I don't follow the news of criminal trials, or even civil trials, that occur outside of the local area. I suspect that's surprisingly common for lawyers. You work at law all day, so you probably don't enjoy the shallow news accounts that the media provides on these events elsewhere. But, like everyone else, I did pick up a bit of the recent Florida v. Zimmerman trial.
I don't know that there's a really newsworthy story in this trial, other than to the extent that the news media and fractionalism made one. From the very beginning, the story was basically about a person who exercised the ancient doctrine of self defense against a perceived threat. The right to defend your person is an ancient legal one. English Common Law always recognized it, and Roman Law also did. And it happens more often than we might suppose.
The only reason that this story hit the press in the first place is that Florida has a "Stand Your Ground" law, Zimmerman was carrying a concealed firearm, and the decedent was a black teenager. In other words, the story was tailor made to be misconstrued. From the onset the subtle theme was that Treyvon Martin was shot because he was a black teenager wearing a hoody, and Zimmerman was a while racist taking advantage of Florida's laws on carrying firearms (which the media hates) and Florida's Stand Your Ground laws (which the media hates) to commit a murder.
There was never any evidence of that story to start with, and even those witnesses sympathetic to a conviction of Zimmerman really didn't support it. Zimmerman, to start with, turns out to be ethnically Hispanic, so in the terms of the slippery fictional definitions of race, he isn't "white" by ethnicity. There wasn't anything to suggest he targeted Martin because he was black teen as much as it seemed that Martin was in the neighborhood in odd conditions. There's no evidence of which I'm aware that Martin was in the neighborhood for nefarious purposes, and I'm not suggesting that he was, but apparently there's some evidence that Martin misinterpreted Zimmerman as a homosexual predator and may have doubled back to assault him in some sort of misguided proactive effort to keep him from following him home.
A person, at least in most places, is generally entitled to defend yourself, even up to the point of using deadly force if necessary (but only if necessary) in order to keep yourself from serious bodily harm. That's been very modified here and there over the eons, and it's not a safe assumption anywhere. It probably never was really a safe assumption anywhere. But the evidence to charge Zimmerman was wholly lacking, and it shouldn't have occurred.
Indeed, the original prosecutor wouldn't charge him, and somebody else was brought in who did largely as a result of political pressure.
That Zimmerman was acquitted under these circumstances is s stunning triumph of justice. I can be pretty cynical about such things, but in this instance, the jury system worked perfectly. For those who argue about t he jury system being the best protection for the innocent, this case is a modern shining example. The verdict will be unpopular and criticized and came in a politicized and racially charged atmosphere. That the system worked is absolutely stunning.
That the charge was made in the first place, however, and that such contempt is being shown for the verdict, should be worrisome in the extreme. The charges fit into a worrisome and developing class of political charges on crimes that should not be prosecuted or shouldn't even exist. This harkens back to Athenian democracy when individuals could be condemned to death just because the crowed could vote to do it, and in modern terms, we should begin to pause when we criticize the mob in Cairo, as we're beginning to heed the mob in our streets as well. The mob knows nothing of the law, and acts on emotion. Here, the mob did, and is, acting on emotion. In recent years we've seen businessmen and politicians similarly charged with crimes, and often convicted, partially on the basis that their actions were unpopular, which is not a crime or shouldn't be.
And the ongoing criticism is appalling. Justice Holder even opined that Stand Your Ground laws should be repealed, when he should well know that this event should have come out with the same verdict under the Common Law. Shame on you, Holder. And to suggest, as is now being done, that Zimmerman should be now prosecuted for a Civil Rights violation is absurd.
The entire event is a tragedy. But to suggest we toss out the law in order to make a social justice point does violence to the very concept of social justice, and is a disturbing trend indeed.
William Roper:
So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More:
Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper:
Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you,
where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is
planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And
if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really
think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes,
I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
A Man for all Seasons, by Thomas Bolt.
