The not-guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin case was understandable given Florida law and in light of continued reasonable doubt about what happened on the tragic night of Feb. 26, 2012. In the end, evidence presented in the 19-day trial could not eliminate that doubt.
That same doubt ought to preclude federal charges against Zimmerman. Let the jury’s verdict decide the case.
That said, the verdict does not alter the fact that Trayvon ought to be alive today. He died because of three bad choices made by George Zimmerman: First, the neighborhood watch volunteer tucked a pistol in his pants earlier that evening; when he saw a young black male, he thought “criminal;” and he then acted out of false courage that the pistol provided. Those mistakes weren’t enough to justify a guilty verdict — standards of proof are and must be higher in a court of criminal law. But they were mistakes that produced tragedy.
Not surprisingly, the verdict has inspired anger and deep sorrow among millions of Americans, particularly within the black community. That anger has for the most part been expressed peacefully. Others have celebrated the verdict, with some making the odd claim that the only reason Zimmerman had been prosecuted in the first place was because of Martin’s race, as if young black males are some sort of protected class in the American legal system. Over the weekend Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a related claim, asserting that the verdict proved that “our justice system is color-blind.”
From Perry to Al Sharpton, it has been tempting for people on both sides to burden the Martin case with cultural weight that in truth it should never have been asked to bear, particularly in a court of law. The jury’s verdict was based on details and facts specific to this one tragic circumstance; it was not a verdict based on some overarching concept of racial justice or injustice. George Zimmerman, not American culture, was on trial.
However, Perry’s claim about a color-blind justice system should not go unchallenged, because it simply is not true and because it gets to the core of what made this case so emotional for many. In fact, overwhelming evidence contradicting Perry’s claim can be found in his own state of Texas, where among other things, black murder defendants are considerably more likely to be sentenced to death than are white defendants for the same crime. (The same can be said of Georgia.)
Take the example of Harris County, which comprises the Houston area and by itself has sent more people to execution than any state but Texas.
A 2011 investigation by the Houston Chronicle found that from 2005-2011, 50 percent of those arrested for murder in Harris County were black. However, of the 13 people facing the death penalty in Harris County courtrooms in that time frame, 12 had been black and one had been Hispanic. You have to go back to 2004, to the case of a serial murderer who actively sought capital punishment, to find a white person charged with capital murder in that county.
As the Chronicle also noted, “Eight of 12 African-Americans were sentenced to death during the tenure of Chuck Rosenthal, who resigned as district attorney in 2008 over sexually charged and racially tinged emails. One included a photo of a black man, lying on the ground surrounded by watermelon and a bucket of chicken, that was labeled ‘fatal overdose’.”
As many have pointed out, the greatest threat to the life of a young black male is another young black male, not government and not neighborhood-watch captains with a John Wayne complex. That is a tragic problem, but it is a problem that is being addressed with some success. According to FBI statistics, the murder rate for black offenders was cut by more than half between 1991 and 2008. It’s still far too high, but let’s at least acknowledge that progress is being made.
However, let’s also acknowledge that unequal treatment under the law is a separate and distinct issue from violence that is perpetrated on the personal level. Both are real problems; both should be acknowledged and addressed. But higher incidence of crime among black Americans does not justify discrimination in the enforcement of laws.
Trayvon Martin was not a walking crime statistic; he was a 17-year-old kid headed home in the rain.
