America is
many things. It is unique. It is beautiful. It is ugly. It can be everything
you want it to be, and it can also be like nothing you may have imagined it to
be. Despite its contradiction and paradoxes, our Constitution protects us from
unfair imprisonment, and from cruel punishment. It affords every defendant who
is charged with any criminal act a fair trial in a court of law, where a jury
of our peers is charged with determining guilt or innocence. The Constitution also provides for the
ultimate protection - the accused does not have to testify and may not be
forced to (or induced into) being a witness during trial. Our criminal justice system is built on, and
around, these founding principles.
Hence, those accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and the
State, or prosecution, has the burden to prove their case, or charge of guilt,
beyond any reasonable doubt to the jury.
The criminal justice system thus imposes a very heavy burden on the
prosecutors. And rightly so, for
someone’s Liberty, or their Life, is at stake.
The American
Declaration of Independence proclaimed “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness” to be unalienable rights endowed by our Creator. So, Mr. State
Attorney, if you think I have committed a crime, and you want to prosecute away
my Liberty, you have to prove your case, to a jury of my peers, beyond and to
the exclusion of any reasonable doubt.
At about 10
PM last Saturday night, a jury of six women, in Seminole County, Sanford, FL, returned a
Not Guilty verdict in the case of State v. George Zimmerman after about 16
hours of jury deliberations. Zimmerman
had been charged with one count of second degree murder and one lesser included
count of manslaughter. Clearly, in the
eyes and minds of the jury, the State had failed to prove the criminal charges against
Zimmerman, beyond any reasonable doubt.
Zimmerman
was a “free” man, as his GPS tracking bracelet was removed in the minutes
following the verdict, his bond released, and on his way to wherever he may be.
The Martin
family – Trayvon Martin’s dad Tracey Martin, his mother Sybrina Fulton, and his
older brother Jahvaris Fulton went home too.
Their lives had changed forever on the night Trayvon Martin was
shot. Last night must have been one of
the most difficult of their lives. They had fought for justice for Trayvon. A
conviction may have brought some sense of closure to their tragedy, their loss,
and to their grief. People say, that for parents, nothing can compare to the emotion
losing a child. Losing a child to a violent senseless murder would probably make
the pain exponentially more acute. I am
surmising, for I do not know. I wish I
never have to find out.
Such a loss
is bound to haunt the family rest of their lives. Time, surely, will be part of
their salve. But it takes a very long
time; perhaps never. The American
justice system had spoken, and their son’s killer was a free man. It had to hurt. Like nothing else can.
The State
Attorneys, though defeated and devastated, were gracious in their press
conference “We are bound by the system we have; it is the best in the world,
and we respect the jury’s verdict”.
While all of
the above may be true, I believe this jury got it wrong, and that a grave
injustice was carried out last night. Trayvon Martin is dead, and his killer is a free man, presumably because
of reasonable doubt.
I have
watched many high profile trials, and I have always heard attorneys from both
sides vehemently implore the jury to examine all the evidence and to use their
“common sense”. I have looked at every
piece of testimony and evidence in this case, and I cannot believe this jury
found reasonable doubt in the State’s theory of second degree murder, or
manslaughter.
I believe the
verdict in State v. George Zimmerman rests upon “Unreasonable” Doubt,
masquerading as otherwise.
But before I go into how my own common sense helped
me connect the dots (that is exactly what common sense is supposed to do), let
me explain what reasonable doubt is:
No one on
this planet has ever actually observed the Earth spinning. Yet, we all accept that the Earth spins from
East to West. Why do we accept this? We
accept it because the Sun rises every morning in the East, and sets each
evening in the West. It is common sense that makes us connect the position/direction
of sunsets and sunrises, a circumstantial evidence, to conclude that the Earth
spins from the East to the West. If anyone doubts that the Earth spins so, they
must have a reason for their doubt.
Having a reason behind the doubt is what makes a doubt reasonable. Of course, the reason itself has to be lucid
and not absurd. Having an absurd or
outlandish reason behind a doubt makes for Unreasonable Doubt. And that is when killers like George
Zimmerman walk away with their Liberty.
