Trayvon Martin is dead, shot to death by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is a free man, proclaimed to be not guilty of second degree murder nor of manslaughter. We know that when jury deliberations began that just three of the six jurors believed that Zimmerman should be acquitted. One of the jurors, Maddy, has proclaimed that “… as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can”t say he”s guilty.” She went on to state that “Zimmerman got away with murder.” I agree with her. Zimmerman did get away with murder. Why might this be so?
First of all, if you look at the case in terms of an unembellished strict interpretation of the blueprint of the law, as Zimmerman”s defense team argued and as the judge consented to in her instructions to the jury, the thought of the conscience-stricken juror might make sense: “If you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can”t say he”s guilty.” What this juror implies, and what the widespread backlash that protests the verdict means, is that Zimmerman”s getting away with murder was a violation of the principle of justice, and there is a difference between justice and the law.
The law is an attempt to make rules that will result in what the law maker, in this case government, determines to be the best shot at the practical achievement of all citizen”s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Human law makers are prone to create law that often leans toward selfish and narrow local political desires that may violate the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. In the past, southern state lawmakers, for example, have mandated the legality of segregation as well as prevented Africa Americans from the right to vote. It follows from this that the law is different in an important way from justice. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” ?”One may well ask: ?How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all.”
How does our system of government reconcile the significant difference between what is lawful and what is just? It is the formal responsibility of government to make laws. It is the moral responsibility of juries to determine what is just. The origin of our jury system of common law was the 1215 English Magna Carter. Here, juries were established as an important check against state power. State power resulted in law. Jury power was to result in justice because it brought about a means of interjecting community values and common sense, as interpreted by peers of both the accused and of the victim. It is because of the jury system that judicial proceedings can provide peer opinion, as compared to government opinion. A jury verdict should be the result of a hearing that is sympathetic to the defendant and to the victim, a fair hearing conducted by people who are not part of the government or other interested groups . If there was no significant difference between law and justice, we would not need juries.
In the Zimmerman trial the intent of the jury system was violated, primarily as a result of a less than compelling case made by the prosecution. In the end, at least one juror , and perhaps more than one, was confused. If the prosecutors had done a better job of clarifying the responsibility of the jury, it is more likely that justice would have been served. “It was hard,” said Maddy, of the 16 hours of deliberations before the jury settled on a verdict. “That”s where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it. But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can”t say he”s guilty.” The significant phrase in this statement is “as the law was read to me.” Maddy understood that common sense dictates that “if a person kills someone” there should be consequences.
The Florida State attorneys did make the point that it was the job of the jury to use its common sense in order to come to a just decision. Zimmerman”s lawyers contradicted this notion. There was no forceful come back on the part of the prosecutors. The judge, perhaps fearful that this trial would be overturned on appeal, sided with the defense and discouraged the jury from using common sense. After all, appeals are based strictly on the law as interpreted by other judges who represent the interests of the state as compared to the common sense that may result in justice.
The prosecutors also failed to convince the jury that common sense might result in the conclusion that Zimmerman”s self defense argument was shaky at best. It is clear, but it was not made clear to the jury, that Zimmerman was the hunter and Trayvon the prey. The police, who must have realized this initially, told Zimmerman to back off. Zimmerman armed with a gun pursued Treyvon based on the demonstrably false assumption that the teen ager was a threat to the community. The testimony at the trial focused endlessly on who was on top as the two struggled in a life and death confrontation. The prosecution sadly missed the point that who was finally on top or on bottom did not matter. What did matter was that Treyvon had just as much a right to defend himself with fists against Zimmerman, perhaps even more of a right, than Zimmerman had a right to defend himself by shooting Treyvon.
There is also the matter of whether or not Zimmerman shot Treyvon intentionally. That was a key connection between the law and justice .The law dictates that in order to be convicted of manslaughter it would had to be proven that Zimmerman”s gun shot was delivered intentionally. The defense and the judge in her instructions to the jury stressed this point. The prosecution failed to connect the law to justice when it failed to convince the jury that the opposite of intentional is unintentional. Does any right thinking person believe that Zimmerman did not intentionally carry a loaded gun that was to be used or that he pulled the trigger for the purpose of killing Treyvon? The prosecution did not stress that point.
And finally, there is the matter of race. The judge refused to let the race card be played. It is clear to me, and to thousands if not millions of Americans, that if Treyvon were white and Zimmerman were black, the trial and the result would have been different. The hooded kid who was in pursuit of candy was considered to be a threat because he was black. Race did matter if you consider the continuing injustice of racial prejudice in southern states, if not the entire nation, The prosecutors could have and should have brought this up. Then the defense could have objected because racist motivation could not be proven and the judge would have sustained the objection. Yet the matter would have been put in the mind of the jury and enabled the jury to use its common sense to come to a more just verdict.
I hope that the school children of our nation as they recite the Pledge of Allegiance understand the final phrase “…And justice for all” to a greater extent than the confused jury in the Zimmerman trial.
Stephen Sloane is a Lake County resident, a retired Naval Officer and a Professor at Saint Mary”s College of California. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has earned a Ph.D at the University of California, Berkeley. Reach him at cowboy91671@gmail.com.
