Zimmerman, of course, is the guy who killed Trayvon Martin. According to the known facts, there's little doubt that he profiled Trayvon because of his race, age, and dress, that he stalked Trayvon, and that he ultimately killed an unarmed, innocent youth in an outrageous and indefensible assault. Zimmerman needs to be arrested and he needs to be put on trial.
However, there's a good chance he may win in court, and the reason why -- despite the bleatings of the law's author -- goes back to Florida's much commented Stand Your Ground law. Reporting over the last day or so has brought to light that Zimmerman had suffered physical injuries the night he killed Trayvon, though there is conflicting reporting on the extent of those injuries:
Police found Zimmerman with a bloody nose and blood on the back of his head. His lawyer says Zimmerman's nose was broken.
The Christian Science Monitor reports Zimmerman's contention Trayvon attacked him from behind as he returned to his vehicle after stalking Trayvon. Presumably, Zimmerman's version, then, is that he needed to use his weapon to defend himself from Trayvon's unprovoked attack.
More on the other side...
Zimmerman's account, that he was attacked while returning to his vehicle, conflicts somewhat with the version of Trayvon's girlfriend, who told ABC news (via the LA Times) she was talking on the phone with Trayvon when the altercation began:
The girl, whose family did not want her to be named, told ABC News that she was talking to Martin when he said he believed he was being followed. "He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on," the girl said. She then heard Trayvon say to the man, "What are you following me for?" The man then reportedly said, "What are you doing around here?"
The girl said she believes somebody then pushed Martin because she heard his earpiece fall, and then the line went dead.
Trayvon's former football coach told the AP (via
CBS):
"There's no way I can believe [Trayvon picked a fight], because he's not a confrontational kid," said Jerome Horton, who was one of Martin's former football coaches and knew him since he was about 5. "It just wouldn't happen. That's just not that kid."
Other evidence presented in that AP story tends to confirm the image of Trayvon as a laid-back, non-confrontational teenager. For example, he volunteered with his father cooking at the concession stand for the youth football team he had formerly played on. He treated adults respectively, calling the women "Ma'am" and offering to help with their strollers. He did the yard work at his father's house, and helped the neighbor kid learn how to ride his bike.
Trayvon had been suspended from school the week before he was killed, though reporting on both the length of the suspension and the reason for it has been conflicting. His father told the Miami Herald it was for ten days and for having been in an unauthorized location on school grounds, but one of his teachers is quoted by AP that it was only for five days and for excessive tardiness.
Stormfront and other racists have published photos (no links) purportedly taken from Trayvon's facebook page in which he is flashing gang sign, but as a high school teacher and parent of an adolescent male myself I can testify that young men around the country have a fascination with the gangsta esthetic and those photos -- in the absence of any other evidence -- stand as evidence of nothing more than the fact that Trayvon was an American male teenager.
Zimmerman is also much more complex than his usual depiction in the left blogosphere. There's little doubt that his killing of Trayvon resulted from his previous profiling of the youth as one of those "assholes" who "always get away." There's more doubt about whether he uttered the inflammatory words "fucking coon" under his breath while talking with the 911 dispatcher. Regardless, the Christian Science Monitor reports that the majority of Zimmerman's interactions with police over the last several months involved him reporting suspicious behavior by young black males. In other words, the incident began due to racial stereotypes held by the killer towards black youths.
However, it may be too much to state that Zimmerman was simply a retrograde racist, the moral equivalent of the Stormfront types who are holding him up as a hero. For example, he is the product of a bicultural household, raised by an Ecuadorean mother and an American father, who took sufficient care that he grow up bilingual. His father, Robert Zimmerman, is a retired magistrate judge and is apparently sensitive to racial issues in the United States. His letter to the Orlando Sentinel defending his son claims
George is a Spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends. He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever.
This goes beyond the typical tokenism of "some of my best friends are black" by including the detail that Zimmerman has family members of African descent, in addition to his own bicultural and bilingual heritage. Zimmerman also reportedly mentored black youth in his neighborhood.
Now, I am most certainly not defending Zimmerman's actions on the night he killed Trayvon, but I am pointing to extenuating circumstances a good lawyer could use at trial to get him off a homicide or manslaughter charge. The most powerful tool in that lawyer's toolkit, it seems to me, is Florida's Stand Your Ground law, even though Craig Sonner, Zimmerman's current lawyer, himself has been quoted that simple self-defense doctrine should be enough.
This is self-defense, and that's been around for forever -- that you have a right to defend yourself. So the next issue (that) is going to come up is, was he justified in using the amount of force he did?
Sonner seems to be operating under the mistaken belief that Stand Your Ground only applies inside someone's home, when in fact the law expands the existing Castle Doctrine to whatever ground a person may happen to occupy.
If Zimmerman is ever arrested and arraigned, you can be certain that Stand Your Ground will be a key element of his defense, and one key fact at issue in his trial will be whether Trayvon attacked him from behind. But lurking behind all that is the empowering function of the Stand Your Ground law, the purpose of which is to convince gun owners to carry their weapons with them at all times on the off chance they might sometime get the chance to use them.