The InJustice of the century, one year later #J4TM

#Trayvon Martin

Today marks the one year anniversary of the miscarriage of justice of the century,  when the 5 white and 1 Hispanic, all female jury,  acquitted George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. 

 What we do know is that the Trayvon Martin case says a lot about the state of our politics at the moment.  It’s not very post-racial and, yes, it is very tense and polarized.  Certain elements in the political process, including decision makers from state legislatures to Capitol Hill, are holding the gun.  People of color are in the cross-hairs.  And the only thing we seem to be armed with these days is a high unemployment rate and a sense that the future is not looking as bright.

One year later, the jury is still anonymous.

 To date, little is known about the mainly faceless jurors who deliberated for more than 16 hours before rendering George Zimmerman's fate. Five white women and one black Hispanic woman were on the main panel; four alternate jurors, two men and two women, were also selected. Juror B29 told ABC she believed Zimmerman "got away with murder" but that she had to "grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence." Alternate juror E54 told WOFL he "supported the verdict." Juror B37, the first juror to speak, told CNN that Zimmerman was "justified in shooting Trayvon Martin" but that he "had good in his heart, he just went overboard." She initially planned to write a book about her experience but withdrew after major backlash against her comments.

One year later, violence against unarmed black people continues.

Spare us the invocations of "black-on-black crime." I will not respect the lie. I would rather be thought insane. The most mendacious phrase in the American language is "black-on-black crime," which is uttered as though the same hands that drew red lines around the ghettoes of Chicago are not the same hands that drew red lines around the life of Jordan Davis, as though black people authored North Lawndale and policy does not exist. That which mandates the murder of our Hadiya Pendletons necessarily mandates the murder of Jordan Davis. I will not respect any difference. I will not respect the lie. I would rather be thought crazy.

One year later, Rachel Jeantal blames herself for the jury's actions.

Immediately, I heard newscasters referring to her prior testimony, which I had watched on video, as combative and aggressive. And I felt my pressure start to rise.
These kinds of terms – combat, aggression, anger – stalk black women, especially black women who are dark-skinned and plus-sized like Rachel, at every turn seeking to discredit the validity of our experiences and render invisible our traumas. By painting Rachel Jeantel as the aggressor, as the one prone to telling lies and spreading untruths, it became easy for the white male defense attorney to treat this 19-year-old, working-class black girl, a witness to the murder of her friend, as hostile, as a threat, as the one who needed to be regulated and contained and put in her place.

One year later,  we still have Stand Your Ground Laws, as a matter of fact, Stand Your Ground  laws were  expanded in Florida.

One year later,  neither President Barack Obama, the media, or any racial incident has forced the nation to talk about race in any sort of serious way.

So yes, let's have a real discussion about race and racism.  I mean a real hope-to-die, get it all out in the open discussion.  It's times to drain the poison off, so that this nation can heal.  The whole world is watching.  I don't know about you people, but I don't plan to set my clock back, I plan to set it forward.

One year later, The Justice Department is still investigating the death of Trayvon Martin.

One year later and Trayvon Martin is till dead.

We are the ones that failed.

Truth first then justice.
We’re the ones that failed. Not us specifically, but the people who knew and understood the truth and common sense and had the format to speak out about it. We let another narrative take place so we can avoid calling what we are seeing what it really is.

"Trayvon belongs to all of  America and until you see him as your child too, we all remain in bondage."

Rest in Freedom Sweet Child, we will never forget you.

Remember Trayvon Martin Today. Remember Trayvon Martin Tomorrow. Remember Trayvon Martin Forever.

H/T Chip via John S. Randal with links inserted for emphasis.

 Don't ever forget Trayvon Martin, born February 5, 1995. I know that by posting this photo, it will elicit a lot of emotion, both good and bad. I'm not posting it to create fights, to create arguments, I've already gone through much of that. I'm posting it because we need to see that Trayvon Martin was a son, a brother, a friend. When Trayvon was 9-years-old, he saved his father's life by pulling his father, who had been immobilized by burns to the legs, out of a fire in their apartment. Trayvon washed cars, babysat, and cut grass to earn his own money. Trayvon's former football coach said he was a shy kid and always walked with his hoodie and headphones on listening to music. Those who knew him said he was a kind and loving person. He probably wasn't perfect, I don't think any kids his age are perfect, he was after all just a kid. Please don't attack this post, please don't attack anyone who comments on this post. I'm posting this because I think we need to look deep inside and see that inside, our heart, our soul, we are all the same. Trayvon was just a kid, he could have been your son, he could have been your little brother. Peace and love to all...

