ABC News has decided to stir the pot by persuading one of the George Zimmerman jurors—one hopes the dimmest one, but who knows—to grab 15 minutes of fame on “Good Morning America!” Friday morning. Thus will America not only be wished a good day, it will also be simultaneously treated to the marvel and horror of the jury system. The horror: that ignorant fools like Juror B29 sit on juries, ever. The marvel: that such juries still bumble their way to the right decision as often as they do…and one did in the George Zimmerman trial.
The last is hardly a consolation for having to listen to Juror B29, who dares to show her face on national TV, presumably because she is Puerto Rican and not one of the inherently and presumably racist white jurors, and because she has set out to confirm the misguided convictions of those ignorant about the case but determined to be angry about it anyway. “You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” she says. “But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence.”
Shut up.
- Juries aren’t supposed to “feel” criminal defendants are guilty until the evidence shows they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
- She has no idea what other jurors “felt in their hearts.”
- Let go of your heart, B29, and spare us the self-glorification.
A nursing assistant and mother of eight children, the woman, calling herself “Maddy,” will be heard to say that she believes she owes Trayvon Martin’s parents an apology because she feels “like I let them down.”
Shut up.
- A jury’s duty is not to the victim, or the victim’s parents. A jury’s duty is to the justice system.
- The point of view of the parents of the victim in any crime is the most biased and irrelevant to a jury’s decision.
- Stop sucking up, B29 What are you going to apologize for? Not sending a man to prison without evidence?
She says that the case shouldn’t have gone to trial and that it was ”a publicity stunt.”
Shut up.
- It never should have gone to trial, but Zimmerman was guilty of murder and she wanted to convict him? That does not compute. B29 is hell bent on obliterating any credibility or respect a critic…or adherent…of the verdict could have had, in order to grab her moment in the spotlight.
- Whatever the trial was, it was not a publicity stunt. But if Juror B29 really believed it was a publicity stunt, she should have been insisting on an acquittal from Day 1. But no…
- ..because she says “I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury.” You know, The dumb one. The one who felt a defendant brought to trial in a publicity stunt and a case that shouldn’t have gone to trial should be found guilty anyway.
She goes on to say, we are told, that
“It’s hard for me to sleep, it’s hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin’s death. And as I carry him on my back, I’m hurting as much Trayvon’s Martin’s mother because there’s no way that any mother should feel that pain.”
Oh, for the love of God, please shut up!
- She was not “forcibly included in Trayvon Martin’s death,” whatever that is supposed to mean.
- The more she talks, the more convinced rational people will be that juries should be entrusted to robots, computers, psychics, or maybe really smart household pets, because this is whiny, cowardly gibberish, and a disgrace.
- Juror B29 is undermining the integrity of the verdict.
For a juror to do that is despicable, unless he or she is alleging jury tampering or other irregularities. It is every juror’s job to accept responsibility for a verdict, and not to try to game public opinion in an unpopular verdict by saying that she didn’t really believe in the final decision. Saying, as Juror B29 reportedly does (you can tell me about it, because I would rather gnaw my foot off than give ABC a second of commercial viewing time for airing this offal), that Zimmerman “got away with murder”is ludicrous, and can only mean that 1) she doesn’t know what murder is, 2) she is pandering to the anti-Zimmerman fanatics, or 3) she didn’t vote according to the evidence as she saw it. If there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove Zimmerman was a murderer, by definition he didn’t “get away with murder,” because he didn’t commit murder under the law, and “murder” is a legal definition.
Despite the media jackals barking at their heels, responsible jurors should not speak about a case, the deliberations or the verdict. Irresponsible, blathering fool jurors like B29 shouldn’t either, and news shows shouldn’t seek to nauseate America and undermine the justice system by giving them a forum. Shame on ABC, which also, on its website, again called Zimmerman “a white Hispanic,” the term invented solely for the race-baiting to skirt the inconvenient fact of Zimmerman’s multi-racial heritage. “Maddy,” however is just an uncolored Puerto Rican.
And the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck keeps rolling on…
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Sources: ABC News, Washington Post
Graphic: ABC News
Ethics Alarms 
“Juries scare me. I don’t want to put my faith in 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.”
-Monica Piper
Jack,
I’m a little bemused by this one.
She did vote to acquit, didn’t she? She did do her duty to the justice system, didn’t she? She did vote in accordance with the law, didn’t she?
