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JULY 19 - JULY 25, 2013
VOLUME 21 NO. 29
SPECIAL ISSUE: THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN inside A3 State never proved its case, analysts say A6 All-female jury extremely uncommon
‘Not Guilty’
B1 In Florida, hope must remain B2 Juror: Race played no role in death of Black teen B3 Federal trial would be difficult
POOL/JOE BURBANK/ ORLANDO SENTINEL/ MCT
B4 Impact of social media, technology on case
Sanford residents concerned What’s next for the city?
George Zimmerman walked out of the Seminole County Courthouse a free man on Saturday night. Since the state cannot appeal the verdict, the gun Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon Martin will be returned to him.
STANDING HIS GROUND
BY JAMES HARPER FLORIDA COURIER
SANFORD – Now that George Zimmerman has been found not guilty and the news media is packing up to leave Sanford, residents are concerned about the future of their city and the lives of other Black teens who may be walking their streets and are killed on their way home. While being interviewed at the Goldsboro Community Center in Sanford awaiting the Zimmerman verdict July 12, Don Brown asked the Florida Courier, “Where do we go after this is over? When the news media blows over? Two, three, five years down the road, are we going to go back to business as usual?”
See SANFORD, Page A2
After George Zimmerman walked away a free man, Stevie Wonder said ‘never again’ to Florida. OLIVIER DOULIERY/ ABACA PRESS/MCT
ALSO INSIDE
The case of a Titusville Beacharea man who shot an unarmed Black teenager dead in a Jacksonville-area gas station in a dispute over loud music is proceeding slowly after two judges excused themselves from hearing the case. According to police reports, Michael Dunn, 45, and his girlfriend were in Jacksonville for Dunn’s son’s wedding. On Nov. 23, 2012, the couple stopped at a convenience store where Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot.
Pulled a gun Dunn pulled up next to them, complained to his girlfriend about hating “that thug music,” and asked Davis and his friends to reduce the volume. Jordan and Dunn allegedly exchanged words. Dunn then pulled a gun and fired multiple shots, striking Davis twice and killing him. No one else was hurt. Dunn and his girlfriend, who was in the store and didn’t witness the shooting, immediately took off. Witnesses wrote down Dunn’s tag number. The couple stayed in Jacksonville overnight, then returned to Brevard County. Dunn, a gun collector, was arrested Nov. 24, 2012 at his home in Satellite Beach on charges of murder and attempted murder. A grand jury subsequently upgraded the charges to first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder. Dunn’s original attorney, Robin Lemonidis, said that Dunn acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Davis. “He didn’t think he had harmed anybody and he just thought he had scared them off and he wanted to report it, but he didn’t want to…throw himself to the wolves in a strange city without representation,” Lemonidis told Jacksonvillearea media in 2012. Lemonidis later claimed that Dunn saw a shotgun in Davis’s vehicle. Jacksonville cops found no weapons in the SUV. Davis was a passenger in the back seat when he was shot dead.
Lawsuit filed
Entertainer/activist Stevie Wonder says he will never perform in Florida while ‘Stand Your Ground’ remains law. A national Black organization calls for sanctions, and a boycott movement against Florida’s $70 billion tourist industry picks up speed online. FROM STAFF REPORTS
In May, George Zimmerman’s defense team released photographs from Trayvon Martin’s cell phone, including one of Martin (right) and his older brother Jahvaris Fulton.
COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS
Standing his ground?
No winners Sanford resident Brown was on “verdict watch” with many other community members at the local center, and said there was no winner after the verdict. “I would have been scared too because of the system that exists,” Brown said, adding that now is the time to discuss the racial issues that exist in this community of approximately 50,000 – with a 30 percent Black population. Brown said there are divisions between Blacks and Whites, and it upsets him when he hears Whites don’t want to talk about the mis-
Another ‘shoot first’ death case moves slowly
On Sunday night, Quebec City, Quebec was the site of a typical Stevie Wonder concert in Canada before thousands of energetic fans. The difference: The night before the concert, George Zimmerman had been acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin. As he often does, Wonder paused between a set of songs to speak directly to the audience. “Until the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again. Wherever I find that law exists, I will never perform in that state or in that part of the world…You can’t just talk about it; you’ve got to be
Trayvon Martin
Florida and 20 other states, mostly in the southern (Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky) and southwestern (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona, Utah) parts of the U.S. If grassroots action eventually succeeds in repealing or even modifying “Stand Your Ground’’ in Florida, Stevie Wonder’s concert in Canada shall be identified as the starting point.
about it…not in destruction, but in the perpetuation of life itself,” Picking up speed he said. After video of Wonder’s boycott And with that, he and the audiwent viral on Monday, groups ence partied on. According to the Brady Cam- and individuals began to climb paign to Prevent Gun Violence, onboard. Stand Your Ground laws exist in See BOYCOTT, Page A2
Davis’s parents have filed a wrongful death claim against Dunn. Jacksonville-area State Attorney Angela Corey – whose prosecution team lost the George Zimmerman trial – is personally prosecuting Dunn. A trial date is set for Sept. 23 though Dunn’s attorney, Cory Strolla, has asked for a delay. So far, all the judges who have presided over the case have refused to set bail for Dunn, release him pending the trial, or declare him indigent – which would force taxpayers to partially or fully pay the costs of his defense.
Jordan Russell Davis
COMMENTARY: MARC CAPUTO: CONSENSUS UNLIKELY ON ‘STAND YOUR GROUND’ | A4 COMMENTARY: WALTER SMITH: VERDICT SHOWS SOUTHERN JUSTICE PREVAILS AGAIN | A5
Michael Dunn
THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
A2
A more valuable type of protest As I spent Sunday listening to everyone pontificate their theories about how White racism led to George Zimmerman’s acquittal, it struck me how yesterday’s and today’s protests are – a dollar short and a day late. Saturday night after the verdict was read, hundreds of Black people gathered in the front of the Florida governor’s mansion to protest the outcome. Several of our best-known “leaders and pundits” hit the media outlets to express their outrage; and many of us Tweeted/Facebooked/Instagrammed ourselves to sleep – seething in disbelief. Even our dear president decided to proffer an official statement safely expressing his concern at the outcome.
Why protest now? Why weren’t these people
JOHNNY C. TAYLOR, JR. NNPA GUEST COLUMNIST
standing in the front of the governor’s mansion raising hell when the state of Florida educated a young woman for 12 years in its public school system who admitted she couldn’t read cursive? She was the prosecutor’s main witness. And we wonder what led to the verdict? It’d be tough for even an all-Black jury to give her testimony any credence. Why wasn’t there a crowd on the steps of the Miami-Dade School Board building protesting the fact that Black and Latino boys are nearly four times more likely than their White
counterparts to be suspended from school for the same infraction? After all, if Trayvon hadn’t been suspended from school, he wouldn’t have been in Sanford, and therefore couldn’t have been killed there that night. Why didn’t our anointed “leaders and pundits” use their media platforms to protest the disparity in funding to HBCU law schools – the very institutions that have historically ensured the country a robust supply of African-American lawyers to fight the very injustices we complain about? I heard countless commentators point out that a White judge presided over the case and the team of lawyers trying the case were all White. But they failed to call out the historical and continued funding cuts to schools, such as the Florida A&M University School of Law, that are responsible for creating diversity in the justice system. No Black lawyers equal no Black judges, which means the continued disparate treatment our “leaders and pundits” all described in the media the last several days shouldn’t be a surprise.
JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013 Why has Mr. President not issued a statement directing his Education Secretary to (a) reverse the funding decline to HBCUs, and (b) immediately restore pre-2011 student loan credit guidelines, which has made it really difficult for Black families all over the country to provide a college education for their children? If these attacks on education are allowed to continue, we will certainly see more incarceration disparity because, as we all know, an uneducated people will have higher levels of poverty, commit more crime, and receive more hefty sentences. For the record, the Republicans in Congress aren’t responsible for the above-mentioned funding and credit check changes. Why is it that there were hundreds of people marching on the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee for Trayvon, but no one marched to protest the fact that FAMU, the only public HBCU in the state and the largest HBCU in the country, is currently threatened with loss of its accreditation?
SANFORD treatment of Blacks historically. “Slavery was part of our history. Jews don’t let you forget about the Holocaust,” he declared.
Not surprised
BOYCOTT from A1 As of the Florida Courier’s press time Wednesday night, Twitter was starting to move the boycott forward under #boycottflorida. One of the first postverdict boycott tweet was from @4BlackWomenONLY, stating, “black people BOYCOTT #Florida #business as much as possible. Hit them where it hurts…” News outlets, including the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, the Denver Post, USA Today, and the Huffington Post all picked up Wonder’s boycott promise.
‘National coalition’ On Tuesday, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a prominent human rights and racial justice organization, called for the immediate formation of a “National Coalition of Conscience” to declare an economic boycott of Florida as one means of seeking justice for Martin. Dr. Ron Daniels, IBW president, said that his group “is strongly urging civil rights and human rights organizations, national faith groups, fraternities, sororities, Black professional organizations, organized labor, community-based organizations and people of conscience everywhere to join in a massive, sustained campaign to boycott tourism in Florida until that state’s ‘Stand Your Ground law’ is changed.”
