“Blind And Insane Justice”: What Is Wrong With Florida Juries?
On Saturday night, a Florida jury of six women found George Zimmerman not guilty of any crime in the shooting death of a black teenager named Trayvon Martin. Not murder. Not even manslaughter. A lot of people are having a hard time accepting this verdict, given that Zimmerman was armed with a pistol and Martin was not, and a police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to follow Martin, and he did it anyway.
It doesn’t help that the same prosecutor who lost the Zimmerman case recently won a conviction against Marissa Alexander, a black woman who fired a warning shot to chase off her abusive ex-husband, hurting no one. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Twenty years for a warning shot against a known abuser versus no time at all for killing an unarmed teenager leaves you scratching your head and wondering if justice is not just blind but also insane.
I spent four years covering criminal courts in Florida. I covered every kind of case, from misdemeanors to murder. One thing I learned is that you can never predict what a jury might do once it’s locked away to deliberate. I covered one trial where the defendant was accused of bigamy, and his defense was: Sorry, I forgot I was married already. He walked.
Prosecutors around the state boast of their high conviction rates, but those stellar records tend to be built primarily on successful plea deals, not trials. And frankly, some of their trial successes turn out to be the result of flimsy or faulty evidence—Florida leads the nation in the number of death row inmates who were subsequently exonerated.
People who work in the court system can blame the legislature for the way our laws are worded. For instance, Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law was based on a distortion of a single anecdote, and it has subsequently allowed drug dealers to avoid murder charges and gang members to walk free. The law has proven especially effective in providing legal cover if the victim is black. In 2005, for instance, Derrick Hansberry shot a romantic rival five times—four as the man tried to run away—but after he claimed a “Stand Your Ground” defense, a jury acquitted him of attempted murder.
Florida juries have proven to be very lenient even in cases that don’t involve “Stand Your Ground.” Two years ago, as you probably heard, a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of murdering her daughter. Two months ago, a Florida jury acquitted 70-year-old Ralph Wald of murder for gunning down his 41-year-old wife’s 32-year-old lover, whom Wald caught with his pants around his knees. In 2007, despite seeing a videotape of seven guards kicking and beating a 14-year-old boy named Martin Lee Anderson to death at a juvenile boot camp, an all-white jury acquitted them and a nurse who’d failed to stop the killing of manslaughter charges. The guards and nurse said they were just following normal boot camp rules and procedures.
Afterward, the family’s attorney told reporters, “You kill a dog, you go to jail—you kill a little black boy and nothing happens.”
Some Florida jury verdicts can make your head hurt. A Florida jury acquitted World Series hero Jim Leyritz of DUI-manslaughter in connection with a wreck in which a 30-year-old mother died—but they did convict him of drunk driving in connection with that same wreck. A criminal court jury acquitted a Clearwater police officer named Robert Milliron of a manslaughter charge for shooting an unarmed man. Then a civil court jury said Milliron was to blame for the death after all—but not the city that employed him, and thus the dead man’s family was not entitled to any monetary damages.
The most forgiving jury in Florida history was probably the one that heard the case of four white Miami police officers charged with murder in the death of a black insurance executive named Arthur McDuffie. A Marine Corps veteran, McDuffie died in 1979 four days after he went out riding on his motorcycle and wound up in a coma. The officers said he sustained his injuries when he crashed while trying to avoid being arrested for reckless driving. The truth was that the cops had caught up to McDuffie and then beaten and kicked him mercilessly, cracking his skull like an egg. A medical examiner testified that the fatal blow was “equivalent to falling four stories and landing between your eyes.” The cops phonied up the crime scene to hide what they’d done. It all came out anyway.
“My child is dead, they beat him to death like a dog,” McDuffie’s mother Eula said.
Because of pretrial publicity, the case was moved to Tampa, where an all-white jury voted to acquit the cops on all charges. Miami’s Liberty City erupted in three days of riots that left 18 people—eight white, 10 black—just as dead as Arthur McDuffie.
