So long as we are stuck on nuance, it was not my assertion that Charles Pierce enjoyed the subject matter of his column or was happy with the outcome of the Zimmerman trial. What I wrote was in plain English and shouldn’t be misconstrued. I wrote that Mr. Pierce probably enjoyed writing his column. Why? Because it was a very cleverly constructed piece that allowed him to churn out his wrath is a righteous and satisfying way. I didn’t really want to pick a fight with Mr. Pierce and don’t want to escalate things needlessly, but he can save the wounded pride.
What’s more, in citing Juror No. B37, he failed to note how her comments basically supported my point. She sat in that courtroom and heard all the evidence, and our point of view about that evidence made almost no impression on her. Likewise, her point of view makes almost no impression on us. It’s like we can’t even hear each other.
The main thing about Pierce’s column that bothered me was that it had this causal logic that the outcome of the trial had empowered people to do things that they had not been able to do prior to the trial. In the narrowest way, Piece was right, in the sense that George Zimmerman would never have been able to walk-free with a gun again if he had been convicted. But he wasn’t just talking about Zimmerman. That was just the device he used to make his outrage clear. I don’t want us to blame the jury when we should be blaming the laws and the system the jury operated under.
The second thing that bothered me wasn’t specific to Pierce’s piece. But it is the utterly lopsided way that both sides tend to talk about this case. I am guilty of it, too. Juror No. B37 revealed a lot of things in her interview, some of which were pretty stunning. Some of it was stunning and yet right on point about how the two sides can’t hear each other. For example, she talked about how she thought George Zimmerman’s heart was in the right place and that he was too overeager to help people. He was so kind to his neighbor who suffered a home intrusion (the incident that inspired the Neighborhood Watch program) and he probably profiled everyone who came into the neighborhood because that’s what he considered to be his job at the head of the Watch.
That’s pretty far removed from how I see George Zimmerman, a man who has so far showed no sincere remorse for the innocent life he took. It definitely gives him every benefit of the doubt, and then some. But it’s a way at looking at race and crime that is shared broadly in this country. This juror appeared to feel worse about what happened to George Zimmerman than what happened to Trayvon Martin, which is very troubling, but her starting point is that profiling Martin was a completely legitimate thing to do because kids who looked like Trayvon inspired the Watch in the first place. She doesn’t live in Rachel Jeantel’s world and can barely even understand her spoken words. What kind of racism is this, really? Subliminal, subconscious, institutional, cultural?
I think it’s mainly ignorance. Lack of contact. Lack of talking. Lack of understanding of what it’s like to be under suspicion because of how you look. To her, the problem is crime. To us, the problem is a system where someone innocent can be hunted down and killed and the police don’t even arrest the murderer. And then when the murderer is finally arrested in the face of public outrage, they can’t be convicted.
Juror No. B37 made this problem clear when she said that a couple of the jurors wanted to convict Zimmerman of something but they couldn’t find anything available to convict him of. The jury instructions precluded them from punishing Zimmerman in any way. Juror No. B37 also made another point of mine when she said that she didn’t know if Trayvon went for the gun or not but that it did not matter because she believed it was Zimmerman crying out in terror. Game. Set. Match.
I don’t believe anything I’ve had to say on the verdict is at odds with what Ta-Nehisi Coates has been saying, except that I offered the opinion that a conviction could have been justified based on all the lies that Zimmerman told. Coates and I have had the same focus, which is that jury isn’t really to blame here so let’s not focus on them.
But, of course, now that Juror No. B37 has spoken out, there are some legitimate things to discuss about both her in particular, and the jury in general. I just don’t want everyone to go chasing that rabbit and forget that it’s almost impossible to convict someone if Florida for murder unless you have an eyewitness. Blaming Juror No. B37 for being clueless and insensitive, or nitpicking the prosecutors, is wasted and diverted energy.
I don’t have magic solutions, but we won’t get anywhere by just saying Juror No. B37’s views are fucked up and have no validity, nor will she change if no one teaches her to understand and respect our side of the story.
How are we, black people, supposed to assuage stereotypes that are assigned to us regardless of what we do. That’s my issue with your original post. You implied that unless we address the view that black people disproportionately commit violent crime and there’s validity to the view that we are uniquely scary to them we’re not really hearing them. I reject that. People have heard that and have pointed out in many ways why that’s a faulty assumption and yet it persists in the face of evidence and logic. Any type of assuaging of that concern is going to fail because it wasn’t reasoned into in the first place and asking people to understand that mindset and answer their charges is what we’ve been doing since Crispus Attucks was shot.
I guess one way to better understand what I am trying to say is to come to terms with the banality of the evil that really powers support for stop-and-frisk or stand your ground laws. When I say that we can’t hear them, I don’t mean that they need to be accepted. I mean that we don’t have the proper understanding of what they actually think. We keep saying that they just hate blacks, love guns, etc. Yes, the loudest voices are like that. But this lady, the juror? She just thinks Zimmerman acted reasonably under the circumstances up to the point that he got out of his car. You know, she’s not filled with hate. She just can’t see things from both points of view. She sees crime; she sees a guy who stepped up to do something about it. She sees a good person, who got a little overzealous. She isn’t even hearing Trayvon’s side. But, too often, I don’t think we even hear her side. Not to accept it, but to understand it.
It gets tiring always being told to understand the heart behind the racist, when the later never does the same and holds all the power.
We turn the other cheek and get shot in the back. Then when we protest being shot in the back, we are told that WE are the ones who need to understand…
It is tiring.
Every tyrant in history has seen “crime” and became the guy who steps up to do something about it. People like this fool became his stepping stones. Of course she isn’t hearing Trayvon’s side. She’s hearing Foxnews, Hannity, and all the rest. Because she chooses to.