Prime location Daniels notes that Florida is a prime convention location for national organizations like the NAACP, which held its annual convention in Orlando this week. The National Newspaper Publishers Association held its midwinter conference in Fort Lauderdale earlier this year. Black Enterprise magazine held its
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. is president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response. hired two years ago and Police Chief Cecil Smith, who replaced Lee, was hired to reduce tension in the city after pressure was applied from local Black leaders. Davis said they are still working on getting more Blacks hired to work for the city. “We don’t have jobs representing the city’s Black population in our city’s workforce,” he said. “I always thought Zimmerman should have been charged with manslaughter. We still don’t know if George Zimmerman pulled his gun (before being on the ground). Zimmerman was never drug-tested. We only have the version (of events) of the killer,” Davis concluded.
from A1
Sanford resident Cheryl Smith, a retired corrections officer, also was at the Goldsboro Center on verdict watch. She reflected on the jury’s decision. “It could have been a child comDon ing from church, Brown school. Zimmerman should have exercised caution, asked some pertinent questions. Problems have been existing (in Sanford). No one was surprised what hapJames pened (to TrayDavis von). (This) city is governed by some, for some,” Smith noted. James Davis, 65, a retired insurance adjuster, said what happened to Martin since he was Cheryl shot was “part of Smith
So, while all of the media voices do a brilliant job describing the injustices meted out to our people through a racist and biased criminal justice system, I would encourage this chorus to spend a little more – no, a lot more – time protesting the everyday injustices that inevitably lead to verdicts like the one issued Saturday night. If we are not going to protest everyday injustices such as educational disparities, I don’t see the point of jumping on the bandwagon to protest the natural result of those disparities. My grandmother used to always tell me to be on the lookout for the people who cry the loudest at the funeral; they are usually the ones who did the least for the deceased while he or she was alive…
Still worried
DUANE C. FERNANDEZ, SR./HARDNOTTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Protesters and media are finally leaving the city of Sanford. a government breakdown.” “We went to the mayor, to the city manager, to get charges brought. We pursued issues in a logical manner. Police refused to arrest Zimmerman. The state at-
torney refused to bring charges. We had to go public (to get Zimmerman arrested),” Davis said. (Former Police Chief ) Bill Lee would not have had Zimmerman face any charges.
Some progress “We have a new Black police chief and a Black city manager because of a history of injustice,” said Davis, noting that City Manager Norton Bonaparte was
NATIONAL BLACK CONVENTIONS & MEETINGS IN FLORIDA, 2013* National Newspaper Publishers Association Black Enterprise (Women of Power) National NAACP National Black Chamber of Commerce (small businesses) National Bar Association (Black attorneys) National Association of Black Journalists Black Enterprise (Golf & Tennis Challenge) Tom Joyner Family Reunion *Partial list
Fort Lauderdale Orlando Orlando Palm Beach Miami Orlando Palm Beach Gardens Orlando
Jan. 23-26 Feb. 22-March 2 This week July 24-26 July 27-31 July 31-Aug. 4 Aug. 29-Sept. 1 Aug. 29-Sept. 2
Source: Florida Courier Internet search
Tina Eudell, a victim services advocate, is worried about her 16-year-old grandson. “He could be treated like Trayvon because he is Black. If the law doesn’t change, they are not going to change. Self-defense is a big lie. Trayvon had to defend himself,” said Eudell. William Taylor, a retired Seminole County schoolteacher, says the “good old boys” in Sanford have to be brought down. “Unfair treatment has to end. He (Zimmerman) profiled him, stalked him, killed him. We have been going through this for years. Killing Black boys and beating them before they get to the county jail,” he said. “The same thing happening here is happening everywhere else.” & Friends” on Wednesday. “It’s all business…it’s bad for business to go against your crew. If the minority crew believes this was an injustice, a guy like Stevie Wonder or Rihanna or whoever it is isn’t going to say you’re wrong, it’s bad for business. They don’t know what happened (in the Zimmerman case)… “I don’t know how much demand Stevie’s in right now, with all due respect. He’s a genius, but I don’t know if we’re going to miss him,” O’Reilly said dismissively.
Could hurt badly Women of Power conference in Orlando in February and is slated to host its annual Pepsi Golf and Tennis Challenge in Palm Beach Gardens over the Labor Day weekend – the same time the Tom Joyner Family Reunion will convene in Orlando.
Black journalists hesitate The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) will hold its national convention in Orlando at the end of the month. According to a story written by blogger Richard Prince of “Journalisms,” NABJ considered changing its convention site to protest the Zimmerman verdict, but decided not to do so because it would cost the organization more than $1 million. According to Prince, NABJ President Gregory Lee believes that NABJ and other Black professional organizations that have conventions in Florida this summer “have the unique opportunity to have our voices heard on this issue… “We would encourage our members to be engaged and take what they have learned during these discussions back to the newsrooms and make a difference there. We will engage with many national leaders to break down the entire case.”
Disney a target Daniels also acknowledges that the Walt Disney World amusement complex is a favorite destination of African-Americans. “There is no doubt that Black people spend billions of dollars in Florida every year,” said Daniels. “Perhaps we should abstain from having ‘fun in the sun’ with Minnie and Mickey until we achieve justice for Trayvon Martin and all the Trayvons across this nation. It will be a teachable moment for our children.”
Following MLK He noted that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered the night before he was murdered in Memphis, Tenn. in 1968, should serve as a guide for what he called “the Justice for Trayvon Martin Economic Sanctions Campaign.” In discussing the injustices suffered by the sanitation workers in Memphis, Dr. King said, “now we must kind of redistribute the pain. “We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cocktails; we just need to go around to these stores, and
to these massive industries in our country, and say, “God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his children right. And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God’s children are concerned. “’Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.’” Coca-Cola was one of the companies King urged Memphis residents to boycott in 1968. In a similar vein, Daniels explains that “Blacks and all people of conscience and good will should inflict some nonviolent pain on the state of Florida and keep inflicting it until business leaders and the politicians scream for help and plead for the economic sanctions to be lifted.”
‘Bad business’ Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly disparaged talk of a Florida boycott or sanctions, accusing Stevie Wonder of being a fading musician who is using Trayvon’s death as a way to sell music. “Why do you think they’re doing that? Because they want to sell product to people who feel that way,” O’Reilly exclaimed on the FoxNews morning show, “Fox
However, a journalist for Slate. com, Jack Hamilton, wrote that Wonder’s “symbolic action” could be devastating to Florida if it spreads to the hip-hop community. “A widespread hip-hop boycott of Florida would be hugely powerful, particularly given Miami’s emergence in the past decade as one of the music’s epicenters,” Hamilton wrote online. “Rick Ross shooting videos in Venice Beach instead of South Beach, or sitting courtside at Nets games instead of Heat games: These images alone would jar the minds of a generation.” Hamilton also argues that a hip-hop boycott of Florida could begin to change the culture’s image. “…(R)appers boycotting Florida might also offer a firm rebuke to one of the more despicable insinuations of right-wing discourse throughout the Martin case, that hip-hop ‘culture’ justifies the murder of Black children at the hands and guns of men who fear them,” he explained. Daniels said that IBW is reaching out to hip-hop and young Black activists in hopes that they might launch “a ‘message from the grassroots’ dimension of the economic sanctions campaign to galvanize the engagement of young people of all races and ethnicities across the country.”
JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013
A3
THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
State never proved its case, legal analysts say BY DAVID OVALLE THE MIAMI HERALD/MCT
MIAMI – After five weeks of trial and 56 witnesses, few legal observers believed prosecutors came close to proving Sanford neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman committed second-degree murder when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin in February 2012. So for many legal analysts, it was no surprise that jurors rejected even a lesser “compromise” verdict of manslaughter, acquitting Zimmerman outright of all criminal charges and deciding he acted in a reasonable way to protect his own life. The acquittal was a stinging blow for prosecutors and their decision to file the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman, who was not initially arrested by Sanford police after claiming self-defense. And it was a resounding embrace of the defense’s strategy during closing arguments not just to establish that prosecutors hadn’t proven Zimmerman guilty, but also to show he was “absolutely” innocent.
Defense lawyers speak “The jury clearly believed that you have a right to defend yourself,” said Jude M. Faccidomo, the former president of Miami’s Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “Especially when cases are so gray, like this one was, self-defense really resonates because people can associate with being afraid.” And while some also have questioned the state attorney’s office acceptance of a mostly White jury, a more diverse panel would have returned the same verdict, lawyers who have watched the case believe. “After seeing the quality of the evidence presented by the state, the diversity of the jury really didn’t matter in the end,” said Larry Handfield, a prominent African-American Miami criminal defense lawyer. “But it would have helped the community in giving more credibility to the decision to acquit Zimmerman.”
Basic outline By now, the basic outline of the confrontation between the 29-year-old volunteer watch coordinator and the 17-year-old Miami Gardens student have become familiar through wallto-wall television coverage and thousands of news stories. Prosecutors said Zimmerman “profiled” Martin, who was returning from a nearby convenience store and was walking through the gated Retreat at Twin Lakes neighborhood where he was staying with his father. Zimmerman called a nonemergency police number to report Martin as “suspicious.” A violent struggle followed on rainslicked grass and a concrete walkway. During the confrontation, Zimmerman shot and killed Martin at point-blank range.
