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The Zimmerman Trial and Race

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Margaret Carlson and Ramesh Ponnuru have a short online chat that is transcribed at Bloomberg that mostly covers Liz Cheney’s announcement that she’s challenging incumbent Republican Senator Mike Enzi in a primary, but it also briefly touches on the Zimmerman case. Here’s Carlson:

Reverse the parties in the trial: Martin is following Zimmerman. Zimmerman reacts and knocks Martin to the ground. Martin fears for his life and shoots Zimmerman. Does Martin get off? Not on your life.

I feel like I’ve heard this a lot the past couple of days. If Martin were white and Zimmerman were black, there’s no way Zimmerman would have been found “not guilty,” but I don’t understand where this belief is coming from.

Now, that’s not to say that race didn’t play a major role in this case. Would Zimmerman have called the police and followed Martin if he were white? Unclear, but race almost certainly played a role in Zimmerman’s decision-making that night. From listening to Juror B37’s interview with Anderson Cooper, it’s clear that she found the defendant’s witnesses much more credible, partially because she could more easily relate to them. Juror B37 and Rachel Jeantel, the prosecution’s star witness, come from different backgrounds and different cultures. That played a part in who Juror B37 found credible and impacted the verdict.

But that doesn’t change the (lack of ) evidence in the case:

  • Police advised Zimmerman not to follow Martin, but did not tell Zimmerman to stay in his car. The dispatcher testified that he can’t give direct orders for liability reasons.
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  • An eye-witness said that Martin was on top of Zimmerman punching him.
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  • Zimmerman had a broken nose, bloody face and other minor injuries when police arrived.
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  • It’s unclear who the voice screaming in the 911 phone call is. Zimmerman’s family says its Zimmerman. Martin’s family says its Martin. Independent analysts aren’t sure.

The evidence is enough to foster reasonable doubt that Zimmerman acted in self-defense. If Martin were white and Zimmerman black, I don’t see how a jury could have found him guilty with that evidence. There just isn’t nearly enough evidence there to convict. Maybe a jury that decided based on racial stereotypes would not believe a word of Zimmerman’s story, but even so, an appeals court would almost certainly have overturned it.

Once again, this isn’t to say that race didn’t play a role in the trial. It isn’t to say that laws that allow such a tragedy to happen and a killer to walk to free are acceptable.

It isn’t to say anything more about the case than that the evidence was murky and no sane jury could have found Zimmerman guilty, no matter if he was white, black or purple.

 

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Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Rolling Stone’s Despicable Cover

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

The new edition of Rolling Stone magazine is out and its cover is truly reprehensible. It has a full image of Boston Bomber Jahar Tsarnaev, looking more like a rock star than a terrorist. In fact, Tsarnaev looks good on the cover! It’s a glamour shot of him. Here it is:

Rolling Stone Cover

Boston Bomber Jahar Tsarnaev.

After a shooting in Portland, Oregon last year and right before the tragedy in Newtown, Forbes Joseph Grenny penned an excellent post (which I expanded on here) about the coverage of mass shootings and how the press must do better. Here’s the important part:

But my horror was twofold. The first misery came as I heard the names and numbers of victims and thought about the pain they and their families will endure for the rest of their lives. The second dose came as I held my breath, hoping and praying the media wouldn’t amplify the violence.

But they did.

They did exactly what they needed to do to influence the next perpetrator to lock and load.

  1. They named the shooter.
  2. They described his characteristics.
  3. They detailed the crime.
  4. They numbered the victims.
  5. They ranked him against other “successful” attackers.

Public shootings are a contagion. And the media are consistent accomplices in most every one of them.

The Boston Bombing is a bit different than a mass shooting. The Tsarnaev brothers weren’t motivated by fame or trying to “outnumber” past killers. Terrorist attacks of that sort aren’t fueled by that. In this case, the brothers were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs and a deep hatred for America.

But, nevertheless, Rolling Stone‘s cover still glamorizes the attack. Future potential terrorists won’t see it as further incentive to attack our country (as noted above, that’s not what incentivize them), but other madmen may. Future potential mass murderers may see the cover and think that they could one day find themselves on there as well. What kind of message is that for Rolling Stone to send?

The story has a number of interesting details about Jahar and his brother’s decent into radical Islam. It’s worth reading and provides an invaluable look into their lives. But there is no reason for Rolling Stone to put Jahar on the cover whatsoever, especially not a glamour shot of him. The less we do to spotlight terrorists and mass shooters while still investigating stories, the better. With its recent cover, Rolling Stone failed mightily.