The Zimmerman Verdict

It has been over a day now since George Zimmerman was acquitted of the killing of Trayvon Martin. That is almost too little time for us to gain perspective on an event in which someone was deliberately killed (as far as I can tell, no one disputes that), but decisions have to be made, and this one has been made.

Despite the phone call in progress between Martin and Rachel Jeantel at the moment of the shooting, only two people know what really happened that day, and one of them is dead. Thus the jury was deprived of a primary source of evidence in the case. This could not have been rectified after the fact; any information from Martin is gone, and one cannot expect information from Zimmerman to be objectively true.

Then there is the American criminal legal tradition that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt... a tradition that helps the accused individual counterbalance the presumably far greater resources available to the state in making a case. The law in question in this case lists some bases on which jurors may make conclusions, but not only were the six jurors not unanimous on whether to convict (three wanted to convict either of second-degree murder or of manslaughter), but at least one juror said that despite hours of examining evidence, jurors were unable to reach a unanimous conclusion of guilt or innocence. Thus the traditional presumption of innocence continued to prevail, and Zimmerman was acquitted. It could not have been otherwise.

This is not to say Zimmerman is blameless. He could have, and in my opinion should have, obeyed the police and stayed in his car rather than chasing Martin. We do not know Zimmerman's state of mind, or that a cop would have been less liable to give chase under the circumstances, but I've known a few cops, and all of them have voiced a real reluctance to pursue and shoot at a suspect when there are other ways to resolve the matter. Zimmerman, on the other hand, may well have decided how things would go down at the moment he exited the car. This is one of the major disadvantages of volunteer citizen patrols, or any other sort of vigilantism: the volunteers involved may not be capable of exercising good judgment when the confrontation turns potentially violent. Of course, that can happen with police as well, but at least police are trained in how to avoid needless violence.

So what is the best way to avoid such cases in the future? The answers are not easy, but for one thing, we have to instill in every individual volunteer carrying a gun in a law enforcement context the same sense of awesome responsibility that anyone in America carrying a firearm on the streets must have. Law enforcement is not a casual business, no matter who performs the necessary actions, and should never be taken lightly. Otherwise, there is far too great a probability that the enforcer will become judge, jury and executioner all in one.

(An aside: as Bryan Dumka points out, despite some claims, the case did not hinge on "stand your ground" behavior by Zimmerman.)