April 12, 2012

Zimmerman, Jena Six, and overcharging

I have some fun below with the Dave Barry-ish Florida special prosecutor lady overcharging George Zimmerman with 2nd degree murder, but it's worth keeping in mind (because nobody else will) how this is the mirror image of the Jena Six brouhaha. 

As you'll recall (although nobody else will), Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama were all up in arms in 2007 about the prosecutor in Jena, Louisiana charging six black youths with Attempted Murder for their stomping of an unconscious white youth. This was the Most Racist Thing Ever according to the prestige press brouhaha. 

But it turned out that a local reporter named Abbey Brown had already gotten the real story, which was that the six stompers were the stars of the high school football team in this football crazy town, and, with the assistance of their coaches, had been getting away with a "reign of terror," as a local minister phrased it. Mychal Bell, the All-Stater who was their leader, had already been convicted three times in juvenile court, but that hadn't impeded his playing time. The prosecutor's ploy of overcharging them was to get them out of the juvenile justice system and into the adult system, where they wound up with modest sentences that at least made an impression on them.

This is not to say that blacks are never the victims of racist injustice, but that crime stories involving blacks that the prestige press gets most worked up over (Dominique Strass-Kahn, Duke Lacrosse, various campus hate hoaxes, etc.) turn out, with remarkable regularity, to be travesties.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what about the theory that she overcharged so the jury won't convict and he'll go free but the blacks won't be able to blame her?

dave chamberlin said...

Overcharging is a common prosecuter tactic, it simply gives them more leverage for plea bargaining a lesser charge later. I don't understand the need for everybody in the country (and some outside of it)to act like judge and jury before they know much of anything. "He's a racist killer!" "No he's a law abiding man defending his community from marauding black hooligans!" Please....

Dutch Boy said...

I don't consider the Jena 6 were overcharged at all. Surrounding an unconscious boy on the ground and kicking him could very easily have killed him.

candid_observer said...

I just don't see how Zimmerman might plea to a lesser charge.

What could that lesser charge possibly be, which would be both acceptable to the side of Trayvon's parents, and to Zimmerman himself? I can't even imagine it. If that lesser charge isn't substantial in its own right, it won't be acceptable to the side of Trayvon's parents. And if the charge is substantial, how is Z's life not destroyed, both by the punitive consequences of the charge itself, and the unending damage to his reputation? Essentially, his life would be over.

I don't see it going anywhere but to trial -- unless, of course, there's evidence the prosecutors possess that they haven't yet revealed as to Z's culpability.

Chris Anderson said...

I think she's swinging for the fences and expecting a strikeout.

So to speak.

Anonymous said...

As per Sitemeter, iSteve's readership has gone up by about a couple thousand readers per day over the last week. I'm guessing this is because people are looking for analysis of the Trayvon case. Steve deserves a wider audience. I hope he gets deeper into this case and that this continues to attract new readers.

Anonymous said...

Yes, overcharging is done all the time and it's immoral, unethical, since it's always possible the jury, esp. in high profile cases such as this, cases where an angry mob might go after jury members, will convict on the most serious charge, even though the prosecutor doesn't believe at all in that charge.

I no more believe that Corey thinks that Zimmerman committed 2nd degree murder as it is defined in the Florida statutes than I believe the moon is made of green cheese.

I also can't figure out, for the life of my, how we've allowed anchorpeople and reporters, as well as laypeople interviewed on television, to adopt the line, "We should arrest him so that this goes to court and we can find out what REALLY happened."

HUH? That is NOT how things are designed to work. The *evidence* is supposed to point to support that the person committed a crime in order to arrest him.

It's the police and DA who are supposed to figure out 1) was a crime committed? (self-defense is not a crime and if so, 2) do we have a reasonable chance of getting a conviction with the evidence we have?

What seems to have happened here is that they have determined they have number 2 covered w/out having made sure number 1 ever occurred.

