The days since the acquittal of George Zimmerman have been
difficult for all of us. Wounds that we
thought had healed have been ripped open.
There have been marches and demonstrations demanding “justice.” Even the President of the United States
joined the fray by saying that thirty-five years ago he “could have been Trayvon
Martin,” and went on to chastise non-black America for being fearful of young,
black males.
Something seems wrong, but we can’t quite figure it out.
The answer, of course, is that we don’t know whether George
Zimmerman is innocent or guilty. He may
very well be guilty. He may be a
murderer. If you add up all the evidence,
perhaps the weight of the evidence even shows he IS guilty. Maybe even the vast majority of the
evidence. But that is NOT the standard
by which we measure guilt in this country.
While Reverend Sharpton and his ilk may stir the pot of racial discord
over the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the reality is that the failure to
convict Mr. Zimmerman occurred for the same reason the prosecution failed to
convict Casey Anthony or O.J. Simpson – it failed to prove its case beyond and
to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt.
The United States adopted the Blackstone formulation, a
concept that was expressed by the jurist William Blackstone in “Commentaries on
the Laws of England” published in the 1760s.
He stated that “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that
one innocent suffer.” Benjamin Franklin
apparently thought that even more protection of the innocent was necessary,
writing in his 1785 letter to Benjamin Vaughn that “it is better 100 guilty Persons should
escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” The number is not important, it is the
concept: as a society, we accept that some of the guilty shall escape
punishment so that we do not inadvertently convict the innocent.
So
much for “justice” for Trayvon Martin.
There is no further “justice” to be done. Maybe George Zimmerman is, in fact,
innocent. There was enough “reasonable
doubt” to acquit.
It
is, indeed, unfortunate that some political radicals look for opportunities to
turn circumstances into opportunities to create, rather than heal, racial
tensions.
President
Obama’s “I could have been Trayvon” raises an interesting issue that he left
unanswered. He stated “there are very few
African-American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the
street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.” Of course, almost one in three young black
men in the age group 20-29 is under criminal justice supervision on any given
day according to “Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five
Years Later” by Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling.
While our criminal justice system may be disproportionately targeting
blacks or “crimes” committed by blacks, clicking the lock on a car door seems a
logical and rational action in any high crime area. Perhaps that young man walking on the street
is going to be the next President of the United States. But if there is a 32.2% possibility he is
under criminal justice supervision, lock the door whether he is black, white,
or rainbow-colored.
