George Zimmerman may be found guilty.  He may be found not guilty.  He may be found guilty of the lesser charges.  We don't know. What we do know is that he will never be found "innocent", because that's not how the system works.

Today I am celebrating the fact that even with all the talking heads and noise, it doesn't seem to be infecting the presentations or behavior in court, and since the jury is sequestered, they are being spared all the nonsense as well.  

The system is working: from what we can tell of the testimony so far, the police did their job, George Zimmerman has very good representation (even though he can't afford it) and whatever happens, there will always be people unhappy with the outcome.  If there are those who choose to riot and cause trouble (which I would think be a very, very small group, if any, since people like to talk big), then they themselves should get an up close and personal view of the criminal justice system.

And there's always a solution to the talking heads-problem.  Turn them off and go outside and enjoy the day!

Let's also remember, specifically, our Bill of Rights.

The Government (past, present and future) will attempt to abridge, limit or narrow these rights.

They will make elegant cases for "exceptions", they trot out bogeymen to scare us, and they will claim they are only trying "to protect us" or speak of "common sense". While all along they are busy pulling yet another bit of those rights away from us.

I didn't know a special prosecutor had been appointed. Pretty much nothing except a teenager had been shot. Because I am fascinated by legal sparring, I decided to watch the trial and have seen every minute of it. I think in no way has the prosecution proved its case, not even by civil standards, much less criminal.

I've watched TV every night since the trial started. The media narrative, now that some of them have seen the prosecution's case is pretty weak, is changing from "since it's not Murder Two, manslaughter would be a good compromise for the jury" due primarily to TM's age. They think, at the end of the prosecution case, that there isn't evidence of guilt to convict him, yet they think up to 30 years in prison is a good compromise because they have issues with someone shooting a 17 year old in what could have resulted in a deadly fight. We'll never know that it would have been deadly, but I do know for a fact that one slight hit to head can result in death. I know this for a fact.

Does it not scare you that people in the media, including many lawyers, think 30 years in prison is a good compromise because guilt wasn't proven? It does me. And I hate CC permits, I hate SYG laws. I think guns should be illegal except hunting rifles and I don't even want them around me.

I'm off soon to my July 4th party. Hope it's a pleasant evening for all TL'ers, especially our hostess.

As ever, I'll be prepared to get back into more web mud wrestling tomorrow.

Read it again but imagine yourself in an auditorium listening to a lecturer. If you do that I think you won't have an objection to it.

That quote doesn't show contempt for your feelings about how this case is being debated in the public forum.

With respect, I sympathize with the strong feelings but I've been finding a lot of those strong feelings are independent of how the court case is progressing.

As an aside I'll note that I'm extremely unhappy about how Florida allows people to stroll around while packing heat. I'm unhappy with Zimmerman for doing so.

But those are feelings and exist separately from the reality of what the law actually is in Florida. They don't have to do with how the trial should go.

The quote in question exists in a reality wherein thousands of people are estimated to be falsely incarcerated. It relates to a reality wherein prosecutions and convictions and executions have happened to innocent people. And in part it is because of the attitude addressed in that quote that those miscarriages of justice occurred.

This case is about whether the state can disprove Zimmerman acted in self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, period.

The criminal justice system was not designed, and is not equipped to solve all of society's ills. You are welcome to make Zimmerman the poster face of all the problems you mention, just not here.

The constitutional right to a fair trial is a right of the accused. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect the citizen accused against the awesome powers of the Government.

I have never opined that GZ is innocent. I have opined that the state's case is weak, the disclosed evidence supports Zimmerman, not the state, the charge is overblown and Zimmerman's demonization by those acting out of a personal or political agenda, is shameful.

From what I've seen, people who think they're taking a broader moral view rather than a narrow legal view are simply wilfully fooling themselves. I say this because,IMHO, they inevitably base their moral disapproval on acts that GZ simply did not commit.

Now it appears the lynch mob wants him to be convicted of something because we have a crying mom and family and it's just not fair.

That's not how it works.  I sat on a jury and the accused guy was obviously a dirt ball.  He all but admitted mistreating a women while they and a companion smoked up meth and did all sorts of things my catholic faith wouldn't approve of.

But guess what.   That's not what he was charged with.   He was accused of kidnapping and assault.   I didn't believe him or the accuser and neither did anyone on the jury.   We had some holdouts however who just didn't feel it was fair that this guys was going to walk.  He was a meth head, he'd do something else in the future etc...

I informed them that this wasn't our job.  Our job was to look at the facts and determine if this guy did what the state said he did beyond a reasonable doubt.

They couldn't say he did so the guy walked.

The state can't prove that GZ didn't defend himself.   Maybe they can convince a sympathetic jury that GZ was responsible for the altercation because of his actions but from what I see that's a stretch.

After, and in spite of, (a) and (b), Zimmeman follows Trayvon down a dark path.  (And any suggestion that Trayvon motioned as if he had a gun sounds like after-the-fact justification.)

The following is my opinion:

And everyone in that dead young man's life has been vilified, or mocked or demonized - for what?  It's tempting to say, "for sport," because every day seemed to bring some new accusation, some new sarcastic taunt.

I have no problem and take no issue with George Zimmerman's right to a fair trial, to the best defense he can muster, but there is no question that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin and Trayvon Martin's self-evident truth of the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was denied to him by George Zimmerman.

If you wanted to celebrate the rights with which we are endowed, and honor the people who toil on behalf of those rights, you would have pulled yourself away from the utter spectacle of the Zimmerman trial and the cesspool the comments section often devolved to, and would have made a front page post highlighting an HBO documentary that I tried to encourage people to watch: Gideon's Army.

In cases where either guilt or innocence is obvious there is much less collective attention with the possible exception of mass murders. Take the Ariel Castro case where is it obvious that he in fact did keep women hostage, the collective is interested in the womens' story. He has a defense team but I don't see blog posts for weeks and months about them, or hear endless coverage of them on TV or radio. No mock trials televised for him. His guilt has not 'sold in america', but rather the trials those girls/women went through.

Its interesting that you reference the Roman games because they were essentially sport. The winner was stronger, quicker and luckier. The crowds loved the winners and losers. High profile legal cases have much in common and we, the crowds are rooting for our champion but with no skin in the game. I have yet to meet a lawyer who does not care about winning a case. In that, lawyers are like the rest of us. We like to win. Sometimes at the expense of justice, but a win within the rules of the game is a win. There is an apparently human need to shame the opponent and assign to them negative qualities, like you do in this post.

Enlighten me if that was not the case."

The following began before the dispatcher expressed an opinion about it.

... Or, perhaps it's that their (the public's) lives are so filled with perceived slights by others, at work or at home, they just want someone to beat up on - their own personal punching bag - to lessen their frustration and make them forget their own problems. What better scapegoat than a stranger everyone agrees to hate in unity?

Another explanation, one that I feel intensely, is that this is our government throwing a victim to the wolves for our entertainment and diversion. It is a substitute for them giving us the respect and the services that we pay for, and sometimes die for.

It is the government urging us to hate a specific target that they have chosen for us - as a substitute for directing well-deserved anger at them.