Willful ignorance is no excuse, and I’m sick of being hectored to try and “understand her side”. The law and justice are no about “understanding”. They’re about harm done. She and her fellow white mice did enormous harm. They deserve no sympathy. I sure wish you’d get over your Obama voice.
You know, she’s not filled with hate. She just can’t see things from both points of view. She sees crime; she sees a guy who stepped up to do something about it. She sees a good person, who got a little overzealous.
You didn’t watch that Anderson Cooper interview last night, did you?
That interview was consistent with that characterization.
Look, we white liberals aren’t focusing on understanding B37’s point of view because we want to impose that understanding on African Americans or on anyone else. Nobody’s saying that persons of color “need to understand” her thinking. It’s we white people who need to understand her thinking, so that we can do something about it; so that we can eradicate it.
When I travel to the Midwest and spend time with my well-to-do, conservative, intrinsically racist relatives (who live in a wealthy Detroit suburb, which tells you all you need to know about how they think), I get into political discussions with them and I endeavor to figure out where they’re coming from, not because I want the victims of their systemic racism, privilege and ignorance to understand them, but because I want to understand them; to persuade them to open their eyes and think more clearly.
You have to understand people before you can hope to change them. People don’t respond well to disrespect and condescension. And they particularly do not respond well to being called a racist when they think they are just using common sense.
There’s a good piece in last week’s New York Times Magazine about the difference in approach to black and brown crime in LA and NYC. In NYC, the Stop and Frisk program may have contributed to bringing the violent crime level down 80% but there are signs that it is counterproductive and has destroyed the legitimacy of the NYPD. In LA, community engagement is resulting in a similar reduction in crime but with a noticeable increase in the legitimacy of the LAPD. And studies have shown that the single best way to reduce crime or increase voluntary cooperation is to increase legitimacy. Crime in NYC is down, but unsolved crimes are way up because people won’t talk to the police.
How does that apply to pro-Zimmerman folks? We have to take them assumptions seriously. He have to face them head-on rather than just dismissing them as ignorant or biased or even hateful.
Here is an example. If you have no firsthand knowledge of the downsides of racial profiling and you are confronted with the following facts, where do you come down?
What percentage of the people who don’t know about the downsides of racial profiling are going to think that there is anything wrong with calling the police?
The answer is basically no percent.
But that is the point where all this begins, right? That’s the racial profiling. Kids on the phone. He’s not bothering anybody. He belongs there.
This is the dividing line, really, between both sides. Had Zimmerman already done something wrong when he called the police? Our side looks at all the other calls on black kids that he made and says ‘yes,’ this dude had it out for black kids. Their side says that he was just using common sense. For them, Trayvon isn’t an individual, he’s a suspect who happens to be innocent.
How do we get them to see their error? We don’t do it by demonizing them, but by humanizing Trayvon.
Look at how quickly gay rights proceeded once people started coming out of the closet and positive portrayals were seen on television. We humanized homosexuality and gained widespread acceptance. We didn’t convince the diehard homophobes, but we never needed to do that.
It’s about direct experience and education.
She sees a good person, who got a little overzealous.
A good person that got a little overzealous and killed an unarmed teenager and we are supposed to “hear” that? You are willing to hear it because you really don’t understand what it means to be Black in this country. It would be a lot better if you stopped pretending that you do. You have been exposed. I saw it a while back when you were obsessed with immigration reform and unwilling to “hear” those who disagreed because of the negative impact on legal citizens.
The assumptions have been used as weapons for half a millennium. The current stereotypes are the strange fruit of an unending campaign by bad people to market them. The behavior of those bad people, from Zimmerman to Scott and FL lawmakers has not changed over time. They lost a few legal battles but have now recovered to return to the same “cultural heritage” that Emmett Till experienced.
The measured and thoughtful reaction by black people to the latest outrage should have some effect on the stereotypes. The pols and the media will fight to the death (someone else’s, of course) to prevent that. Until Americans come to care about justice, that seems like the best that can be done. It’s hell living at the suicide end of a pustulent empire.
I couldn’t agree more. Exactly my sentiments when I read the original piece.
You said it a lot more graceful than I would have, so I will leave it at that.
You’re sure the differences in perception are due to racism, though you don’t know what kind.
But you also seem pretty sure it’s not your racism, or that of those who share your perception.
It’s racism on the part of those whose perceptions you don’t share.
Uh huh.
I can’t wait until you invite everybody to have a conversation about race.
Jesus.
What, exactly, are you replying to in my comment?
BooMan, you got some pushback on this ……. and to me it is (largely) deserved. You seem oblivious to the fact that at public establishments with TVs in certain parts of the country, people watching apllauded – not unlike those applauding the news of the JFK assassination fifty years ago. That’s not solvable by education.
Yes, I’m all for education; most people are not beyond redemption. But that should start with our opponents, don’t you think?
Near as I can tell, Boo can’t bring himself to believe that there is such a thing as evil in the world.
That woman wasn’t just ignorant, she appeared to be spectacularly unintelligent. The sort of lazy, unaware person that drifts through life and feels no empathy for anyone not very similar to herself.
What I don’t get is, if she couldn’t understand the young woman on the stand, why didn’t she ask for a transcript? Is she not allowed to do that?
Or maybe we could get her a tutor to teach her how to understand American English.
You keep implying we should somehow “reach” people like this, but I would argue that is not the case. The majority of americans actually aren’t that stupid, as much as it might be tempting to assume so. What we need to do is get solid progressive majorities and manage this country so that people like this can do as little damage as possible. And reach young people before they shrink into little shells like this and disengage with the world.
