TRAYVON - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

The Trayvon Martin trial where a 17-year-old African American male, who was doing some shopping during the half time of a televised NBA basketball game, was killed by a Hispanic neighborhood watchdog, George Zimmerman, has riveted the nation for the past three weeks.  It was the racial make up of the dramatis personae involved and the circumstances of the murder itself that created this intense fascination and intrigue. The whole issue of racial profiling and gun control was again front and center in the public arena. (Blog: Trayvon Martin and the America Justice System).

George Zimmerman was ultimately found not guilty of all charges.

THE FACTS

The following facts are incontrovertible:

• George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
• George Zimmerman had seen someone walking in this gated area that was wearing a hoodie whom he believed was “suspicious”.
•  Zimmerman relayed his suspicions to the Police Dispatcher who told him not to approach this ‘suspicious’ individual.
• Zimmerman ignored this advice and followed the hooded “suspect” in his car.
• Zimmerman has made it clear at one stage or another that he had already concluded that the hooded individual was a criminal element. He making statements such as “these fucking punks” always get away.
• Zimmerman did get out of the car and an altercation ensued that resulted in the death of Travyon Martin
• The prosecution maintained the act was criminal and the defendant maintains it was self – defense.

INITIALLY NO CHARGES WERE LAID

The reason that there was even a trial at all was because of the outrage that this set of circumstances provoked. The police accepted Zimmerman’s account of the events and that he acted in self-defense. No charges were laid. All hell broke loose as a campaign was waged at the injustice of what was argued as the racial profiling and murdering of an innocent black teenager. Even the President weighed in empathizing with Trayvon”s family. A television blitz lead by the Reverend Alan Sharpton ensued. Also mass meetings were held. Sides were taken and Fox predictably showed Zimmerman in a favorable light. However the protest bohaai was too loud to ignore and the Florida Governor stepped in and appointed a special prosecutor. Charges of Second Degree Murder were laid.

The Public, in general, believed that the issue of whether a black teenager, who was going out shopping in a respectable neighborhood, who was not acting in a criminal manner and minding his own business could end up shot dead by a neighborhood watchdog who had been told by a police dispatcher to leave him alone, needed legal recourse

Justice needed to be done.

(Any non -American they would also want to know how on earth could such an undisciplined individual be in possession of a concealed weapon. However, in the context of American gun laws and Florida’s “stand your ground defense” law all this not even a legal issue).

THE TRIAL.

The trial was a dramatic affair portrayed on several news channels, minute by minute, with comment from endless legal analysts and experts in one area or another. The clashes between opposing counsel and defending counsel and the judge made stark theater and pushed the ratings up further.

Zimmerman wisely chose not to give evidence so it is fair to say that no-one will ever really no what happened once he elected to get out of the car. Both sides passionately tried to smear the character of their opponents and both sides defended their own persona.  Zimmerman had given an explanation to the police that had been videotaped where the prosecution maintained that he lied again and again.  It is fair to say that neither side could conclusively argue their version of the actual fight and the circumstances that lead to Zimmerman shooting an unarmed teenager. Trayvon was dead and Zimmerman had argued to the police and through his counsel that he had been attacked and feared for his life so he shot him.

The Judge gave endless rulings but two were to prove crucial in Jay H Ell’s opinion. These rulings affected the arguments or the theories of the defense and the prosecution. The ruling favoring he defense was that race was not to be an issue in this trial. This judicial edict would be to Zimmerman’s immediate and long-term benefit. The prosecution gained enormously by the fact that they could add manslaughter, as an alternative charge should the jury not believe that they had proved second-degree murder.

LEGAL POSITION.

In order to find Zimmerman guilty the jury would have to have believed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he acted criminally either by a criminally negligent action or murder.

