Sunday, June 30, 2013

The Important Thing About The George Zimmerman Trial To Remember

I have not not been following this trial to have much comment. Even if I was it's a tad folly to think we can get the same impression as the people in the court room. That being said a conversation as well as a number of articles on this trial makes me want to remind folks of an important fact.

It is not enough that a juror thinks he did murder . It is not enough for a juror to think that he PROBABLY did murder. A juror must find  BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT he did murder. That is intentionally a pretty high standard that actually has a religious basis. In England of old there was problems getting jurors because Christians were thinking of that scripture about judging. The Crown 's response well wassurely if the standard is so high to convict you can't be guilty of being in violation of that scripture.  It is the State job to prove guilt not the the defense job to prove innocence.

Seems this gets overlooked a good bit. Also if one is a African American, a minority , or not one well connected which is a good bit of those that go to Court you should be invested in now lowering the standard to have a persons liberty deprived by the State.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I've had to go to jury duty maybe 4 times in my life. Only twice have I gone into the court room for the selection part. The first was a drug case, and I was not chosen. The second was a murder case. And we were there for at least 5 hours in the jury selection process. Ultimately I was not chosen. And the reason was clear: they wanted to convince me that if the state has only ONE witness and no other evidence I should convict. Anybody who said that was not enough didn't make it to the jury.

James H said...

Yeah thats a interesting point since cases just come down to one witness sometimes. Its tough often to get a jury !