Ta-Nehisi Coates, "On The Killing Of Trayvon Martin By George Zimmerman." He thinks that, by the law, this was a reasonable decision, however troubling. These are derived from my first thoughts in response to Coates in his comments.
Meanwhile in Florida, Marissa Alexander, black, with a stalker ex-husband, has
been sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot at the man, who was
violating a restraining order.
By the letter of law perhaps Coates is right. There will be time, later, to pour over the trial
transcripts and the minutae of the law. I will be watching Frederick Leatherman's blog for more thoughts. Meantime, though, I think the popular
intuitions about these two cases are more accurate than the measured
legal thoughts. This is unjust, and there is little chance, in the short
term, of seeing Florida law turned in the direction of justice.
I
am struck by the inability of the US legal system to render justice. We
see it constantly: in the failure to prosecute anyone for the looting
of the banking system, in the abrogation of the "right of the people to
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects," in the mainstreaming of torture, in the gutting, on narrow
technical grounds, of the Voting Rights Act, in the sentencing of
Alexander to 20 years while Zimmerman walks. We are in a legal regime as
corrupt as that of 1856.
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