This blog has been largely devoted to pointing out the weird stuff that happens in Florida, most of it worth at least a chuckle or a gasp of astonishment. Thousands of people follow the Twitter feed called @_FloridaMan for the same reason—it highlights a host of strange and funny stories from the Sunshine State. After the Zimmerman verdict came out Saturday night, he tweeted: “Florida Man Not Guilty Of Killing Unarmed Teen Who Beat Him In Fight.” That one didn’t seem funny at all—and given the history of Florida juries, it wasn’t all that strange, either.
By: Gregg Pittman, Slate, July 14, 2013
“Justice Denied”: In Just The Latest Sad Chapter In American Race Relations, George Zimmerman Acquitted
Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was cleared of all charges Saturday in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager whose killing unleashed furious debate across the U.S. over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice.
Zimmerman, 29, blinked and barely smiled when the verdict was announced. He could have been convicted of second-degree murder or manslaughter. But the jury of six women, all but one of them white, reached a verdict of not guilty after deliberating well into the night. Their names have not been made public, and they declined to speak to the media.
Martin’s mother and father were not in the courtroom when the verdict was read; supporters of his family who had gathered outside yelled “No! No!” upon learning of the not guilty verdict.
The teen’s father, Tracy, reacted on Twitter: “Even though I am broken hearted my faith is unshattered I WILL ALWAYS LOVE MY BABY TRAY.”
His mother also said on Twitter that she appreciated the prayers from supporters.
“Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you. You are all that I have,” she wrote.
The jurors considered nearly three weeks of often wildly conflicting testimony over who was the aggressor on the rainy night the 17-year-old was shot while walking through the gated townhouse community where he was staying.
Defense attorneys said the case was classic self-defense, claiming Martin knocked Zimmerman down and was slamming the older man’s head against the concrete sidewalk when Zimmerman fired his gun.
“We’re ecstatic with the results,” defense attorney Mark O’Mara after the verdict. “George Zimmerman was never guilty of anything except protecting himself in self-defense.”
Another member of his defense team, Don West, said he was pleased the jury “kept this tragedy from becoming a travesty.”
Prosecutors called Zimmerman a liar and portrayed him was a “wannabe cop” vigilante who had grown frustrated by break-ins in his neighborhood committed primarily by young black men. Zimmerman assumed Martin was up to no good and took the law into his own hands, prosecutors said.
State Attorney Angela Corey said after the verdict that she believed second-degree murder was the appropriate charge because Zimmerman’s mindset “fit the bill of second-degree murder.”
“We charged what we believed we could prove,” Corey said.
As the verdict drew near, police and city leaders in the Orlando suburb of Sanford and other parts of Florida said they were taking precautions against the possibility of mass protests or unrest in the event of an acquittal.
“There is no party in this case who wants to see any violence,” Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger said immediately after jurors began deliberating. “We have an expectation upon this announcement that our community will continue to act peacefully.”
O’Mara, Zimmerman’s attorney, said his client is aware he has to be cautious and protective of his safety.
“There still is a fringe element that wants revenge,” O’Mara said. “They won’t listen to a verdict of not guilty.”
The verdict came a year and a half after civil rights protesters angrily demanded Zimmerman be prosecuted. That anger appeared to return Saturday night outside the courthouse, at least for some who had been following the case.
Rosie Barron, 50, and Andrew Perkins, 55, both black residents of Sanford, stood in the parking lot of the courthouse and wept.
“I at least thought he was going to get something, something,” Barron said.
Added her brother: “How the hell did they find him not guilty?”
Perkins was so upset he was shaking. “He killed somebody and got away with murder,” Perkins shouted, looking in the direction of the courthouse. “He ain’t getting no probation or nothing.”
Several Zimmerman supporters also were outside the courthouse, including a brother and sister quietly rejoicing that Zimmerman was acquitted. Both thought the jury made the right decision in finding Zimmerman not guilty — they felt that Zimmerman killed Martin in self-defense.
Cindy Lenzen, 50, of Casslebury, and her brother, 52-year-old Chris Bay, stood watching the protesters chant slogans such as, “the whole system’s guilty.”
Lenzen and Bay — who are white — called the entire case “a tragedy,” especially for Zimmerman.
“It’s a tragedy that he’s going to suffer for the rest of his life,” Bay said. “No one wins either way. This is going to be a recurring nightmare in his mind every night.”
