George Zimmerman trial
juror b37 flatly said that there was no doubt that Zimmerman feared for his
life when he killed Trayvon Martin. When she said that, she reconfirmed two
deep and troubling facts about the Zimmerman trial and the criminal justice system.
One is that she and the other white jurors bought the contention Zimmerman's
defense attorneys and legions of his backers ruthlessly and relentlessly drove
home. That is that Martin was the assailant and Zimmerman the victim. The even
more troubling fact is that she reconfirmed again the glaring racial bias that
deeply plagues the jury and criminal justice system when a black is both the
victim as was Martin, and in a perverse leap of logic by Zimmerman defenders,
the defendant as was Martin.
The Zimmerman trial
jury was with one exception all-white. The one juror that was the exception was
a non-African-American. That jury reflected the terrible reality that when a
black is the defendant or perceived as Martin was as the defendant in a trial
with an all-white or a jury with no blacks on it and the victim is non-black or
the defendant is white they are far more likely to convict a black defendant
than a white one. Florida is one of the worst offenders when it comes to
routinely convicting black defendants and acquitting white defendants
One month after Martin
was slain by Zimmerman in March 2012, Duke University researchers examined
records of more than 700 non capital felony cases in the state from 2000 to
2010. They found what has long been known and that's that the race of a
defendant and victim play a huge role in how a jury is likely to decide a
case. Black defendants by a double digit
margin were more likely to be convicted than a white defendant. A major reason
for this was that a significant percentage of the jury pools had no blacks on
them. The study found that when juries had
even one black on it white and black defendants were convicted at the same
rate. The researchers drew one inescapable conclusion and that's that all-white
juries are not only more prone to convict black defendants but that despite
court rulings that bar exclusion of jurors or potential jurors because of race,
a major number of juror pools and thus juries continue to be all-white.
This amounts to a not
so subtle form of jury nullification of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by
a fair and impartial jury. The centerpiece of that is the concept of a jury of
a defendant's peers. All-white juries hardly meet that constitutional standard.
The Zimmerman trial
jury was certainly no aberration. It was consistent with the findings that
juries in Florida as in many other states are likely not to have any
African-Americans seated on them, and that when the defendants are
African-American they are routinely convicted. Juror b37's frank admission that
she and the other white jurors thought Zimmerman was under assault, feared for
his life, and thus had the right to use deadly force to defend himself was horribly
consistent with the findings that juries are much more likely to find whites or
non-blacks that beat, maim or kill blacks to be within their rights to defend
and or likely to acquit them of charges. This was obviously true in how
Zimmerman was depicted as the victim, not Martin, in the minds of the white
jurors.
The juror bias study
was also consistent with another study that found that whites that claim they
kill or maim a black under the stand your ground law are far more likely to
either not be charged with a crime or if charged to be tried on lessor charges.
Or they are more likely to be acquitted than a black that claims they maimed or
killed a white under the law.
In many other Florida
counties, as well as countless numbers of counties in other states, the odds
are better than average that a jury pool will be predominantly white. In fact, based
solely on the population demographics of Seminole County, where Zimmerman was
tried, of the 500 persons in the initial Zimmerman trial juror pool, there were
329 whites, 89 Hispanics, and 59 blacks. There were 239 men and 251 women.
Defense attorneys that have tried major criminal cases in Seminole County
predicted that the composite juror would be a white, professional or business
person, and middle aged, male and female, and Republican. The only part they
were wrong on was the gender make-up. But they were right on the near total
absence of racial diversity of the jury. Duke researchers meticulously and
painfully showed in their juror study months before Zimmerman's acquittal by a
jury with no blacks that when it comes to guilt or innocence of a defendant who
is non-black white jurors will acquit. As juror b37 bluntly said she believed that
Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place"
when he shot Martin .
Earl
Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new ebook is America on Trial: The Slaying of Trayvon
Martin ( Amazon ). He is an
associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al
Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson
Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica
Network.
Follow
Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
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