Zimmerman on trial

The racially charged murder trial of George Zimmerman got underway this week in Sanford, Fla., as attorneys began narrowing the pool of potential jurors. The former neighborhood watch captain claims he acted in self-defense when he shot black teenager Trayvon Martin in February 2012. Local officials initially declined to arrest Zimmerman, citing Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law. But after 45 days of protests and the appointment of a special prosecutor, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder. Since then supporters have contributed more than $400,000 to his defense fund.

Jury selection is expected to take at least two weeks, as an initial pool of 500 residents is whittled down to six members and four alternates deemed acceptable by both legal teams. Judge Debra Nelson this week rejected several defense motions, including one to sequester the entire jury pool.

“To call this case polarizing is an understatement,” said Mary Mitchell in the Chicago Sun-Times. The killing of a black, unarmed 17-year-old by a Hispanic man in a predominantly white gated community stirs up irrational emotions that both “blacks and whites still struggle to control.” Zimmerman’s trial will test not just our country’s criminal justice system, but modern-day race relations too.

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Zimmerman should never have been arrested, said George Parry in the Tampa Bay Times. The evidence clearly shows that he acted in self-defense. Witnesses described seeing Zimmerman crying for help on the ground as Martin beat him up, and his injuries were consistent with that account. That he’s on trial at all is a sad reflection of the “prosecution’s cowardice” in the face of a liberal media lynch mob.

It’s Trayvon who’s really on trial, said Reniqua Allen in Guardian.co.uk. Zimmerman’s lawyers have tried their best to characterize him not as an innocent kid walking down the street with a bag of Skittles, but as America’s worst nightmare: “the young, black thug.” To find justice we need to drop the caricatured racial stereotypes and start talking about Zimmerman and Martin “as complex human beings.”