> What I meant to say [*] [is] that racism likely played a
> significant role in Z's acquittal. How else do you explain
> it in the light of the undisputed fact that it was Z who
> started the brawl, so Martin responded to an unprovoked
> attack. Only a racist prejudice that Z somehow had to
> stand his ground, whether that idiotic law was invoked or
> not, can lead to an interpretation that he "defended"
> himself.
OTOH, it is possible ("Anything is possible!") that racism played some role in the jury's verdict. But there just was not any actual *evidence* beyond the three "S"s, suspicion speculation, and surmise, especially not at/during the trial itself, that it did.
OTOH, the premise for the only one example you give - that it is an "undisputed fact that it was Z who started the brawl" - is mistaken. That claim was very much disputed at trial and, to the extent there was any, the witnesses' testimony bearing on this subject from a prosecutor's point of view was ambiguous at mos - hardly sufficient even to begin to satisfy not only Fla.'s prosecutor's burden of proof requirements but also such requirements pretty much nationwide.
One of the (again: *many*) ways that the principal trial lawyer for the prosecution screwed up was that he had any number of opportunities in direct and cross examination to try actually to prove that Martin responded to an unprovoked attack. However, not only did he not do this but he muddied the waters by stupidly introducing Z's statements to the contrary then compounding this decision by asking about mere, "Is it possible ..."s instead. But possibilities do not and should not suffice as a basis for any criminal conviction.
> [*] On Jul 14, <knowknot at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Re: [lbo-talk] zimmerman not guilty
>>
>> On 7/14/2013, Wojtek S wrote:
>>
>> Did you expect anything different
>>> from a Southern jury?
>>>
>>
>> The acquittal almost certainly has very little to do with "a Southern
>> jury" in the sense apparently implied and, instead, by the trial being
>> (even if not deliberately) one of the most incompetently prepared and tried
>> criminal prosecutions especially of a high profile case that one is likely
>> to see.
>>
>> It is easy to make a list of obvious things the prosecution should have
>> done but did not do and of things that (with some exceptions by the two
>> younger lawyers) the prosecution chose to do but should not have done or
>> did (at best) ineffectually.
>>
>> BTW, except for the media frenzy from the outset of Z's non-arrest and
>> ensuing incessant bloviating about it - e.g., on an important day of the
>> Bradley Manning trial, which he hasn't even mentioned much less
>> informatively covered, MSNBC's mostly execrable Chris Matthews referred Z's
>> trial as "The Most Important Criminal Case In The Country!!!" - it was an
>> essentially trivial case and trivial trial.
>>
>>
>>
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