It appears to be an article of faith on the right that members of the black community will riot if George Zimmerman is acquitted. Some right-wingers are going further than that and predicting that the jurors will be murdered and that Zimmerman will be murdered regardless of the verdict.
The fix is in. Zimmerman will get convicted of something. The six jury members by now surely realize that their lives are at risk if they return an acquittal. As for Zimmerman (whom I do not find an admirable character, btw), this is a capital trial for whom the death sentence will be carried out whether he is convicted (won’t live two years, if that, in prison) or acquitted (not even two years).
And who will suffer if he is acquitted and the post-verdict riots begin?
I hate that one of the more likely outcomes of the Zimmerman trial is that, like the Rodney King affair, black neighborhoods will end up getting torched and looted – by blacks.
But there will be no acquittal. This is the closest thing to Stalinist show trials America has ever had and like all show trials, the defendant, lawyers and judge are actors playing parts for which the script has already been written.
I have followed this trial, and I actually think an acquittal is more likely than not. I don’t think that either the defense or the prosecutors did anything but try to win the case. I don’t think the judge was biased, although she clearly did not care for one of Zimmerman’s two lawyers.
I’ve also followed what people are saying in the black community, and there has been no incitement to violence. It’s true that most people in the black community want and expect a conviction, but there is also a recognition that this is a difficult case to prove in court. If I’ve noticed an article of faith in the black community, it is that the case would not be so difficult if the victim were white and the defendant were black. In other words, there’s a skepticism about the fairness of the justice system in general, but not really about how this trial has been handled (once it actually got to trial).
I can’t predict what will happen if there is a blanket acquittal. I expect that there will be demonstrations of protest. But rioting? I know that all responsible parties will do everything they can to prevent that from happening. It’s not 1992, and this isn’t the Rodney King case.