Zimmerman v Martin
A White Washed Jury
In A White Washed Trial
The Jury has spoken, says the President; but the question is
has justice spoken?
I have
heard a number of biased and prejudicial pronouncements on both sides of the
racial divide, and I have no intention of adding any further fuel to the fire;
but I do think that a lot of questions remain to be asked, and answers
provided. One outstanding question of
course is, has justice been served?
George Zimmerman was arrested, tried and set free. So is that the end, should it be the end of
the matter?
First of
all, a brief rehash of the known facts and circumstances that gave rise to this
nationally debated matter would be in order.
On a
certain evening, Trayvon Martin was in a certain neighborhood. His ordinary place of residence was in Miami, Florida, and he
was there in Sanford
visiting his father.
On that
evening he had done a little shopping and was returning home when he was
spotted by George Zimmerman, who apparently took objection to this black boy in
his neighborhood. He reported the boy’s presence to the police and was told to
leave him alone.
Zimmerman
was not satisfied; so armed with a gun he decided to go after Martin and having
accosted him shot him dead.
Clearly only
Zimmerman and Martin knew exactly what happened immediately before the fatal
shot was fired. Martin is dead and Zimmerman alone was left to say what
happened or did not happen.
Clearly
Zimmerman could have taken the position, “I caught him and shot him dead,” or “I
got into an altercation with him and the gun went off accidentally,” or he
could say, as he eventually claimed that Martin attacked him and he stood his
ground and shot Martin because at some stage his life was in danger.
Now, it
would seem to any level headed, conscientious, justice-fearing person, that
once the report was made to the police, the proper course would have been to
arrest Zimmerman and then go about gathering evidence, and see where the facts
led them. But contrary to all rules of common sense, and investigative
procedure and precedence, the police acted as judge and jury, and decided not
to arrest Zimmerman. But not only that it is asserted that the police went
further and aided and abetted Zimmerman by providing him with a defense to
murder, by either with his consent inflicting superficial wounds on him or
advising him, and or helping him to inflict those wounds on himself.
It is
already well documented that several hours elapsed before the dead boy’s family
was informed, and it is averred that they used that time in preparing his
defense of self defense. But in any
event as has been said above an impartial police would have at least arrested
first and investigated after. This was
not a report of a battery or a stolen car.
A young boy, some body’s son had been killed.
Nationwide
public protests forced the police to make an arrest, and after a year, and much
public interest, a trial was put on.
Let me say
here and now that in my view, it was nothing more than a mock trial, a
farce. I must confess that armed with
this belief, I did not attend, and I did not listen to all of the evidence; but
I must say that such as I listened to or saw, cemented my earlier opinion that
it was a trial of appeasement rather than a trial in pursuit of justice.
Firstly, I
confess that I did not know that a murder trial could be conducted with only
six jurors deciding. That’s a farce in
itself. When in 1791 the sixth amendment
to the Constitution was passed, the framers would have said, certainly not, to any
suggestion that a jury of one’s peers could be 6, the standard at that time
being 12 good men and true.
When the
amendment spoke of an impartial jury they meant 12 men who had no interest in
the case except that of doing justice.
The provision for an impartial jury would suggest that they must not be
biased and should represent a fair cross section of the accused’s peers from
within his community.
I would
contend that 6 jurors do not represent a sufficient cross section. 12 Jurors was the accepted norm; and although
I have seen that number reduced to 9 in non capital cases in small communities
for logistical purposes, 6 is unrepresentative of the letter and spirit of the
amendment.
In
addition, women were not qualified to sit on jurors or to vote at the time of
the passing of the 6th amendment. So
that would constitute a further reason why one may argue that the spirit of the
amendment has been violated.
Another
peculiarity with the jurors is not only the number 6, but 6 white women. Could 6 white women be said to be
representative of Martin’s Peers? But oh yes, Zimmerman not Martin was on trial
and 6 white women were representative of Zimmerman’s peers. True but that is my point exactly, justice
for Martin should have been on trial too; his freedom, his life, his death,
were on trial, and he aught to have been represented.