Reviewing the case A look at the evidence shows why the jury rejected the state’s case. For prosecutors intent on proving the more serious charge, proving the “ill-will,” “hatred” or “spite” needed to convict on second-degree murder hinged on painting Zimmerman as a frustrated, would-be cop fed up with intruders in his gated Sanford community. To do so, they focused on Zimmerman’s past — over defense objections — introducing evidence of his interest in law enforcement, including a ridealong with Sanford police, a class on criminal justice, an unsuccessful application to a Virginia police department. Prosecutors also played five calls to police that Zimmerman made in the several months before the shooting, in an attempt to show a pattern of “profiling.” They also introduced evidence about his membership at a mixed martial arts gym.
Cuss words highlighted Their most important evidence to prove “ill-will” was Zimmerman’s call to a Sanford police non-emergency dispatcher when he first spotted Martin, saying “these assholes always get away” and, according to prosecutors, muttering “fucking punks”
POOL PHOTO BY JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda, left, and defense attorney Mark O’Mara cross paths during the George Zimmerman trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford on July 2. FDLE Crime Lab Analyst Anthony Gorgone points to a jacket worn by George Zimmerman on the night Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin during the trial on July 3. POOL PHOTO BY JACOB LANGSTON/ ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
under his breath. “If there was ever a window into that man’s soul, it was that defendant’s words on that phone call,” prosecutor John Guy told the jury last Friday in a poignant closing argument that appeared to have at least one juror emotionally strained. Guy’s closing argument was typical of a state’s case that drew heavily on emotion and emphasized the youth of the victim, as well as one of the most important witnesses: Martin's friend, Rachel Jeantel, 18 at the time of the shooting. She was speaking to him by phone moments before he died and recounted her recollection that Martin told her someone was following him.
Stuck to her story Jeantel told jurors that Martin told her of a “creepy-ass cracker” watching him as he walked home from the convenience store, and of hearing the man angrily demand to know what Martin was doing in the neighborhood. Jeantel said she then heard a bump that she assumed was Martin’s cell phone headset hitting the ground, followed by Martin’s voice: “Get off! Get off!” Her testimony was not polished or articulate, and she sparred for hours with defense attorneys — at one point crying “what!” when told she had to return for a second day of testimony. But her story remained unchanged. “I thought she was a good witness. I thought the jury would be sympathetic to her because she was an (18)-year-old kid, she was inexperienced at testifying and that made her come across as credible,” said Miami defense lawyer Andrew Rier.
Filled with blunders Zimmerman’s prosecution was made tougher under Florida’s 2005 Stand Your Ground law, which eliminated a citizen’s “duty to retreat” before using lethal force in the face of a deadly threat — an instruction given to jurors on Friday. And the state’s case also was filled with blunders, legal experts say. Many of the witnesses called by the state seemed to benefit the
defense, including one neighbor, John Good, who claimed he saw Martin pin Zimmerman to the ground. Another witness, Sanford Police officer Tim Smith, told jurors that Zimmerman, just after the shooting, claimed he was yelling for help to no avail. Both pieces of testimony seemed to bolster the defense’s version of the encounter. Prosecutors also called the lead Sanford police investigators, using them to introduce each of Zimmerman’s videotaped statements and a walk-through of the crime scene Zimmerman did with police a day after Martin’s death.
More inconsistencies During one of the statements, lead Detective Chris Serino seemed skeptical when Zimmerman insisted he never “followed” Martin. While there were some inconsistencies between his accounts of what happened, they seemed fairly small, court observers said. And defense attorneys got Serino to agree during testimony that it’s normal for stories to vary slightly with each retelling. Legal observers noted that playing the videos in court eliminated the need for Zimmerman himself to take the stand — a tactic that may have helped the defense by allowing Zimmerman’s voice to be heard in court without risk of cross-examination. “I think it was a strategic error (for the state) to allow him to testify without getting cross-examined,” Faccidomo said. “I don’t think the inconsistencies carried as a great a weight with the jury as they thought it would.” Serino, on defense questioning, also suggested he believed Zimmerman’s account, a statement later stricken from the record by the judge — but nevertheless heard by jurors. “The state should have objected before he had a chance to answer,” said attorney Handfield. “But it’s too late. You can’t unring the bell. You can’t ask the jury to not consider something they already heard. They’re human.”
Who cried for help? Prosecutors also pinned their hopes on a chilling recording of a
911 call made by a neighbor near the fight scene. After a number of hearings away from the jury, Nelson ruled against prosecutors’ request to allow audio experts to testify that Martin was the one crying out for help on the recording before the fatal gunshot is heard. So prosecutors turned to Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, and Jahvaris Fulton, the dead teen’s older brother, to identify the voice on the recording as Martin. They served as powerful emotional witnesses. Sybrina Fulton, head held high, told jurors that she wished that her son hadn’t died. “My youngest son is Trayvon Benjamin Martin,” she articulated carefully when asked his name. “He’s in heaven.” And Jahvaris Fulton recounted for jurors the shock and grief of listening to the recording for the first time. But their testimony also seemed to spur the defense to call a wave of eight witnesses, from Zimmerman’s own mother to his best friend, to make the opposite claim, that the voice crying out for help on the tape was Zimmerman’s.
Muddied up the water The testimony also served a more important purpose: to humanize Zimmerman and show a circle of friends that included an African American neighbor. In the end, neither the state nor the defense dwelled at length on the recording in closing arguments. “A battle of family members, of whom you believe more, that’s a big prosecution loser,” said JeanMichel D’Escoubet, a former Miami-Dade prosecutor. “The evidence was so conflicted that the jury can’t make heads or tails of it. It just muddied up the water and created reasonable doubt.” The defense case suffered setbacks, too, especially when Nelson on Wednesday refused to allow into evidence text messages from Martin’s phone which suggested the teen was a brawler at home in Miami Gardens. Nor did the judge allow the jury to consider as evidence a high-tech computer animation showing a defense version of how the deadly fight between Zimmerman and Martin unfolded.
But in all, lawyers say, the defense presented a mostly confident, methodical case that sought to pick apart the lack of evidence in the state’s case.
Toxicology report Lawyers Mark O’Mara and Don West even shunned the chance to tarnish Martin though Nelson had allowed the defense to introduce the slain teen’s toxicology report showing he had smoked marijuana. “The state would have argued that marijuana doesn’t make someone hostile, and the defense probably didn’t want to look like they were disparaging Trayvon Martin,” Priovolos said. Their approach was evident at closing arguments. While prosecutor Bernardo de la Rionda was mocking and at times shrill, O’Mara was calm and conversational, opening with a long, professorial discussion on the history of trial law, then dissecting the state’s case. Zimmerman’s neighborhood watch history? “Tell me one witness who said George Zimmerman patrolled that neighborhood . . . not one,” he told jurors.
Role reversal The sound of the wind on Zimmerman’s call to police, suggesting he was chasing Martin? The weather report shows “the wind was up,” O’Mara said. The belief Zimmerman was the aggressor? “One piece of evidence that my client attacked Trayvon Martin?” O’Mara asked jurors. “Landed one blow even?” Miami defense attorney David O. Markus said that the closings arguments offered something of a role reversal for prosecutors and the defense. “The initial summation by the prosecution was what you see many times from defense lawyers — passionate and trying to poke holes or raise doubts in Zimmerman’s version of events,” he said. “On the other hand, the defense accepted the burden of proof and methodically and dispassionately went through the evidence and the elements, much like a prosecutor would normally proceed.” The acquittal vindicated O’Mara’s strategy. He not only maintained that the state hadn’t proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, but riskily admitted he wanted to take on the “burden” of proving his client’s “absolute innocence.” He even wished, half-playfully, that the verdict form has a check box for “completely innocent.” Under the law, the defense has no burden to prove anything. Only prosecutors must prove a case, beyond a reasonable doubt. “I really like the strategy,” Markus said. “Many times, cases come down to whether you can show the jury that you really believe in your client. What better way to do that than to tell the jury that you aren’t relying on burdens of proof but instead that you believe he is innocent?”
A4
THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013
VISUAL VIEWPOINTS
STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
JOHN COLE, THE SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE
BOB ENGLEHART, THE HARTFORD COURANT
RJ MATSON
TAYLOR JONES, EL NUEVO DIA, PUERTO RICO
RANDALL ENOS, CAGLE CARTOONS
BILL DAY, CAGLE CARTOONS
JEFF PARKER, FLORIDA TODAY AND THE FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS
MIKE KEEFE, CAGLE CARTOONS
Consensus unlikely on ‘Stand Your Ground’ after verdict George Zimmerman is not guilty. Trayvon Martin is dead. Now Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law is back on trial in the court of public opinion. Count on a hung jury. There’s just too much raw, partisan emotion surrounding too many intractable issues (guns, crime, race) for any major consensus. And if the Florida Legislature actually reviews any legislation that makes the case to change the self-defense law, an acquittal is likely.
