Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

^^^^^

No, it is the right word.

you cannot see how the jury could've possibly ruled differently? what does that even mean? juries are human beings not legal data machines. one way I can see how the jury could've ruled differently is if zimmerman were black and martin were white. it seems more than plausible that a jury could have ruled differently were that the case.

these flawed and imperfect legal data machines are what we have to live with ELSE MOB RULE DO YOU SEE?

i don't see how they could've ruled differently and have it be the legally proper verdict.

what is the alternative to "having to live with it"? it's easy for me to say because what else does one do, regardless of their color?

one calls bullshit

This flawed legal system is what we have to live with, while (hopefully) constantlly seeking to make it more just and more perfect.

it's not an either-or thing -- ppl who denounce this aren't calling for the jury system to be thrown out and replaced with something else, any more than ppl who criticized the dred scott decision were calling for the supreme court to be done away with. it's not that the fundamental principles behind our legal system are bad, it's that the legal system we have fails to live up to those principles.

there's bullshit with carrying a loaded gun around a neighborhood. there's bullshit with thinking a black teenager walking around your neighborhood is a drugged out thug. there's bullshit in thinking it's your job to confront him when police have told you otherwise. there's bullshit in police believing it's self-defense with little investigation. there's bullshit in people thinking race was not in issue. there's bullshit in initiating a confrontation, losing the ensuing fight, and therefore shooting the other person. etc etc. I just don't see the bullshit in the jury reaching the verdict they did based on the evidence and all that silly reasonable doubt and preseumption of innocence stuff.

there's bullshit in believing that the did purely based on evidence and all the silly reasonable dobut

jesus christ ppl

Juror B37 on CNN right now...Trayvon never had a chance.

I guess you could think that, but just about every legal "expert" I've seen an opinion from said came to the same conclusion.

I wouldn't start going down the "they must've all been racist" line until there was no other logical explanation for their decision.

i don't see how they could've ruled differently and have it be the legally proper verdict.

in the same sense that jury nullification can override an unjust law to acquit, juries retain the right to convict even when the evidence seems shaky or the law doesn't otherwise seem to apply. we forget this, but as i understand things, juries are ultimately bound by nothing but their own hearts and minds. they get to decide which doubts are reasonable and which are not. they get to decide which witnesses and supposed "facts" they want to believe. they even get to decide which laws they think are just - and which are not.

Juror called Trayvon a 'colored boy'. Perhaps this is a ticket on the clue train?

That's how people of a certain generation talk. My dad who's 73 still calls them "colored people" and I'm pretty confident that he wouldn't acquit a murderer just because the victim was black and the defendant wasn't.
Are you saying all these legal experts are racist too?

maybe the cause to come out of this can be repealing the fifth amendment, it would have a broader base of support than repealing stand yr ground laws (oops, sorry forgot we couldn't discuss repealing stand yr ground laws, not systemic enough, discussing repealing stand yr ground laws is appeasement, you have trayvon's blood on yr hands if you discuss repealing stand yr ground laws, amazing how much progress the left has made w/ this approach, any day now that system is just gonna overthrow itself, any day now). repealing the sixth would be easy after that and repealing the seventh wouldn't even make the evening news. might as well repeal the fourth also, new york's two steps ahead of us on that one. good luck getting anywhere near that second amendment though.

Maybe that juror is a racist. Maybe they're all racist. Maybe if TM's and GZ's races were reversed, the verdict would be, also. I would find fault with that verdict, I don't with this one.

Uncanny grasp of the issues. You should get a show. Hannity and Balls.

granny doesn't find fault with this verdict because he read experts

My dad who's 73 still calls them "colored people" and I'm pretty confident that he wouldn't acquit a murderer just because the victim was black and the defendant wasn't.

no offense to your dad (or anyone else), but shitty verdicts like this result more from differences in how people perceive things than from anyone's conscious desire to "acquit a murderer" (or, at least, i hope that's the case).

supposedly non-racist american jurors are much more likely to see a black person as guilty and a white person as innocent than vice-versa. that's just as bad as overt, self-admitted racism - arguably worse because it's so insidiously pervasive.

I love ILX

can only speak for me, but while I understood while a jury could acquit (and being under the impression that it would happen), I was still very much hoping for a "guilty" verdict. I also strongly feel that if he'd been arrested at the scene, things would have gone differently.

Rev, your post is heartbreaking and I can't pretend to comprehend how it feels in this situation. :(

Uncanny grasp of the issues. You should get a show. Hannity and Balls.

― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Monday, July 15, 2013 9:13 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these types of posts are real productive, clover. bravo.

that's true, C, point taken. Still don't think the "they're all racist" argument is needed, because it's not an outlandish, head-scratching verdict if you look at the evidence and burden of proof. The fact that GZ killed the only eyewitness and that allows him to get off is more upsetting to me. I really don't see what is achieved by accusing jurors of being racist cause hey they're mostly old and white and the said not guilty. I don't get the point in most "you're racist" finger-pointing done by righteous non-blacks on their behalf.

i only suspected the jurors of being racist. when one called trayvon a 'colored boy' i now feel comfortable in coming out and calling that juror racist.

can we discuss the n-word next? please? can we? huh huh huh?

Oh noes an unproductive post itt, that'll stand out like a priest on a mountain of sugar huh

I do think s. clover was right about lawyering being a way to deal with it. I was hoping for guilty, I was upset, I was nearly crying at the taco place when I heard the verdict. I just feel the anger is being misdirected at the jury/trial. That's fine if you disagree but there's no need to be a righteous jag about it.

