In Zimmerman trial, the power of truth proved too strong for the forces combined to annihilate justice

In Sanford, Florida a jury of six women stood firm against outside agitation, media propaganda and the prosecution’s brazen play on emotion, and rendered the only verdict that was substantiated by the evidence: That George Zimmerman had acted in justifiable self-defense when he ended the life of Trayvon Martin, and thus was not guilty of either second-degree murder or manslaughter.  If anyone is “shocked” by the verdict, what does that say about the media and the people for whom the only relevant issues was that Martin was black and that he was deceased? 

For those who sought vengeance—which was defaced into something they referred to as “justice”—the only “context” worth considering was that Martin was “unarmed.” Of course, the teens who kicked to death Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 2008 were also technically “unarmed” as well.  Those who saw the case through a racial prism chose to “justify” Martin’s own violent actions either by the shockingly shallow suggestion that “following” him was a “provocative” act—or chose to believe he had done nothing at all! Others doubtless saw the demonization of the Hispanic Zimmerman as “proof” of their social justice “credibility”—when it in fact it only replaced racism against one group with another. 

During after-verdict press conferences, state prosecutor Angela Corey refused to acknowledge that the charges against Zimmerman were based more on political considerations than evidence, the media did not put her feet to the fire in regard to prosecutorial misconduct. This included the withholding of key information favorable to the defense, and when not withheld, released in an untimely and piecemeal manner, giving the defense little time to prepare its case. Corey wasn’t asked to explain the firing of the IT director who exposed the prosecution’s withholding of significant evidence from Martin’s cellphone—particularly that which revealed that Martin was often involved in fights and liked to draw blood in these engagements (the more the better), and the fact that he was seeking to obtain a handgun from his friend, Rachel Jeantel. 

Lead prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda—who Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara elegantly derided as an imposter whose “reputation” was based on cases with overwhelming evidence of guilt against over-worked and out-resourced public defenders—once more exposed his shallowness by insisting that the case was merely one about “a kid minding his own business being followed by a stranger." Such appeals to elemental emotion and anti-intellectualism could not disguise the utter vapidity of a case that was brought forward due to the cowardice of Corey in the face of mob pressure—or more likely, cynically seen as a heaven-sent opportunity for her reelection campaign. 

On the other hand, O’Mara and Don West, two of the best and most experienced defense attorneys in the state, expressed frustration at the difficulty in presenting their best case due to the misconduct of the prosecution, and in West’s opinion, that of Judge Debra Nelson. Nevertheless, Zimmerman could not but be found “not guilty” due to the fact that—as West bluntly asserted—“the prosecution of George Zimmerman was disgraceful," and “the jury kept this tragedy from becoming a travesty.” 

West also expressed outrage at the way the case was played out in the media, and O’Mara noted at the end of the press conference that "There’s no winners here. There’s no monsters here...You made Zimmerman into a monster." Although it is shameful that the media framed Zimmerman as a "monster" to be reviled by "millions"--polls did suggest that many millions more supported him in his claim of self-defense; they must be the "silent" majority that isn’t tweeting bloodthirsty hosannas. 

Talk of a federal civil rights case is also sour grapes. Martin gave-up his "rights" when he chose to confront and beat Zimmerman instead of just going home (remember those "lost" four minutes?). A better argument can be made that Zimmerman's civil rights were violated when the state chose to succumb to outside pressure and bring this “disgrace” of a case forward. 

The media has much to answer for in its “disgraceful” lack of objectivity in the Zimmerman case. If it had been "objective" from the start, no one would be "shocked" by the fact that the prosecution had no case. Too many people were allowed to see Martin as a sweet-faced "boy" which he clearly was not, and Zimmerman as a brown-skinned, racist thug. No wonder some people cannot accept any verdict save guilty—not just blacks but white “liberals” in need of “proving” that they are not just self-congratulating hypocrites. 

