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Tbh Jorge Zimmerman is a longshot to get convicted for killing Martin but maybe his lawyers think otherwise if they're desperate enough to go after martins character when it's totally irrelevant to the trial.
http://www.bet.com/news/national/201...-on-trial.htmlWhen the Trayvon Martin case finally gets started in the next two weeks, George Zimmerman's defense team will be barred from mentioning Trayvon’s marijuana use, past fights or high school suspension. A judge in Florida wisely denied those defense requests that would have effectively put Martin on trial instead of Zimmerman.
"Trayvon Martin did not get out of the car to chase anybody," said Benjamin Crump, the Martin family lawyer. "Trayvon Martin did not shoot and kill anybody. Trayvon Martin is not on trial," he told reporters.
Because Zimmerman had no knowledge of Martin's background when he shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old in Sanford, Florida, last year, none of the information his defense team wants to introduce about Martin is relevant to the murder trial. All that Zimmerman knew at the time is that Martin was a young Black male in his neighborhood. But as Black men know too well, that's all it takes for society to see us as su ious.
We saw that again this week when police in another part of Florida arrested a 14-year-old Black kid with a puppy at Miami's Haulover Beach. A police officer put Tremaine McMillian in a chokehold and slammed him to the ground to restrain the child (who looks like he weighs all of 120 pounds) because they said he gave them "dehumanizing stares."
“Of course we have to neutralize the threat,” Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta calmly told reporters. Police freely disclosed that the young McMillian had been arrested once before, although the officer at the beach had no knowledge of this prior arrest at the time of the incident, and it's not even clear that McMillian was ever convicted of anything.
Does a prior arrest prove criminal intent or evidence of wrongdoing? If so, then perhaps Florida police should have been more su ious of Zimmerman, who, unlike Trayvon, had been previously arrested for resisting a police officer with violence and separately accused of domestic violence. But Zimmerman wasn't a young Black man. We're treated differently by society.
Of course, it's not just Florida. This week, police arrested Arlington County, Virginia, sheriff's deputy Craig Patterson and charged him with murdering 22-year-old Julian Dawkins, a young Black man who worked as a driver for PBS NewsHour. The details are still emerging, but once again another African-American man has fallen victim to violence from law enforcement.
It happens up north, too. In Philadelphia, Blacks make up just 44 percent of the population but more than 72 percent of the people stopped by police. And in New York City, the number of police stops has risen from 100,000 in 2002 to nearly 700,000 in 2011, most of them minorities.
Some argue that police stops are an inevitable indignity that Black men should just ignore. That's easy to say for people who haven't been profiled. But a few years ago, I too was stopped by a police officer in a Harlem subway station and accused of illegally jumping the turnstiles.
The officer gruffly demanded to see my subway card and insisted that he had personally watched me sneak onto the subway platform, which I clearly had not done. After protesting for a moment, I provided my card to him. He had it swiped to see when it was last used, and just as I told him, the card showed I had used it to enter the subway station moments earlier. The officer apologized only after an elderly bystander recognized me from television and told him I was a TV commentator and former White House aide.
But what about the Black men who don't have friends in high places?
Trayvon Martin and Tremaine McMillian may not have been perfect in their lives, but it probably wouldn't matter to some police officers if they had been. As we learned from the cases of Skip Gates and Amadou Diallo, racial su ion transcends age, educational status or criminal background. Whether you're a 58-year-old Harvard professor walking into your home in Cambridge or a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea walking into your apartment in the Bronx, you're still a suspect in the eyes of society.
That's a problem not just for Black men, but for all Americans.
Keith Boykin is a New York Times best-selling author and former White House aide to President Clinton. He attended Harvard Law School with President Barack Obama and currently serves as a TV political commentator. He writes political commentary for BET.com each week.
Good read. It's 2013 and our brothers are still fighting for equality. What a shame.
I am from Virginia and I live in Philadelphia now so I can attest to the ongoing racism against Blacks.
Tbh Jorge Zimmerman is a longshot to get convicted for killing Martin but maybe his lawyers think otherwise if they're desperate enough to go after martins character when it's totally irrelevant to the trial.
BET news
Keith Boykin is a New York Times best-selling author and former White House aide to President Clinton. He attended Harvard Law School with President Barack Obama and currently serves as a TV political commentatorBET news
Looks like a credible source to me.
BET
Isn't there a black president now? I mean, the leader of the most powerful country on Earth is a black man. If that is not a sign of progress and change, I don't know what is.
kinda funny that the defense cant use Trayvon`s violent behavior and drug history in support of Zimmerman. i guess somewhere along the line he metamorphisized into this innocent little Raisinet that wouldnt hurt a soul.
Why should the defense be able to use his behavior? It has absolutely nothing with Zimmerman's decision to run him down and shoot him and it's irrelevant.
pretty skewed pov. He was trespassing, security guard chased him down, fight broke out, Zimmerman shoots in self defense.
1) I'm still waiting to hear how Martin's past is relevant
2) He wasn't trespassing, he was on the sidewalk. Show me where he was trespassing.
3) Jorge Zimmerman wasn't a security guard. He was a self-appointed neighborhood watchman.
4)
"running him down and shooting him" is a very black and white, skewed way of saying it. yeah, somebody with a proclivity for violent and aggressive behavior is kind of an important detail when it was a fight that led to said persons death.
DoK - so for any crime, essentially what you are saying is the only thing relevant are the events that day? That prevoius history is irrelavant to any thing current?
Wasn't Trayvon "armed" with the concrete sidewalk he was beating Zimmerman's head into?the unarmed 17-year-old
Yeah, it's pretty ed up. The media and black community have literally tried everything to over Zimmerman, and just because he has a "white" last name. It's pretty ing shameful.
ya got a unarmed 17 yr old kid walking home with tea and skittles. he notices a stranger in a car following him. said stranger gets out the car and confronts the kid. the kid saw the stranger was armed, was scared and fought for his life. i would have banged his head against concrete too.
Attacking a man with a gun was pretty stupid, tbh. But I doubt Trayvon knew Zimmerman was armed until he actually got shot. I think he saw Zimmerman as an easy mark and couldn't leave well enough alone.
I wouldn't like to publicly declare my support of Trayvon Martin. I openly celebrate his lifestyle.
Oops, wrong topic.
If Martin's past is irrelevant, so is Zimmerman's.
yea it is stupid to attack someone with a gun, but this was a 17 year old kid we're talking about. as far as the easy mark, i think it was vice versa. the neighborhood had been hit with a string of robberies, zimmerman saw a "su ious" black male and decided to call 911 and ignore their request for him to wait for law enforcement. zimmerman being the adult in the situation should have used his common sense and just sat there and waited instead of trying to be a hero.
he was negligient and him being on house arrest shouldn't be an issue considering he took an innocent person's life. he'll most likely beat the case either way.
i just find it odd how zimmerman can follow someone, when the other person defends themselves, he wants to cry self defense. just take ya ass whoopin like a man and deal with it.
By beating the case do you mean a jury of his peers finds him innocent? Do you think the American judicial system is a scam?
yes and yes
So you think an African American President would allow a court system to prejudice his own people? Are you saying Obama does nothing for the black man?
can a president fix state court systems? as far as the courts go, the only power they have is electing the judges on supreme court.
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