Meanwhile, authorities in Martin’s hometown of Miami said the streets were quiet, with no indication of problems. The neighborhood where Martin’s father lives in Miami Gardens was equally quiet.
Zimmerman wasn’t arrested for 44 days after the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting as police in Sanford insisted that Florida’s Stand Your Ground law on self-defense prohibited them from bringing charges. Florida gives people wide latitude to use deadly force if they fear death or bodily harm.
Martin’s parents, along with civil rights leaders such as the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, argued that Zimmerman — whose father is white and whose mother is Hispanic — had racially profiled their son. And they accused investigators of dragging their feet because Martin was a black teenager.
Before a special prosecutor assigned to the case ordered Zimmerman’s arrest, thousands of protesters gathered in Sanford, Miami, New York and elsewhere, many wearing hoodies like the one Martin had on the night he died. They also carried Skittles and a can of iced tea, items Martin had in his pocket. President Barack Obama weighed in, saying that if he had a son, “he’d look like Trayvon.”
Despite the racially charged nature of the case, race was barely mentioned at the trial. Even after the verdict, prosecutors said the case was not about race.
“This case has never been about race or the right to bear arms,” Corey said. “We believe this case all along was about boundaries, and George Zimmerman exceeded those boundaries.”
One of the few mentions of race came from witness Rachel Jeantel, the Miami teen who was talking to Martin by phone moments before he was shot. She testified that he described being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker” as he walked through the neighborhood.
Jeantel gave some of the trial’s most riveting testimony. She said she overheard Martin demand, “What are you following me for?” and then yell, “Get off! Get off!” before his cellphone went dead.
The jurors had to sort out clashing testimony from 56 witnesses in all, including police, neighbors, friends and family members.
For example, witnesses who got fleeting glimpses of the fight in the darkness gave differing accounts of who was on top. And Martin’s parents and Zimmerman’s parents both claimed that the person heard screaming for help in the background of a neighbor’s 911 call was their son. Numerous other relatives and friends weighed in, too, as the recording was played over and over in court. Zimmerman had cuts and scrapes on his face and the back of his head, but prosecutors suggested the injuries were not serious.
To secure a second-degree murder conviction, prosecutors had to convince the jury that Zimmerman acted with a “depraved” state of mind — that is, with ill will, hatred or spite. Prosecutors said he demonstrated that when he muttered, “F—— punks. These a——-. They always get away” during a call to police as he watched Martin walk through his neighborhood.
To win a manslaughter conviction, prosecutors had to convince the jury only that Zimmerman killed without lawful justification.
By: The Associated Press, Salon, July 14, 2013
“Beyond The Courtroom”: Until The Lions Have Their Historians, Tales Of The Hunt Shall Always Glorify The Hunter
Whatever happens in the George Zimmerman trial, it has produced a valuable and profound dialogue in America about some important issues surrounding race and justice, fear and aggression, and legal guilt and moral culpability.
That conversation is about people’s right to feel suspicion and fear and whether those feelings need be justified to be real. It is about the degree to which suspicions and fears are culturally constructed, or at least culturally influenced, are innate or are born of personal experience.
More specifically, it is about how race, age and gender might influence our threat responses, and whether that is acceptable. For instance, as a thought experiment, reverse the race and ethnicities of Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman and see if that has any effect on your view of the night’s events. Now, go one step further and imagine that the teenager who was shot through the heart was not male but female and ask yourself again: does it have any effect on how you view the facts of this case?
Are we acculturated to grant some citizens the right to feel fear while systematically denying that right to others?
That conversation is about the particulars and vagaries of laws. It is about a law that allows an “aggressor” to legally use deadly force against a defender if the two become engaged in an altercation where the aggressor begins to “believe” he or she is in imminent danger of being seriously hurt or killed. Do we want our laws to be written in such a way? Should the “aggressor” pay no legal penalty for setting deadly events in motion? Should the idea of self-defense bounce back and forth between two people like a Ping-Pong ball?