"Trayvon belongs to all of America. And until you see him as your child too, we all remain in bondage."

Juror B-37: Opportunity, Means, Motive in the Zimmerman Trial

The strange saga of Juror B37 could become even stranger, now that the Department of Justice has set up an email Tip Line for the events in Sanford, Florida. The email address is: Sanford.Florida@usdoj.gov

New questions are surfacing about her in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman murder trial. Did Juror B37 or her husband, an attorney, have the motive, means and opportunity to tamper with the jury?

There is no doubt that Juror B37 was anxious to get on to the jury. "In watching her jury interview, one finds a very concerning pattern. As discussed by legal expert Gail Brashers-Krug, a former federal prosecutor and law professor and who is currently a criminal defense attorney in Iowa:

She really wants to be a juror. She seems to be going out of her way to minimize the disruptive effect of a multiweek trial on her life. Jurors rarely do that. She is also taking pains to avoid saying anything particularly sympathetic to either side. Both sides tend to be very skeptical of jurors who are particularly eager to serve on high-profile cases. Often they have their own agendas, or are attention-seekers."

Opportunity. Juror B37 was making the opportunity for herself.

As Juror B37's story unfolded, we came to understand why a person who consumes no media - except for the Today show - and professed such disdain for the media that her household newspapers went unread, becoming bird cage liners. It was remarkable, then, that this sequestered juror and her attorney husband managed to land a book deal less than two days after the Zimmerman verdict. She announced it nationally the Monday following the verdict on AC360.

Juror B37 was masterful in "how to not know anything about something everyone else knows about" although she was under the false (and prejudiced) belief that there were “riots” after the Martin shooting.

While appearing to be pretty much a blank slate, Juror B37 actually made startling statements in her voir dire.

Gail Brashers-Krug...also jumped back when B37 said, "You never get all the information." "That's exactly what a defense attorney loves to hear," says Brashers-Krug. "That's reasonable doubt, right there. If I were a prosecutor, that would make me extremely nervous about her." She adds that B37’s devotion to animals might raise flags for her as well. "The animal thing is weird. She doesn't know how many animals she has, and she mentions her animals far, far more than her two daughters. She strikes me as eccentric and unpredictable. I never, ever want eccentric, unpredictable people on a jury."

During the nationally televised interview with Anderson Cooper on his AC360 show, Juror B37 described the planned book as "always intended to be a respectful observation of the trial from my and my husband’s perspectives..."

Wait! Her husband's perspective?

That leads to the disclosure that the "sequestered" jury wasn't so sequestered after all, as the Judge allowed unsupervised visits of 2 hours a week, according to Florida's WFTV, which obtained a copy of the agreement the Judge had all the jurors sign. "The Seminole County Sheriff's Office said Judge Debra Nelson allowed jurors generally no more than two hours of alone time with visitors once a week."

Juror B37's husband holding a perspective strong enough to co-author a book on the subject? Given unsupervised access during the trial to his wife on the jury? Certainly sounds like there's a possibility that this was more, much more, than a conjugal visit.

Then there's the aspect of how rapidly this book publishing deal was done. According to the Orlando Weekly blog, literary agent Sharlene Martin claimed that B37 had been referred to her "by a high ranking producer at one of the morning shows." That means the juror would have to have established a relationship with a national morning-TV producer, asked said producer to recommend an agent, contacted Martin, and agreed to a deal with her – all within a single Sunday."

Rather an implausible timetable for a single Sunday, unless B37 had someone outside the sequestered jury, like an attorney husband, working to coordinate the tasks of the opportunity. Was B37 acting like a mole inside the jury, confiding trial information to her husband?

And there's a bit more, too, that raises that question. The same Orlando blog notes that Zimmerman's neighbor and friend Frank Taaffe (Twitter's Frank the Tank) appeared on Fox News and HLN on Saturday a few hours before the verdict was read, some insight into the fact that it’s 5 to 1 in favor of acquittal, and the one holdout is now looking at the manslaughter charge."

The Orlando blog continued: "At 2:48 PM on HLN, Taaffe at first merely claimed he was 'very comfortable' in this assessment and 'firmly believe[d]' it was the case; prodded by host Nancy Grace to explain how he had arrived at his belief, he went even further, stating, 'I know it’s 5 to 1.'"