Murder in the second degree involves a depraved mind in addition to the killing of the victim neither by accident or self defense. In other words although the murder wasn't planned there was malice or prejudice for example in the defendant's mind. Manslaughter is a criminally negligent action that the defendant should have known that his illegal act could have killed the victim. The difference really boils down to whether an individual, for example can be proved to be a rascist and then illegally kills a victim or whether he or she perpetrated an act, negligently, without having any agenda.

ARGUMENTS OR THEORIES OF THE TWO SIDES.

The prosecution wanted the jury to look at the whole scenario from the moment Zimmerman espies Trayvon and calls the dispatcher. How he defies the dispatcher matters and his statements speak to his state of mind - how “these fucking people always get away”. He then follows Trayvon, gets out of the car, gun and all, has a fight and then shoots him. Taking this whole scenario into account there was a strong argument that for at least manslaughter even though it is a bit thin for secondary murder.

The defense would have liked this all to begin at the time of the fight. Remember they argued that it was not illegal to follow some one in a car. They argue that Travyon was on top of Zimmerman and the latter feared for his life and shot him. That was Zimmerman’s untested story and Travyon was dead so he had none to offer.

If the jury as they obviously did, believed that legally this episode started at the fight and that they could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman had not acted in self-defense they had to find him not guilty.

LEGAL BUT NOT JUST

So Zimmerman, as some of the legal analysts believed he would be, was found not guilty. His behavior although erratic, provocative and irresponsible, and even though those behaviors ultimately lead to the death of Trayvon, was found not to be criminal. The issues of race and guns that this case brought forth are left hanging and the impact on society is still to be seen. To a large extent society is responsible in allowing an obviously undisciplined individual to be armed and provoke a situation that resulted in the death of a law-abiding teenager, who till confronted, was minding his own business.

This death is on the conscience of society and could happen again and again unless the circumstances that surrounded it are rectified. The behavior of Zimmerman at the very least should be legislated as criminal harassment  - following and confronting someone, gun at the ready, who was obviously not engaged in criminal activity.

As for guns Jay H Ell has blogged from the word go that the situation is untenable, (Blog: Guns: Obama, The NRA, GOP = Stalemate), but if the massacre of kindergarten children could not get Congress legislating on this issue, nothing will. Even worse is the “stand your ground” legislation that allows all these gun toting cowboys to shoot anyone as long as they can reasonably claim that their frame of mind feared for their lives and it is then up to the prosecution to prove otherwise.

Sadly in spite of Zimmerman’s acquittal the overwhelming perception is that was the laws and superb lawering that saved him and not justice. The acquittal itself is not a slap in the face of the American people as Reverend Sharpton maintained but rather a reflection of the laws. Dare Jay H Ell say that it is the perception that it is the white man’s laws that led to Zimmerman’s release.

RESPONSE

President Obama has called for calm, reinforcing the plea of Trayvon’s family. He believed that it was time to once again to reevaluate the gun laws of the country. Elliot Spitzer former Attorney General and Governor of New York maintained that the justice system had failed. Four hundred thousand people had, within twenty-four hours of the verdict, signed a petition for the Federal Attorney General to lay a charge of violation of Trayvon’s civil rights by Zimmerman. Protest meetings have been arranged throughout the country.

Thus far everyone is hoping that we will not get a repeat of the Rodney King riots of 1994. One has to realize that regardless of the outcome of the trial itself it revealed the defects in the justice system and the need to once again look at gun laws and the “stand your ground” legislation.  Every parent has to fear that this could happen to a child of his or hers. White children wear hoodies too you know.

One can just pray that another victim of gun violence will have not been martyred in vain. Jay H. Ell believes, however, that the Trayvon Martin death is at least the beginning of a watershed event in American history. It is up there with the murder of Medver Evers, the Rosa Parks bus incident and the like. There are just too many forces up in arms and it coincides with the reform of the guns laws movement. Also there is the chance that Attorney General Eric Holder might just take a chance and prosecute Zimmerman on civil right charges that go to the core of what appeared to be his profiling of a young teenage African American, who was minding his own business and ended up dead as a result of Zimmerman’s stereotyping and prejudices.