Secondly,
the few times I listened in or watched, I was utterly disgusted with what I saw
and heard. Where is the prosecution,
where is the judge? I proclaimed more than once. The defense was having it all their own
way. I heard a witness on the stand, not
an expert witness, being led by the defense to give evidence by drawing
conclusions and inferences, and state opinions that only the jury in a criminal
trial is allowed to draw or state. The Prosecution did not object and the judge
did not intervene. At that moment I told
a friend of mine this is a pantomime.
Thirdly,
the prosecution never at any stage, advance a sensible theory of its own,
concerning the events surrounding the shooting.
What they did was to build the prosecution around the defense’s false
claims. When, therefore, I saw prosecuting counsel on the floor playing with
the defense’s dummy, I sometimes couldn’t quite determine which was counsel,
and which was the dummy.
Obviously,
apart from pleading guilty, what was Zimmerman to do if he wanted to escape
punishment for his crime? He had to come
up with a defense and self-defense was the only one available to him. And to construct self defense he had to construct
a fight, which it would seem even the prosecution naively went along with.
My own
construct is that Zimmerman chased and caught up with Martin and gun in hand,
asked him to lie flat on the ground. Martin lay on his back, terrified and
started to scream. Zimmerman sat on top of him and grabbed his shirt. Martin
reached up to grab hold of Zimmerman whereupon Zimmerman shot him. All of this time, Martin was yelling and
screaming for help and or mercy. That is why the evidence shows that once the
fatal shot was fired the cry for help stopped.
This is in
fact such a simple case of murder, it is not funny. The Defense say there was a fight. So let us examine that further. A man is stalking you with a gun. You run, and he follows you. You try to hide
and he comes upon you. He points the gun and you spring at him as your only
fair chance, after a short scuffle he shoots you. The gun did not go off
accidentally, he shoots you. What exculpates him? Could he then claim he shot
you because you fought back, when he hunts you down with intent to kill you?
The one element that the prosecution would have to prove in
this scenario would be the intent. What
Zimmerman intended to do when he went after Martin. If I were prosecuting this case, that would
have been my one main concern. If there
was evidence from which the intent could be reasonably inferred, I would nail
him. If not I would still have a second bite at him for a lesser charge of
manslaughter on the basis that he was performing a dangerous act the natural
consequence of which caused the death of Trayvon Martin.
Fourthly, I
must be clear that apart from my objection of having 6 white women try the
case, I do not impeach their verdict based on the weak way in which the
prosecution presented its case. I am led
to question whether they were just acting, white washing or doing their
incompetent best.
I listened
to the whole of the O J Simpson case and concluded that the defense was
brilliant particularly because the prosecution was so hopeless. I also watched
most of the Tracy Anthony case and determined that both the prosecution and
defense were bungling, and that the defense did not win, as much as the
prosecution lost. In both cases, the juror’s verdict was the proper one having
regard to the way the evidence was presented.
In the premises, I cannot fault the jury in this case either.
Fifthly, I
really was not impressed with the role the judge played. She appeared to have
given the defense a whole lot of leeway to introduce prejudicial evidence as well
as opinion evidence, for instance the evidence about crimes in the area
committed by black men. How does that
feature into a reason for shooting an innocent black boy? As counsel for the defense I would never
introduce such evidence as a skilful prosecutor could cause it to backfire, as
it tends to show racial profiling, a fact which I hope the Federal Prosecutor
will take into account in its future determination to charge or not to charge
with a Federal offence.
Those facts
notwithstanding, I would have thought that the prejudicial value of the “crimes
in the neighborhood evidence committed by black men,” was inadmissible and
irrelevant in addition to the fact that its prejudicial value far outweighed
its evidential value, unless its admission was for exactly that purpose. Someone suggested that the judge smiled
broadly when the verdict was read. But
who am I to say when or why, or what amuses a judge that should cause a smile?
I
regrettably conclude, therefore, that justice was neither done, nor manifestly
appeared to have been done in the case of the death of Trayvon Martin.
Rev Dr John S Weekes
July 15, 2013.
