George Zimmerman is one of the lucky ones. Deserving to walk, he walked – so far.
So many Americans, from so many different vantage points, wanted the trial to be about racial profiling, Florida’s “stand your ground” law, gun control, or some other urgent issue. Criminal trials are not where such issues, legitimate and pressing though they may be, are to be adjudicated. Show trials are the hallmarks of tyranny, not democracy.
(Albert Mohler, who unfortunately repeats some of the myths Will Saletan rebuts) Even the ACLU has gone over to the show trial dark side:
For most of its history, the ACLU opposed separate state and federal prosecutions for the same acts as unconstitutional double jeopardy. If I’m remembering correctly, the ACLU abandoned this position under the pressure of the egregious facts of the Rodney King case, but by an extremely close vote with much controversy. Apparently, the ACLU has now fully abandoned this position without any significant controversy, as witnessed by its press release stating that “it is imperative that the Department of Justice thoroughly examine whether the Martin shooting was a federal civil rights violation or hate crime.” The ACLU used to be primarily a civil liberties organization, albeit one dominated by a liberal worldview. It has gradually become a liberal pressure group with some (and declining) interest in civil liberties.
(David Bernstein, A Few Zimmerman-Related Notes, at Volokh Conspiracy; hyperlink in original, bold added. The whole Bernstein potpourri is worth reading.)
The Zimmerman case Special Prosecutor turned quickly from dispassionate analysis of the case to political showboating combined with prosecutorial misconduct and retaliatory discharge of an employee (who “leaked” extenuating forensic evidence – evidence the prosecutor was legally obligated to turn over – to the defense team):
The Florida Bar’s rules state that the government’s attorneys shall “refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause . . . [and] make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense.”
Angela Corey flagrantly violated those standards. Her prosecutors waited months before giving the defense photos showing the extent of George Zimmerman’s injuries the night of the shooting. Ben Kruidbos, the information-technology director for the state attorney’s office, was shocked when he learned that prosecutors hadn’t turned over to the defense evidence of photos and text messages that Kruidbos had recovered from Martin’s cell phone. The photos included images of a pile of jewelry on a bed, underage nude females, marijuana, and a hand menacingly holding a semiautomatic weapon.
Kruidbos feared he would put his job in jeopardy if he came forward with this information, but he also was concerned about a possible miscarriage of justice, so he directed his attorneys to alert Zimmerman’s defense team about the withheld evidence. He turned over the photos in late May, and the state placed Kruidbos on administrative leave until this past Friday, the day the Zimmerman case went to the jury. That morning, according to the Florida Times-Union, he received a hand-delivered letter from Corey informing him that he was fired and that he “can never again be trusted to step foot in this office.” The treatment he received for telling the defense about government misconduct will discourage others from becoming whistleblowers.
(John Fund at National Review) This kind of crap happens all the time. It – the high likelihood that an innocent defendant will be convicted, because of prosecutorial misconduct or otherwise – is the primary reason I oppose the death penalty. I cannot say that a murderer or kidnapper doesn’t deserve to die; I can say that too many innocent people have been convicted of capital crimes because of miscarriages of justice.
As I say, George Zimmerman is one of the lucky ones.
World War II sure has a lot of obscure stories of heroism and, er, heroinism:
The Nazis called them “Night Witches” because the whooshing noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded the Germans of the sound of a witch’s broomstick.
The Russian women who piloted those planes, onetime crop dusters, took it as a compliment. In 30,000 missions over four years, they dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders, ultimately helping to chase them back to Berlin.Any German pilot who downed a “witch” was awarded an Iron Cross.
These young heroines, all volunteers and most in their teens and early 20s, became legends of World War II but are now largely forgotten. Flying only in the dark, they had no parachutes, guns, radios or radar, only maps and compasses. If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper.
…
The pilots’ skill prompted the Germans to spread rumors that the Russian women were given special injections and pills to “give us a feline’s perfect vision at night,” Ms. Popova told Mr. Axell. “This, of course, was nonsense.”
(From the New York Times’ obituary for Nadezhda Popova, one of the Night Witches.)
It’s very gauche to hold anything against anyone these days.
Writing on the case, Sally Quinn says redemption is easier and easier to come by for politicians like Spitzer. A public servant caught in any number of indiscretions need only give it a rest for the news cycle and then come back yammering about sin and grace, forgiveness and redemption.
This is what Spitzer has done. “I sinned,” he said. “I’m hopeful there will be forgiveness.”
These are, of course, religious terms clumsily draped over otherwise naked ambition. It’s easy to see this in cases like Spitzer’s, but the real question is how much religion in American politics is similarly disingenuous …
What passes for Christianity in America’s public square is often just vague religious references uttered by people who are very sincere and well-meaning — and by some that most definitely are not … We just want our politicians to be somewhat devout — particulars are immaterial — and they are happy to oblige.
As we all know, there’s no faith test for public office in this country. And it commonly shows whenever politicians speak about faith.
(Joel Miller, regarding the execrable Eliot Spitzer.)
I tend, in my respect to the fact that the colonies created the United States as a government of limited powers, to excuse secession by the southern states and to oppose Lincoln’s insistence that the union was indissoluble.
This doesn’t mean I’m a monomaniac, or that I support slavery or consider it other than a great evil. It does mean that if states have a right to secede, they have a right to secede for any reason.
But who is the state with the right to secede? Ilya Somin puts a spin on Confederate secession that I hadn’t considered:
[E]ven if you endorse secession in any situation where a majority of the people in a state support it, you should still denounce Confederate secession. I explained why here:
As of 1860, African-Americans constituted about 40% of the population of the states that formed the Confederacy. It’s a safe bet that they were overwhelmingly opposed to secession. When you combine this overwhelming black opposition with that of the substantial minority of southern whites who also wanted to stay in the Union, it is highly likely that a majority of southerners in 1861 opposed secession. Once you recognize that blacks count too, it becomes clear that Confederate secession was anti-majoritarian as well as proslavery.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 