One more post about it, then I shut up.

[captainsblog]

I was gonna let this whole thing go, but I'm stuck at the glass shop with little more to do than rant, so here goes.

I read a post last night from a friend I appreciate and respect, the essence of which was, Stop hating on George Zimmerman; the jury believed him and followed the law, so let's not demonize him anymore.

I'll try. it's not easy, and I've already lost one LJ friend over how I feel about the whole business, but I won't hate. I will, however, parse- at least the salient bits of the friend's point as summarized above.

Ready? Let's begin.

----

The jury....

I've already set forth my lack of understanding of, or experience with, the United Statesian system of jury selection and deliberation. What I've heard since the verdict is even more troubling, and really removes much of the legitimacy from what those six jurors did.

As I heard the special prosecutor explain it, the State was put into a difficult position by the procedures and precedents that govern who can and cannot be excluded from a jury without a true showing of "cause." She said they tried to exclude two of the white women from the seated jury, using their limited "peremptory challenges," but Zimmerman's lawyers objected on Batson grounds. That's the SCOTUS precedent that prevents prosecutors from using peremptories to exclude jurors on racial grounds. Fair enough, I'll buy that; but. The defense used two of its peremptories to excuse two African-Americans from the jury, because Batson only limited prosecutors from using this reprehensible tactic. There was some pretrial speculation about the prosecution seeking to extend Batson to both geese and ganders, but to my knowledge, they never even tried, nor did they seek a review of the judge's rulings on her inclusions and exclusions. And, now that the acquittal has happened, that review can never happen.

Am I saying that the six white women were close-minded racists? Absolutely not. I do believe, however, that the perspective of a black citizen, or especially of a black parent, would've added a lot of common sense to that jury room about what Trayvon felt, and feared, on account of essentially being tried and executed for the crime of Walking While Black.

----

...believed him....

Here, again, Zimmerman benefited from both the overly cautious rights of the accused (you know, the ones that poor defendants represented by a PD never get to use) and a prosecutorial strategy that let him testify in his own words, own voice, own post-killing fear- without having to be cross-examined!

How? By the prosecution introducing the audio and video of Zimmerman's initial statements  to investigators following the killing. That gave his story a face, and a voice, but no chance for the People to cross-examine the witness to help the jury decide whether he was lying or not. It was a botched tactic and it is hard to respect the resulting and irreversible outcome.

----

...and followed the law....

I went over most of this in my original post. I don't doubt they thought that's what they were doing. I do doubt that the State did everything it could to give them every reason to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They put in no rebuttal case; they acquiesced in the jury instructions that included most of the "Stand Your Ground" standard even though the defense supposedly waived it; and they did nothing to preserve their shot at a Manslaughter conviction when the jury basically begged the judge for the legal support for doing it and she refused.  So now it's all hindsight and crying over spilled Skittles,and we, unlike George, don't get an appellate shot at fixing any of this.

----

...so let's not demonize him anymore.

Agreed, on one condition. Can we just end the man's 15 minutes of fame, sooner rather than later? I don't especially want to see him being retried for anything, or turning into a Florida Turnpike hero, or taking a gig on FOX News, or peddling a book on OReilly's show. You got away with it, Georgie. Now go away, before you achieve permanent heroic status among the racist population of this country who are always looking for talismans of their angry white maleness.

Far as I'm concerned, you're as dead to me as Trayvon is to you.

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.

Comments

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

+1

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

My hat is off to you, sir!

[oxymoron67.livejournal.com]

Bravo.

You said this better than I could. I've lost three FB friends over this and gotten into an ugly argument about it with my mom.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The fundamental question that I want to ask the pro-Zimmerman people is, "What should Martin have done differently?"

They tend to say, "Not taken a swing at Zimmerman." But really? Are they saying that THEY wouldn't have tried to fight off a guy who had followed them in his car, gotten out of his car, and tried to grab them? I would have.

And had a guy who'd followed me and accosted me shot me when I tried to fight him off -- that guy would be in prison.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Jury members have given interviews that say outright that they did NOT believe he was innocent at all, and that they felt he was guilty, but the way the law was written, they didn't feel they COULD convict him under it. They said that by the second day of deliberation, they began to realize that he was going to get away with murder because of how the law was written.

[mayiwrite.livejournal.com]

Well said. And thank you.