Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Trial No Error

I'm honestly confused by the reaction to the Zimmerman acquittal--the anger, the violence, the hurt feelings from politicians, the media, celebrities and the public in general. For that matter, I'm confused by the partisan caste of the complaints.

No matter what you think of what happened, it seems to me--and I don't believe this is controversial--that the prosecution didn't make a case that proved a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.  There was simply too much that wasn't certain, and no way to prove that Zimmerman didn't have a self-defense claim.

This has nothing to do with left or right, it's a simple matter of facts and logic. I don't see how any fair jury could have convicted.  So that's that--even if you want to believe Zimmerman was a racist out gunning for a Martin, you should also believe this was the correct verdict.

Instead, we seem to have a reaction that because a young black man was shot, and a guy we'll treat as white did it, something must be done.  Well, maybe something should be done, but not a conviction that goes beyond the evidence. In fact, what's most disturbing may be the comnplaints from alleged civil rights leaders. I thought they supported the concept of due process, but apparently they're only fair weather friends, who drop their belief when they get the right victim and the wrong defendant.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its bad to try to make a court case- which is by definition fact specific (unless you're in Stalin type show trials I guess)- into a political argument.(remember OJ?)

The individual facts don't really matter to those folks making pronouncements about the case. Zimmermann and his treatment are mere proxies for other issues.

The message to anyone whoever gets involved in a messy legal matter- hire a publicist right after you hire the lawyer and defuse the meme immediately.

6:08 AM, July 17, 2013  

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