Florida sure does like its media circus court trials. Today it ended another one, where George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin. Some segments of the population are furious and angry over it. I think it's reasonable to feel that the deed goes unpunished, but all of the hate for the legal system is misplaced anger, as far as I'm concerned. I always go back to the scene in Legally Blonde, where the professor quotes Aristotle as saying that, "The law is reason free from passion." I think some people forget that's how our legal system works.
Here in the US, the law says you're innocent until proven guilty. There has to be proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. I've sat on the jury for a criminal case, and we convicted because the evidence was a slam dunk. Whether or not any of us wanted him to be guilty was irrelevant. But people want that accountability. They want someone to burn. I get that, but it doesn't mean that guilt is automatic.
In this case, I knew Zimmerman would walk, because there was just no way to determine if he was, or wasn't, defending himself. The evidence couldn't prove who was on top in the struggle. I didn't follow the case that closely, and I still got that out of it. Casey Anthony wasn't proven guilty either, because they could never prove how her child died. Heck, even going back to the OJ Simpson trial, the prosecution couldn't prove he did it with a mountain of largely cirumstantial evidence.
Like I said, I totally understand the desire to see someone fry for horrible crimes, but no matter what we desire, or whatever related issues we bring into a case, that proof still has to be there, and eliminate reasonable doubt. The system doesn't fail if it's not there... it works as designed.
Personally, I think Zimmerman is a douche, and who knows, maybe he is racist. Doesn't matter. The evidence didn't paint a clear enough picture to indicate he was the aggressor.
It's unfortunate people spend so much time thinking about it. It seems like we have bigger problems to worry about.
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