The conversation is also about the legal realization that when you are killed, not only do you die but so does your version of the events that led to your death. It must be reconstructed — to the degree that it is possible — through the eyes of witnesses and the rigors of science, but when your body falls still, your voice falls silent.
Cases like this are about proving or disproving the story of the killer, the only story that survives. Were his actions justified or not?
This creates an automatic imbalance in which the survivor has the advantage. There is an African proverb that goes something like this: Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.
So, by extension, the conversation is about whether each of us has a moral responsibility — laws notwithstanding — to do all we can to prevent a tragedy like the one that occurred in Sanford. Regardless of who initiated the physical altercation between Martin and Zimmerman, the two never had to come into close contact. If Zimmerman had stayed in his vehicle and not pursued the teenager, Martin would have made it home for the second half of the N.B.A. All-Star Game he had been watching and today he would be one year older.
Technically, only Zimmerman is on trial, but in the broader debate, particularly among people who think Zimmerman innocent, is Martin also on trial? And if so, does that mean that all teens who look and behave similarly to Martin are also on trial? What precedent, if any, would a not-guilty verdict set?
Even if you believe that the teenager at some point during the night’s events did something wrong — the defense contends that he “sucker punched” Zimmerman, banged his head on cement and pummeled his face — that teenager is now paying the ultimate price for those alleged mistakes. Does that mean that the person who shot him is guiltless and deserving of no legal punishment?
Should “not guilty” as charged (if that were to be the verdict) be read the same as “without guilt” in general? Is there some moral space in which Martin can, as the defense contends, be solely responsible for his own death?
The conversation is about people’s emotional investment in a version of events and a particular verdict, and why that investment has racial and ideological leanings. It’s about the likelihood of one verdict over another. The bar for finding of guilt is particularly high here. The defense doesn’t need the jury to see its client as completely innocent, just not completely guilty.
And the conversation is about how to respond responsibly to a verdict that many court watchers believe is likely to be less than second-degree murder, if in fact guilt is found at all.
There is quite a bit of talk — by local authorities, irresponsible individuals and institutions — about the possibility of rioting in the case of a not-guilty verdict. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office has produced a public service announcement urging any potential protesters to “raise your voice and not your hand.” Rush Limbaugh said last week that the media were “agitating for race riots” in the case. Sean Hannity had Mark Fuhrman, of O.J. Simpson trial infamy, on his Fox News show to discuss the possibility of riots. And The Washington Times conducted a poll recently asking, “Will there be riots in Florida if George Zimmerman receives a not-guilty verdict by a jury of his peers?” As of the publication of this column, three-quarters of respondents said “yes.”
Surely, there has been riot talk on social media, and local law enforcement should plan for all possibilities, but media speculation and predictions about it can start to sound like desire rather than defusion.
I can’t think of a more fruitless and self-destructive exercise than rioting. Protests have power, but rioting drains that power away. Justice is sometimes a journey. It doesn’t always lead to where you think it should.
The case may produce a verdict some people don’t agree with. But it has also produced a conversation that has weight and merit. All energy — even anger — should be funneled into extending that conversation and focusing on the factors that necessitated the case in the first place.
Violence took Martin’s life. We shouldn’t let violence also mar his memory in death.
By: Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, July 10, 2013
“Questioning The Struggle”: Of The Two, One Will Never Take Another Breath And The Other May Never Take The Stand
One of the most riveting moments in the George Zimmerman trial this week was the playing of a police tape that showed Zimmerman re-enacting what he said happened the night he fatally shot Trayvon Martin.
To say that there are inconsistencies between that re-enactment and Zimmerman’s verbal and written testimony elsewhere is to be charitable.
For instance, in an interview Zimmerman gave to the police the night of the shooting, he says of Martin: “I was walking back through to where my car was, and he jumped out from the bushes.”
However, in the video re-enactment, which took place a day after the murder, it’s clear not only that there are no bushes near the sidewalk but also that Zimmerman never mentions Martin’s jumping out from anywhere.
But what I find most interesting is the moment in Zimmerman’s police interview that night in which Zimmerman claims that after Martin asked if he had a problem, “I got my cellphone out to call 911 this time.”
Pay attention to that statement about his cellphone, because it’ll be important to my line of questioning.
