Trayvon Martin

Unethical Quote Of The Month (Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Division): President Barack Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 71 Comments

 “I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?”

—-President Barack Obama, in hisunscripted remarks yesterday regarding public reaction to the George Zimmerman acquittal.

"That was fun! Let's do it again!"

“That was fun! Let’s do it again!”

The chorus of Hosannas following President Obama’s latest foray into inappropriate Presidential interference with local law enforcement—a virtual trademark of his leadership—were as predictable as it was wrong. As for the President’s remarks, they were more than wrong: they were reckless, foolish, irresponsible and dangerous.

That race relations is an appropriate topic for a Presidential address is not in question, nor is it to be denied that many of the comments and observations in President Obama’s remarks yesterday were valid, nuanced, perceptive and worth making—at another time, in connection with another case, and certainly not in connection with this case, at this time. That this is true should be obvious, and it should have been especially obvious to President Obama. That he went ahead and made those statements anyway suggests either a stubborn arrogance or sinister motives. Third alternative is stupidity, and the President is not stupid. Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin Ethics Trainwreck Update: The Cameras And Reporters Should Be Kicked Out Of The Zimmerman Courtroom

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

From Mediaite:

CNN“While carrying the George Zimmerman murder trial live this afternoon, CNN accidentally broadcast the defendant’s full social security number, home address, and phone number on national television.

“Sanford police detective Doris Singleton was in the midst of testifying about her interview with Zimmerman following his detention when the prosecuting lawyer pulled up a copy of the “narrative report” for the court to view. The court video feed then showed, in close-up, as the lawyer zoomed in on Zimmerman’s personal information.”

Unbelievable.

Sorry, sensational trail fans, but that should be it. Our careless, incompetent news media can’t be trusted to place cameras in the courtroom and protect the rights of the participants and the integrity of the justice system. Vigilantes and crazies mean to harm George Zimmerman and maybe anyone who dares to support him. Within minutes of CNN’s mistake, Twitter was alive with nasty tweets from many of these hateful and ignorant people, and there surely are many more. That CNN would blunder this badly is proof that the news media can’t be trusted.

The next best response by the judge would be to toss just CNN out, but realistically that network is no less trustworthy than any other. There should have been protocols and fail-safe measures in place to prevent a breach of Zimmerman’s privacy to this extent. Broadcasting a defendant’s social security information is strike one, two and three. The news media is unprofessional and negligent.

Kick them all out.

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Facts: Mediaite

 

Flat, Flat, Flat…and Infuriating

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

This was bound to happen.

A graph of President Obama's leadership learning curve since January, 2009. This is actually a new graph, including data since the last one of these I posted, though I recognize that the difference is hard to see...

A graph of President Obama’s leadership learning curve since January, 2009. This is actually a new graph, including data since the last one of these I posted, though I recognize that the difference is hard to see…

Waaay back in 2009, when the new President improvidently and recklessly commented on a local dispute between a Harvard professor and a Cambridge policeman, I pointed out that Obama needed to learnthe ethical limits on his power and influence. Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully pulpit” is not license for the highest office-holder in the land to try to mold public opinion on every conceivable matter, local or national, and to influence decisions solely within the authority of others. For the President to state his personal verdict on anything he wakes up concerned about risks putting a weighty thumb on the scales of justice. It is an abuse of power—a President behaving like an emperor.

This is not a difficult concept; indeed, with occasional lapses, every other President has grasped it instinctively. Not Barack Obama. Brilliant Barack Obama. “Constitutional scholar” Barack Obama. For while the Gates episode may have been a rookie mistake, he has engaged in exactly the same unethical, arrogant conduct repeatedly, here, and here, and here and here, and here, and especially here—and I’m sure I may have missed a few.

Each time I pointed out this inexcusable habit, I was barraged by glossy-eyed readers who made excuses for Obama  and rationalized his grandstanding remarks, accusing me of being biased and hypercritical. But with each new instance, it should have been progressively clearer that I correctly diagnosed this malady in 2009. Now, after Obama has done it yet again, commenting inappropriately about the military sexual harassment scandal, this proclivity has finally had tangible legal consequences. You can’t say I didn’t warn him. Continue reading →

Is George Zimmerman Trying A Homer Simpson Strategy?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments
The accused, pre-donuts.

The accused, pre-donuts.