One may, of course, recall that O.J. Simpson was the victim of massive and pervasive negative media coverage (including the infamous TIME cover). But the difference here is that Simpson was a celebrity represented by a “team” of celebrity lawyers who knew how to play to an audience. Most whites were appalled by his acquittal by a mostly black jury, many blacks were unseemly in their joy, and there were no riots; life just went on. It also seems true that the media crush in that case was so pervasive and so contrary to the concept of due process that it turned the opinion of many who initially conceded guilt into one more likely to consider “reasonable” doubt. But in the Zimmerman case, there should have been a presumption of innocence based on self-defense from the very beginning, because that was what the preponderance of the evidence and the closest witness testified to. That didn’t happen until the trial actually started and people interested in truth were finally able to see the thin reed of deception and misinformation that was the case against Zimmerman. 

The Simpson and Zimmerman cases are not, of course, the first time the media has disregarded due process and chose to convict before all the evidence was in. In fact the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this issue in its 1966 decision Sheppard v. Maxwell, when it ruled that Dr. Sam Sheppard—accused of the 1954 murder of his wife and subsequently convicted in a venue reminiscent of Nazi show trials—had been the victim of “massive, pervasive, and prejudicial publicity attending petitioner's prosecution prevented him from receiving a fair trial consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment…Since the state trial judge did not fulfill his duty to protect Sheppard from the inherently prejudicial publicity which saturated the community and to control disruptive influences in the courtroom, we must reverse the denial of the habeas petition. The case is remanded to the District Court with instructions to issue the writ and order that Sheppard be released from custody unless the State puts him to its charges again within a reasonable time.”

It is useful to be reminded what exactly the Court found so repelling about the circumstances surrounding the Sheppard trial. The case, for one thing, was a godsend for lead prosecutor John J. Mahon, who was running for a judgeship and successfully used the case to further his campaign. Once rumors that Sheppard had been engaged in an extramarital affair emerged, there was no stopping the deluge:

“During the entire pretrial period virulent and incriminating publicity about petitioner and the murder made the case notorious, and the news media frequently aired charges and countercharges besides those for which petitioner was tried. Three months before trial he was examined for more than five hours without counsel in a televised three-day inquest conducted before an audience of several hundred spectators in a gymnasium. Over three weeks before trial the newspapers published the names and addresses of prospective jurors causing them to receive letters and telephone calls about the case. The trial began two weeks before a hotly contested election at which the chief prosecutor and the trial judge were candidates for judgeships. Newsmen were allowed to take over almost the entire small courtroom, hounding petitioner, and most of the participants.”

The jurors’ objectivity in the trial was compromised not just by the pervasive media exposure that they had constant access to, but by being treated like celebrities. “Pervasive publicity was given to the case throughout the trial, much of it involving incriminating matter not introduced at the trial, and the jurors were thrust into the role of celebrities. At least some of the publicity deluge reached the jurors. At the very inception of the proceedings and later, the trial judge announced that neither he nor anyone else could restrict the prejudicial news accounts. Despite his awareness of the excessive pretrial publicity, the trial judge failed to take effective measures against the massive publicity which continued throughout the trial or to take adequate steps to control the conduct of the trial.” 

While the Court acknowledged freedom of the press, it ruled that “it must not be allowed to divert a trial from its purpose of adjudicating controversies according to legal procedures based on evidence received only in open court.” The Court found that a defendant’s right to a fair trial is hindered by even the hint of “probability of prejudice.”  

Sheppard was essentially tried and convicted of the murder of his wife within days by the media, and investigators in the murder were continuously hounded about why Sheppard was not immediately arrested. The press insinuated that “somebody I getting away with murder” and asked “Why no Inquest? Do It Now” which prompted the coroner to announce the inquest the same day. The inquest 

“…was staged the next day in a school gymnasium; the Coroner presided with the County Prosecutor as his advisor and two detectives as bailiffs. In the front of the room was a long table occupied by reporters, television and radio personnel, and broadcasting equipment. The hearing was broadcast with live microphones placed at the Coroner's seat and the witness stand. A swarm of reporters and photographers attended. Sheppard was brought into the room by police who searched him in full view of several hundred spectators. Sheppard's counsel were present during the three-day inquest but were not permitted to participate.”

