Author and political analyst
GET UPDATES FROM Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Zimmerman Trial Juror b37 Reconfirms Glaring Juror Racial Bias
George Zimmerman trial juror b37 flatly
said
that there was no doubt that Zimmerman feared for his life when he
killed Trayvon Martin. When she said that, she reconfirmed two deep and
troubling facts about the Zimmerman trial and the criminal justice
system. One is that she and the other white jurors bought the contention
Zimmerman's defense attorneys and legions of his backers ruthlessly and
relentlessly drove home. That is that Martin was the assailant and
Zimmerman the victim. The even more troubling fact is that she
reconfirmed again the glaring racial bias that deeply plagues the jury
and criminal justice system when a black is both the victim as was
Martin, and in a perverse leap of logic by Zimmerman defenders, the
defendant as was Martin.
The Zimmerman trial jury was with one exception all-white. The one
juror that was the exception was a non-African-American. That jury
reflected the terrible reality that when a black is the defendant or
perceived as Martin was as the defendant in a trial with an all-white or
a jury with no blacks on it and the victim is non-black or the
defendant is white they are far more likely to convict a black defendant
than a white one. Florida is one of the worst offenders when it comes
to routinely convicting black defendants and acquitting white
defendants.
One month after Martin was slain by Zimmerman in March 2012, Duke University researchers
examined
records of more than 700 non-capital felony cases in the state from
2000 to 2010. They found what has long been known, that the race of a
defendant and victim play a huge role in how a jury is likely to decide a
case. Black defendants by a double digit margin were more likely to be
convicted than a white defendant. A major reason for this was that a
significant percentage of the jury pools had no blacks on them. The
study found that when juries had even one black on it white and black
defendants were convicted at the same rate. The researchers drew one
inescapable conclusion and that's that all-white juries are not only
more prone to convict black defendants but that despite court rulings
that bar exclusion of jurors or potential jurors because of race, a
major number of juror pools and thus juries continue to be all-white.
This amounts to a not so subtle form of jury nullification of the
Sixth Amendment right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury. The
centerpiece of that is the concept of a jury of a defendant's peers.
All-white juries hardly meet that constitutional standard.
The Zimmerman trial jury was certainly no aberration. It was
consistent with the findings that juries in Florida, as in many other
states, are likely not to have any African-Americans seated on them, and
that when the defendants are African-American they are routinely
convicted. Juror b37's frank admission that she and the other white
jurors thought Zimmerman was under assault, feared for his life, and
thus had the right to use deadly force to defend himself was horribly
consistent with the findings that juries are much more likely to find
whites or non-blacks that beat, maim or kill blacks to be within their
rights to defend and or likely to acquit them of charges. This was
obviously true in how Zimmerman was depicted as the victim, not Martin,
in the minds of the white jurors.
The juror bias study was also consistent with
another study
that found that whites that claim they kill or maim a black under the
stand your ground law are far more likely to either not be charged with a
crime or if charged to be tried on lesser charges. Or they are more
likely to be acquitted than a black that claims they maimed or killed a
white under the law.
In many other Florida counties, as well as countless numbers of
counties in other states, the odds are better than average that a jury
pool will be predominantly white. In fact, based solely on the
population demographics of Seminole County, where Zimmerman was tried,
of the 500 persons in the initial Zimmerman trial juror pool, there were
329 whites, 89 Hispanics, and 59 blacks. There were 239 men and 251
women. Defense attorneys that have tried major criminal cases in
Seminole County predicted that the composite juror would be a white,
professional or business person, and middle aged, male and female, and
Republican. The only part they were wrong on was the gender make-up. But
they were right on the near total absence of racial diversity of the
jury. Duke researchers meticulously and painfully showed in their juror
study months before Zimmerman's acquittal by a jury with no blacks that
when it comes to guilt or innocence of a defendant who is non-black
white jurors will acquit. As juror b37 bluntly said she believed that
Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place" when he shot Martin.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new
ebook is America on Trial: The Slaying of Trayvon Martin (Amazon). He
is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of
the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of
the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and
KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
FOLLOW BLACK VOICES
