{"id":2585,"date":"2013-07-14T18:01:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T18:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=2585"},"modified":"2013-07-14T18:01:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-14T18:01:38","slug":"still-trying-to-make-sense-of-this-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2585","title":{"rendered":"Still trying to make sense of this verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Well, I had a pretty good night&#8217;s sleep, awoke this morning and got ready for church.<\/p>\n<p>I also began sorting through the news that broke last night that a Sanford, Fla., jury acquitted George Zimmerman of second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. I thought sleeping on it overnight would clear my head.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, I woke up this morning more confused than I was last night.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com\/2013\/07\/shocking-verdict-in-zimmerman-trial.html\/\">http:\/\/dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com\/2013\/07\/shocking-verdict-in-zimmerman-trial.html\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The case gripped much of the nation, if not the world. Trial testimony revealed that Zimmerman stalked the youngster, who he suspected &#8212; apparently &#8212; of being up to no good. Zimmerman was carrying a gun; Martin was unarmed. They got into a tussle. Zimmerman\u00a0then shot Trayvon.\u00a0Dead.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m still trying to process this one. How did the gun go off? Did it shoot itself? Did the boy grab the gun and shoot himself by accident? No, it&#8217;s pretty clear Zimmerman pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n<p>My question today is how does one avoid conviction at least for a manslaughter charge, which the jury was empowered to consider along with the murder charge?<\/p>\n<p>I was raised to have faith in our system of laws. I almost always hold true to that faith. Moreover, I will accept the jurors&#8217; decision only insofar as they heard all the evidence, watched the body language, combed through copious notes and argued among themselves for 16 hours. I did none of that.<\/p>\n<p>However, I still am\u00a0left to scratch my head and wonder: Is it at all possible &#8212; just the slightest possibility &#8212; that this\u00a0jury got it wrong?<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, I had a pretty good night&#8217;s sleep, awoke this morning and got ready for church. I also began sorting through the news that broke last night that a Sanford, Fla., jury acquitted George Zimmerman of second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. I thought sleeping on it overnight would clear my head. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2585\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Still trying to make sense of this verdict<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}