A “debate” was staged via a live radio broadcast in which “The participants, newspaper reporters, accused Sheppard's counsel of throwing roadblocks in the way of the prosecution and asserted that Sheppard conceded his guilt by hiring a prominent criminal lawyer. Sheppard's counsel objected to this broadcast and requested a continuance, but the judge denied the motion. When Sheppard’s attorney requested that the judge “provide protection from such events,” the judge refused to do so. The same radio station accused Sheppard of being a “perjurer” after a police officer gave testimony that contradicted Sheppard’s statement to police. When Sheppard’s attorneys requested that the judge ascertain if the jurors had been exposed to these broadcasts, when the case was already exposed to “a wave of public passion” and “outside influence,” the judge again refused, saying that:

"Well, I don't know, we can't stop people, in any event, listening to it. It is a matter of free speech, and the court can't control everybody. . . . We are not going to harass the jury every morning. . . . It is getting to the point where if we do it every morning, we are suspecting the jury. I have confidence in this jury . . .”

Needless-to-say, the  Court also found that Sheppard’s attorneys were repeatedly confounded by the judge’s bias toward their client. And to reiterate, while the 

“Defense counsel immediately brought to the court's attention the tremendous amount of publicity in the Cleveland press that ‘misrepresented entirely the testimony’ in the case…the trial judge did not fulfill his duty to protect Sheppard from the inherently prejudicial publicity which saturated the community and to control disruptive influences in the courtroom.”

The original verdict was vacated, and Sheppard was set free after more than a decade in prison. Represented by F. Lee Bailey, he was acquitted in s subsequent retrial. There has been numerous examinations of the guilt or innocence of Sheppard, most of them tending toward the latter conclusion. Bailey himself has said that it his belief is that the murderer lived right next door, the wife of a man who she believed was having an affair with Marilyn Sheppard.  

While on the surface, some might say that George Zimmerman did not face this level of media and courtroom misconduct, but that would be wrong; in many ways it was worse, given the pervasiveness of the social media network and the proliferation of news outlets proffering “opinions” rather than facts. Race was a factor in this media crush, but not in the way it was presented. There has always been a certain level of discontent between blacks and Latinos, especially by the former in regard to jobs—and, oddly, who is on “top” on the social ladder. Whites have taken advantage of this situation, and in the Zimmerman case, we can see that he has been used as proxy to direct the discontent of many blacks toward Latinos, while the white media has hypocritically taken advantage of the “rift” in order to draw attention away from itself and don the cloak of the “white knight.” I have no doubt that if Zimmerman really did appear to be unmistakably Caucasian, the media would have been more “careful” about how they portrayed him; you only have to look at the recent cases of mass shootings by white males to realize this reality.

Everything about Zimmerman was scrutinized, debated and opinions opined that made Zimmerman’s past look worse than it was in order to portray him as something less than human. While it was ignored that he had partnered with a black friend in a real estate venture, his “violent” past was front and center news. Unfortunately, it was more smoke than fire. The so-called assault on a police officer occurred when Zimmerman mistook an off-duty police officer for a nosy stranger making trouble for his friend. Witnesses only report that Zimmerman “shoved” the officer; the assault charges were later dropped in favor of alcohol treatment. The only other “incident” was in regard to restraining orders against both Zimmerman and an ex-fiancée, which suggests that a judge found their incompatibility mutual. 

And then there was the outrageous release of transcripts of personal conversations from the jailhouse between Zimmerman and his wife. Most of what was said was of concern, living expenses and mutual affection, but like a perverted Peeping Tom the media found a sinister double entendre in even the most commonplace statements, as if they exchanging “secret” messages. Yet we keep hearing whites confess that while Zimmerman should be found not guilty, he is nevertheless a “bad” man that they wouldn’t want to be around. 