GOP in control Republicans control the lawmaking body that passed the law, which was drafted by the National Rifle Association. They’re not just the defense in this case. They’re the judge and jury in Tallahassee. And polls have shown Florida voters approve of Stand Your Ground, which had a role in the Zimmerman case from start to finish. Less than a half hour after the jury’s verdict Saturday night, the Florida Senate’s Democratic leader, Chris Smith, called for a reexamination of all self-defense laws. “The fact that a child is dead and an armed man can now walk free without so much as a backward glance sends the wrong message to Florida and its citizens,” Smith said in a written statement. Smith, who convened a task force last year to review Stand Your Ground, said Florida’s self-defense laws are too “fuzzily defined and broadly drawn” to make clear who can use deadly force and when. “If someone makes the claim of self defense and the only other witness to the confrontation is dead,” Smith said, “there needs to be a higher standard for proving that the use of deadly force was justified.”
MARC CAPUTO GUEST COMMENTARY
that passed in 2005, last year said he wanted to hold off on considering changes until the trial was over. And now he’s more certain than ever that Stand Your Ground is a good law. The murder and violentcrime rates have been falling for years in Florida, which has more than 1.1 million concealed-weapon permit holders. (But the raw numbers of murders have held about the same, 1,006 last year.) “People want to use this case for their political platform,” Baxley said. “But really, the prosecution didn’t prove its case. It wasn’t Stand Your Ground. The case came down to basic self defense: me or thee.”
In the instructions
However, Stand Your Ground language, which specifically removed a citizen’s “duty to retreat” in most public confrontations, appeared in the Zimmerman jury’s instructions, which said: “If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” Smith’s predecessor, Dan Gelber, was a leading critic of Stand Your Ground in 2005 and noted Sunday on his blog that the Zimmerman jurors would have had far different instructions under the old law, which A good law? said: “The defendant cannot But state Sen. Dennis Baxley, a Republican who justify the use of force likely sponsored the legislation to cause death or great bodi-
ly harm unless he used every reasonable means within his power and consistent with his own safety to avoid the danger before resorting to that force. … The fact that the defendant was wrongfully attacked cannot justify his use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm if by retreating he could have avoided the need to use that force. “ The law certainly played a key role early on in the case. Police didn’t arrest and prosecutors didn’t initially charge Zimmerman as a result of the law, which can give a killer immunity to prosecution. But it’s not a carte blanche to pick fights and then shoot, stab or bludgeon an opponent. Just after the Stand Your Ground section of Florida Statute 776.013, is 776.041, “Use of force by aggressor,” which generally forbids self-defense claims if a person “initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself.” Was Zimmerman an aggressor? Only one person knows: Zimmerman. The other witness, the unarmed teenager, was shot dead.
Got 20 years Compare that case to Marissa Alexander’s. She fired a warning shot at her estranged husband in a dispute. He testified against her. That helped secure her 20-year prison sentence in May 2012. Just a month earlier, the same prosecutor in Alexander’s case, Angela Corey, brought charges against Zimmerman, who opted not to seek immunity from prosecution under Stand Your Ground. But hundreds more have.
‘Shot a nigger’ In the Panhandle town of Port St. Joe, a man named Walt Butler is seeking immunity from prosecution for shooting and killing Everett Gant, a Black man who confronted the White suspect at his home for allegedly using racial slurs to describe a child at their apart-
ment complex. Butler shot Gant between the eyes with a .22 caliber rifle, called 9-1-1 and then finished making his dinner, according to The Star, which reports that a deputy said he found Butler eating supper and acting “inconvenienced” with his arrest because he “had only shot a nigger.” Cases like this are sure to fuel the toxic racial politics that now imbue Stand Your Ground due to the Zimmerman case. But that’s partly because of the racial disparities that already exist in the justice system as a whole. In Florida, 48 percent of prison inmates are Black, though African-Americans account for less than 17 percent of the total population.
porting for Stand Your Ground, so the Tampa Bay Times last year conducted the first-ever statewide analysis of the law in 200 known cases. “People who killed a Black person walked free 73 percent of the time, while those who killed a White person went free 59 percent of the time,” the paper reported. But a closer look at the 200 cases strips away much of the appearance of racism. The Black victims were more likely to be armed and committing crimes. Also, four out of five Blacks who killed a White person went free, while five out of six Whites who killed a Black person went free, the newspaper reported.
Few statistics
Split politically
Blacks are more likely to commit crimes against each other than against Whites, but they’re probably more likely to be racially profiled – although hard profiling data is lacking because Black legislators years ago stopped trying to require the state to compile statistics. Lawmakers have also resisted requiring better re-
Beyond race, the Zimmerman case reflected a partisan divide as well. Republicans, largely White, generally want more gun rights and seemed to side more with Zimmerman. Democrats, an increasingly minority-heavy party, favor more gun control and expressed far less sympathy for Martin’s shooter.
That’s a recipe for inaction and strife. In the pointscoring games of politics, one sign of winning is never having to say your law was a little sorry.
Likely to stand Many Stand Your Ground cases show how courts and cops have struggled to interpret it. The law has likely spared some innocent people from prosecution, but in other higher profile cases, apparent criminals involved in public shootouts from Miami to Tallahassee have gone free. “I don’t understand some of these cases. These mystify me,” Baxley said. Is he interested in clarifying the law to provide judges more guidance? “Anytime we’re in session, someone can file legislation,” he said. “We’ll have to examine their merit.” In non-legislative parlance, here’s what that means: Case closed. At least for now.
Marc Caputo covers state politics for the Miami Herald, in partnership with the Tampa Bay Times. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.
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JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013
THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
Southern justice prevails again The rights of young Black men to walk the streets, to live in a safe environment and exercise the privileges of American citizenry, have been repealed. It’s not only a crime to drive while Black; it has now become a crime to be Black. If there was any hope of ridding the Black community of guns and other weapons, kiss that premise goodbye. Young Black men must be prepared to meet and defeat the George Zimmermans of the world.
He’ll pay Zimmerman will pay for his crime for the rest of his life. He can never be without his gun; he can never be comfortable in public; he will forever have to look over his shoulder in defense of his millions of enemies. He probably would have been better off in prison. America’s creed, “freedom and justice for all,” excludes people of color. People of color were not represented on the Zimmerman jury. No one on that jury could have or would have identified with Trayvon Martin; they all identified with Zimmerman. The world knows that Zimmerman initiated the scuffle between himself and Trayvon Martin except the “Seminole Six.” The entire court was White: the prosecutors, the defense, the jurors, and the judge. This is Southern justice at its best.
No recognized rights In March 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all Blacks – slaves as well as free – were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in
WALTER SMITH NNPA COMMENTARY
all of the country's territories. The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom. Taney – a staunch supporter of slavery – wrote in the court's majority opinion that because Scott was Black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that Blacks "had no rights which the White man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it.” Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that includes the phrase "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration." In many respects, this social attitude still exists today. We are looked upon by the Caucasian world as inferior, uneducated, and undeserving.
ton is an educated graduate of Florida A&M University and holds a responsible government job. Her older son Jahvaris is attending college at Florida International University, majoring in information technology. She lives in a modest home in a good neighborhood and is a good parent. Yet this is not apparent to the American society because she is Black and expected to be ignorant. Both Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton invested their time and love into their son. He was traveling with his dad the night he was murdered. So despite all the stereotypes, Black people do get married and divorced and have children from marriages. They can create homes with a nuclear family and with a caring father. They can live regular middle-class lives that are directed by study, success, and stability.
The truth
Zimmerman profiled Trayvon as an intruder and possible robber and decided he had to take some action against him. He called the Sanford Police Department, made sure they were sending help, chased down Trayvon Martin, confronted and tried to detain him, which initiated a struggle that resulted in Zimmerman pulling a gun and shooting Trayvon through the heart. He proceeded to concoct a story – possibly with help from the Sanford police – to support his evil deed. Because Trayvon was a Black kid, the Sanford Police Department bought Zimmerman’s story, recorded it, and sent Trayvon to the morgue in a body bag as a “John Doe.” George Zimmerman went home without the threat of ever Good people being arrested. Demonstrations Trayvon’s mother Sybrina Ful- and protests from media and civ-
A5
VISUAL VIEWPOINT
BILL DAY, CAGLE CARTOONS
il rights activists prompted the state of Florida to make an arrest and charge Zimmerman with second-degree murder. The National Rifle Association, with minimal knowledge of the case, sprang into action and raised and contributed thousands of dollars for the George Zimmerman defense fund. Several African-American commentators were at odds with each other about the racist aspect of this case. Their support for Zimmerman’s defense was disgusting. They spoke as if they never heard of the Emmit Till case or of the Scottsboro Boys nor the Wilmington 10, nor police brutality nor “stop and frisk,” nor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. nor Medgar Evers, nor Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman, nor the Klu Klux Klan, nor George Wallace.
