A VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY

Here's what we know about America 2013: people are still not judged by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin. Race is still the lens through which Americans view events, the criminal justice system, the police, the courts, lawyers and judges. Anger by African-Americans for race based inequalities may have dissipated a bit with the election of an African-American president and advancement of other minorities in other professions, but it still bubbles hotly just beneath the surface of public consciousness and drives behavior. 

In our small corner of the world, what we are concerned with is justice and fair trials. For us, the possible tragic outcome of this case are future jury verdicts that do not reflect the facts of the case. Future defendants-black, white, hispanic, whatever, could pay with their freedom over anger about the verdict in this case. 

We've seen in media (social and standard) calls for the State to appeal the verdict, and criticism of the prosecution for not forcing the defendant to testify and explain his behavior. Shocking ignorance of basic constitutional rights to be sure, but we as legal practitioners ignore the feelings of the general public at our own peril. The burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt can be threatened by ignorant, populist politicians, and undermined by disgruntled jurors one case at a time. 

We've yet to reach a level of non race based thinking where a white man can kill a black man in self defense and not have the disgraceful tragedy of the killings of Medgar Evers be resurrected. 

Trayvon Martin was a boy. His life had barely begun. But Trayvon Martin was also  (in police parlance) a young black male, and his presence in neighborhood was deemed a threat to a man who had a gun. Neither Martin (who apparently beat up Zimmerman) nor Zimmerman who clearly escalated this encounter, are blameless. Trayvon Martin paid for the misjudgments that young men often make with his life. Zimmerman paid for the tragedies that guns often create with his life inexorably changed for the worst.

What's the tragedy here? Martin was scared by Zimmerman and responded by attacking him. Zimmerman was scared by Martin and responded by killing him.  The tragedy is that we need to stop being scared by each other. We need to stop shooting each other. We need to stop carrying guns wherever we go. We need to stop evaluating every encounter between two different colored people in 2013 based on their race, and most importantly, we need to stop screaming about throwing out cherished constitutional rights every time a case turns out differently than we wanted. White americans decried the justice system when OJ Simpson was acquitted and african-americans are now upset because Zimmerman was acquitted. 

These cases might well be the cost we pay so the thousand or so criminal trials that happen throughout our country every month- trials no one pays attention to or tweets about- resolve in a just and fair way. No defendant in the future should be convicted because Zimmerman was acquitted. That would be the real tragedy if that was the legacy of Trayvon Martin's tragic and untimely death. 

See you in court. 

SECOND DEGREE

While we were otherwise occupied Wednesday the story broke that the State Attorney filed charges of second degree murder against George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. 


Zimmerman surrendered and is in custody. The NY Times coverage is here. 


Thoughts? 


Does this case spell the end of stand your ground in Florida? 

GRAND JURIES ARE WHERE POLITICAL CASES GO TO DIE

BREAKING: Long time Circuit Court judge Scott Silverman resigned today. The Captain broke the  news in the comments section. 


The old wise guy phrase our clients used to say when planning a sit down was:  "if you're indicted, you're invited".  George Zimmerman will not be invited because the State Attorney investigating the case has said that she will not be convening a grand jury, so he will not be indicted.  


What does this mean? Second degree murder or manslaughter. Our thoughts are manslaughter, but we admittedly know very little about this case.  Odds are it will probably be a second. First is clearly a reach. Monday night on CNN's Piers Morgan show  Roy Black opined "In Florida the grand jury is where political cases go to die." Mr. Black further agreed with Professor Dershowitz, who was also on the show, that the news is not good for Zimmerman and the lack of a grand jury  probably means he will be charged. 


Meanwhile George Zimmerman has launched his own website to raise funds for a defense. This case is spinning out of control and the publicity will not be good for either side. 


RODERICK VEREEN: Ace criminal defense lawyer, started out in the Federal PDs office  US Attorneys Office (as pointed out to us by an alert reader) , of late has a private practice and handles the Jimmy Ryce cases for RC3 is seriously considering  running against State Attorney Kathy Fernandez Rundle. This is a tough one. Fernandez-Rundle has done an admirable job. Her job is not an easy one and she negotiates between daily land mines of varied political interests and police departments that range from very competent to criminally incompetent. And yet Rod Vereen is a great lawyer and would bring a great new perspective to the job. We as citizens of Miami can be proud that two distinguished candidates are vying to serve. Rod has until April 20, 2012 to make his decision. You cannot yet email him at "runRodrun"dot com, but that piece of political advice (it would be a great email address) comes free of charge. 


What's the first thing you would change if you became Dade State Attorney? For us the answer is simple- we would prohibit a prosecutor from saying in open court "I need to go speak to a supervisor." You hire a lawyer, you pay a lawyer, let them be a lawyer. 


VIVA FIDEL! Query: If you're the Hispanic manager of the Miami Marlins and your team has a brand spanking new ballpark, what's the very worst way to drum up local support for your team? Praise Fidel Castro. Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen did just that this past weekend. 


ICEBERG! Did the once in a thousand years alignment of the sun, moon and earth, which caused unusual high tides, help sink the Titanic? Maybe. 

HEALTH CARE: As we speak Nino Scalia is dismissively waving a high court hand and muttering "health care smelth care" and Clarence Thomas is nodding enthusiastically while saying nothing. 
But did you know that the SCOTUS Blog reports that between 1832 and 1956 in at least three quarters of the presidential elections a supreme court justice tried to wangle a presidential or vice presidential nomination?