So the short fat Latino dude ...

[chrisinhouston]

I for one think Mr. Zimmerman was guilty but having served as a juror I believe in our justice system as a whole even if it failed here.

The fault in the outcome lies at several different levels; the Florida SYG law is flawed as it goes far beyond the "castle doctrine" of protecting your property or yourself against intruders.

How on earth does the Florida judicial code only call for 6 jurors in a capital murder trial???

Our jury selection system allows for picks and strikes from both sides but 6 white women hardly represents the parties involved, a black man and a caucasian-latino.

Sadly, every trial comes down to the lawyers on both sides. In my opinion the proscecution failed when they chose the charge of 2nd degree murder when it should have been manslaughter. The charge they chose was harder to prove. Also, trial outcomes depend on the judge, who blocked evidence the proscecution was depending on to win.

We can speculate all we want but what if the outcome had been reversed and Mr. Martin had had a gun and stood his ground and killed Mr. Zimmerman? Based on statistics Mr. Martin wold have been arrested on the spot and charged and found guilty!

The jury found Mr. Zimmerman not guilty based on the facts that the judge allowed and the legal arguments but the verdict does not exonerate him. I have a feeling he will be living in hiding and looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, so maybe there is some justice.

[limegreenc]

For as long as I can remember, there has been racial violence ending in death. It doesn't matter which country you're from, the law sides with the police. If you're black, you're guilty until proven innocent. In Canada, the targets have been the Native American communities. The RCMP have much to answer for in the northern parts of Alberta. It's disgusting. There's probably an actual # somewhere, of incidents like this one. I'm willing to guess the # stands around 2,000.

[gvidas]

Tangential to the Zimmerman trial, but two really great articles that I read today:

Ta Nehisi Coates on why stop and frisk is a natural product of white supremacy:

An capricious anti-intellectualism, a fanatical imbecility, a willful amnesia, an eternal sunshine upon our spotless minds, is white supremacy's gravest legacy. You would not know from reading Richard Cohen that the idea that blacks are more criminally prone, is older than the crime stats we cite, that it has been cited since America's founding to justify the very kinds of public safety measures Cohen now endorses. Black criminality is more than myth; it is socially engineered prophecy. If you believe a people to be inhuman, you confine them to inhuman quarters and inhuman labor, and subject them to inhuman policy. When they then behave inhumanely to each other, you take it is as proof of your original thesis. The game is rigged. Because it must be.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...filing/277871/

And, from the NYTimes, a profile of a group of people taking a different tack in Los Angeles:

Crime has fallen for the past 10 years in Los Angeles. In Watts, violent crime is down nearly 30 percent since 2011. But it’s not just Watts. Angelenos are now as safe as New Yorkers, statistically speaking, despite the fact that L.A. has just under two-thirds as many police officers per capita as New York City. Moreover, a 2009 survey showed that 83 percent of Angelenos believe that the department is doing a good or excellent job, and majorities of every major ethnic group in the city said that most L.A.P.D. officers treat them with respect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/ma...ach-other.html