<p>re: Lenell Geter</p>
<p>Into each life a few miscarriages of justices must fall. They let him go, right? So what’s the problem? Wasn’t it Blackstone that said … “Better a million innocent men live out their lives in incarceration than one guilty man go free!”</p>
<p>It’s bizarre how they release such detailed information about the jurors.</p>
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<p><a href=“News Archives - Readability”>News Archives - Readability;
<p>I am not sure life as a juror is much worse than serving in a correctional facility. That poor jury.</p>
<p>No matter how this trial turns out I have a real problem that an unarmed 17 year old kid ended up shot. I do not fault the kid that he may have reacted in a way that provided a grown man a legal defense for the shooting.</p>
<p>I have a bigger issue with the method of this neighborhood watch. Unarmed kids walking home from the store do not deserve to be killed no matter how many house break ins are committed in that neighborhood.</p>
<p>^ Tom - You gotta problem applying the Death Penalty for “walking while black?” </p>
<p>I know, not funny. But so long as some people keep insisting TM deserved to die, I’M gonna keep ridiculing the idea.</p>
<p>Neighborhood Watch. We have a informal one, made up of neighbors who are home during the day. No formal structure, no Watch Captain … and certainly no firearms. I believe what GZ was doing in Sanford is more appropriately described as Neighborhood Shoot.</p>
<p>I read where there will be no “expert” witness testimony allowed at trial on which one was screaming on the recording. Just the family members of MT and GZ saying “it sounds like ___ screaming to me.”</p>
<p>Wow. Stong opening sentences in the prosecution’s opening statements. MSNBC had to interrupt to put in a 7 second delay.</p>
<p>And the defense opened with a knock knock joke.</p>
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<p>Prosecutor said something that can’t be said on air?</p>
<p>Prosecutor John Guy opened by quoting Zimmerman from a call he made to a police dispatcher shortly before his fatal confrontation with martin. “F–ing punks. These a–holes, they always get away. Those were the words in that grown man’s mouth as he followed, in the dark, a 17-year-old boy who he didn’t know. And excuse my language, but those were his words, not mine.”</p>
<p>Defense attorney Don West began with, “Knock knock. Who’s there? George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman who? OK, good. You’re on the jury.” </p>
<p>(I don’t understand the joke at all, and there wasn’t even a smile on the face of anyone in the court room shown on TV after he said it. I personally would be unhappy with my defense attorney opening with a joke, and a poor one at that.)</p>
<p>The demonization of Trayvon Martin referenced in post 34 interests me. From what I’ve seen it seems to be driven by a toxic mixture of gun nut vigilantism and racism - more of the former than the latter, which is more of a “seasoning.” The gun toters claque seems to need a justification for one of their own - i.e., a “good guy” who packs heat to “protect” his family and community from “bad guys” - shooting an unarmed teenager who wasn’t committing any crime. Making Martin into a bogeyman makes it all okay, instead of a poster for why having every Tom, Dick and Harry walking around with a 9 mm on their hip might be somewhat less than a really good idea.</p>
<p>And then there’s the ugly racial sterotype which makes it so easy to cast Martin as the bad guy. <sigh></sigh></p>
<p>Two things can be true at once. It can be unquestionable that some random guy shouldn’t be wandering the streets with a gun, while at the same time it can be true that Trayvon was a troubled young man. I am personally baffled by the concept of an armed neighborhood watch.</p>
<p>^ problem is, we don’t know what happened…yes, the anti-gun crowd has plenty to run with here. What may here fail to see(or don’t want to see), is that the gun carrier might not have been the aggressor. Yes, he approached Martin…but what happened after that? Just because Zimmerman was packing, doesn’t mean that he instigated the fight…instigated as in starting a physical altercation…not just words.</p>
<p>True geeps, true. There are so many bizarre aspects to this case. I can’t imagine that the truth will ever come out. Seems to me that when two not very nice people bump up against each other, bad things happen.</p>
<p>A grown man approaching a teenager as if the teenager has no right to be in that neighbourhood should provoke what kind of reaction from the teenager? How “nice” should the teenager be to this strange man in order to get away safely? </p>
<p>Truth is if Zimmerman really feared this “scary” black teenager he would have followed the 911 operators advice and backed off, letting the police do their job. But he wasn’t scared, he was armed and that boy was no match for him.</p>
<p>^wow, didn’t realize you were there and saw what happened…</p>
<p>The 911 tapes provide the best evidence, not Zimmerman’s revisionist history.</p>
<p>^From the evidence, it sounds like Zimmerman was no match for ‘that boy’, who was a fairly large male, regardless of age.</p>
<p>I just can’t believe the defense opened with a joke.</p>
<p>^ Agreed, pure stupidity.</p>