System doesn’t work Plaxico Burris got two years for shooting himself. Michael Vick went to prison for killing dogs. Marissa Alexander got 20 years for firing a warning shot. George Zimmerman murders an innocent child and goes free. The case began with racism and ended the same way. Southern justice has spoken. The American criminal justice system does not work for people of color; it works to control them
and to protect its White citizens from them. For proof positive, check the prison population. African-Americans represent 13 percent of the US population and 41 percent of the prison population. We can cure this ill. Our young adults should set their sights on the criminal justice system. Those who can afford college should become lawyers and those who cannot afford college should pursue a career of law enforcement. We should establish a scholarship fund in the name of Trayvon Benjamin Martin to support this effort. We lose our sons through Blackon-Black crime and police and vigilante shootings. That number will increase with the Zimmerman verdict that allows one to track, confront, initiate a fight, and shoot to kill an unarmed man in the name of “self-defense.” Of course, all Black men are armed with ‘dangerous weapons’ – their fists and the ground they walk on. Our sons are our future. We must take all steps necessary to ensure that tragedies like Trayvon Benjamin Martin’s death disappear from this society.
Walter Smith is publisher of the New York Beacon newspaper in New York City. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.
Trayvon Martin affair is about parenting, not race I am in no way minimizing the very real issues that have existed and exist today between the Black community and some police. Nor am I minimizing the fact our criminal justice system often treats Black men and women unfairly. Those issues are very real, but have nothing to do with the facts of the Trayvon Martin case. It sickens me that President Obama, with all of the real global issues he has to deal with, had to chime in to fan the flames of racism. Attorney General Eric "Fast and Furious" Holder also chimed in with threats of Department of Justice involvement regarding a violation by George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin's civil rights. Worst of all were Black pastors who actually went into their pulpits on Sunday with a "hoodie" to protest the verdict. Of all people in our society who should rise above Satan’s sick game of division, it should be men called by God to lead the people in ways of righteousness, not add to the hatred and division that already exists.
Nothing to say There is never a mention of the hundreds of young Black men being killed in the streets of our nation's cities every single day. Why are several thousand Black babies aborted each day, adding to a
culture of violence and death our children grow up in that says human life is not precious or has no value? No, that would require a real conversation and a real debate about why that is happening and how to stop it. It is much easier to create a "made-for-TV" race controversy even if the facts have shown from day one – facts even the FBI's investigation showed never existed. What nobody was talking about after the “Not Guilty” verdict was delivered was the real issue in this case...PARENTING! I pray for and have sympathy for the parents of Trayvon Martin in losing their child. However, I submit to you that if they had been real parents prior to his death, this sad tragedy most likely would have been avoided.
goods, and possession of marijuana. These were all crimes that could have been prosecuted, but were reclassified as school violations. The autopsy showed he had marijuana in his system at the time of the incident. A forensic look at his phone showed that in the three months prior to the tragic incident, Martin had pictures of pot and guns as well as numerous text messages about fighting. It was apparent from his cell phone he was infatuated with smoking pot, guns, and fighting, all within the months leading up to that fateful night in Sanford. Any responsible parent would realize that if their 16 year-old son was suspended from school five times in a year, had done any research into the things he had gravitated to, they would have stepped, in since something is seriously wrong. Also, how does a responsible parent allow a 16 year-old to get a "gold grill" put into his mouth? Where did the money come for such an expensive item since Trayvon never worked?
Jury didn’t hear this
Here’s what you say
REV. BILL KELLER GUEST COMMENTARY
For all of those Black hosts and The only reason Trayvon was in Sanford was because he was commentators lamenting what to serving his fifth suspension from tell their children, that is simple. “Love the Lord your God with school in a year for infractions like fighting, possession of stolen all your heart. Love others. Don't
Looking beyond George Zimmerman Rev. Al Sharpton and others deserve props for rallying people and insisting that George Zimmerman be brought to trial. Anytime a gun goes off, I think somebody has to go to trial, simply to ensure that their actions be accounted for. Zimmerman was found not guilty, but least he has been made somewhat accountable for his actions. Zimmerman isn’t the only one slaughtering young Black men, though. Too many of our young brothers are slaughtering each other.
DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM
think that Omar Sykes’ parents find that any consolation. Seventy-four people were shot, and a dozen killed in gun violence in Chicago during the July 4 weekend. Two of them were young boys, aged 5 and 7. Much of this is gang violence, and too many of the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This scourge of gun violence is a Howard student killed In Washington, D.C., rising se- plague on our nation, but espenior Omar Adam Sykes was killed cially on the African-American on Independence Day. He was community. a victim of an attempted armed robbery. The Howard University Little action police say that robberies on camSince the massacre of 20 chilpus are on the decline, but I don’t dren and six adults in Newtown,
out the parental nurturing and supervision, they have gravitated to the gangs and a life on the streets. fantasize about and try to emu- Death or prison is the natural end late the hip-hop culture that is for such a life. about illicit sex, drugs, violence and death!” Problem for all Explain to your children why This is not just a "Black" probthose Black ‘entertainers’ who lem. The lack of parenting and make millions glorifying a culture of drugs, violence and death are parental nurturing and influence not of God, but of Satan himself. is rampant in all neighborhoods They are not to be admired, but today. It is simply the byproduct shunned. of a culture that has turned marThe breakdown of marriage riage into little more than a legal and the family is the No.1 issue date or abandoned it altogether, in our culture, since it is the foundation of our culture. Nearly 50 and the better percentage of sevpercent of Black babies are born eral generations who have never out of wedlock. The poverty rate been to church. amongst Blacks is at an all-time Unless we get back to bringing high and has only gotten worse young men and women to faith in with our first Black president. Jesus, unless we get their parents saved and they understand their Blame Black churches Godly role in the life of their chilThere are fundamental and dren, unless we create a culture foundational problems in the mi- where life is precious and people nority communities that are leading to nearly half of Black young have worth, nothing will change. The only hope and answer for men ending up in prison, and the blame is on the churches in those each person and this nation, is to turn back to God and His Truth communities. The churches used to be the so- and bring the lost and hurting the cial and spiritual heart of those real hope that is only found in a communities. Sadly, that is no relationship with Jesus Christ. longer the case. The majority of the last two generations of young Rev. Bill Keller of St. PetersBlacks have abandoned the burg is the founder of Livechurch. It has never been part of prayer.com. Click on this story their life. They see the church as nothing at www.flcourier.com to write more than another hustle. With- your own response.
about 2 million guns, have been sold. While many do not own guns, those who do keep acquiring them – the average gun owner had nearly seven guns in 2004, up from four guns 10 years earlier. More than 30 people are victims of gun violence each day. A third of them are under 20; half are between 18 and 35. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of African-Americans in that age group. What if George Zimmerman had not had a gun? If he did what he was told to do, police officers may have come and questioned Trayvon as he proceeded to the house of his daddy’s friend. Or perhaps there may have been a fistfight. There surely would not have been a deadly bullet, and while Zimmerman was the slayer, our gun laws are complicit in Trayvon Martin’s execution.
Conn., there has been a marked concern about gun violence. Those politicians who have been purchased by the National Rifle Association lament gun violence but are unwilling to do anything about it. So the violence continues. There are heartbreaking stories of those who are massacred. Young men and women at the cusp of adulthood who happened to be “hanging out” with friends on the wrong corner. Fathers who agitated an enraged driver. Children who “got in the way” of a random bullet. The NRA says that guns don’t kill; people do. But people without guns can perhaps wreak havoc without creating a fatality. While the population of the United States exceeds 300 million, there are about 280 million How many? How many young people have guns in civilian hands. Every year, 4.5 million firearms, including been victims of unintended vio-
lence, of drive by violence; people just minding their business and losing their lives for minding their business? How many people with axes to grind would whoop and holler instead of carrying guns to workplaces, schools, and other places? How many crazy legislatures are relaxing gun laws to allow people to carry guns in bars and near schools? How many retailers, such as Starbucks, refuse to ban guns in their establishments in states where openly carrying guns is legal? As we mourn for Trayvon Martin, let us also recognize the scourge of gun violence. If we restricted gun ownership, this tragedy, and thousands of others, may not have happened.
Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and writer. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.
TOj A6
THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013 Shelly Zimmerman listens in during jury selection in Seminole circuit court on the fourth day of her husband, George Zimmerman’s trial, in Sanford, on June 13. A female jury, including five White women, found her husband not guilty in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.
All-female jury extremely uncommon
JACOB LANGSTON/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Zimmerman jurors may have defied stereotypes with verdict BY AMY PAVUK AND STEPHEN HUDAK ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
ORLANDO – When an allfemale jury was selected in George Zimmerman’s seconddegree murder trial, many court observers figured the panel’s unique composition posed an extra hurdle for the defense to overcome. Female jurors can be emotional, sympathetic to victims and tough on accused gunmen — at least those are the stereotypes many court observers describe. The Zimmerman defense argument — that he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old in February 2012 — would be “a tougher sell” to women, said veteran Orlando defense attorney Michael Snure.
Misjudged by experts “As a general rule, women don’t grow up getting into fistfights as kids or getting suspended from school for punching Johnny on the playground.” said Snure, who has never tried a case before an exclusively female jury in his three-decade career. “I thought it was bad news for the defense.” But as it turned out, the experts misjudged the panel, which ultimately found Zimmerman not guilty of Martin’s death. “It was the best jury for the defense. They were pensive, careful and thoughtful,’’ Snure said. All-women juries are extremely uncommon. And a jury made up entirely of women in a racially charged, nationally watched second-degree murder trial is unheard of.
