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Roger Simon comments on the verdict.
Forget the over-zealous prosecutors and the repellent state attorney Angela Corey (who should be immediately disbarred or, my wife said sarcastically, elevated to director of Homeland Security) and even the unfortunate Trayvon Martin family (although it is certainly hard to forget them — they have our profound sympathies), the true loser at the Zimmerman trial was Barack Obama.
By injecting himself in a minor Florida criminal case by implying Martin could be his son, the president of the United States — a onetime law lecturer, of all things — disgraced himself and his office, made a mockery of our legal system and exacerbated racial tensions in our country, making them worse than they have been in years. This is the work of a reactionary, someone who consciously/unconsciously wants to push our nation back to the 1950s.
It is also the work of a narcissist who thinks of himself first, of his image, not of black, white or any other kind of people. It’s no accident that race relations in our country have gone backwards during his stewardship.
Congratulations to the jury for not acceding to this tremendous pressure and delivering the only conceivable honest verdict. This case should never have been brought to trial. It was, quite literally, the first American Stalinist “show trial.” There was, virtually, no evidence to convict George Zimmerman. It was a great day for justice that this travesty was finally brought to a halt. …
Mark Steyn posts on the trial.
Just when I thought the George Zimmerman “trial” couldn’t sink any lower, the prosecutorial limbo dancers of the State of Florida magnificently lowered their own bar in the final moments of their cable-news celebrity. In real justice systems, the state decides what crime has been committed and charges somebody with it. In the Zimmerman trial, the state’s “theory of the case” is that it has no theory of the case: might be murder, might be manslaughter, might be aggravated assault, might be a zillion other things, but it’s something. If you’re a juror, feel free to convict George Zimmerman of whatever floats your boat.
Nailing a guy on something, anything, is a time-honored American tradition: If you can’t get Al Capone on the Valentine’s Day massacre, get him on his taxes. Americans seem to have a sneaky admiration for this sort of thing, notwithstanding that, as we now know, the government is happy to get lots of other people on their taxes, too. Ever since the president of the United States (a man so cautious and deferential to legal niceties that he can’t tell you whether the Egyptian army removing the elected head of state counts as a military coup until his advisers have finished looking into the matter) breezily declared that if he had a son he’d look like Trayvon, ever since the U.S. Department of so-called Justice dispatched something called its “Community Relations Services” to Florida to help organize anti-Zimmerman rallies at taxpayer expense, ever since the politically savvy governor appointed a “special prosecutor” and the deplorably unsavvy Sanford Police Chief was eased out, the full panoply of state power has been deployed to nail Zimmerman on anything.
How difficult can that be in a country in which an Hispanic Obama voter can be instantly transformed into the poster boy for white racism? Who ya gonna believe — Al Sharpton or your lying eyes? …
Naturally, Jennifer Rubin wants part of this.
… This is not an instance in which the prosecution dispassionately weighs the evidence and decides whether guilt can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors stoked the fire, crafted a media show and concocted a second-degree murder charge that is flimsy at best. They have not been on the side of the angels in this one.
That is not to say that their approach won’t “work,” if by that one means that it will cajole a jury into conviction despite the voluminous (forget “reasonable”) doubt raised in the trial. But it is that mound of evidence contributing to reasonable doubt that was in the prosecution’s hands nearly from the get-go and because of which an ethical, restrained prosecutor would never have filed a second-degree murder charge. “Justice” is not cobbling a flawed case to quench the thirst for justice and then letting a jury decide; that is by definition an abuse of prosecutorial discretion and unethical.
The awesome power of prosecutorial discretion is easily abused, especially when the president shows no restraint and the media pile on.
Maybe the jury will be wise to all of this, but sometimes juries are not. I don’t suppose the Justice Department would then help stage rallies for an Hispanic man unjustly charged and convicted in order to satiate the mob.
John Fund says it was Judicial Watch that discovered the DOJ involvement.
Judicial Watch, a conservative legal foundation, has used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover documents that show Eric Holder’s Justice Department used a “community relations” unit to support and stage-manage public protests in Florida against George Zimmerman after his controversial February 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin.
Justice’s Community Relations Service (CRS) even helped organize a meeting between Sanford, Fla., public officials and the local NAACP. The result was the resignation of police chief Bill Lee over his handling of the Martin case. While his resignation was rescinded after a few weeks by local officials, Chief Lee faced further pressure to leave his job and ultimately quit for good two months later. Valerie Houston, one of the pastors leading the protests against Zimmerman and Lee, praised the Community Relations Service as being “there for us.”
The website for the CRS claims it “does not take sides among disputing parties” and only provides “impartial conciliation and mediation services.” But the evidence of its activities in Sanford shows that it placed a large thumb on the scales of justice in the Zimmerman case. What can providing support for a “March for Trayvon Martin” rally headlined by the rabble-rousing Reverend Al Sharpton have to do with “conciliation and mediation”? …
… Justice, in the sense of a deliberate, lawful judgment consistent with the facts, was never the driving passion of the Zimmerman-haters. They wanted a racial morality play. If Trayvon Martin had been shot by another black person, no one would have cared. Al Sharpton wouldn’t have made him a cause. Lawrence O’Donnell wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. No one outside his immediate family and friends would have ever known his name.
Trayvon Martin’s shooting was an ideologically useful tragedy, and so the vultures did their worst.
For comic relief we go to San Francisco where a restaurant’s neighbors have complained about smelling bacon. Wall Street Journal has the story.
The Haight-Ashbury district was all about peace and love until bacon entered the picture.
The trouble began in May, when this city’s health department shut down a popular restaurant called Bacon Bacon after neighbors’ complaints caused a permit delay. The neighbors’ concern: the scent of bacon grease was blowin’ in the wind.
Now bacon lovers have found out, and they’re raising a stink.
Ahead of a permit hearing scheduled for Thursday, nearly 3,000 bacon advocates have signed a petition in support of Bacon Bacon. Phylis Johnson-Silk, who lives around the corner and loves the place, is making signs that say, “Bacon rules!” and “Really? You complained to the cops that you smelled bacon?”
The restaurant’s owner printed up shirts that read, “Smell this!” and says they are selling like hot cakes. …