“It is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, but it is the case that all stupid people are conservative.” John Stuart Mill
But I think Booman’s main point is that the NRA/ALEC perversion of FL law relating to guns and deadly force tied the hands of the intelligent juror as well as the stupid one…as for the voice on the tape, the evidence presented seemed hopelessly conflicted, although of course the Zimmerman family had a strong reason to lie.
No one’s hands were tied. I don’t necessarily fault the jurors, but since when do we really follow “the letter of the law”? I’d wager it’s somewhere around “never” if not barely skimming it. Before Colorado legalized juries would frequently acquit or dismiss charges for possession, which almost always involved over zealous prosecutors throwing in an “intent to sell” in there because a dooby was found with a $20. Her biases are quite obvious here, which is why I don’t believe she followed the letter of the law anymore than I would have.
A good example of “We can’t hear each other:”
The Martin family didn’t have a strong reason to lie?
The rightwing whitewashed Zimmerman while the leftwing demonized him (never describing Z as having “followed” Martin and always “stalked” and/or “hunted” conveniently ignoring that a stalker or hunter draws his gun before he sets out to kill). Similarly, the leftwing presented Martin as a twelve year old angel and the rightwing attempted to demonize him. Neither portrait is correct.
Both profiled each other and likely incorrectly. Can’t imagine why Martin wouldn’t have had a chip on his shoulder as there were difficulties in his life and we know that Z did and what it was about.
And we take from what turned into a tragedy by profiling each other and putting a chip on our shoulders. The leftwing sees nothing but racism and legal injustice and the rightwing revels in their continued freedom to carry guns and shoot whoever gets in their way or rubs them the wrong way. Both are wrong in their takeaways from this case. The left can’t acknowledge that this isn’t like the Rodney King beating or Oscar Grant murder. The right can’t acknowledge that their racist zealotry continues to convict and incarcerate young black men for wrongs far more minor than what Zimmerman did.
Te-Nehisi Coates was correct to direct our attention to the killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn in Florida — although he erred in not pointing out that Dunn is charged with Murder One. This is The Case to watch. If the basic facts are correct, how many white folks will rally around a man that literally shot and killed a young black man because he didn’t like his loud music?
You say: “The leftwing sees nothing but racism and legal injustice …”
That’s largely a strawman. I don’t anyone who thinks Zimmerman started the night with the overt intention of shooting a black kid to death. Try this: “The leftwing sees a great deal of racism and legal injustice …”
You think that’s the ‘wrong takeaway?’
(And of course it’s not like Rodney King; that was police, and King survived.)
Okay:
And what else do they see wrt to the death and trial under discussion? It sure isn’t a sober and rational review and analysis of FL law and the trial for most.
Okay. Then why is Z described as stalking and/or hunting Martin?
I’m not entirely sure what your point is, I guess. You’re saying that race wasn’t much of an issue in this case, which was mostly down to a rigorous interpretation of the laws, which aren’t all that race-based?
If you want to discuss policy, I’m open to that. But I said that my comments were specifically in regard to the Martin case.
Don’t disagree that “emotion moves policy far better than rationality does,” but that’s not a good thing and is precisely why were have so much dreadful legislation such as SYG.
“Stalk” is a negative and emotionally laden word — and implies a certain state of mind on the part of Z that the limited and available evidence couldn’t confirm. I freely admit that I don’t know what occurred when Martin and Z encountered each other on that dark path and what transpired other than that there was a scuffle, Z was bloodied, and Martin was shot. Nor do you. Plenty of possible and plausible scenarios which leads to reasonable doubt. When the truth cannot be known. (Not even Z knows what it is because first it all happened quickly and second getting your face smashed and head based is not conducive to forming memories.)
No scuffle and no injury to Z and he should have been convicted of at least manslaughter.
Jeralyn Merritt has detailed the facts and relevant law if you’re interested in going beyond your impressions and interpretation. Yes, she’s a criminal defense attorney. Just Like William Kunstler who had the audacity to represent one of the five charged in the Central Park Rape case when the NYC white community was in a frenzy to see those young men convicted and put away forever. How did all that public emotion work out for those innocent men? Not so well wouldn’t you agree?
Is there ever a negative encounter between a white, or sort of white guy, and a black guy in this country where race isn’t an issue? Had there not been several break-ins in that complex perpetrated by young black men would Z have even noticed Martin as he was on his way to the store? We know that Z wasn’t hostile to at least some African-Americans in his neighborhood. Don’t know about Martin’s with whites.
What frustrates me is that those screaming for Z’s head would be on the opposite side if Z were black and Martin white as would those high-fiving the acquittal. That appears to me to be racism on both sides. The standard should be a high bar for conviction regardless of skin color.
Merritt also heavily favors SYG and opposes all gun control. And I don’t believe his “head was smashed on concrete”. If you want to talk about words with connotations, I’d say smash has a pretty high bar; equivalent of American History X curb stomps.
She does do that. She’s very smart but not certainly not perfect. Dig back in her archives circa 2004 and you’ll find she was convinced Scott Petersen was innocent.
I’ve just taken it to assume she will take the side of the charged no matter what or why, which is why I wrote off and continue to write off her coverage on this case. I still like and respect her blog, however, because no one else in the lefty blogosphere seems to care about “the politics of crime.”
An occupational hazard for a defense attorney in their public posture. Wasn’t she a TV court pundit back in 2004? Sure she wasn’t just making the case for a not guilty verdict for Peterson and privately and personally had take no position on his guilt or innocence?