I only suspected Trayvon of being a criminal. When he reached into his waistband then I was sure.

pat yourself on the back, another racist sussed out by sherlock clover, 2 more til your merit badge.

darrag itt you're really just acting like fight instigator and nothing more, FYI

Not even slightly correct tbh

Eh maybe a touch with the dn tbh but i stand by it

yeah, interrupting every 10 posts just to make a dig at someone itt without actually participating it is totally a good look, bro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw

Look what I have been posting in this fucking thread over the last year and a half and call me a defender of the racist system again and I will not hesitate to call you a fucking moron, no matter how hard you are grieving. Attack the jury system, attack the presumption of innocence, and the pigs smile. "The Justice System" is a joke concept latched on by dumdums. A racist legislature, racist police and racist prosecutors conspire to set Zimmerman free, and you think people who aren't calling for the destruction of one of the few judicial systems in the world even a ghost of a chance of avoiding or escaping an unjust conviction are the ones going "ho-hum, omelettes and eggs", then you are a dummy and a dupe and a lot of prosecutors can't wait to shake your hand as they help you fuck yourself.

Participting itt is nagl tbh, and ive posted in it maybe five times

Still don't think the "they're all racist" argument is needed, because it's not an outlandish, head-scratching verdict if you look at the evidence and burden of proof. The fact that GZ killed the only eyewitness and that allows him to get off is more upsetting to me. I really don't see what is achieved by accusing jurors of being racist cause hey they're mostly old and white and the said not guilty.

thing is, i see this case as a metonym or synechdoche as much as a thing that exists in isolation. the police handling, prosecution and verdict all contribute to undeniably racist patterns in the american legal system. so we can say that the verdict is obviously, manifestly racist as it relates to the system as a whole -- even if we can't say with equal confidence that these particular jurors are racist themselves (B37 aside).

yeah i'm more cynical than you, as much as an acquittal is plausible here (and hence i guess necessary w/ 'reasonable doubt')(and again i didn't follow the case closely - it's a horribly sad case, i never thought he would be convicted - call it cynicism call it privilege maybe cynicism is a kind of privilege (lol 'maybe') and i haven't read any thorough analyses of the case cuz that's appeasement and i haven't watched anything about the case on tv cuz my heart is not comitted enough to justice to watch cable news) if the jury had decided to convict i wouldn't have found any fault w/ that, even if the case were reputed to be much weaker and it was on murder one charge - no sleep lost. i'm opposed to the death penalty (cuz among other things our justice system is very flawed, sometimes now only do guilty ppl walk but - get ready to have yr mind blown clover - sometimes innocent ppl are convicted) but if he'd been sentenced to the death penalty i wouldn't have have been too outraged, i might've said 'o well the death penalty is bad yknow' but in reality i'd be thinking (or feeling) 'fry that fucker', the same way i might've said 'well gee to delight in a death is savage' but at the same time felt pretty gleeful when bin laden or breitbart died and the same way i might say and think and believe and generally feel that 'justice should be sought within the justice system, not without it, that we should favor the standard applied to zimmerman over the standard he applied' and whatever other rational abstractions but if someone gunned him down tomorrow (or hell today, there's time) i wouldn't feel outraged or saddened or even abstractly opposed, i'd feel pretty fucking giddy and on some level, maybe a level some here aren't as shielded from by privilege/cynicism, it would feel like justice.

xpost

Participting itt is nagl tbh

feeling this, and i'm among the worst offenders

(x-posts) Reverend, thank you very much for replying. I won't forget your words.

glad to know thinking we shouldn't toss out nearly half the bill of rights on the basis of a flawed legal system and the sudden awareness that juries can deliver bad verdicts makes me like hannity. i know you just heard his name for the first time this weekend clover but you should read up on the guy, he agrees w/ you on alot of things about our courts though his intentions aren't quite as noble. first name is 'sean' if you're googling.

Look what I have been posting in this fucking thread over the last year and a half and call me a defender of the racist system again

― Three Word Username, Monday, July 15, 2013 9:32 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nobody called you that? lmao.

i'd expand but it would just double down the clusterfuck.

instead let me just point out that there's not some sliding scale of rights and granularity of justice where on the one hand zimmerman walks and on the other hand innocent ppl go to jail.

instead we have zimmerman walks _and_ innocent people go to jail because the justice system is not this thing that apportions things evenly to all with some false positives and false negatives as though it were a 95% certainty ratio in a clinical trial. it is one thing for some people, and another thing to other people.

this may be of interest http://www.theroot.com/views/why-zimmerman-jury-failed-us

You know what, I no longer want to participate in or read this thread. Fuck you all.

I am seriously not interested in reading yet another article attacking the verdict without one word about the racist prosecutorial and police misconduct in this case, let alone a defense attorney that took a case a third-year law student could have won while maintaining some fucking dignity and used it to spew racist filth across the USA, and says "damn juries". But it was a short article and I'm up with a touch of indigestion anyway, so I read this one. I would almost always rather go after the fuckheads in suits and uniforms who are taking taxpayer money first in reforming any racist system, but I guess I'm a running dog who doesn't know how to rage right.

x-post right back at you.

tbf discussing police misconduct in this case is appeasement

Slicing this shit thin is important because if you are hollering "BLEEARRGH!!! EVERYTHING HERE IS COMPLETELY AND EQUALLY FUCKED!!!!!" and aren't carrying a torch and throwing bombs yet, you are in a fucking shitty position to be calling anybody a passive co-conspirator.

x-post right back at you.

― Three Word Username, Monday, July 15, 2013 9:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whoa, dude. Rev is not one of the people itt who deserved anybody's rage. I feel bad for fanning the flames that lead to this and just wanna say Rev, for my part, I'm sorry.

passive cynicism that uses moral superiority to stop any discussion of or attempt at reform is one of the more luxurious forms of privilege one can indulge in, it's even got a theme song (from right around the time the left stopped actually accomplishing anything in this country) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw