A LITTLE BIT ABOUT EVIDENCE AND THE ZIMMERMAN CASE

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT EVIDENCE AND THE ZIMMERMAN CASE

George Zimmerman was white and he was armed.  Trayvon Martin was not armed and he was black.  Therefore, the reasoning of the mainstream media runs, George Zimmerman was guilty of hunting down and killing Trayvon Martin because he, George Zimmerman, got out of his vehicle when, the story runs, he was told not to do so.   Moreover, this reasoning runs, George Zimmerman was “stalking” Trayvon Martin by following him. This line of reasoning then leads to a lamentation that because the unarmed teenager was killed by the armed older man he, Trayvon Martin, is not here to speak the truth that we must know based on race.

A further part of this litany, albeit unspoken,  is that we can’t know the truth of the matter not only because one of the two parties involved in whatever the confrontation consisted of that occurred between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin is alive and the other is not, but because we are missing what would be  decisive, namely direct evidence which would  consist of the testimony of the now dead Trayvon Martin.  The assumption is that if Trayvon Martin were alive he would tell the “truth” that he was stalked and killed because he was an unarmed youth by a white racist intent on killing him, a mere child, even though he was obviously (huh?) unarmed.   This narrative of the lamestream media is reinforced by the assertion that George Zimmerman as a volunteer participant in his community’s neighborhood watch program was a “wannabe cop.”  

Leaving aside for the moment that there are a large number of supposed “facts” in this reasoning that are contradicted by the evidence that those who have bothered to look into the matter closely have become aware of, there is one very striking assumption here: that assumption is that if the shooter was “white” and the person shot was black that the “white” shooter killed the black younger person then it was a criminal act and,  further, that the only reason that we don’t know that is that the dead young man, Trayvon Martin, is not available to tell us what the “truth” is.  This is an assumption that the direct testimony of the black teenager, were it available, would outweigh the direct testimony of the white older man who fired the single fatal shot.

The unspoken assumption that lies behind this assumption is that the circumstantial evidence that does exist would be outweighed by the direct testimony of the deceasdd Trayvon Martin if it existed.  This in the first place is mistaken.  It is not the case that direct evidence in the form of testimony outweighs what has been known for centuries as circumstantial evidence.  In its decision in U.S. Postal Serv. Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 71, 714 n.3, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed. 403 (1983) the Supreme Court pointed out that: “As in any lawsuit, the plaintiff proves his case by direct or circumstantial evidence.”  In another case the Supreme Court told us: “juries are routinely instructed that `[t]he law makes no distinction between the weight or value to be given to either direct or circumstantial evidence.’”  Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90, 100, 123 S.Ct.2148, 156 L.Ed.2d 84 (2003) (quoting 1A K. O’Malley, J. Grenig & W. Lee, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, Criminal § 12.04 (5<sup>th</sup> ed.2000)).  In this same Desert Palace, Inc. case the Supreme Court also pointed out: “The reason for treating circumstantial and direct evidence alike is both clear and deep rooted; “  In fact the high court said in the same opinion: “`Circumstantial evidence is not only sufficient, but may also be more certain, satisfying and persuasive than direct evidence.’”   Here it was quoting one of its earlier opinions which was Rogers v. Mo. Pac. R.R.Co., 352 u.S. 500, 508 n. 17, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957).

So the unspoken assumption that if Trayvon Martin were only alive he could tell the truth and it would show that George Zimmerman was at fault and not Trayvon himself is not correct; it embodies a hypothetical proposition that has been long since established as having no validity under careful consideration not only by the Supreme Court but by numerous other courts as well.  So that the Zimmerman jury decided absolutely correctly on the strong circumstantial evidence that was put forward and the jury instructions that were received.

When one sorts out the actual circumstantial evidence that came out form the distortions of it that were commonplace in the so-called mainstream media from the outset of the overwhelming 24 hours a day coverage of the Zimmerman case it is overwhelmingly in favor of Zimmerman as not being at fault.  In fact it is so overwhelming that it would prevail under the lesser standard of a civil suit as opposed to a criminal prosecution.  In a criminal case as the public learned during this extensive coverage of the Zimmerman case, the standard is that guilt must be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt.”  In a civil case by contrast the plaintiff must win by a “preponderance of the evidence.”    All of the left wing commentators, like Bill Press, can only justify their criticism of the Zimmerman jury’s verdict by distorting, misrepresenting and omitting the actual facts that came out in the case and thus incorrectly make the assumption of which we speak based entirely on a judgment of their own which has nothing to support but a perverse racial profiling of their own.