The aftermath of the George Zimmerman trial in Florida seems more combustible than the ordeal itself. I find myself continually troubled by this case, but still keep coming back to what I wrote on this a couple weeks ago—when all is said and done, the media is the guiltiest party of all.
Let’s begin with the “not guilty” verdict itself. Of this I have no second thoughts, and it’s that I believe the jury acted correctly. Obviously I have extremely limited information, nothing compared to what those most closely connected to the trial have. But then that makes me no different than 99.9 percent of the protestors out there.
There was just no basis for believing that George Zimmerman acted with intent to kill to Trayvon Martin. There is no basis for believing race was a factor. The charges brought were second-degree murder and manslaughter and I know of nothing that would suggest any basis for conviction. Indeed, I believe, as the defense lawyers argued that if “innocent”, rather than merely “not guilty” were an option, that the former could have been chosen--at least regarding these two specific charges.
But I still have a hard time with one basic aspect of this case, and it’s this—there is no evidence that Trayvon Martin was looking for trouble on that fateful night. In fact, there’s considerable evidence that he wasn’t. He too, was innocent. And he’s the one who’s dead.
And I can’t get past the recording of the call Zimmerman made to the dispatcher. I’ve got no problem with him making the call. The purpose of Neighborhood Watch is to…well, watch. It’s the part where Zimmerman decides to go follow Martin and the dispatcher tells him in no uncertain terms “You don’t need to do that.”
Maybe Zimmerman was making an honest effort to be helpful here, but he was completely unqualified—as the subsequent events would show—to be dealing with this situation. A trained police officer likely doesn’t let the confrontation escalate as it did. He likely doesn’t get his clock cleaned the way Zimmerman was—because a trained cop can either handle himself or is smart enough to have backup. And if it does escalate and he does have to go to his gun, he can at the very least deliver a shot that isn’t fatal.
Zimmerman could do none of these things. What’s more, it’s a reasonable expectation that he know he wasn’t able to do these things. Maybe the dispatcher should have been more forceful in saying in no uncertain terms “Don’t you dare get out of that car,” instead of the more benign “You don’t need to do that.” But I’m giving the police department the benefit of the doubt and assuming that Neighborhood Watch people are told at the outset that their job is to…well, watch.
That’s the case against Zimmerman and it’s a fair one. The problem is, it doesn’t make him an evil human being, a racist or a murderer. What it makes him is reckless. And there are means to address that in the courts that don’t involve wild charges of second-degree murder or manslaughter.
My legal training is limited to one year of paralegal training, so I’ll defer to anyone who’s an expert in criminal law, especially in Florida. But it would have seemed to me is that a far more appropriate solution would have been for this case to go the civil route, on some type of “reckless endangerment” path. The Martin family could seek some type of damages. Zimmerman would essentially work the balance of his life still as a participating member of society, but making reparation to the family who suffered a loss that was triggered by his initial reckless decision. I know money can’t replace Trayvon Martin’s life, but neither can imprisonment, the chair or wild threats being made in different quarters from our society.
The Martin family could in fact, still seek this route. Double jeopardy does not apply to civil cases, and it’s the way the Goldman family eventually got some sort of redress from O.J. Simpson for the death of their son Ronald.
But now we come to the big problem, and it’s this—why wasn’t the civil route considered in the first place? Why did the prosecution open the trial by saying they would prove George Zimmerman acted with murderous intent from the outset when that so plainly was not true? Even with all the evidence to the contrary, why do people today still insist that George Zimmerman is a murderer?
These are words people are not ready to apply across the board to everyone whose recklessness results in a death. For example, I see no one frothing at the mouth to prosecute Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, who in 2010, with heavy winds swirling at practice, decided to send his student videographer up into a tower to film the practice. The tower, as might have been reasonably predicted, fell over and the student was killed. For the record, the student involved was white, and the incident was still swept under the rug.
I find Kelly’s recklessness disgraceful, but I wouldn’t attach the label “murderer” to him, and neither would the people who now casually fling the term at George Zimmerman. A 28-year-old unknown Hispanic American deserves the same amount of justice as a highly paid Irish American football coach.
The reason we couldn’t take the more appropriate civil route is for the reasons that Zimmerman’s brother laid out in an interview with Greta Van Sustren on Fox News earlier this week. Zimmerman’s brother concisely and accurately charged people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with running a “race industry” whose business model demands they whip people into a frenzy.
A sane and logical approach to civil justice does not meet that model, and truth has never mattered to people like Sharpton and Jackson. The two have been compared to Pontius Pilate for their disregard of truth, but this frankly does injustice to the man who ordered the execution of Christ Himself. Pilate was a coward and he gave in to the mob, but he didn’t incite it. The religious leaders of their time did that, and it’s exactly what Sharpton and Jackson do today.
The flip side is that now a counter-mob is working up to suck in those of us who recoil at Jackson and Sharpton. It’s tactic to set up George Zimmerman as some kind of hero, who “stood his ground.” Excuse me, but stood his ground against what? Against a kid with Iced Tea and Skittles off to watch the NBA All-Star Game on a February night? It’s one thing to help Zimmerman because the Sharpton/Jackson mob was out to make him (Zimmerman) worse than he was. It’s quite another to turn recklessness into heroism.
To me, the solution is this—the Zimmerman family has correctly brought a lawsuit against NBC for the network’s unconscionable decision to selectively edit the tapes of that night to make him appear as a racist. If justice prevails, NBC should have to pay a huge sum. But take the money and give it to the Martin family.
It’s a hopelessly idealistic solution, and it can’t cover for their loss. But it would make the biggest culprits in this—the mainstream media and the race industry—do the paying and make sure the rewards were reaped by those who suffered the most. And leave George Zimmerman where he belongs—somewhere in the middle, a normal person who made a reckless decision that had a horrific ending.
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