Justice for George Zimmerman

I have some questions to ask you:

1. Would you want to be arrested for a crime if the police didn't talk to anyone who witnessed the crime?


2. Would you want to be
   
   • arrested and jailed by the police,
   • convicted by a jury,
   • and sentenced by a judge,
   when there wasn't any hard evidence of a crime?
   


3. Would YOU want to be convicted by a jury and put in jail by a judge that didn't look at any physical evidence (injuries on both bodies, blood on the sidewalk, blood on clothes, gunpowder residue, etc.)?


4. In order for anyone (I said anyone) to be convicted of a crime, certain things must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
   
   In this case, the evidence hasn't shown that George should be convicted of second-degree murder.
   
   Everybody who is accused of a crime should be considered innocent until a jury decides that he is guilty.
   
   Everybody.
   
   Even you.
   
   If you would not want to be convicted and sentenced when the police have a small amount of evidence that you did the crime, why should he be convicted on such a small amount of evidence that he did the crime?

One of the hard facts of life

Whether you like it or not, the State of Florida has a "Stand your Ground" law.

It allows anyone (including George Zimmerman) to defend himself against an attack under certain circumstances.

It even allows anyone (including George Zimmerman) to use deadly force under certain circumstances.

This law was in effect on the day that Mr. Martin died.

Unless you want to be treated the way that you want to treat George, then let the jury decide whether he is guilty or not based on the evidence that  is shown to the jury.  This may be different than statements made on television by people who aren't on the jury and who aren't prosecutors in this court case.

Remember this?

It's in the Bible.

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."


These words are on the top of the front of the building where the United States Supreme Court does business:

Equal justice under law.

In other words, let the jury decide the case, and let them look at the evidence.

Only at the evidence.  The judge and the jury should ignore the color of George's skin.

If you want police, judges, and juries to ignore your skin color if and when you get arrested for a crime that you didn't commit, then police, judges, and juries should also ignore George's skin color.

By the way, I have been ignoring skin color for decades.

The previous sentence has a link to an essay about racism that I published more than a year ago.  It shows why everybody should ignore skin color every day.

George is now asking for a different kind of justice

This section was added on December 4, 2019.

These are the first paragraphs of a December 4, 2019 story in the Sun-Sentinel, which is published in Florida.  All of these links were included in their story.

George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin in 2012, is now suing the boy’s family, their attorneys and the prosecutors for damages in excess of $100 million.

Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, has said he was defending himself while being attacked when he shot and killed Martin, 17, in a gated community in the central Florida city of Sanford in February 2012.

Martin, who lived in Miami Gardens, was visiting his father at the time.

Zimmerman’s trial and acquittal sparked protests and a national debate about race relations.  The Justice Department later decided not to bring a civil rights case against Zimmerman.

The lawsuit alleges “malicious prosecution” by prosecutors, defamation by both Martin’s defense attorney and a book publishing company, and “civil conspiracy” by Martin’s family and lawyer “to put on a false witness with a made-to-order false storyline to try to fraudulently create probable cause to” get a conviction.

This story was linked in a story, published the same day, in The Hill.