We are in the closing stages of the trial. I am smart enough to try to predict what the Jury will do, but I do believe that Zimmerman should go free if for nothing else than the way this whole affair has been handled by the Prosecution.

The moment that the case landed on the arena of Mainstream Media and the Prosecutors either felt they needed to do something for appearances’ sake or latched onto it because of their feral opposition to Stand Your Ground, or trying to discredit ALEC members or incite racial strife for either money or political grandstanding, any semblance of dispensing Justice was lost. Any idea about finding the truth was relegated to the back of the house.

Here in Florida, the Zimmerman case was about repealing Stand Your Ground. Some prosecutors, lawyers and judges complicit with local media, made a grandiose case after Zimmerman was initially released. “See that guilty man go free! We cannot stand for that!” appeared to be the rallying cry. A panel was formed, many meetings all over the state taken, media tried to influence as much as they could…. and they lost. Badly if I might add. Floridians simply did not want to lose a simple and logical law that would protect them from both criminals and overzealous prosecutors. If my mind is not playing tricks on me, polls indicated that some 70% of Florida residents gave SYG their support.

This failure and rejection must have stung pretty damn hard. They were so cocky and so sure they were going to be triumphal that they charged Zimmerman with Second Degree murder to the astonishment of the Legal community who knew that the lesser charge of Manslaughter, although tough to prove in this case would be easier to achieve. And when even ultra-liberal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz said that the prosecution behaved in an  “utterly unprofessional manner” overcharging as a 2nd degree murder case for political reasons, you know that the stench coming from that courtroom is overpowering.

The trial itself became a legal mockery for the prosecution. With witnesses possibly perjuring themselves or their testimony favoring the defendant more than the prosecution or simply spaced out as if they were in another case altogether, probable tainted evidence (and let’s not get into suppressed evidence & testimony with possible benefit for the defendant) and presentations that made seasoned prosecutors and defense lawyers scratch their heads in disbelief. This trial ceased to be about justice and all about saving face and obtaining a conviction, damned the People.

“The duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict.”
American Bar Association.

The above quote is clear and easy to understand. However clearly is not what we have seen through the trial and specially at the end of deliberations when they tried to shove other charges, some amazingly stupid so the jury could throw them a bone.

So what we have now is a trial so tainted by prosecutorial misconduct and political pressure it has become something you see on TV about kangaroo courts in Third World countries, a very dangerous precedent to have. And I don’t care if you think Zimmerman is guilty and that he should spend the rest of his life in prison, this is not the way that a verdict of guilty should be achieved and we should not be accomplices on the travesty because it will make us feel better. If we let feelings corrupt our rights to a fair and impartial trial, you can bet your life  it will be used against others and even yourself.

But by then it will be too late.