Zimmerman’s
initial Non-Emergency call with the 911 dispatcher ended at 7:13:43 PM. Remember that by this time Zimmerman was
already out of his truck, and walking along the concrete walkway that connects
the two streets - Twin Trees Circle and Twin Trees Lane. According to Google Maps, this walkway is
about 217 feet, end-to-end, and the now infamous T-intersection is 125 feet
from its Eastern edge. According to
Zimmerman, when he hung up with the Police dispatcher, Zimmerman was already
walking back to his truck. Then we have
the “Lauer” 911 call – the one on which we heard the gunshot that killed
Trayvon Martin. The gunshot is at
7:16:55PM, or 3 minutes and 12 seconds after the end of Zimmerman’s
non-Emergency call. Lauer called 911
when she heard screaming from behind her townhome. The Lauer call connected at 7:16:11PM. So, at a minimum, the screaming went on for
44 seconds. Probably more because Lauer
testified it took her about 30 seconds from when she first heard the screams to
when she called 911. We also know that
Trayvon Martin’s call with his friend Rachel Jentel ended at 7:15:44. So if we back up 30 seconds from when Lauer
first heard the screaming, we are almost at when Trayvon Martin’s call with
Jentel ended. So the question is where
was Zimmerman between 7:13:43 (end of non-Emergency call) and 7:15:44? It does
not take 2 minutes to walk 200 feet back to your car! Giving Zimmerman full benefit of the doubt
that he was walking back to his truck after he hung up with dispatch, and
assuming he was at that time at the far-West edge of the sidewalk – the
T-intersection, where Zimmerman claimed Trayvon accosted/confronted him was
only 95 feet of a walk back, or about 32 steps.
Go walk 32 steps. It does not
take 2 minutes. Zimmerman was never going back to his truck. As he told police dispatcher, regarding his
location where the police could meet him, “just have them call me”. Zimmerman was going to continue with his hunt
that night.
Zimmerman
claimed Trayvon Martin was straddled atop him, and that Trayvon was repeatedly
banging Zimmerman’s head on the concrete sidewalk. Yet, all Zimmerman suffered was two small
lacerations (2cm and 0.5cm each) to the back of his skull? If you really want
to see what banging a human skull against concrete look like, go get a
cantaloupe and bang it on concrete.
Watch it explode. Zimmerman’s
claim does not make sense. If he were
telling the truth, he would have had a serious skull fracture. Zimmerman also claimed
Trayvon was pummeling his face with blows, and at one point Trayvon Martin
covered Zimmerman’s nose and face, and told Zimmerman “you are going to die
motherfucker” and “keep quiet”. The
“keep quiet” bit was supposedly meant to bolster his claim that Zimmerman was
the one screaming for help.
Zimmerman
was the one that was armed, and Zimmerman knew he was armed. When people get into fights/scuffles (and I
have seen my fair share), unless one has a firearm/deadly weapon, they do not
issue dire warnings/death threats. Especially
not “you are going to die motherfucker”.
To the contrary, the person who has the gun/weapon is more likely to
utter such a threat. I believe
Zimmerman’s gun was out of its holster way before he claimed it was, and I
believe it was Zimmerman who uttered these words and attributed them to Trayvon
Martin, during his police interviews (note that the forensic and DNA evidence
that clearly showed that none of Zimmerman’s blood, or DNA was found on Trayvon
Martin)
I believe
Zimmerman took one punch to his face shortly after he ran into Trayvon, while
trying to hunt down the “fucking punks” and “the assholes who always get
away”. That punch was sufficient to
throw him off balance, perhaps even land on his back. In the ensuing struggle, the two grappled
down the sidewalk and fell on to the grass. Zimmerman drew his gun, and
threatened to end Trayvon Martin’s life, at which point Trayvon would have had
to hold Zimmerman’s hands down so Zimmerman could not get a shot off, and scream
for help because Trayvon could not keep Zimmerman’s hands pinned
indefinitely. Men who are armed and in a
fight do not scream for help. They fight
to get the gun out to end the fight.
Sometime
during the time that Trayvon was holding Zimmerman’s hands down, John Good (a
neighbor) came out on his patio and told the two “Stop it, I am calling the
police”. I believe this was the moment
where Trayvon likely decided that his screams had been answered, and he may
have been backing away and relaxing his grip on Zimmerman’s arms. The fight was over since Trayvon now knew
that police were on their way. But for
Zimmerman, his arms and wrists were gaining mobility, which gave him the
opportunity to discharge his gun.
It was not,
and cannot be, self-defense. It was the
cowardly act of a grown man who had lost the fight that he went looking for and
had gotten beat at. The rest of how
Zimmerman created his story to fit the self-defense narrative is just that – a
story. A story that is unworthy of any
credibility and one built upon self-serving, and conniving mind of a cop
wannabe.
The only
reasonable doubt I have is that George Zimmerman acted (killed Trayvon) in
self-defense.