Means.

University of Alabama Press Marketing Director J.D. Wilson explained: "Time is of the essence when trying to sell a book dealing with a high-profile case. Wilson said it would have been possible for the book to wind up on shelves as quick as four to six weeks from now and sell up to 200,000 copies. Revenue from the book could have been anywhere from $2.5 million to $4 million.

Juror B37 herself could have received an advance of up to $100,000, he said.

"I think the juror would see a big check really fast," he said. "Then she would just have to finish the book."

Motive.

As Nathaniel Downes of Addicting Information.com summarized the strange saga of Juror B-37:

"We find a juror with their own agenda, who managed to sneak her way onto the jury, with unsupervised access to an element harboring their own viewpoint and opinion, and who aimed to profit off of a non-guilty verdict. She had the means, by having access to her husband unsupervised. She had the motive, by profiting off of a book deal. And she had the opportunity by being on the jury in the first place."

"Zimmerman got away with murder" Blame Juror B-29

H/T The Field Negro

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda, but Didn't, Juror B-29 (Maddy  too scared to give her last name) offers a little something for everyone in an attempt to quiet her guilty conscience because she didn't understand the law (thanks to the judge and the prosecutors), and, because she had no courage of conviction (pun intended)

 She didn't understand the difference between intentional murder and manslaughter.
She didn't understand what constitutes evidence and proof.
She didn't realize that the jury can draw conclusions from the entirety of the evidence.

I said it first, and I'll say it again, there was no way this 100% female 0% African American jury was going to find George Zimmerman guilty.   This trial was over at jury selection.

The “not guilty” Simpson verdict sparked great divisiveness across the country. Some alleged that Simpson was only found not guilty because the predominantly black jury did not want to convict a fellow member of the African-American community.
The George Zimmerman prosecution and defense teams should have considered the potential for such a response in this case, because race was at issue from the outset.
This case should not be about race, but the attorneys’ failure to pick a more diverse group of six people is certain to reignite the issue, especially if the 100 percent all-female/non-African-American jury finds Mr. Zimmerman not guilty.

You won't hear/read/see this in the mainstream media because they are focused on  Anthony Weiner's private life, but Change.org submitted a petition to Judge Debra Nelson calling for an investigation into jury tampering.  If the latest revelations by these jurors don't make the case for  Civil Rights charges being bought against George Zimmerman, I don't know what will.

Suspicious George

The Martin family attorney, Benjamin Crump, placed blame on Juror B-37, in the most objective way: she simply didn't think of Trayvon as "her child." Juror B-37 couldn't relate to Trayvon, and there is the real tragedy: her empathy for the dead Trayvon was the same as for his murderer, George Zimmerman.

Indeed, Juror B-37 was so partial to Zimmerman that she excused his behavior with her assessment of his motivations. "But he wanted to do good. I think he had good in his heart, he just went overboard," the juror told CNN. Asked later whether she thought Zimmerman was within his rights, she said: "He was justified in shooting Trayvon Martin." After all, as George Zimmerman absolved himself of his personal responsibility for killing Trayvon, it was "all God's plan." Imagine the internal outrage Trayvon's parents must have felt when George Stephanopoulus asked them how they felt about George Zimmerman's parents praying each day for Trayvon. And yet, Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin, mild mannerly only questioned their sincerity.

One only needs to skim through the list of 46 phone calls to see that Zimmerman was overzealous in his pursuit of those in his neighborhood displaying "suspicious activity." On April 22, 2011, Zimmerman called police about suspicious activity by a "Juvenile black male 'apprx 7–9' years old, four feet tall 'skinny build short blk hair' last seen wearing a blue t-shirt and blue shorts."

Yes, that's right. To George Zimmerman, a little boy was suspicious, although he wasn't wearing a hoodie. Now I'm not sure what would be, to Zimmerman, "suspicious" about a young boy, other than he was black. Not that Zimmerman would be profiling on the basis of race, of course, despite the allegations of trial witness no. 9, Zimmerman's cousin. She said "...that Zimmerman and his family always had a bias against Blacks and only liked them if they 'acted White.'" Zimmerman defended himself against that charge by saying he was cleared of any racial profiling by the FBI.

And Zimmerman was cleared of murdering Trayvon Martin, too. God's plan?