"Prosecutors apparently trusted jurors to dispassionately evaluate photos of a dead teenager’s remains and of the bullet hole through his heart as well as photos of blood dripping from George Zimmerman’s head. But the state was too squeamish to put the touchy issue of race squarely before the six-woman jury. The defense was far more comfortable with the disturbing racial aspects of the case, and as one of its final witnesses called a young white mother who had been robbed in the neighborhood months before the shooting. The witness, Olivia Bertalan, testified that she had cowered in her closet, baby in her arms, as two African-American males burglarized her home. What did that have to do with Trayvon Martin? The prosecution never asked. Was Mr. Martin inherently suspicious because he was of the same race as the burglars — the clear import of this story? To attribute the wrongs of two African-American men to all African-Americans is the definition of racism. But the prosecutor never said so in court or called the jury’s attention to this fact."
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 18:19:47 +0000
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