If The Zimmerman Jury Was Right, Then A Lot Else Is Wrong.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. The jury had no choice but to acquit Zimmerman because there is no proof he broke the law.

"Stand your ground" was not cited, I believe - the defence was common or garden self defence.

If you exercise your legal right to follow someone, for good reasons or bad, and they respond by launching a serious physical assault on you, it's legal (and, in my view, reasonable) to shoot them.

We don't know if that's actually what happened - it may be that it was Zimmerman who attacked Martin and not the other way round. Which is more likely is debatable - I think it's marginally more plausible that Martin was the attacker, but we'll probably never know for sure.

But no even remotely unbiased assessment of the evidence could possibly lead one to conclude that it's beyond reasonable doubt that Zimmerman *wasn't* acting in straightforward self defence after being attacked, and as such the jury had no choice whatsoever.

The scandal here is not that Zimmerman was acquitted, but that he was prosecuted, and it looks like he may be again, fairly clearly out of desire to appease the lynch mob rather than because assessment of the evidence could lead one to be confident he was guilty.