NOT GUITLY!!

George Zimmerman is found not guilty of manslaughter and murder charges!

Let the riots begin!

Something's already going down in Oakland. Then again, would we really expect anything less from the upstanding citizens of Oakland?

Yeah, because the people of Oakland have every right to be outraged by something happening in Florida, so much right that they burn the US and CALIFORNIA flags.

Violent and vandal protestors are simply whiny babies who feel they need to use such things to bring meaning to their pathetic lives. The cause means nothing, as they will use any cause they feel justifies their actions. I'm waiting for a city to burn because the Rotory Club has a bake-sale but has No-bake cookies.

I would add that this entire fiasco did not have to happen. It wasn't until the race-baiters started bitching that the DA for Florida over-ruled the Miami DA and the police who did not bring Zimmerman up on charges because the evidence did not support anything but self-defense. From the start this was a show trial, not about actual justice. AS a result, the life of George Zimmerman is effectively over and Treyvon Martin's memory is being used by people who couldn't care less about WHO he was than about WHAT he was.

I think it was perfectly reasonable to charge him with something, that's normal police procedure that was ignored in this case. The reason it became a racial issue because most people, including myself, had a hard time believing that is a white person was gunned down after a fight that no one would have been charged with anything in similar circumstances, but because it was a tall black kid with a hoodie and he was upstanding citizen charges weren't pressed.
 
When I was 17 I hit a cyclist with my car and killed him. There's been no worse trauma in my life, despite the fact that I wasn't breaking any law and it was the cyclist who was ignoring road laws. I was immediately charged with vehicular manslaughter anyway, because while they were pretty sure I didn't do it, without charging someone they can't even properly investigate the matter. The charges were dropped when it was clear they had no case, but I can't blame them for not giving me the benefit of the doubt. They just can't take my word that I wasn't doing anything wrong when someone is dead on asphalt. It's the same in this case: had the police department just charged him with something- even if the charges were later dropped- we wouldn't even be talking about it now.

The prosecution had a very hard, near impossible case to prove. The burden of proof is always on the prosecution, but logic dictates that the burden of proof generally should be on the claimant, because it's near impossible to prove that something didn't happen based entirely on circumstantial evidence. They were tasked with proving the unprovable, but they also didn't present their case very well, never really asserted a reasonable timeline and version events that proved their case of murder, and instead opted to patronize the all female (and almost entirely white) jury by trying to tug on their heartstrings about a poor, scared, murdered child. The defense used ridiculous hyperbole in terms of trying to paint Martin as some kind of vicious criminal who popped out of the bushes and pounced on him with no provocation (whose biggest prior was a first offense for weed), and painting Zimmerman as some kind of fluffy teddy bear with no fight skills or violent inclinations (even though he assaulted a police officer in 2005 and had a restraining order against him for domestic violence), but that's okay, because the defense's job is relatively easy, just sit back and harp on about reasonable doubt. It's pretty clear that both of these guys were hot heads and the whole situation could have been avoided had either party acted reasonably, but it's hard to really blame the guy who got the death penalty for his stupidity while the other party gets to walk and was saved by the fact that it was dark and rainy at the time.

Ultimately past acts don't matter on either side, the only thing that does is whether the state could sufficiently prove that Zimmerman killed him in cold blood according to Florida laws. I don't really think Zimmerman is some kind of menace to society either way, but people have been put behind bars for less.

For what it's worth, when we have fatalities when the pedestrian's at fault, we don't level charges on my department, unless it comes up during the investigation that there were other circumstances involved. But then it's a simple matter of getting the warrant and indictment.

Zimmerman was an idiot. He had no business taking vigilante action again a guy who, suspicious or not, was simply walking the neighborhood. If Martin had been looking into cars/houses, THE MOST Zimmerman should have done would be to make the 911 call and OBSERVE ONLY. Not get involved.

He then got his ass beat to the point where he got scared enough to pull out his gun and use it.

The prosecution overreached by going for the murder charge. Had they sought the manslaughter charge from the beginning, the theatrics could have been skipped (or at least lessened), and he could have been convicted of the manslaughter.

But the justice for the charge of murder has been done: had he been convicted of MURDER, it would have been a travesty of kowtowing to the court of popular opinion, thus rendering the court system powerless.

It's done and over with. He's going to get his ass sued for wrongful death, and I GUARANTEE that one will stick.

Also, I'm amazed that there haven't been riots. Oakland doesn't count because, well, Oakland.

I haven't been following it beyond a local talk show (who approaches these things from a rational viewpoint and not a hyperventilating one), but based on what the jurors are saying, it sounds like the prosecution made a mistake in pushing for Murder 2 from the outset and not Manslaughter as well as not doing a very good job of presenting the case in such a way as to negate the "Stand Your Ground" law, which sounds pretty much like a license to kill.

The media is the true guilty party. Blowing up this story to such radical proportions.