Based on his appearance at today’s preliminary hearings for his murder trial, George Zimmerman has packed on a few pounds since he was arrested and charged with second degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin. Might this be an intentional strategy dictated by his lawyer? If so, it would be reminiscent of the memorable episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer decided to give himself the benefit of the Americans With Disabilities Act by eating himself into muu-muus. But would it be ethical?

The theory, I presume, is that the less threatening and mobile Zimmerman looks, the more plausible it will seem to the jury that he was not the aggressor in his fatal tussle with Martin, who, we heard today, the defense will try to portray as a violence-prone thug. This kind of maneuver exploits a structural defect in the jury system, aggravated by the now ridiculously extended justice process. Jurors can only think of a defendant and sometimes a victim as they look in the courtroom, when it is what they were like when the alleged crime occurred that matters. Years ago in the District of Columbia, a wily attorney defending a child molester who swore that his 13-year old victim had credibly presented herself as 18 managed to delay the trial for three years. It was enough time for the victim to get morphed by puberty hard, and she appeared on the stand not as the thin, immature child she was when she was sexually assaulted, but as an obviously sexually-mature young woman speaking in a attractively husky voice, whom one courtroom reporter described as looking at least 25. Her attacker was acquitted. This is considered excellent lawyering. (The prosecutor, who allowed the girl to wear a tight, low-cut dress and full make-up, was, in contrast, an idiot.) Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Update: Yup! It’s Still Rolling

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

(I hadn’t posted a train wreck photo for a while. It was time.)

The ethics principle that the apparently endless ethics train wreck launched when George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin (Zimmerman’s trial is set for June) most clearly delineates is this: criminal trials, including their arguments and evidence, should take place in court, not in public.

From the very beginning, public opinion, and by extension jury biases, have been manipulated by statements to the media by an endless parade of parties and onlookers who should have kept their mouths shut. The array of unethical commentators  include Martin’s family and lawyer, Zimmerman’s lawyers, past and present, the prosecutor, police personnel, potential witnesses, journalists, pundits, elected officials, idiot celebrities, and the President of the United States.

And you’ll be happy to know that it’s still happening. Continue reading →

Total Bias At Last

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

There is only one honest way to interpret the results of the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finding that Mitt Romney has 0% support among African-American voters, and it is neither good news for the country, nor complimentary to African-American culture, nor anything Barack Obama should be proud of. This is proof of total racial bias on one side of the racial divide, the result of intentional, shameless and apparently successful race-baiting by the Obama Administration, and the rationalization of racial bias among blacks, allowing black racism to not only thrive, but to be treated as acceptable. Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Update: The Unethical “Witness Nine”

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

She looks credible to me!

Now where were we?

When we last left this ongoing orgy of unethical conduct in every corner, Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman were caught lying to the judge about their financial resources, claiming to be destitute for bail purposes, and trying to hide all the money that had come in through contributions to their website. Now the judge is buying a ticket, and has ordered the release of the tape recordings of a woman only known now as “Witness 9.”

Witness 9 has a story that is old, irrelevant, but certainly calculated to inflame the public and the jury pool against the defendant. She says…

  • Zimmerman began sexually molesting Witness 9 when she was six years old and Zimmerman was about 8.
  • It continued until she when she was 16.
  • The molestation included forced kissing, fondling, groping, and inserting his fingers into her vagina.
  •  “We would all lay in front of the TV” to watch movies, “and he would reach under the blankets and try to do things. … I would try to push him off, but he was bigger and stronger and older.”
  • Zimmerman’s family doesn’t “like black people if they don’t act like white people. They like black people if they act white.”
  •  Zimmerman also does not like blacks, though she personally she had never seen him disparage blacks or act as though he hated blacks.

Let’s see:

1. An allegation of sexual molestation that is decades old, very strange (Uh, why did you keep watching movies under a blanket with a molester for ten years, ma’am?), impossible to substantiate, and 100% irrelevant to the crime Zimmerman is charged with committing..

2. A bizarre allegation about Zimmerman’s family, that is incoherent. So do they “like” blacks, or don’t they? I don’t like whites who act like idiots. Does that make me racist? And what is “not acting like a white person,” anyway? Not listening to Donny Osmond music? Not playing cricket? What? Is wandering around  in the rain and looking like you are casing houses acting white, acting black, or just acting like a crook?

