July 14, 2013 by David K. Sutton
Justice Is Not Blind: A Few Thoughts On The George Zimmerman Not Guilty Verdict
Last night a jury of six women found George Zimmerman not guilty of both second degree murder and manslaughter. After the verdict, Zimmerman’s defense attorneys went on television, gloating with glee on the victory they brought for their client, clearly showing no regard for a dead 17-year-old boy. According to Up with Steve Kornacki, defense attorney Don West did not shake hands with the prosecution lawyers. And in his post-verdict television conference, he smiled when provoking a stupid question about his “knock, knock” joke that opened up the court proceedings, telling reporters that “I still think the joke was funny, I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I didn’t tell it better.” Well thanks for the apology, and I’m not sure if you could be anymore disrespectful to a dead kid, a kid killed by your client.
See, that’s still a fact. Regardless of the predictable right-wing babble from white elitists, George Zimmerman pursued Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman pulled the trigger and killed Trayvon Martin. Nobody will ever know if Zimmerman truly felt his life was in danger during the altercation, but because of those indesputable facts (we have a 911 tape to prove it), it seems to me Zimmerman should be guilty of something. Maybe it wasn’t second degree murder. Maybe the prosecution did a horrible job. And maybe we still cannot expect a fair trial for an unarmed black teenage boy gunned down by a wannabe cop.
A lot of media reports, particularly from left-leaning outlets, report shock and horror in response to the not guilty verdict, but is this verdict really a shock? For me, I’m far from shocked. I’ll admit I was not consumed by this trial. I think it was important, but the media’s fixation on this one story for the past couple of weeks was a real turn-off. And it’s not just this case, I generally turn away in disgust when the media focuses on one trial in a nation of 300 million citizens as if that’s the only news story of the day. So I was not glued to my television for this trial, but even so, I could not escape it unless I turned off the TV and didn’t browse any news sites. And from the small bits of information I heard or read, it did not look like Zimmerman would be found guilty, especially when you know race still plays a role in American justice.
Trayvon Martin is dead. Zimmerman is a free man, who is free to once again profile innocent black kids and carry a gun while doing so. Maybe Zimmerman was not guilty of second degree murder with the evidence presented, but because he walks free, it reinforces that our justice system is not blind.
