On 15/07/2013, at 9:56 AM, knowknot at mindspring.com wrote:
> 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.
I can believe that the main issue here is one of incompetence by the prosecution rather than racism. I actually saw TV footage on the news here of a few seconds of the trial, of the prosecutor addressing the court. Admittedly it was only a short snippet, but if it was any indication of his overall performance, there is no mystery as to why the prosecution failed. It came across as incoherent babbling. Might of even been the "…is it possible?" speech you mention, that rings a bell.
Then again, I know nothing but a vague sketch of the facts. Its hard to think how it might be self-defense given the killer chased, attacked and then shot the victim. But not knowing what evidence might have been presented, its unreasonable to second-guess the jury, who heard all the evidence.
And its not the jury's fault, if the prosecution failed to present an intelligible case, or adequately challenge the defence's arguments and evidence. it isn't up to the jury to make allowances for an incompetent prosecuting lawyer.
What I'm curious about is, how does such a bungling incompetent get put in charge of a big prosecution like this? You would think there would be someone with sufficient experience to do a decent job.
I wonder if it might not be a symptom of the way the system operates, with serious criminal trials being not terribly common, due to most criminal cases being decided by systematic of coercion of guilty pleas from defendants? So that when you need a competent criminal trial lawyer, you have a hard job finding a prosecutor who knows what to do at trial?
Mind you, that still amounts to a form of systematic racism. Not blatant, but still very systematic. Such things as mandatory sentencing are reminiscent of the way the old White Australia Policy used to work. Officially there was a language test. But it didn't matter how good your English was, if you were not white you would have no chance in hell of passing it, because the way the test was conducted was totally arbitrary. In fact they could test applicants in ANY European language, if necessary.
But it wasn't overtly racist you understand. Likewise mandatory sentencing is not overtly racist. Sounds very even handed, no discretion to the courts at all. But of course that simply transfers the discretion from the judge in an open courtroom to the back offices of the police/prosecution, who get to decide if and what offenders are actually charged and prosecuted for. Racial biases are very hard to pinpoint in such a system, you would need to know what cases are NOT being prosecuted and what charges are NOT being laid, to prove if there is a racial imbalance or not.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas