I thought George Zimmerman would be acquitted, and he was. I had hopes before the trial started, but they were all but dashed as I watched the evidentiary part of the case. Then, after closing arguments, my hopes were revived a bit but not enough for me to change my prediction. I didn’t predict that Zimmerman would walk because I thought the jury would be unsympathetic to Trayvon Martin and his family. I thought he would walk because his lawyers had such a small task to accomplish. All they had to do is to create a reasonable doubt that a man who had been beaten bloody had a reasonable belief that he might suffer grave bodily harm. How do you disprove such a thing when you have no witnesses?
All the other facets of the case might have been interesting; they might have been key to determining what justice might call for, but they had nothing to do with Zimmerman’s state of mind when he pulled the trigger. And that’s all the law contemplates.
In the end, under the law, Zimmerman could have hated black people and he could have wrongfully profiled Trayvon Martin, and he could have chased him down and tried to physically detain him, and he could have done it all with malice in his heart. But if there was any doubt about whether or not it was his voice crying out for help on the 911 call, then the law called for him to be acquitted, because that voice was in fear for its life.
I believe that the voice crying out for help was Trayvon’s. But it’s just a belief. The prosecution didn’t prove it. They didn’t really prove anything other than that Zimmerman told a lot of lies and made a lot of embellishments. And they asked the jury to determine that a truly innocent man would not have felt the need to lie and embellish. Zimmerman’s lies were the proof of a guilty-conscience, or at least a consciousness that his ass might land in jail for a very long time. And that was a pretty compelling argument. I think it was compelling enough to convict George Zimmerman. But it was a close call. Just because he was lying and embellishing didn’t mean that he wasn’t the one crying out in terror. And if he was the one crying out in terror, then he had a reasonable fear of grave bodily harm. You can’t listen to that tape and argue any differently.
I think Zimmerman executed Trayvon Martin in cold blood. I think he just got away with murder. I think he should have been held accountable for what he did. But, to my dismay, the prosecution did not prove my theory of the case and the defense did several things to cast doubt on my theory. In the end, the defense didn’t have to do much to win because that’s the way the law is written.
A couple of other things. I don’t think the Stand Your Ground law played any part in the trial. I think it is a shame that there was not even one black juror. I think both sides of this fight are going to draw some extreme conclusions that aren’t warranted.
No, this is not going to mean that it is open season on black folks in Florida. No one is going to want to go through what George Zimmerman just went through on the assumption that they will be acquitted in the end. And, no, this doesn’t mean that George Zimmerman was justified all along and that he did nothing wrong. He’s still a lying asshole with innocent blood on his hands, as everyone saw clearly during the prosecution’s closing arguments.
My last question is rhetorical. If there are no riots will those who predicted them apologize?
