he perceived doesn't have to be real, he just has to believe it is real. His belief is considered reasonable if a reasonable person in his situation would believe the danger was real.

Zimmerman has medical records and photographs to show his battered nose; the back of his head was bleeding from lacerations; he had abrasions on his face. He says he believed he was in danger of losing consciousness if he didn't stop Trayvon's attack. He says Trayon was on top of him, straddling him, and preventing him from getting up. He believed his gun became exposed and Trayvon had seen or felt it, and was reaching for it. John, witness 6, the one witness at the scene who observed the two struggling in his backyard before the shot, confirms Trayvon was on top and Zimmerman was trying to sit up and couldn't. He has never varied from that statement. The only thing he changed was his certainty it was GZ crying out for help (since he couldn't see the face of the person as he was crying out for help) and that while he first assumed Trayvon was hitting GZ, he may have been trying to restrain him.  

What reasonable person in Zimmerman's situation would not believe himself to be in imminent danger of serious bodily or injury or death if the person who had just fractured his nose and slammed his head into the ground didn't stop?

If Zimmerman was the aggressor, he would  still justified in fatally shooting Trayvon, unless he had lesser means at his disposal to respond to Travyon's use of force against him.

Another point you miss: To be the aggressor, Zimmerman had to have contemporaneously provoked Trayvon's use of force  against him. For Zimmerman to have provoked Trayvon's use of force against him, justifying TM's use of force against GZ,  Trayvon had to reasonably believe he was in danger of an imminent physical attack by Zimmerman. (Statute here.)

A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other's imminent use of unlawful force.

In order for Trayvon to have been justified in his use of non-deadly force against GZ, he had to reasonably believe he was in imminent danger of a physical attack by Zimmerman. He can't just have unsure what Zimmerman up to. And the provocation cannot be the result of something GZ did earlier, like following him.  Being followed does not allow one to respond with a punch in the nose or hitting the pursuer's head against the ground.  We've seen no evidence of that from the State or an eyewitness as to GZ provoking the use of force by TM against him.

See Martinez v. State and Johnson v. State:

Specifically, section 776.041 "[s]ubsection (2) precludes the initial aggressor from asserting self-defense where he or she is the individual who provoked the use of force" contemporaneously to the actions of the victim to which the defendant claims self-defense.

And Stinson v. State:

When the deceased swung at him, appellant was under no compulsion to wait around and see whether the second blow might find its mark as promised by the aggressor.

...In the circumstances reflected in this record, there was no evidence from which the jury could infer that the appellant acted in a manner evincing a depraved mind as defined by our Supreme Court in Ramsey v. State, 114 Fla. 766, 154 So. 855, when he instinctively neutralized his attacker with the only appropriate means at hand. That the attacker sustained a mortal wound is a matter that should have been considered by the deceased before he committed himself to the task he undertook.

If Zimmerman was not the aggressor, and he reasonably believed himself to be at risk of imminent  serious bodily injury or death from Trayvon, he was justified in fatally shooting Trayvon, regardless of whether he could extricate himself from the situation without using deadly force and regardless of whether lesser force  than deadly force would have sufficed. So long as GZ was in a place where he had a legal right to be - the paths and roads of his own neighborhood - and was not committing an unlawful act, if he reasonably believed himself to be in danger of imminent serious bodily injury or death, he was justified in using deadly force.

Stand Your Ground:

(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.