And yet despite having overruled her feelings to do her duty by the law, you seem to be attacking her for – having feelings? What else do you mean by saying, “Juries aren’t supposed to ‘feel’ criminal defendants are guilty until the evidence shows they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The whole reason that jury selection in a case like this is so difficult is that almost everyone DOES have feelings – and BEFORE having seen the evidence. It’s a human nature thing. It’s inhuman not to have feelings.
Seems to me the very essence of being a responsible juror is the ability to set one’s feelings aside and make a decision based on the law. Which it would seem this juror did.
To then demand that she reverse her feelings, or somehow contort them to conform to what the law dictates as legal, is howling at the moon. Sitting on a jury doesn’t require us to surrender our feelings at the door – it requires us to set them aside as necessary in pursuit of a civic duty to interpret the law.
As to your advising she shut up instead of going on national TV, well, that’s just another feeling – yours. (BTW I happen to agree with you that jurors should not talk about their deliberations; it’s unseemly, and socially divisive).
That its unseemly and socially divisive accurately sums up my objections, I think.
Feelings are swell…not every one of them, especially ones as incoherent and self-contradictory as hers, is worthy of expression. Imagine the President signing an immigration reform bill and then saying in an interview, “Now, personally, I hate the little brown bastards, but this was politically expedient.” I’d say shut up to that one, too.
The excessive legitimacy this culture has bestowed on “feelings,” call it Oprization, is both unwise and, as in the case of the juror, ofen destructive.
Ditto on the Oprization.
“Juror B29 is undermining the integrity of the verdict.”
Isn’t the undermining of the verdict the desired (and correct, according to the superior and correct) end? An end therefore justified by any means?
Jack, you and I just aren’t hip with modern, real justice.
I can’t wait to hear our white black President comment on this interview.
Wouldn’t that be “White African-American” President? Or “White Black/African-American”?
I was outraged when I heard this woman had called Zimmerman a murderer. But then I recalled the pompous special prosecutor and the incompetent lead prosecutor had said the same thing. If jurors should keep their mouths shut about verdicts, shouldn’t prosecutors do so as well. Ugh.
Isn’t ABC owned by The Disney Company?
And wait a minute, isn’t this woman a white hispanic? Whatever that is. Or at least Hispanic. Puerto Rico was never in the Spanish Empire? They speak English only there?
It seems to me that our main problem is the number of people — intelligent, well employed, able to THINK and ANALYZE — are too too often excused from jury duty. It happens all the time. “I am the mother and sole caretaker of my young son,” was my excuse, even though we had both my husband available and a nanny to boot.
I got off the hook; my husband, on the other hand, showed up as required and was certain he would be rejected because he is is a lawyer; both sides wanted him, and he ended up foreman of the jury. It was amazing — he had to teach the rest of the jury what certain terms meant — and basically ran the decision of this medical malpractice suit.
Perhaps his role was too important, but it was only so because he was one of the few who took their obligation seriously, and didn’t try (and get away with it) to get out of it on certainly shaky grounds.
“Jury of one’s peers” exist no longer. It’s too easy to get oneself excused, even if you are one of the few who should really BE on that jury.
Don’t blame the jurors: they do the best they can. Blame the courts, who consistently allow thinking/educated/smart people off the hook. Make jury duty absolutely mandatory; I think you’d find a different set of decision-makers up there.
Think of the most average person you know. Now realize that 50% of the population is stupider. Now realize that the vast majority of the criminals out there are in the bottom percentile of that group.
I’d say they are being judged by their peers.
Think of the most average person you know. Now realize that 50% of the population is stupider.
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It’s not only that they are stupid, either.
Think of the brainwashed sheep, “if it was on the news it must be true”.
Or all of the mindless fools that still can’t see what is wrong with Obama.
I hope I never have to count on a jury.
Seriously.
Personally, I think our method of selecting juries is stupid in the extreme. Juries should be picked by an uninterested third party, like, say, the Judge and not the clearly biased attorneys. B29 obviously should not have been on the jury, even though, as Jack mentioned, she accidentally made the right decision.
This is a little off topic, but since you brought it up: Do you feel the judge in this case was “an uninterested third party”?
She was biased toward the prosecution. She is a perfect example why allowing a judge to choose the jury is a terrible idea.
This is what happens when a jury is chosen from the lowest common denominator… or by a judge with a political axe to grind. The concept of “twelve good men and true” seems to have fallen by the wayside somewhere along the way. The standard for judges has certainly gone right along with it.