NO JUSTICE FOR ZIMMERMAN IF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FILES CIVIL RIGHTS CHARGES

Following the Zimmerman not guilty verdict, mobs took to the streets in several American cities howling ‘No Justice For Trayvon.’ The NAACP has petitioned the Justice Department to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman. Al Sharpton has been very vocal in calling for the Justice Department to bring Zimmerman up on civil rights charges. Sharpton and his National Action Network are organizing demonstrations to be held in front of federal buildings around the country demanding that civil rights charges be filed against Zimmerman. Even Senate majority leader Harry Reid favors action by the Justice Department against Zimmerman.

A jury of six courageous women found Zimmerman not guilty of murder and not guilty of manslaughter. While Zimmerman should never have gotten out of his car, once he did, he had a right to use deadly force to defend himself as his head was being pounded repeatedly into the pavement. Zimmerman was a jerk, a real jerk, but being a jerk is not against the law. And even if Zimmerman provoked Martin, that did not give the teenage thug a right to beat that jerk's brains out.

This case would never have been brought to trial if it were not for the howling of a Sanford, Florida mob that was led by Al Sharpton and organized by Justice Department officials.

The FBI investigated this case for a year and found no evidence that Zimmerman was a racist or that the shooting of Martin was unlawful. There will be no justice for Zimmerman if the Justice Department caves into the demands of the NAACP, Sharpton and those howling for Zimmerman’s scalp.

THE ZIMMERMAN VERDICT
New federal civil-rights charges would smack of double jeopardy

The Wall Street Journal
July 14, 2013

An American criminal defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's the standard to keep in mind when considering the jury's not guilty verdict Saturday for George Zimmerman in the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The case has been fraught with racial politics from the start, but inside the Sanford, Florida courtroom, the jurors had to wrestle with the standard that is a hallmark of American justice. No one but Mr. Zimmerman knows what happened that early evening in 2012 when he followed Martin, an unfamiliar young, African-American male visiting the neighborhood. A scuffle ensued, Zimmerman shot Martin in what he says was self-defense, and prosecutors never produced an eyewitness or even much evidence to disprove Mr. Zimmerman.

The verdict compounds the tragedy for the Martin family, but no one can claim that their son was not represented in court. The state threw everything it had at Mr. Zimmerman. Gov. Rick Scott replaced local prosecutors with a special team from Jacksonville, the judge often ruled favorably for the prosecution, including the addition of the lesser manslaughter charge (in addition to second-degree murder) at the end of the trial.

Still the state could not prove its case to the satisfaction of the six jurors, all women, for whom the easiest decision in terms of public approval would have been to convict. No less than President Obama had commented on the local case after Mr. Zimmerman was not originally charged by local authorities.

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Mr. Obama said. He was echoed by hundreds of politicians and commentators who wanted to put racial profiling on trial as much as they did Mr. Zimmerman. But a criminal trial is not a legislature, or a venue to debate social policy.

Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP is already lobbying Attorney General Eric Holder to indict Mr. Zimmerman on federal civil-rights charges. To do so and win a conviction would require proof that Mr. Zimmerman was motivated by racial animus when the record shows little more than a reference by Mr. Zimmerman to "punks" in a comment to a police dispatcher.

Millions of Americans would see such federal charges as an example of double jeopardy, and a politicized prosecution to boot. In this context, it was good to see Mr. Obama's statement Sunday that "we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken."

The larger issue of how American society, and especially the police, treat young black males deserves attention and often receives it. There is no doubt that many law-abiding black men are eyed suspiciously in some quarters because they are black. The motivation may sometimes be racial. But such a discussion also cannot exclude that the main victims of crimes committed by young black men are other blacks. A policy like New York City's "stop and frisk" rule prevents more crime in minority neighborhoods against minorities than it does in white areas of Manhattan.

Mr. Zimmerman made many mistakes that February evening, not least failing to heed police advice not to pursue Martin. Despite his acquittal, he will pay for those mistakes for years as he defends against a possible civil suit and must wear a bullet-proof vest to protect himself from threats of violent revenge that he has to take seriously.

If there is any satisfaction in his acquittal, it is that the jurors followed the law's requirements that every defendant deserves a fair trial, even one who becomes a symbol of our polarized racial politics.