Permitted in 1949 Even Circuit Judge Debra Nelson had to catch herself late last Saturday from referring to the Zimmerman jurors as women
POOL PHOTO BY GARY W. GREEN/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Trayvon Martin’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, left, sit in court on June 14. They were at the Seminole County courthouse during jury selection and throughout the trial. and men. As she turned to poll the jurors to verify their verdict, Nelson said, “Ladies and gentleman ... I mean ladies, I’m sorry.” Women were not even permitted to serve as jurors in Florida until 1949. That’s when the state Legislature, pushed hard by the League of Women Voters, gave women a choice: They could opt in to jury service by registering with their clerk of courts, said University of Iowa history professor Linda K. Kerber. Jury consultant Susan Constantine of Maitland, who watched the selection process and other proceedings in the Zimmerman trial, said she was “very surprised” the defense
Four jurors from trial: B-37 does not speak for us BY SUSAN JACOBSON ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Four of the jurors in the George Zimmerman trial issued a statement late Tuesday saying that juror B-37, the first to speak out in the media, does not speak for them. “We, the undersigned jurors, understand there is a great deal of interest in this case. But we ask you to remember that we are not public officials and we did not invite this type of attention into our lives. We also wish to point out that the opinions of Juror B-37, expressed on the Anderson Cooper show were her own, and not in any way representative of the jurors listed below,” the four jurors wrote. The statement was released about an hour after B-37 gave the second part of a two-part interview to CNN’s Anderson Cooper explaining how the jury reached a verdict in the murder case and sharing her thoughts on the case. The first segment aired Monday.
No comment from minority The four jurors also appealed for privacy. “Serving on this jury has been a highly emotional and physically draining experience for each of us. The death of a teenager weighed heavily on our hearts but in the end we did what the law required us to do,” they wrote in the statement, released by a court spokeswoman. The sixth juror, whose jury number did not appear in the list of those who signed the document, was the only minority on the panel. She is described as Black or Hispanic and married with children. She lived in Chicago when the shooting happened. Zimmerman, 29, shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death on Feb. 26, 2012 in Zimmerman’s gated community in Sanford. The jury on Saturday found him not guilty of second-degree murder.
Orlando Sentinel staff writer Jeff Weiner contributed to this report.
would want a panel of women. “As a jury consultant, that’s not who I had in mind,” she said.
From 20s to 60s Constantine said she would have chosen jurors who were more technical and were in professions such as engineering or accounting. The Zimmerman jury’s six women — five of them White — ranged in age from 20s to 60s. Five of them have children, and their professions ranged from working in a chiropractor’s office, to a “safety officer,” to one who previously worked in her husband’s construction company. Jenny Carroll, a former defense attorney and professor
at Seton Hall University Law School in Newark, N.J. said it would be wrong to assume every female juror could be stereotyped.
More sympathetic? One theory might be that women tend to be sympathetic jurors. But that could also mean they would be more sympathetic to self-defense claims, she said. Some experts speculate women can be harder on suspects who use guns, Carroll said, but she also noted some women are pro-gun. One of the jurors in Zimmerman’s case, “B-37,” used to have a concealed-weapons permit but let it lapse. Her husband, a lawyer, also has a per-
Zimmerman trial shows race still courses through American life BY DAVID LIGHTMAN MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU/MCT
WASHINGTON — The “true genius of America,” Barack Obama said the night America elected its first Black president in 2008, is “that American can change.” The uproar over the George Zimmerman verdict is a vivid, somber reminder of how that change comes slowly, even haltingly at times, and how much race still courses through American politics. While the days of legal segregation and institutional discrimination are now a generations-old memory, major policy disputes roiling Washington continue to have racial subtexts. The immigration fight is in one sense a fight for the loyalty of the growing, influential Latino voting bloc.
Verdict could harden attitudes The battle over how or whether to strengthen the recently diluted Voting Rights Act stirs fears that Blacks in the South will lose long-cherished rights. Other clashes over the size, scope and cost of government continue to have racial undercurrents. The Zimmerman verdict has the potential to harden racial attitudes that have been developing for generations. History shows that once certain groups of voters learn to trust a political party, they don’t switch allegiances. They remember perceptions of who worked against their interest, perhaps in opposing civil rights laws or denying funding to programs for lower-income people.
History on voting Black voters were intensely loyal to the Republican Party for roughly 70 years, remembering Abraham Lincoln’s abolishing slavery and the party stalwarts who continued that legacy. Democrats were the party of the segregated South. The perception began to change during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, as his New Deal helped ease the Depression’s pain and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt became a champion of civil rights. When her husband ran for re-election in 1936, he got an estimated 71 percent of the Black vote. Obama, the nation’s first Black president, got 93 percent of the Black vote in 2012. The Latino community is still emerging as a political force. Though it has been trending more Democratic in recent years, Republicans still see opportunities. Polls suggest Latino voters will back Republicans who demonstrate sensitivity to immigration issues.
Latinos watching closely Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has been a leader in the bipartisan effort to create a path to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has endured withering conservative criticism for his stance and yet remains a prominent voice in his party and a potentially formidable 2016 presidential contender. “Clearly there’s a subtext to this whole fight over immigration. Both parties have blatant political motives on this issue,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll and author of “Minority Party,”
mit. On Monday, a book agent confirmed that “B-37” plans to write a book about the high-profile trial. Court experts such as Kerber discount views that women jurors tend to be more emotional in their decision making. “Those opinions are folklore,” she said, adding that similar reasoning was used for decades to prevent and discourage women from participating as jurors. Stereotypes or not, jurors are told to leave emotions out of their decision making. “These jurors are asked by the judge and asked by the attorneys in their closings to set aside any of those biases and sympathies and think about the facts of the case,” Carroll said.
a book about race in politics. The Latino community is watching closely. An America’s Voice/Latino Decisions poll of Hispanic voters last month found 53 percent named immigration as the nation’s most important issue. Nearly two-thirds said they knew an undocumented immigrant. They also showed a willingness to vote for either party, as 48 percent said they had voted for a Republican in the past. As the undocumented immigrants become legal voters, most could very well side with either party, argued Adrian Pantoja, senior analyst at Latino Decisions, which studies Hispanic voting trends.
Little GOP comment “Undocumented immigrants are still learning the positions and orientations of the political parties,” he said. But the more the Democratic Party promotes itself as the party of racial sensitivity, the more it hamstrings Republicans’ efforts to diversify. Obama on July 14 issued a somber statement asking “every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son.” Sixteen months ago, Obama was more blunt. “When I think about this boy I think about my own kids,” he lamented. Republicans this week have said little. Neither House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, nor Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has spoken publicly about the case. Republican Party officials routinely deny any racial undercurrent to their thinking on immigration, voting rights or for that matter any other issue. The party earlier this year launched an aggressive effort to woo minority voters through grassroots organizing and other strategies.
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THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
In Florida, hope must prevail
Allen Chapel AME Pastor Valerie Houston, in the center, is surrounded by church members and others from the community at her Sanford church. They chose to pray instead of protest as the George Zimmerman trial was going on.
Reporter reflects on covering trial, witnessing history
L
ike millions around the world, I’m still numb after learning a jury of six women – five Whites, one Hispanic - found George Zimmerman “not guilty” of murdering Trayvon Martin. The only saving grace is while I was at the Seminole County Courthouse, I saw a melting pot of young protesters – many White – who were also upset with the verdict. This said to me our next generation of lawmakers and leaders will change a system of laws that still make it hard for Blacks and others to achieve justice when they are wronged, and are the victims of others who manipulate the system to kill innocent people.
A unique view As a reporter, I had the unique vantage point of not only watching the Zimmerman trial on TV, but of covering the story in Sanford. I met and spoke with many of the major players and with ordinary citizens. I talked to a diverse group of people – the Rev. Al Sharpton; NAACP President Ben Jealous; local Sanford pastor Valarie Houston of Allen Chapel AME Church; Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte; and the local NAACP branch president, Turner Clayton. I interviewed Attorneys Darryl Parks and Ben Crump, who represented Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s parents. I met the parents in January. I was in Sanford on March 31, 2012 when 30,000 people marched, demanding that Zimmerman be arrested.
PHOTOS BY DUANE FERNANDEZ SR./HARDNOTTS PHOTOGRAPHY
A melting pot of protesters were on verdict watch at the Seminole County courthouse on July 13, a day after jurors received their instructions. Far left: Protesters were in an area fenced off from the courthouse, hours before the verdict was read. Left: Sanford resident Don Brown decided to wait for the verdict at the Historic Goldsboro Community Center in Sanford, where a memorial in Trayvon Martin has been constructed.
Residents expected acquittal Many marchers expected a jury to convict Zimmerman for profiling, stalking and eventually murdering an innocent teenager because he was “walking while Black.” Sanford residents were not as optimistic. Most believed Zimmerman would be found not guilty. The faith of at least one pastor, Houston of Allen Chapel AME Church, must be shaken; she was one of the few who I spoke with last week who refused to believe that Zimmerman wouldn’t be found guilty.