Aside from all the other inconsistencies in Zimmerman’s accounts of the scuffle, the basic physics of the fight as he describes it are hard to make jibe.
In the re-enactment, Zimmerman says that after a verbal encounter, “I went to go grab my cellphone,” Martin punched him in the face, Zimmerman stumbled or was pushed to the ground by Martin, and Martin got on top of him. Zimmerman then says that he started screaming for help and tried to sit up, and that Martin then grabbed his head and slapped it on the cement. “He just kept slamming it and slamming it,” Zimmerman said.
It is interesting here, in the video, to watch Zimmerman’s hands. He demonstrates the slamming twice and both times he does so with clenched hands, as if Martin was holding something on the sides of his head — like his ears. But, as has been mentioned in the trial, there was none of Zimmerman’s blood or DNA under Martin’s fingernails and there were no injuries documented on or near Zimmerman’s ears. How could this be?
And if Martin “grabbed” Zimmerman’s head some other way, what way was that? His hair was buzzed short and it was raining that night, so presumably his head was wet. When Zimmerman was asked in a follow-up interview how Martin grabbed his head, he said he did not recall.
Furthermore, Dr. Valerie Rao, a medical examiner who reviewed Zimmerman’s injuries, testified Tuesday that the injuries on the back of Zimmerman’s head were consistent with just one strike against a concrete surface, not multiple ones. Rao went on to call Zimmerman’s injuries “insignificant” and “not life threatening,” and said, “If you look at the injuries, they are so minor they are not consistent with grave force.” She continued, “If somebody’s head is banged with grave force I would expect a lot of injuries. I don’t see that.”
If you believe Rao, the struggle simply couldn’t have happened as Zimmerman described it.
In the re-enactment, Zimmerman says that he tried to squirm his head off the concrete, and then he says:
“That’s when my jacket moved up, and I had my firearm on my right side hip. And, he saw it, I feel like he saw it, he looked at it.”
Zimmerman says it is at that point that Martin told him that he was going to die that night. Then Zimmerman says:
“He reached for it, but he reached, like I felt his arm going down to my side and I grab it, and I just grabbed my firearm, and I shot him. One time.”
This fight scene leaves me particularly incredulous, partly because of what Zimmerman is saying, partly because of the forensics and testimony and partly because of what Zimmerman demonstrates in the video — the idea that Martin, while straddling Zimmerman, would be able to see a gun that was presumably behind him, and the idea that Zimmerman would feel Martin’s hand snake across his body, pinch that hand underneath his arm and then reach for and retrieve the gun himself.
If Zimmerman’s hand was free enough for such a maneuver, were his hands not also free enough to try to push Martin off, or force Martin to release his head and not bang it against the concrete, or to hit Martin back (which he never says he does during the entire encounter)? Did Zimmerman’s mixed martial arts training provide him no defensive options whatsoever?
Something about this just doesn’t sound right. And, by the way, how was Zimmerman able to get around Martin’s leg, retrieve the gun and aim it at Martin’s chest so easily?
This is what happens when you try to make the fight fit Zimmerman’s telling. Things don’t make sense.
But what if we back up to the cellphone moment, before any physical encounter occurred, when Zimmerman and Martin had their first verbal exchange. What if we dispense with Zimmerman’s version, revisit the order of things and ask a different set of questions?
In the video Zimmerman looks to his right front pocket when he says he’s looking for the phone. That’s the same area as the gun, which he says he has on his right hip.
Is it possible that Zimmerman didn’t go for his phone but for his gun? And even if he doesn’t retrieve it, is it possible that he exposed it? (In the video, Zimmerman demonstrates that he can expose the weapon without even using his hands to lift his jacket.)
Is it possible that Martin first saw the gun when they were standing and talking? Is it possible that the physical struggle was about the presence of a weapon: between a man trying to retrieve it and an unarmed teenager who had seen it? In that scenario, is it possible that Martin could be on top of Zimmerman and still yelling for help? Is it possible that Zimmerman wasn’t using his hands to fend off Martin because he was using them to go for, control, or aim a weapon?