Really? Does that mean you would prefer to be around “Trayvon,” as if you know him personally? I challenge anyone who’s “liberal” heart bleeds for “Trayvon” to look at the 7-Eleven video in its entirety, observe Martin’s posture and mannerisms, how he towers over the clerk, and tell me if you encountered this person you had never seen before in your neighborhood, just you and him late on a dark evening, and your senses would not rise just a little bit? Would you move just a little bit faster, be more cautious? Now, knowing of Martin’s “issues” that caused him to be suspended from high school three times, and his own words from the text messages on his cellphone—which make it plain that he fully embraced the “gangsta” life style and its glorification of violence—and adding that to that image of him, is it not a  match? And you say you would prefer the company of this “child” over Zimmerman? 

After Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson arrived in Sanford to use their “celebrity” to the purpose of stirring-up outrage and discontent—accusing the Sanford police of incompetence and racism, yet never taking the time to actually understand the circumstances of that fatal night—the “mainstream” media followed in lockstep. Throw-in information and photographs that misrepresented and concealed the reality of who Trayvon Martin really was, and this set the pattern for the fatal miscalculation of the media of offering two distinct portraits of “good” and “evil” when a close examination of the two principles might suggest, for one with an open-mind, that the caricatures could easily be reversed.

But the media for all its conceit and arrogance could never accept the truth and acknowledge its error. One may recall the case of the “Central Park Five,” when a media with no interest in due process demanded and procured a conviction of five innocent youths for the rape and beating of a white female jogger. The police and prosecutors were so desperate to “solve” the case that they ignored the fact that DNA evidence collected at the crime scene did not match that from any of the accused, and went forward with only contradictory “confessions” coerced from false promises. When the convictions were overturned after all five had served their sentences for the crime, the media, police, and prosecutors were all in denial mode, and no one at the time stepped forward to admit their mistakes. In the Zimmerman case, the media acknowledged the existence of, but did not examine the import of, information that should have reversed perceptions to at least an even measure. 

In order not to interrupt the “narrative” of an “unarmed boy” killed by a racially-profiling “white” man merely because the victim was black, the media—with the exception of a Reuters report that detailed the level of criminal activity by primarily young black males in Zimmerman’s neighborhood—refused to provide context which could explain Zimmerman’s true mind, and that of Martin’s as well. Besides Martin’s well-documented scrapes with the fringes of law enforcement, frequent school suspensions, drug selling and use, and propensity for fighting, one notes that his appearance and behavior in that convenience store video shows that he clearly draws the suspicion of the clerk, especially when Martin inexplicably returns after making his purchase. Isn’t it just possible, given the right time and place, that the intersection of circumstances and intentions contrived to lead to fatal consequences that neither party could foresee?  

In any event, the  overall picture should have reversed public perception of Zimmerman and Martin had the entire truth been examined and explicated in an unbiased matter. But it was not. The false images were allowed to fester and bloat like a poisonous pustule, the media afraid to “pop” it lest it become diseased by it.  While the media is allowing the pustule to grow—hoping it abates with time so it will not have to confess its criminal negligence—the disease has already done its work on Martin partisans who cannot accept the truth—such as the NAACP, whose delegates in a convention in Florida claimed to be “speechless” with outrage at the verdict, and had to “regroup” before issuing a statement.  Yes, there were some whose motivation was genuine grief, but for most it was either out of ignorance, hatred and a desire to seek scapegoats to explain dysfunction within its community. 

As for the trial itself, it was a tragicomedy of misconduct and unethical behavior on the part of both prosecution and the bench, continuously frustrating the defense—as an adult trying to explain 2-plus-2 equals 4 to a person who  cannot comprehend the concept. Virtually every prosecution witness who did not turn against the state's version of events voluntary, were exposed as engaged in deliberate misrepresentations of fact, most notably by medical examiner Bao.

Yet for all the forces arrayed against him, Zimmerman and his defense team somehow won the day. Only the defense offered a credible account of events that night, and it was to the credit of the jury selection process that six jurors were seated who had the integrity and courage to dispassionately examine the evidence that within a reasonable amount of certainty backed Zimmerman’s description of the encounter; in the end, the jury did its duty as the law demanded without regard to “outside pressure.” Everyone—including Martin partisans—should be thankful that due process won in this case.