I find it very odd that the Sanford Police Dept. decided not to indict but after all the parades and calls for heads and neck, the special prosecutor did.

Anonymous said...

Well, this is pretty interesting: Trayvon Martin's mother believes "it was an accident" and that all she really wants is an apology.

Wow. She wanted an arrest...but all she wants is an apology. She didn't realize that just about every one else of her race wants a convicted on murder? And that the guy has been charged with murder 2 and that it comes with years in prison? For "an accident" and "an apology"?




http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-04-12/news/os-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-charged-jail-20120412_1_face-murder-charges-today-show-accident

Anonymous said...

Oh, brother, now the mother retracts her earlier statement in which she said she believed the death of Trayvon was the result of an accident.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-04-12/news/os-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-charged-jail-20120412_1_face-murder-charges-today-show-accident

Seems the prosecutors to her.

Kylie said...

"I no more believe that Corey thinks"

I share your disbelief.

Anonymous said...

My wife, who's as SWPL as they come, has switched over to Zimmerman's side. So, I figure he's he'll be OK.

ben tillman said...

So what about the theory that she overcharged so the jury won't convict and he'll go free but the blacks won't be able to blame her?

It's not much of a theory unless you know something we don't about why the jury won't be able to convict Z of a lesser included offense.

SF said...

One of the survivors of the Tulsa shooting was quoted as saying, "Gee, I never thought a white man would shoot me." Can't find the exact reference now.

Henry Canaday said...

Now here is depressing paradox. Government, in the form of the police and incarceration systems, has become so powerful that it can easily frustrate the aim of the old lynch mobs, killing the guy the mob believes did the crime. But government is impotent to prevent the new mobs from wrecking significant portions of downtown and perhaps killing a few bystanders.

Is this progress? The old lynch mobs, whether they were going after a black or white suspect, (it was bout 50-50) probably got the guilty guy most of the time. Not always, which is one reason we eliminated lynching. But most of the time, the lynchee probably did do it.

In contrast, the new mobs, in looting stores, wrecking whole blocks and sometimes injuring or killing a few bystanders, are 100-percent guaranteed to hurt, sometimes a lot, complete innocents.

This is not progress.

Maybe if we labeled the new mobs “Dumb Lynch Mobs,” we could make progress.

Anonymous said...

"One of the survivors of the Tulsa shooting was quoted as saying, "Gee, I never thought a white man would shoot me." Can't find the exact reference now."

The shooter was an injun though.

dave chamberlin said...

It will be another televised OJ sized media trial, that is all we know for sure at this point. I am predicting that jury selection, white, hispanic or black will play a HUGE part in the outcome. The attorneys on both sides will fight like hell to push the jury pool to their side of the race table. Fair? no Probable? absolutely.

beowulf said...

'But government is impotent to prevent the new mobs from wrecking significant portions of downtown and perhaps killing a few bystanders.
Is this progress?'

Yes it is, property damage is always less serious than loss of life (thousands of innocent people, black and white were lynched). A lynch mob is a terrible thing, there is no upside to it, period.
http://upload.offensivex.com/images/floridefor.jpg

Svigor said...

I don't understand the need for everybody in the country (and some outside of it)to act like judge and jury before they know much of anything. "He's a racist killer!" "No he's a law abiding man defending his community from marauding black hooligans!" Please....

Team Trayvon (Media, TPTB, Democrats, Blacks, etc.) started it. At that point, it's fair game to go the other way.

Not that pointing out that this seems far more consistent with the latter explanation, than the former, isn't the balanced view.

ATBOTL said...

If blacks and liberals hadn't racialized this case from the get go, there would be less support for Zimmerman. White people rightly sense that this case is being used to attack all whites.

Mr. Rational said...

This case is being used to attack Whites, concealed-carry laws, and all laws relating to self-defense (including "Stand Your Ground", which is utterly irrelevant in this case because the shooter was ON the ground beneath his assailant when he fired).