And, what happened to the “cellphone” Zimmerman said he got out just before a prolonged struggle? He makes no mention of putting it away. His key and flashlights were photographed in the grass, as was Martin’s cellphone. They didn’t hold on to those things. What about Zimmerman’s phone? Where was it when the police arrived?
(By the way, the night of the shooting Zimmerman says he got the cellphone out. The next day, during the re-enactment he changes that part of his story, saying: “I went to go get my cellphone, but my, I left it in a different pocket. I looked down at my pant pocket, and he said ‘you got a problem now,’ and then he was here, and he punched me in the face.”)
These are interesting questions to ponder, the answers to which might make what followed make more sense. But of the two people able to answer those questions, one will never take another breath and the other may never take the stand.
By: Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, July 3, 2013
“The Zimmerman Trial”: We Will Never Hear Trayvon Martin’s Side Of The Story
This first week of testimony in the George Zimmerman trial has proved to be nothing short of fascinating.
On one level, the case is simple: if Zimmerman had not pursued — some say stalked — Trayvon Martin that dark, rainy night, Martin would still be alive.
That’s the logical argument. The legal one is more complex. The case, it seems to me, spins on some crucial questions, some of which we may never completely know the answers to.
What was it about Martin in particular that Zimmerman found “suspicious” in the first place? So far, there has been no testimony that Martin was doing anything other than walking slowly and talking on a phone to a girl, as teenage boys are wont to do. Did Zimmerman consider every person walking thusly in the neighborhood to be suspicious? If not, what made Martin different? Was some sort of bias at play, whether an explicit one or an implicit one?
Why did Zimmerman leave his car, armed with his gun, and follow Martin? When the dispatcher realized that Zimmerman was in pursuit and told him, “We don’t need you to do that,” did Zimmerman stop?
Did Martin know that he was being followed, as his friend Rachel Jeantel testified, and did he feel threatened by the stranger following him?
In fact, the threat levels are a larger, more complex issue altogether. Who felt threatened, the teenager with the candy and the soda or the man pursuing him with a gun and a live round in the chamber? The answer on the surface would seem obvious, but it’s possible that both felt some level of threat. It’s also possible that threat responses washed back and forth between them like water in a tub, neither of them knowing about the other what we know now — that Zimmerman was armed and Martin was not.
If Martin was running away, as Zimmerman has said and Jeantel has testified, did he at some point stop fleeing, turn and approach Zimmerman?
There has been testimony establishing that there was some sort of verbal interaction between Zimmerman and Martin before a physical one. Who struck the first blow and why? If Martin struck the first blow, as the defense contends, could that be considered an act of self-defense?
Regardless of who struck the first blow, some testimony suggests that Martin was getting the best of Zimmerman. In that scenario, could the right to self-defense switch personage? Florida law seems to suggest it can. The law states that the use of force is not justified when a person “initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant.”
Even assuming that Martin was winning a physical fight with Zimmerman, did Zimmerman “reasonably” believe that he was in “imminent danger of death or great bodily harm”? Zimmerman was injured, but how do you evaluate the degree of those injuries? Independent assessments may or may not deem Zimmerman’s injuries severe, but did Zimmerman, in the middle of the fight, believe them to be? Had Zimmerman “exhausted every reasonable means to escape”?
Who was yelling for help? Keep in mind that it is possible to be both winning a fight and simultaneously yelling for help.
During opening arguments, John Guy, a prosecutor, stated that investigators found none of Zimmerman’s blood on Martin’s hands or on the cuffs of his sweatshirt. How will the defense explain that?
The bar may be high for the prosecution, but the logic is basic: there has been no suggestion or testimony that Trayvon Martin was doing anything wrong the night that George Zimmerman caught sight of him and grew wary of him, pursued him and came into contact with him.
Zimmerman set that night’s events in motion and rendered them still with the ring of a gunshot. Now, as Zimmerman sits in a Florida courtroom, Martin sleeps in a Florida grave. We will never hear Martin’s side of the story, about the level of his fear or the feel of the bullet ripping through his body.
Morally, Zimmerman is by no means without guilt. Legally, it remains to be seen whether he will be found guilty of second-degree murder.
By: Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, June 28, 2013