Did they know? Were these Black residents, who believed the jury would find Zimmerman not guilty, seeing the trial through the eyes of the many Whites who have have oppressed them in Sanford over decades? In retrospect, looking at all what has transpired since Trayvon Martin was killed February 26, 2012, did we all have blinders on? Was there a conspiracy of the “good old boy network?” (Good old boys wear skirts, too.) Here’s a “conspiracy” timeline. Sanford police refused to arrest Zimmerman. Prosecutors initially refused to press charges. Florida Gov. Rick Scott appoints special prosecutor Angela Corey. She overcharges Zimmerman with second-degree murder. Five White women and one Hispanic woman are chosen for the jury – in a city that is 30 per-
JAMES HARPER FLORIDA COURIER
cent Black. The judge refuses to let race be a factor during the trial. Prosecutors believe Zimmerman’s version of the story until they present their closing argument. Prosecutors straddle a dummy – siding with the defense that Trayvon was on top when Zimmerman shot him. Reasonable doubt creeps in.
Trial botched The prosecutors botched this trial from the beginning. Instead of accepting Zimmerman’s version as gospel, they should have repeated over and over that Trayvon had a right to defend himself. Trayvon was afraid of a “creepy ass cracker” following him. Trayvon had the right to use “any means necessary” to defend himself from Zimmerman – the true thug, the initial aggressor. IT WAS RAINING. Trayvon put a hoodie over his head to protect himself from the elements. The kid was coming from the store. He was scared. He ran. Still this “creep” followed him be-
cause he saw a Black boy walking through a gated community with a hoodie. Would the White women on the jury have seen this as racial profiling if the judge had allowed it in as part of the discussion? Probably not. They never walked in the shoes of a 17-yearold Black child. But I have. I was 17 once.
I know the feeling I can remember back in Port Orange (a mostly White suburb of Daytona Beach) where I attended Spruce Creek High School from 1977 to 1980. Public schools in Florida had only recently become racially desegregated. Many “creepy” White folks followed me with their eyes when I went to stores and when I visited my White friends in all-White neighborhoods. I could cite numerous examples where I was followed because I was Black.
I accept the verdict I’ve come to grips with why the jury found Zimmerman not guilty. And to quote a great American, “I still have a dream.” But when will Black boys and girls be judged “by the content of their character and not the color of their skin”? There will unfortunately be
more Trayvon Martins. Some believe this verdict has given White men a license to kill Blacks boys and men, at least in the state of Florida. Will the outcome be different with the next high-profile case with similar circumstances? We will soon find out.
Another case coming The same prosecutors will be involved in a case involving a 45-year old White man and a 17-year old Black child who was killed at a Jacksonville gas station allegedly for his refusal to turn off loud music blaring from the teen’s car. State Attorney Angela Corey – whose office was appointed to prosecute Zimmerman – said she will personally prosecute Michael Dunn, who has invoked “standing his ground” as a defense when he shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis on November 26, 2012 – nine months after Trayvon was shot. Zimmerman prosecutor John Guy will be assisting her. Will the end result be the same? Considering what happened in Sanford last week, my body shudders at the thought.
Wide awake The Zimmerman trial has been a wakeup call for all of us here.
Like many other Black males living in Florida, should I now be even more worried about “walking while Black” – if there is a system in place that allows us to be killed even when we’ve done nothing criminally wrong?
What we must do We must register to vote so we can serve on juries. We must fight to restore more than 100,000 ex-felons’ civil rights so that they can vote and serve on juries. However, most importantly, we must vote to put people in office who will change the laws on the books that are still weighed heavily against us. Trayvon’s parents are hoping and praying that justice for their son will be found at the federal level. Will the Department of Justice file charges against Zimmerman for killing Trayvon? To me, this is a no brainer. But I also thought Zimmerman would be found guilty. As Jesse Jackson says, “Keep hope alive.” Right now, that is the least we can do.
James Harper is senior writer for the Daytona Times and a contributor to the Florida Courier. Contact him at harperjames59@yahoo.com. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.
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Zimmerman ‘guilty of not using good judgment’ Juror says race played no role in death of Black teen BY KATHLEEN MCGRORY THE MIAMI HERALD/MCT
MIAMI – The six-member jury that acquitted George Zimmerman did not believe race played a role in the shooting death of Travyon Martin, the first juror to speak publicly about the trial said Monday night. The juror, identified only as Juror B37, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she and the other jurors believed the screaming voice captured on a 911 recording belonged to Zimmerman, and lent little credibility to a key witness who spoke to Martin on the phone before he died. They also put limited faith in the testimony provided by Martin’s parents. “They said anything a mother and father would say,” said the juror, who said she wanted to keep her identity secret and was almost invisible in deep shadow.
Juror: He told the truth Juror B37 said she believed Martin was the aggressor — and added she had “no doubt” that Zimmerman feared for his life during the confrontation in a Sanford housing complex. “I think his heart was in the right place,” she said of Zimmerman. “It just went terribly wrong.” “Do you think he’s guilty of something?” Cooper pressed. “I think he’s guilty of not using good judgment,” she responded. Zimmerman, the juror said, was “overeager to help people.” She added that she believed he was “was pretty consistent and told the truth” to investigators.
Initially divided Although Juror B37 said she was sympathetic to Zimmerman throughout the trial, she said the jury was initially divided. Three members of the all-female jury wanted to find Zimmerman not guilty, two believed a manslaughter verdict was appropriate, and one supported a finding of second-degree murder. All six members found the law to be “very confusing,” she said. But after reading the defini-
tions of second-degree murder and manslaughter “over and over,” the jurors reached consensus. “He had a right to defend himself,” Juror B37 said of Zimmerman. “If he felt threatened, that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right.”
Jurors cried Before ending her interview with Cooper, Juror B37 broke down in tears. “I want people to know that we put everything into everything to get this verdict,” she said. “We didn’t just go in there and say, we’re going to do guilty/ not guilty. We thought about it for hours and cried over it afterwards. I don’t think any of us could ever do anything like that ever again.” What is known about Juror B37 came from her comments as she was being interviewed by both sides before the trial began, that she is middle-aged, has two grown children, once had a license to carry a concealed weapon and worked for a chiropractor for 16 years. The judge in the case has said the clerk’s office will not make public the names of the jurors for a matter of months, but that doesn’t ban jurors from speaking out.
Will write book Despite keeping her identity secret, Juror B37 has already secured an agent to peddle an asyet unwritten book. The woman’s literary agent, Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management in Washington state, released a statement Monday saying Juror B37 had contacted her after being approached by multiple media outlets for appearances. Juror B37’s comments on CNN stood in sharp contrast to interviews with civil rights leaders, who on Monday intensified their calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to file federal civil rights violation charges against Zimmerman.
Nationwide demonstrations The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, criticized Florida prosecutors for not being aggressive enough,
POOL/JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Seminole circuit clerk of the court reads the not guilty verdict in the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center in Sanford on July 13. and urged the federal government to determine whether Martin’s civil rights were violated. “There is no double jeopardy here because they specifically said this was not about race,” Sharpton told NBC’s “Today” show. “It opens the door for the federal government to investigate what (Zimmerman) meant when he said, ‘They always get away.’ ” To turn up the pressure, Sharpton promised demonstrations in 100 different cities on Saturday, each “led by ministers pressing the federal government to protect our rights.”
Holder responds Responding to Sharpton and other leaders, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday he shared some concerns about the case — and pledged to continue an ongoing Justice Department investigation into possible violations of civil rights laws. Holder called the shooting “tragic” and “unnecessary.” “We are committed to standing with the people of Sanford, with the individuals and families affected by this incident, and with our state and local partners in order to alleviate tension, address community concerns, and promote healing,” Holder said at the anniversary celebration of the predominantly African-
American Delta Sigma Theta sorority in Washington. “We are determined to meet division and confusion with understanding and compassion — and also with truth.” So far, however, the FBI has found no evidence that racial bias was a motivating factor in the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting. Agents investigating the case last July determined that Zimmerman had not expressed racial animus at any time before the confrontation with Martine in a Sanford housing complex.
Obama weighs in President Barack Obama also weighed in Monday, but did not address the federal investigation. Instead, the president used the case to push for a series of gun control measures that were defeated earlier this year after an elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. “The president wanted to convey that he felt that the death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy for his family, for a community, but also for the country,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. “And he wanted to express his view… we should ask ourselves if we are doing all that we can to foster compassion and understanding in our communities and to stem the tide of gun violence. As well as how we can
prevent future tragedies like this from happening.”
Miami pastors heed call In Miami, faith-based leaders are heeding Sharpton’s call and planning a demonstration for 10 a.m. Saturday in front of the U.S. Department of Justice Building, Bishop Victor T. Curry said. “When it comes to cases like this, we have not had much success on the local or state level,” said Curry, the senior pastor at New Birth Baptist Church and president of the South Florida chapter of the National Action Network. “It has always been the federal government having to step in and right some of the wrongs.” Curry said he had been urging congregants to remain calm “even if the verdict didn’t go the way many people thought it should have gone.” “All we can do is ask the Obama administration’s attorney general, Eric Holder, to consider opening the case from the federal level and investigate it,” he said.