I did dislike the way that case(and so many others) was tried the court of public opinion and inflamed emotions. I don’t watch any of that stuff on TV and avoid almost all the print/internet reports on those cases and am content to let juries sort out convictions and acquittals. Yes, I know juries aren’t perfect — but most of their errors are the consequence of the difference between prosecution and defense assets and resources.
She might have been just taking a posture for effect, but that doesn’t seem like her. She had quite a number of posts on why she thought this was the case and would later remind people of her positions on various things, and include that in the list.
I was a frequent commenter on the blog then (different name) – the legal issues to do with the Iraq War, Gitmo, and later the torture chambers all were interesting topics. Lost interest sometime after that and haven’t visited her blog in many years.
Will keep all that in mind — don’t plan to become a regular reader or contributor, but appreciated her work the past few day on the Martin case.
Sorry for being a bit of a stickler, but your recollection that Merritt was “convinced” that Scott Peterson was innocent just sounded off for the training and style of defense attorneys.
Anyway from WaPo blog with Merritt 3/16/2005
That’s consistent with what I’ve seen from defense attorneys over the decades and seems similar to what I read in her statements about the Martin case.
You made me look it up.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/11/12/555/57366/crimenews/Scott-Peterson-Guilty-Where-Is-the-Evid
ence-
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/11/22/598/35098/crimenews/Scott-Peterson-Penalty-Trial-Continued-
for-One-Week
It would be more accurate to say she thought he was “not guilty” than to say “innocent”, since technically absense of guilt is very, very hard to prove.
Huge difference IMHO. In the Michael Morton murder trial
Allison and White later filed a motion for retrial that was denied. Merritt would likely have agreed with Morton’s attorneys that the prosecution had fallen far short of the “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
At some point Allison was convinced that Morton was not only “not guilty” but innocent.
Michael Morton was locked up for twenty five years because of two corrupt prosecutors and a jury that gave no weight to “reasonable doubt.”
No problem with someone taking exception to “head smashed on concrete.” Only that in this portion of the thread I didn’t say that — only said “head bashed” which it was.
At some point may take a look at Merritt’s positions on SYG and gun control – but neither were directly relevant to this case.
I didn’t mean imply you did per se, but Merritt has repeated it many times and very often. Her positions aren’t relevant to the case, but they are relevant to how she interprets the facts of the case. And despite everyone saying SYG had nothing to do with this case, based on this juror’s words I believe it did.
After reading the initial reports on this case, I leaned towards the view that GZ was guilty of at least manslaughter. But I did have questions; lots of questions. Stopped reading anything about the case at that point because it became too difficult to sort out facts from disinformation, spin, propaganda (on both sides). Only stepped into it again last week and found Merritt’s blog that at least wasn’t hysterical and did present the applicable law which didn’t include SYG but believe whatever you will.
While not always easy, I do work hard to take “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” seriously. Suspend judgment until all the facts/evidence that will be known are presented.
IMHO GZ is somewhat pathetic (but so too was a white defendant in a criminal trial that as a juror I didn’t hesitate to convict because the facts were clear). Am mindful of how easy it is to distort the motivations and actions of those that aren’t all that bright and not too articulate. (Recall how easy it was to demonize Richard Jewell?) I also recognize that giving others the benefit of the doubt, means I will sometimes get it wrong. But doesn’t the alternative lead to getting it wrong much more frequently?
I don’t know what “left” you’re talking about, but stalking does not mean open carrying a gun, quite the reverse.
More importantly, stalking was a perfectly reasonable way for Martin to view Z’s behavior. But of course we’re not required to examine his point of view. That’s limited to Zimmerman and the dimwit jury woman.
That case is going to be interesting. Of course, my first reaction is not to trust any reports so in the end the case may turn out to be something very different.
However, this appears to be the classic “thought I saw a firearm” case. Back in the 1970s this was a pretty common tale told by policemen, and it even became a story line for many cop shows. The cop was chasing a burglar and cornered him, the burglar turned around and appeared to be taking something out from a jacket – the cop shot and killed, and the “something” turned out to be nothing.
Depending on the story told, sometimes the victim wasn’t even the burglar. Complicating factors were whether the policemen had identified himself in advance and had order the suspect to freeze. And of course whether there were witnesses.
It is a fair question of what happens if you are in a confrontational situation and the other party does something to suggest he (usually he) is pulling out a gun. In those 1970s shows it was generally presented as a no-win situation for the cop – hesistate and be shot yourself, or shoot before verifying and risk having shot an unarmed person.
I have no doubt that those 1970s stories were part of what laid the groundwork for ALEC’s SYG laws. But the problem is that these laws are written from one perspective only – that of the shooter. The problem is that, taken literally, the right to shoot if you are in a confrontational situation and you believe the other person is pulling out a gun means that you have a license to kill – as long as you know the terms of SYG and can keep your story “plausible”.
Unfortunately, we’re hearing of only a small percentage of these cases in the media. The total number of SYG defenses nationwide is now in the 10s of thousands. The inevitable outcome is that some people will become SYG serial killers – people who know just how to plan the killings to avoid witnesses or any other means of counter-proof.
The Jordan Davis case isn’t confounded by a cop or neighborhood watch captain perp, a kid that could possibly pose a threat to the perp and wasn’t doing anything wrong, and as for SYG, Davis and his friends were parked at the store before Dunn showed up and allegedly began demanding they turn down the volume on their music.
A toxic brew of racism, a gun, and alcohol all on Dunn’s part. Again unless there’s any substantive factual error in the reports, if this guy isn’t convicted and sent away for a very long time, I’ll participate in the subsequent anti-racism riots.
