Sunday, July 14, 2013
Posted in
Life
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Politics
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I am writing this article just hours after George Zimmerman was found innocent of both murder and manslaughter for killing Trayvon Martin in Florida. Zimmerman was a so-called neighborhood watch volunteer, but he acted more like a vigilante. On February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida, a young black man by the name of Trayvon Martin went to the store to buy some ice tea and candy. To get to the store, and then get home, he had to walk through a white neighborhood. Zimmerman saw him, concluded that he was a trouble-maker, and pursued him so aggressively that Martin called a friend from his cell phone to complain about it. In the mean time, Zimmerman called the police to report Martin as an intruder (though all he was doing was walking home); the police told Zimmerman not to follow Martin. Before the police arrived, there was a confrontation and struggle, and Zimmerman shot Martin dead. If Zimmerman hadn't been acting like a vigilante that evening, and had listened to the police and gone home, Martin would still be alive.
The jury consisted of five white women and a hispanic woman. (In my view, hispanics are white. Many of them feel the same prejudice towards blacks that whites do.) Statistics show that white juries rarely convict when a white person kills a black person, yet they often convict when a black person kills a white person. That being the case, why does our justice system allow all-white juries? The rules of jury selection are so porous that a skillful lawyer can end up with any kind of jury that he wants.
But the lack of justice goes further than that. Trials are more theater than anything else. Whichever lawyer puts on the best show is the one who wins the trial.
In this case, a guilty man went free, but often it is the other way around. If there is a crime in a locality, the police will often nab the nearest person who fits a certain profile and pin the crime on him. You would think that such obvious errors don't happen any more, but they do. They will then interrogate the suspect for half a day until the suspect finally "caves" and admits the crime, though it has been shown that innocent people will often confess just to end an interrogation.
There are many cases in which police believe that they can discern a crime where no crime exists. There was one case where a woman died in a fire, and the police claimed that the husband had set the fire. They pointed to a pattern of burns on the floor that indicated that an accelerant had been used. After the man was executed, they determined that the burn pattern was caused by air entering the room from the windows (a fire will burn more intensely in front of any oxygen source).
TV has started to show us some of these instances in which innocent people were prosecuted. In one, a white man went out on a boat with his black employee. There was a bad storm, and the white man drowned. The employee returned with a story of trying to save his boss. Since the employee was a citizen of good standing in the community, there was no reason not to believe him. However, the police, being racist, figured that it had to be murder. They interrogated the employee for something like twelve hours. For most of the interrogation, the employee adamantly maintained that he had not killed his boss. Towards the end, in a state of exhaustion, he "confessed" to the crime to end the interrogation. At trial, the defense attorney showed the jury the entire 12-hour interrogation (which had been taped) and it became obvious to everyone that the defendant had been hounded into confessing, and he was acquitted. However, the racist detective who instigated the prosecution did not lose his job.
Our justice system needs to be changed. The first step is to change the rules of jury selection. As for the Zimmerman case, one has to wonder what those six jurors were thinking. They were all mothers. Would they want their own child to be killed by a vigilante while going out for ice tea and Skittles?
The American justice system is broken.
The jury consisted of five white women and a hispanic woman. (In my view, hispanics are white. Many of them feel the same prejudice towards blacks that whites do.) Statistics show that white juries rarely convict when a white person kills a black person, yet they often convict when a black person kills a white person. That being the case, why does our justice system allow all-white juries? The rules of jury selection are so porous that a skillful lawyer can end up with any kind of jury that he wants.
But the lack of justice goes further than that. Trials are more theater than anything else. Whichever lawyer puts on the best show is the one who wins the trial.
In this case, a guilty man went free, but often it is the other way around. If there is a crime in a locality, the police will often nab the nearest person who fits a certain profile and pin the crime on him. You would think that such obvious errors don't happen any more, but they do. They will then interrogate the suspect for half a day until the suspect finally "caves" and admits the crime, though it has been shown that innocent people will often confess just to end an interrogation.
There are many cases in which police believe that they can discern a crime where no crime exists. There was one case where a woman died in a fire, and the police claimed that the husband had set the fire. They pointed to a pattern of burns on the floor that indicated that an accelerant had been used. After the man was executed, they determined that the burn pattern was caused by air entering the room from the windows (a fire will burn more intensely in front of any oxygen source).
TV has started to show us some of these instances in which innocent people were prosecuted. In one, a white man went out on a boat with his black employee. There was a bad storm, and the white man drowned. The employee returned with a story of trying to save his boss. Since the employee was a citizen of good standing in the community, there was no reason not to believe him. However, the police, being racist, figured that it had to be murder. They interrogated the employee for something like twelve hours. For most of the interrogation, the employee adamantly maintained that he had not killed his boss. Towards the end, in a state of exhaustion, he "confessed" to the crime to end the interrogation. At trial, the defense attorney showed the jury the entire 12-hour interrogation (which had been taped) and it became obvious to everyone that the defendant had been hounded into confessing, and he was acquitted. However, the racist detective who instigated the prosecution did not lose his job.
Our justice system needs to be changed. The first step is to change the rules of jury selection. As for the Zimmerman case, one has to wonder what those six jurors were thinking. They were all mothers. Would they want their own child to be killed by a vigilante while going out for ice tea and Skittles?
The American justice system is broken.
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