3. An assertion about Zimmerman’s opinions of blacks that the witness can’t support with any statements or conduct…

4. …that is apparently not based on any recent evidence.

In addition, we know nothing about this woman on which to assess her credibility, except that she has a grudge against George Zimmerman.

There is a technical term for testimony like this: garbage. It was no less than malicious to release it, and is proof, as if more was needed, that the prosecution in this case is not interested in justice, but serving the agenda of activists who have threatened social unrest and violence if Zimmerman isn’t summarily sacrificed on the altar of racial politics. Fair trial? Can’t risk that.

I suppose, in an ethics train wreck of six months duration, it shouldn’t be surprising that George Zimmerman is being railroaded.

CORRECTION: In the original version of this post, I wrote that Witness 9’s testimony was released by the prosecution, and laid blame on prosecutor Angela Corey, who has tried to poison the jury pool in this case already. A helpful commenter produced an earlier news report that indicates that both the defense and the prosecution opposed releasing the testimony.

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Source: Slate

Facts: Orlando Sentinel

Graphic: tramthuynh

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Teaching Racial Distrust in D.C.: “Trayvon Martin Day”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“Now children , what does the fact that Trayvon Martin was carrying Skittles prove? That’s right! It proves he was racially profiled!”

Combine one of the worst school systems in the country with race bias and ignorance, and you get “Trayvon Martin Day.”

In Washington, D.C, Malcolm X Elementary in Southeast D.C. declared this Friday “Trayvon Martin Day.”  The nearly all-black school is using the case of Martin’s shooting death in his confrontation with George Zimmerman as part of its “Let’s Keep Our Children Safe” seminar, “to better educate students and their parents about race relations and social injustice,” and to help reduce the needless violence and bullying in the community, according the Principal J. Harrison Coleman.

That’s interesting. And how, exactly, does the death of a Florida teen in which the circumstances are still unknown and the facts have been polluted by race-baiting demagogues, news media sensationalism and a Congressional lynch mob warrant inclusion in a seminar with those lofty goals? Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Update: An Integrity Test For The Lynch Mob

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

As Emily used to say, “Never mind!” Al? Spike?

The news coverage of the  emerging evidence in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman was slow in coming this week, perhaps because it makes the news media look bad. Reluctantly, however, it is finally getting out, though perhaps not with the breathless urgency the media mustered when it was actively manufacturing fake evidence—-a doctored 911 tape, a grainy film showing no injuries to Zimmerman’s head—so Martin’s shooter could be pronounced a killer-racist before he was even charged.

ABC News, perhaps attempting to atone for its disgraceful coverage of the case in March, released a through report on its website of latest developments, revealing that:

  • “Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose”
  • “Zimmerman seemed to have a battered nose and bloodied face…and the back of his clothing was soiled with wet grass…Zimmerman was also bleeding from … the back of his head.”
  • “Two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman’s version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches.”
  • “The documents state that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight.” Continue reading →

The Matthew Owens Attack: For Obama, Impossible Choices and Deserved Accountability

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Actually, Matthew Owens DOES look a little like my son...Of course, it's hard to tell...

From the Huffington Post:

“Alabama police are trying to track down a mob that beat a man into critical condition — leaving their battered victim with the words, ‘Now that’s justice for Trayvon.’ Cops told WKRG that Matthew Owens got in an argument with some kids playing basketball at a court in the city of Mobile on Saturday night. The kids left and a group of some 20 adults arrived at Owens’ front doorstep, armed with chairs, brass knuckles, pipes and paint cans. The group, all African American, allegedly beat him into a bloody pulp before someone uttered the words that connected the crime to the death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teen who was shot and killed in Florida by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman.”

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UPDATE (4/25): New reports question some of the details above. The dispute may have started over thefts in the neighborhood witnessed by  Owens’ niece; a neighbor says that Owens had been in disputes frequently; police now say that the beating was administered by only members of the group, with the rest standing by and watching. There has been at least one arrest. Also of note: Owens’ sister’s claim that one of the attackers said “Now that’s justice for Trayvon” may have been corroborated by other neighbors.

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This was completely predictable, and indeed it is only the worst, not the first, incident in which an attack on a white victim was linked to “justice” for Trayvon Martin. Now, the reasons I laid out a month ago that made President Obama’s reckless comments about the Sanford, Florida killing divisive and dangerous ought to be obvious to all, but if not, here are some questions to consider: Continue reading →