Sorry. But Zimmerman was the adult. Chip on his shoulder or not, Zimmerman was the adult with the gun.
and
Sorry, just how many cases do you have to watch? Of course, watch every case, but when is the tipping point? Some American citizens have been watching and weeping a long time.
Can we start with the history of killings without the “benefit” of a law experience.
If the rumors are true, a big if, juror B37 is the wife of one of the most known lawyers in the Orlando area. How the prosecution let this scumbag of a woman on the jury is major malpractice.
Let me translate this for you.
means in blunt Southernese:
An attorney’s wife is much to circumspect to come out and say what she thinks. I was not a hearing problem. It was a manifestation of not “I can’t hear you” but “I won’t hear you”.
Which is where I think that BooMan misses the point of the issue. It isn’t about “we can’t hear each other” at all.
This is about crime like rape is about miniskirts. We dismiss ‘she asked for it’ as fucked-up and invalid, not only because it is but in an effort to disqualify that level of offensive stupidity from the public square.
Thank you. No liberal would say we need to confront and answer the charge that Jewish people are usurious, or that LGBTQ people are prone to pedophilia, just because a stereotype is acted on more often doesn’t mean it’s more valid.
“Shows up in the police statistics more often” is not the same as “acted on more often”.
That’s the hideous thing about the stereotype of young black males. It gets backed up with police statistics.
Compare the treatment of a rich white cokehead and a poor black crackhead. Even the legal penalties are different in a lot of jurisdiction.
Jurisdictions have it in their power to reduce crime, but instead they’ve decided to keep crime in black neighborhoods as a shield for white crime. Nice white ladies don’t frequent bad neighborhoods where their husbands might have dealings.
Stereotypes are not accidental; they are very useful.
It was a trial by a jury of Zimmerman’s peers, not Martin’s.
And that’s also part of the problem.
You’re right, that is a problem. The jury should have reflected the community where the crime took place, and it didn’t.
I am not sure it would have made a difference, but it might have. But, again, given the jury instructions, it was basically a matter of whose voice you thought was on that tape. Supposedly, almost all of the jurors agree that the voice was Zimmerman’s.
The prosecution lost that battle. But, remember, half the jury initially wanted to find him guilty and half not-guilty. It was only when they looked at the letter of the law that they all concluded that they couldn’t convict him.
I agree, the law itself was more at fault than the jury.
And the result was that “legality” trumped “justice.”
I have to wonder if part of the problem is the Suckhole State’s use of 6-person juries. It’s pretty hard to get a representation of diversity among such a small sample. I think there’s a good chance there would at least have been a hung jury if there had been 12 of them.
Mission accomplished, isn’t it.
You are too willing to discount the bias of this almost all white jury. They were not just acting on the letter of the law. This juror b37 that spoke out made it clear that she held TM at fault and that “George” as she refers to Zimmerman was just frustrated and wanted to get “these people”, meaning Black males. In order to acquit, they had to believe George Zs side of the story. How do we know that George didn’t walk up and grab this kid or tackle him before TM defended himself? They were unwilling to even consider that and it is at least as plausible as GZs lie.
I agree with every word you said, and you’re absolutely right, except for one detail: She referred to Zimmerman as “George” but she also referred to Martin as “Trayvon.”
you’re right. I think there are major constitutional issues with these laws. Trayvon Martin was never charged with anything, and yet George Zimmerman was acquitted not because the evidence said he didn’t do it, but because they presumed TM was guilty.
However, in this case isn’t Trayvon supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?
This is a direct violation of the 6th Amendment.
Also, this entire case should have been a mistrial if the jurors cannot understand the fucking instructions.
Thank you Vinnie.
Days ago I said the Dead are given no presumption of innocence in this form of justice on TalkLeft. The smart aleck retort I got from a frequent poster was basically duh, trials are for the living.
(Wish I could find the exact quote more easily. Perhaps the poster will repeat it.)
The future is the past for African Americans under these Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground and Conceal Carry laws.
All of us are the other. But some of us don’t carry guns.
I was thinking about this further, and there are some things that really bother about the George Zimmerman trial.
First, in order to believe in George Zimmerman’s innocence, you must believe that his statement is truthful. However, the Prosecution did an adequate job of making holes in his story and helped expose different, changing accounts of his story. Furthermore, the Defense conceded that Zimmerman’s version(s) of what happened were exaggerated.
So, if Zimmerman is not being entirely truthful then you cannot accept his version of what happened as accurate and should be removed as not credible.
After all, an innocent person wouldn’t have to be dishonest about what happened.
Secondly, if George Zimmerman is innocent, then that means that Trayvon Marting was guilty. However, Trayvon Martin was not on trial, he was not charged with a crime, he didn’t have the ability to hire expensive defense attorneys and hire experts to testify on his behalf.
Instead, he was accused, prosecuted, and punished without protecting his Constitutional Rights to due process.
Ironically, TM probably could have used the Stand Your Ground defense; he was murdered while exercising his rights.
So, put it all together: Zimmerman Lied, and Trayvon Martin was murdered while legally defending himself and tried Unconstitutionally.
This is not just a potential Civil Rights Act case; this is a case for SCOTUS to evaluate and overturn draconian self-defense and Stand Your Ground laws.
I’m upset about the verdict; but I think there can be some very positive outcomes.
As for George Zimmerman; I would have liked to see him taken away in handcuffs to rot in prison; but I am confident that he’ll get his comeuppance.
Chances are that in time he’ll return to “protecting his streets” and will either wind up in jail again for murder (without the benefit of doubt this time) or he won’t survive the confrontation.
Alternatively, I wouldn’t be surprised if there vigilantism against him someday. However, I hope that it never happens.
