Enough time has gone by since the Zimmerman verdict (two weeks ago) for emotions to cool down a bit. During the trial I had studied the available evidence, and thus I agreed with the jury that the evidence did not support a “beyond a reasonable doubt” determination that Mr. Zimmerman had committed a high-level felony homicide or manslaughter offense against Trayvon Martin. In the most technical sense, the system of laws and legal procedures set up by centuries of British common law tradition and the United States Constitution worked as intended in this situation (as they did in the OJ Simpson criminal case way back in 1995).

But of course, most people interested in this case were NOT interested in the technical workings of the criminal justice system in Sanford, Florida. They wanted to get down to the big question: what the heck really happened on that fateful February night at the Twin Lakes condo complex in Sanford. We are living in a very politically divided and combative society today, and thus it is not surprising that two very different narratives have emerged regarding the fatal encounter between Mr. Martin and Mr. Zimmerman. Liberal politicians, pundits and media outlets joined with various African American leaders and commentators to tell a story of an unjust, racially motivated killing, one that repeats an ugly historical pattern of heinous assaults and homicides against innocent blacks by racist white people.

In contrast (quite an intentional contrast, given the charged political atmosphere), GOP and conservative elements emphasize a very different narrative, one that substitutes Mr. Zimmerman as a bumbling but well-intentioned victim  »  continue reading …

The Treyvon Martin murder trial will soon be over, but it touched a nerve in our country regarding the perplexing question of racial profiling in police work. Almost all of us want good policing and criminal justice systems in our nation so as to protect us from criminals. At the same time, we can only spend so much of our limited money and resources to support these systems. But more importantly, we want our systems to be color-blind, to treat all fairly regardless of race, religious views, sex and sexual preference, ethnic heritage, age, etc. We’d like to think this could all be done without any conflicts. But as the Feb. 26, 2012 incident in the Twin Lakes complex in Sanford, Florida showed, sometimes conflicts are inevitable. And most regrettably, they can be deadly.

George Zimmerman, the volunteer community guard at Twin Lakes accused of murdering Treyvon Martin, clearly was not acting in a fashion that was blind to color, age and sex on the night of Feb. 26. He decided to carry out an enhanced level of surveillance against the late Mr. Martin, based possibly on the fact that Mr. Martin was a young black man (17 years old). While Mr. Zimmerman did not appear to interfere with Mr. Martin’s passage, he certainly did follow him, and called the municipal police requesting them to join in his surveillance effort. This certainly was an intrusion into Mr. Martin’s privacy and quality of life; very few of us would want to be followed and continually monitored by law-enforcement officials, even when outside of our homes. This treatment certainly was the fruit of profiling on Mr. Zimmerman’s part, which almost certainly did include consideration of Mr. Martin’s race.

The question is, can such irritating law enforcement action based on a profile-matching logic be justified by the circumstances? The housing complex where Mr. Zimmerman lived and volunteered to guard had over the past year experienced  »  continue reading …