I only know one thing from the Zimmerman verdict. Everything else, I'm just not sure about and haven't done any better thinking about it all weekend. I have a lot of questions that I can't answer, and while many others in 'real' life and on Daily Kos seem a bit more confident about, I haven't seen anything yet that convinces me. The following are my questions that I haven't come up with a good answer yet; feel free to respond as well as comment on the only thing that I can confidently come up with. ::all below the squig::
1. Is justice indeed done if a jury of the defendant's citizen peers finds him/her not guilty, excluding any tampering?
2. Zimmerman was the defendant in this case. If the prosecution also had jury selection powers, and charged Zimmerman, how is 'Florida' exactly culpable for not convicting Zimmerman? Or is it because the jury was Zimmerman's political peers, therefore the random sampling does indeed represent Florida as much as any 6 people?
3. I don't think if Trayvon was white/hispanic and Zimmerman was black, the % of not guilty verdicts, say over 20 trials, would be the same. Is the major problem that white/hispanics are not convicted when they should be, or that blacks are convicted when the shouldn't? 'Both' seems a bit of a cop-out.
4. Is it better for 'justice' overall that every man in his spot would've also gone free, or that he would be convicted based on exactly the evidence and arguments available in the actual trial?
5. If we have to accept that Zimmerman was justified in shooting Trayvon, is there no charge (or law that could've led to a charge) for Zimmerman for having clearly escalated the situation and put in motion events that led to a physical confrontation?
All I DO know is this:
There is a problem that needs to be fixed, when a man can follow a kid around a neighborhood, then get out and stalk him armed, and when the unarmed kid dies of a gunshot wound, there's any chance that he's not culpable for creating the situation leading to that kid's death.