Instead, I hope that George Zimmerman spends the rest of his life in fear; always watching over his back, always worried that someone will find him, kill him, or worse – expose him as the murderer that he truly is. I’d rather he spend the next 30 years in prison trying to watch his ass, which is a much more just punishment, but I will take solace in knowing that the rest of his life will be spent in fear.
As for Trayvon Martin; I think he can have a very long lasting legacy as a martyr for a greater cause. Through his death, and unjust treatment by the justice system, we can right the wrongs of these ALEC-created laws that promote fear and self-preservation.
Lastly, for people who are disappointed in the verdict; I suspect that there will be a major backlash against the GOP. Between the obvious racism and sexism, I expect the Democrat party’s broad tent of inclusiveness, diversity, and tolerance will be welcoming.
Why are we spending so much time making excuses for idiots like Zimmerman or, for that matter, like Juror B37? For all that you keep insisting we aren’t hearing what they have to say, BooMan, none of the stuff they’re saying is actually new or informative or interesting. Nor is the underlying, racially-inflected hysteria over violent crime that leads to both the militarization of the police and a malignant cultural and legal environment that put a gun in George ZImmerman’s hand and then told him he had a right to use it?
So, one point that many people have made but bears repeating is that we outsiders do not, and cannot, see the case as a juror does.
First, the jury in theory should have little knowledge of the case at the outset. You might think that’s impossible in our world of wall-to-wall media, but basically it is possible. I avoid TV news and so knew a little – but only a little – of the Zimmerman case going into the trial. This was entirely via reading of left wing blogs and any links I might have followed. In other recent popular media cases – think the woman killed in Aruba or the one who allegedly killed her daughter or the one who stalked and murdered her boyfriend – I would literally have entered the jury box with almost no advanced knowledge.
That changes everything. First, the juror’s report that “she thought George Zimmerman’s heart was in the right place and that he was too overeager to help people”. Well, if all you have was courtroom testimony that might be a reasonable view to take – the evidence that Zimmerman is a viligante-wannabe with a history of violence was intentionally excluded from the trial.
Second, the juror instructions are vital. I was foreman on a jury where we agreed on a verdict (conviction on two counts, aquittal on a third) but also agreed we wished it had been more – but the letter of the law and the instructions made that impossible given the requirement for reasonable doubt. The accused was charged with DUI and hit-and-run – but the hit-and-run was a mild sideswipe at about 34 mph. Given his state of drunkeness and testimony about what he said when he was stopped it was very plausible that he wasn’t aware he’d sideswiped a car – and the law clearly required that he knew he’d hit another car (the key word was “knowingly”) for a conviction. Everyone of the twelve of us agreed that he should have been convicted of hit-and-run because there had in fact been a hit-and-run and he should be responsible because he’d chosen to be drunk. We even sent questions to the judge trying to find some way to make that happen. But she just kept pointing us back to the original instructions (she was a phenomenal judge, btw – in my experience most are). So we acquitted.
So, to me, having now read the jury instructions and reviewed what was presented am not surprised at the verdict, and in fact under the same circumstances I might have done the same (with intense anguish). The manslaughter instructions, in particular, were just gobbledygook.
So, yes, there is a strong racial aspect to this. I guarantee that most of those jurors – if not all – viewed the victim and his murderer differently than they would have if the case were identical but the races reversed. And, yes, a lot of juries would convict the black defendent but not the white defendent if the situations were reversed. This is a long-standing societal problem. But my main point here is that even if those were not a factor the law itself makes this situation much worse, in that it provides a loophole for murder.
Let us remember that the origin of Stand Your Ground – both the official laws that bear that name and the phrasing of the self defense statutes that were used in the jury instructions – was because of stories of poor innocent people who were put in jail for killing people invading their homes. There probably actually were a few ridiculous cases like that – but I’ll bet that most of those cases were like the McDonalds-coffee-spill-on-lap case where the facts were greatly distorted in the retelling and when you actually learn the facts you find that the law was justified. Such as cases where the burglar was fleeing and was shot in the back from a distance.
That is, the origin of these laws was, like voter fraud or IRS abuse, highly exaggerated by media and the cure is far worse than the problem that was allegedly solved.
Would be interesting to know how many those like you that can rationally consider all the factors in the Trayvon Martin case have experience as a juror in a criminal case. And how many of those responding emotionally — regardless of which side — have ever had the experience of being a real juror.
Is this like when prolife women tell people that they can’t understand because they’re not moms?
No. Considering that most women who have had abortions are mothers and a high proportion of abortion advocates are mothers, that’s not exactly a winning argument for the anti-abortion advocates.
My point is that everyone seems to have some notion of what it’s like to serve on a jury from books, movies, and TV. I did. Then I served and discovered that it really is a unique and painful experience. Most of those I served with took their responsibility to carefully evaluate the evidence and follow the law seriously. When public groups disagree with a decision, they claim with no evidence that the jurors had failed in that duty. Then there is the difficulty of what to do when a juror seems unable to comprehend the facts and the law. That’s when patience and humility for the majority is called for to allow the juror(s) in the minority the time to articulate what they see because maybe the majority has dismissed or overlooked something critical and got it wrong.
Armchair jurors tend not to fully appreciate that a juror may only consider what is presented in court and must apply the law as presented to them. When people I knew disparaged the OJ Simpson jury, I pointed out that they hadn’t sat in the courtroom and heard/seen all the testimony and evidence and that one’s gut sense that he was guilty of murder (which I shared) was irrelevant to their decision as a juror.
Seems to me the juror’s remarks made it unmistakable where this verdict came from Can you really read what she said and imaging that her vote was not set in stone as soon as the opening arguments were over?
Having served on a jury where one juror made up his mind BEFORE opening statements, it’s not uncommon. Such people have a fifty/fifty chance that the other jurors will end up agreeing with them, but they are bad jurors and failed to honor their oath.
Yes, my experience as a juror in a rape case was humiliating and disturbing.seven years ago.
The case of a young African American woman raped by a former (African American) boyfriend..
(I was reprimanded for taking notes during the testimony by the way- the only way I could stay awake during the two day trial because both lawyers were such poor speakers.)
The jury was 7 other women & 4 men- all white.
They would not-would not-think that it could be rape since they knew each other. Conversation and my well-honed radar recognized it as a convenient excuse for all but one woman. Even making the discussion personal didn’t work. They wanted to go home.
I remained the hold out until 5 hours later when the judge sent in new “instructions” that made it impossible to do what I knew was right.
At the verdict reading I was crying and couldn’t move my eyes from the young woman.
I spent the next hour looking her up in the phone book; I used all the money I had to buy 12 red long stem roses and drove to house. She opened the door with friends behind her. I said only “I’m so sorry” as I handed her the flowers.
No, justice is not in the hands of the law.
What a horribly painful experience for you. Did the prosecution not inform/educate the jury that more often than not the rapist is known to the victim? Acquaintance, co-worker, friend, ex-boyfriend or ex-husband and even boyfriend and husband.
Have those eleven people lived in a cave for the past forty years? That’s my response to your characterization of their “reasoning” which appears deeply sexist as well as ignorant. However, you and they may still have reached the best decision possible considering the evidence and law.
One thing I have not heard in local media is that some bus services were interrupted because of fights breaking out between Blacks and Hispanics here in LA. The only way I know is through an African-American friend of mine who uses public transportation. I found it troubling from the beginning that the jury was almost exclusively white and that the one non-white was Hispanic. I immediately thought of Rodney King and the idiocies expressed by members of that jury out in Lily-white Simi Valley where Ronald Reagan’s comic book collection is archived. Charles Pierce is one of the few political bloggers I read on a daily basis. Maybe he should have qualified the statement that you seem to have taken undue umbrage from and said “more possible” instead of just “possible”. I heard Mrs. B37 opine for the first time on NPR this morning and was taken aback by her assertion that the most she could say critically about Zimmerman was that he displayed “poor judgement”, like killing an innocent youth was comparable to shop lifting or some other minor misdemeanor. Poor judgement but a good shot. And enriching herself via a book deal makes me uninterested in anything else this sorry excuse for a human being has to say.
The most important fact to ask about juror B37 is why the prosecution did not challenge her. Had the exhausted the challenges at that point? And did the judge allow the defense to challenge every black prospective juror just on the basis of their race?
I suspect that the DOJ, if it is doing its job, is going to be subpoenaing the email of the prosecution team.
It could be that the bench down there, in terms of jurors, is exactly that deep…which wouldn’t shock me.
Or, as I suspect, the prosecution just wasn’t trying very hard, or couldn’t imagine that any of these women would have biases.
Picking a jury has to be very difficult – more so because every jurisdiction has their own rules and procedures. Lawyers are limited in what they can ask and what they can tell the jury. In addition, in many cases you’ll realize that only a minority portion of a jury pool will have the mindset you need to get a conviction – and that makes getting the jury pool you want all the more difficult.
For example, I recently was called to jury duty here in Colorado Springs and was selected for a jury pool for a rape trial. In stark contrast to my previous experiences in other states the jury selection involved each lawyer having about 45 minutes to tell the jury pool what their view of the case was and to ask a few questions of each juror. We were then sent to lunch for an hour, came back, and they did more presentations and questions for about an hour.
I could see it was going to be a very difficult time for the prosecutor to get the jury he wanted. The situation was a recently divorced mother met a young adult on a hookup web site and had him move in. The 14 year old daughter was furious with the mother. There were incidents of runaways and calls to police for conflicts between mother and daughter. The mother’s boyfriend was kicked out then came back then they broke up again. The daughter then filed charges that she had been raped numerous times by the mother’s boyfriend. There was no contemporaneous reports of the rape to anyone, only after the fact, and no admission that there was even consensual sex between them by the mother’s boyfriend.
As the lawyers said, it was classic “he said, she said”. The prosecutor needed a jury that would be willing to convict based on watching the testimony and making assessments regarding who was lying.
I was very torn. My oldest daughter was a victim of serious abuse by a person in trust (not sexual) and it took 3 years to win the civil suit on her behalf. I know from that experience that such accusations, while occasionally invented, are much more often than not true. Especially if the girl’s story had undergone the kind of scrutiny that it must have for the prosecutor to choose to take it to trial. On the other hand – I absolutely do not trust the ability of anyone to be able to judge whether someone is lying just by watching their testimony.
When asked I told the lawyers that I would find it very difficult (not impossible) to convict beyond a reasonable doubt based solely on he said – she said testimony. Naturally I was in the first round of challenges by the prosecutor. But listening to the other people in the jury pool of about 60 I knew that the prosecutor was going to have a very hard time getting 12 who would convict. The few obvious choices for the prosecutor – such as a daughter of a police officer who claimed she could always tell when people were lying – were dismissed by the defense at the same time I was dismissed by the prosecution.
I read later that the jury acquitted in less than two hours and commented that there just wasn’t enough proof.
she’s the same kind of White woman that would have taken her children to a lynching picnic ‘ back in the day’.
I am bone weary of having to reach out my hand to teacjwhite people that racism is all around them. Im am tired of the having to hold my tongue at work as the only AA in my dept when it comes to talking race or social justice.
Just tired of it always being on Black folks or brown folks shoulders ro understand what’s in white people heart instead.
It gets really tiring having to extend our hands and get shit in return.
Thanks for posting and I’ll tell you that at least some of us white folks understand.
I, and a few others here, have also been present when wingnuts have opened up about how they REALLY feel about race. The sort of things you say when you think everyone around you agrees with you. Yes, we are still a VERY long way from being “color blind” in this country.
I am of the belief that everyone is racist; it’s part of the evolution of who we are as humans. We look at people that are different than us, people that have something we do not, and deep down we believe it’s unfair.
Now, just because everyone is racist doesn’t make it right. I freely admit that I am prejudiced against other cultures or other people. There are certain neighborhoods in Philadelphia that I won’t go into out of fear of being in a “bad section” (which is only bad because its different and typically poor, not because of high crime).
But I really try my best to not let it effect how I treat others, and to not judge others based on their appearance.
Tom Joyner is a good dude. He is one of the best advocate for HBCU, maybe THE best advocate…period. Ms Jeantel needs to def accept his offer!
TOM JOYNER OFFERS RACHEL JEANTEL A FULL SCHOLARSHIP TO THE HBCU OF HER CHOICE
The Secret Power Of Black Twitter
That must’ve hurt.
What kind of racism is it? It’s American racism post-emancipation, post-the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. True, the jury is not the heart of the problem, but there’s no excusing it either. Sorry, but this is a stupid, thoughtless woman. Does anyone doubt that here vote would have been the same no matter what the prosecution had or did? Her level of thought is that of the barroom drunk or the society bimbo: his heart was in the right place, and that’s what matters. She has no interest and probably no conception about why courthouses say “Laws, not men”. She was remarkably candid about Rachel Jeantel not being credible because of how she looked and how she talked.
But at bottom, the racism is only a symptom. It is justice that has been struck a probably fatal blow in this case — not just for minorities, but for everyone, including, one day, these jurors. Florida declared a year-round open season on The Other. As Maddow pointed out the other night, under this same
SYGKAN law, a black woman got 20 years for firing a warning shot into the air trying to fend off a husband with a history of physically attacking her and violating restraining orders. She was “standing her ground”, but apparently bore the wrong complexion. Sorry, MLK, but the arc of history has taken a major detour around justice, at least in this country.The only question that matters remains what it always was: would the story be different if the teenager had been white? I think we all know the answer, try as the media and pols try to deflect it. The answer is a photograph of the real America, and a foretaste of life after justice.
Katy Otto, Feministing: White womanhood, protectionism, and complicity in injustice for Trayvon
and just in case I wasn’t clear with my above reply.
I stopped educating White people 15 years ago.
that racist piece of shyt bytch called a sociopathic murderer- George
and the child victim – THAT BOY
and you REALLY think I need to understand her?
G-T-F-O-H
I know EXACTLY who that racist heifer is.
BooMan,
I read your posts and sincerely appreciate your analysis, but you are wrong here; DEAD wrong.
There is no need to “understand” a racist point of view. And yes, like Pierce and you, I get that the law as written made this verdict “likely”.
Trayvon Martin was executed and his murderer not held accountable with a conviction because of RACISM.
To the extent that I would spend any time attempting to “understand” all the facets of Floridian racism would, at best, lead to some accommodation … with racists.
Having grown up in a bigoted family and racist community, I made my mind up long ago that I shall never accept racist bullshit. Oh, I understand, but I don’t give a shit. Racism (and sexism and other BS discrimination) often leads to death; slowly or quickly.
Boo, racism is to be fought ALWAYS. Not accommodated nor understood, FOUGHT by any and all means necessary.
Yes, we do get somewhere when we say plainly, loudly and with absolute conviction that “Juror No. B37’s views are fucked up and have no validity” because that is the TRUTH.
Somebody is going to die (e.g. T. Martin) and I’ll be GD-d if I’m going to sit back and throw up my arms becuase Jurror No. B37 can’t see the racist stupidity.
No sir. If my death or her hurt feelings is the price in the war against “fucked up” and invalid racism, then so be it.
In your heart, you know I’m (we’re!) right.
I think there is a need to understand racism in individuals, if only as a strategic move. And maybe in a one-on-one it would be a good thing to try and understand. The issue is that this is not a one-on-one. This is about the survival of any justice in this country at all. It is not the time to play social worker. We all know what racism is all about, and for purposes of law and society that is all we need to know.
DaveW, it would appear that you and I agree that racism is wrong.
I think where you and I may disagree is on how much less racism is “good”.
In my world view (and racism is not unique to the US, and frankly our ability to work through it is a lot better than most countries) there can be no tolerance for discrimination based upon race, gender, sexual preference, skin color, religion, or national origin.
“understanding” is what is needed on the other side of that argument. In the words of our host, those views are “are fucked up and have no validity”.
And the first thing needed to be understood is that it is always and forever intolerable.
The alternative is accommodation.
A problem is racism coupled with power. Government power, institutional power, media power, vigilante power…
Conceal Carry laws give racist individuals a quick and dirty power so they only have to think the primal thought: “me”.
Is it OK to nitpick Juror B37 for being a disgusting opportunist? Just asking.
As long as you refer to her attorney husband, who must have been making the arrangements while she was sitting on the jury.
We hear each other just fine – we simply disagree, and vehemently. We understand exactly what they’re saying and they understand what we’re saying, and we both say of the others perspective, “That’s bullshit.”
“Can’t we talk about this?”
Nope.
I am absolutely a fan of Charles Pierce and support every single word in both his original piece AND his rebuttal.