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Without bothering to read the OP's article, newsflash: Trayvon's parents failed him, first and foremost. As far as the specific incident which killed him, his common sense failed him.
How many more Trayvon threads we gonna have, for Christ's sake?
It did according to the jury instructions, and the jury itself, so I don't know why you say that.
SYG wasn't used by Zimmerman as a defense, but B37 specifically mentioned it as one of the reasons the jury found Zimmerman not guilty. Watch the interview with Anderson Cooper.
Which was righteous since it's the law of the land in Florida.
A great article by Charles Blow in the NYTimes about how the legal system failed Trayvon Martin.
"The system began to fail Martin long before that night.
The system failed him when Florida’s self-defense laws were written, allowing an aggressor to claim self-defense in the middle of an altercation — and to use deadly force in that defense — with no culpability for his role in the events that led to that point.
The system failed him when the neighborhood watchman grafted on stereotypes the moment he saw him, ascribing motive and behavior and intent and criminal history to a boy who was just walking home.
The system failed him when the bullet ripped through his chest, and the man who shot him said he mounted him and stretched his arms out wide, preventing him from even clutching the spot that hurt.
The system failed him in those moments just after he was shot when he was surely aware that he was about to die, but before life’s light fully passed from his body — and no one came to comfort him or try to save him.
The system failed him when the slapdash Sanford police did a horrible job of collecting and preserving evidence.
The system failed him when those officers apparently didn’t even value his dead body enough to adequately canvass the complex to make sure that no one was missing a teen.
The system failed him when he was labeled a John Doe and his lifeless body spent the night alone and unclaimed.
The system failed him when the man who the police found standing over the body of a dead teenager, a man who admitted to shooting him and still had the weapon, was taken in for questioning and then allowed to walk out of the precinct without an arrest or even a charge, to go home after taking a life and take to his bed.
The system failed him when it took more than 40 days and an outpouring of national outrage to get an arrest.
The system failed him when a strangely homogenous jury — who may well have been Zimmerman’s peers but were certainly not the peers of the teenager, who was in effect being tried in absentia — was seated.
The system failed him when the prosecution put on a case for the Martin family that many court-watchers found wanting.
The system failed him when everyone in the courtroom raised racial bias in roundabout ways, but almost never directly. "
I agree, and I hope that Trayvon's death serves as a rallying call for change.
The question is: what can we as individuals do about this?
The rules for challenging jurors applies equally to both sides.
How are you "sure"?
Because even as a layperson it was clear to me from the description of her that she would be a biased juror. I posted that several times here on CD Forums. For one thing she had formerly had a concealed carry permit as did her husband. That puts her into a small minority of women, and says something about her point of view. Her husband is a lawyer and I didn't believe that she knew as little about the case as she claimed.
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