George Zimmerman Trial Has Been Politicized
Analysts too eager to paint defendant as hero or villain
4 hrs ago by David Mark
Editor-in-Chief t +
 George Zimmerman leaves court on Monday, July 1, 2013 • AP
The George Zimmerman trial has become politicized on cable news. It's a sadly predictable development, laments National Journal's Matt Cooper. In covering the trial of Zimmerman, the Florida man who is standing trial for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, networks are openly promoting partisan points of view, rather than sticking strictly to legal issues. MSNBC, in particularly, seems to have a rooting interest in Zimmerman's conviction on second-degree murder charges, Cooper suggests. The network is playing to its worst caricature, he adds.
Commentators and the public invest trials with cultural symbolism. Race. Class. Justice. Read deep meanings into a trial all you want. Ultimately, as any lawyer will tell you, they turn on the little moments - what judges allow or don't allow, the luck of the jury, the strengths of the legal team. If Zimmerman walks, it will be seen by many as a deep injustice, the release of a man who followed a black teenager armed only with iced tea and Skittles. Others will surely see a Zimmerman conviction as a legal system run amok, a prosecutor who sought murder charges only because of public pressure in the case. But the truth is that the verdict will be about the evidence presented to the jury, not the winds of the commentariat. It didn't have to be this way, since opinions over the Trayvon Martin case didn't always fall squarely on ideological lines. A June 2012 Commentary piece by attorney David French argued conservatives shouldn't be so quick to side with George Zimmerman's version of events. Even Zimmerman isn't guilty by the standards of the law, his behavior that fateful night in February 2012 is still troubling.
Writes French, a constitutional lawyer who served as a judge advocate during Operation Iraqi Freedom:
Conservatives seem to have developed a rooting interest in Zimmerman's innocence. Listen to conservative talk radio, read conservative comment boards, read many conservative pundits, and you will see a relentless critique of the state's evidence against Zimmerman, angry denunciations of the left's abuse of the case for political gain, and even outright scorn for the idea that Zimmerman might be guilty of any crime at all. This response is troubling on the merits, but it also contradicts a number of important conservative values. Zimmerman's behavior on February 26 was problematic at best, and extreme rhetoric in his defense may one day come to haunt the conservative movement. Conservatives realize that the problem isn't the gun itself, but the mind-set of the person using it. But is anyone ready to argue that Zimmerman had the right mind-set for a concealed-carry permit holder when he initiated the chain of events that led to Martin's death? Politix, and via National Journal and Commentary.
Read Full Story |