Miami Herald staff writer Marc Caputo and staff researcher Monika Z. Leal contributed to this report. McClatchy Newspapers White House Correspondent Anita Kumar contributed reporting from Washington.
POOL/GARY W. GREEN/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Trayvon Martin family attorneys Daryl Parks, left; Natalie Jackson, center, who also is a native of Sanford; Benjamin Crump; and Jasmine Rand address the media following George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center in Sanford on July 13. George Zimmerman left the courtroom a free man after being found not guilty, on the 25th day of his trial at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center.
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THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
Zimmerman federal trial would be difficult Rodney King case among those pursued by Justice Department BY JAY WEAVER, EVA BENN AND AUDRA D.S. BURCH THE MIAMI HERALD/MCT
MIAMI – The NAACP and other civil rights groups, angered by a state jury’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, turned up the pressure Sunday on the U.S. Justice Department to pursue federal criminal charges against the man who killed him, George Zimmerman. The Justice Department has a host of criminal civil-rights laws at its disposal, and has made such cases in the past. Among them: the federal prosecution of a group of Los Angeles police officers after they were acquitted in state court of the brutal beating of Rodney King in 1991, which sparked riots in that city. Two of the four officers were eventually convicted by a federal jury of violating King’s civil rights under “color of law” — that is, beating him up in their capacity as cops. But that law applies only to those in law enforcement, and Zimmerman is a civilian.
Formidable challenge In his case, it’s possible the Justice Department might consider using a different type of civil-rights law: the federal hate-crime statute. As in the King case, the double-jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit such a federal prosecution after Zimmerman’s state acquittal. But legal experts said it would be a formidable challenge for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to make a hate-crime case against Zimmerman under U.S. civil rights laws, because Florida jurors found Zimmerman not guilty of both second-degree murder and manslaughter in Trayon’s death. Jurors found that prosecutors failed to prove the more serious second-degree charge that Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman at a Sanford gated community, possessed “ill-will,” “hatred” or “spite” in the fatal shooting of Martin. Instead, the six female jurors found that Zimmerman acted in self-defense. Consequently, experts said, it would be legally inconsistent for the Justice Department to consider filing criminal charges against Zimmerman under the federal Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. Generally, that law prohibits someone from “willfully causing bodily injury” to another person because of his race, color, religion or national origin.
Not likely “If the state jury had been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman caused bodily harm to Trayvon Martin because of Martin’s race, it would have almost certainly convicted Zimmerman of seconddegree murder, which requires proof of ‘ill-will’ or ‘malice,’” said
RICARDO DEARATANHA/LOS ANGELES/MCT
Ebony Pirtle stares at LAPD officers guarding the Baldin Hills Crenshaw Mall; the officers refused to let Pirtle enter to recover his property left inside as protesters demonstrated at Leimert Park in Los Angeles on July 15 against the verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial. Scott Srebnick, a prominent federal criminal defense attorney in Miami. “So, to bring a federal civilrights prosecution against Zimmerman, the attorney general would essentially be secondguessing the state jury’s verdict as opposed to vindicating a different or broader federal interest. “I find it doubtful that the attorney general will pursue a prosecution on a civil rights theory simply out of displeasure with the state jury’s verdict,” Srebnick said.
Comparing the cases Brian Tannebaum, a Miami defense attorney and past president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, agreed. “People are comparing this case to Rodney King, where there was a federal prosecution after a state acquittal, but the difference there was there were witnesses, specifically the video everyone still remembers,” Tannebaum said, referring to a videotape of the police beating. “Zimmerman was a failed prosecution from the beginning — where the only witness (Zimmerman) had the right to remain silent (by not testifying) — and I don’t think the federal government will try again,” Tannebaum said.
Not in vain The day after the verdict, Trayvon’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, spoke with their attorney, Benjamin Crump, about what happens next — possibilities including not only a federal
prosecution, but also a wrongfuldeath case against Zimmerman in civil court. “Sybrina cried and prayed last night in Miami, but she also made a decision that she is not going to let this verdict define the legacy of her son, Trayvon Martin,” Crump said. “She and Tracy are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work using their foundation to make sure this never happens to another child. At the same time, they are still trying to understand the verdict and then they will be making a decision about pursuing the case in other ways legally.’’
NAACP applies pressure Meanwhile, the NAACP, in a statement issued by President Benjamin Todd Jealous, said the civil rights group was “not done demanding justice for Trayvon Martin.” The group’s public pressure on the Justice Department puts Holder, the nation’s first AfricanAmerican attorney general, in the difficult position of making a daunting decision on a controversial case that has riveted the nation’s attention and ignited renewed debate about racial profiling. The not-guilty verdict in the Zimmerman murder trial served as a call to action for participants of the 104th NAACP National Convention this week in Orlando But it wasn’t Zimmerman’s name that was being invoked Sunday in keynote speeches and talked about in the expansive halls of the Orange County Convention Center. The 4,000-plus
association members are focused on the unarmed teenager and what they could do to ensure a death like his is not repeated.
Youth unite “Like you, I have a lot of questions as it relates to the verdict and what it means to be young and Black in this country,” Sammie J. Dow, national director of the NAACP’s Youth and College Division, said Sunday to about 200 young people gathered from across the country. “If there’s ever been a time that we needed to act, that time is now. “We need to work, and work like never before, to put laws in place in our local communities to make sure there’s not another Trayvon Martin,” he said, the crowd rising to its feet. “You can be 17 years old, going to the store to buy candy and tea. And on your way back to your house, you can be shot and killed. And this country tells us that’s OK. “Nobody else is going to care if Youth and College doesn’t care. Nobody else is going to act if we don’t act. If not us, who? If not now, when? We are the most powerful force this country has ever seen. We are young, gifted and unapologetically Black. I am Trayvon Martin. You are Trayvon Martin. And we have to act.”
A teen’s reaction In the audience for Dow’s speech was 13-year-old DeTronia Irby, who came from Detroit to attend his first NAACP convention. “It makes me sad that after all these years, people still aren’t treated equal,” the ninth-grader said. “Justice is needed, because
I know [the trial outcome] makes me feel less safe.” DeTronia said he doesn’t want to just talk about change — he wants to act on it. He said he may use his Twitter account as a way to unite people in his community. “I’m going to start organizing my friends and stuff,” DeTronia said. “It’s easier to make changes when you’re working together.”
Anderson remembered Earlier in the Youth and College session, speaker Alethea Bonello touched on the Zimmerman case during an opening prayer. “We shall not be moved by six jurors. We shall not be moved by a slick-talking defendant. We will stand our ground,” said Bonello, a former Southeast regional director for the NAACP youth division. “Before we knew Trayvon Martin, we knew Martin Lee Anderson,” she said, referring to a 14-year-old black youth whose 2006 death at a Panama City juvenile-detention boot camp — and subsequent demonstrations and marches on his behalf — prompted the Florida Legislature to close the state’s five juvenile boot camps and resulted in a $2.4 million settlement from Bay County to Anderson’s family. “We’ve come here for fun, and we’ve come here for fellowship, but we’re also here to do work,” Bonello said to the Youth and College crowd in front of her. “Remember the young people who came before you for the civil rights movements in Tallahassee and Jacksonville and Miami.”
Protests turn violent in California Assault and vandalism arrests made in days of protest after verdict FROM WIRE REPORTS
While the protests around the country over the not guilty verdict of George Zimmerman were pretty peaceful, a wave of violence swept through Oakland, Calif. Oakland police said early Tuesday that officers had made arrests; they were booked on offenses such as assault, resisting arrest, and vandalism. By the Florida Courier’s Wednesday deadline, there had been days of protests since the July 13 verdict. Protests outside of the state had been peaceful except in California. In Washington, crowds rallied outside the White House against the acquittal of Zimmerman. And in Houston activists staged a mock funeral in the streets. But demonstrations in California turned violent.
Fires set, people attacked A peaceful protest of the Zimmerman verdict in Los Ange-
les turned violent Monday after youths broke away from the main demonstration in Leimert Park, stomped on cars, broke windows, set fires and attacked several people. KCBS-TV/KCAL-TV reporter Dave Bryan and his cameraman were among those who came under assault. One of the two journalists was taken to a hospital with a possible concussion, Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Andy Neiman told the Los Angeles Times. Protesters also stormed a WalMart in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, pushing their way through as guards scrambled to close security gates. A short while later, LAPD officers wearing helmets and carrying batons swarmed the store as others marched through the parking lot.
Wal-Mart disturbance Young vandals who entered the Wal-Mart stormed in, threw merchandise on the ground and yelled, shoppers told a Times reporter. Some tried to break open the jewelry glass displays. The disturbance in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles caused about 350 LAPD officers to swarm the area, leading to at least 13 arrests.
Elsewhere, one young man was seen throwing a metal wastebasket at the window of a darkened Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. The violence Monday night was the third straight night when the LAPD was placed on a citywide tactical alert, requiring officers to work beyond their regular shifts. Police estimated that about 150 people took part in the violence after the peaceful vigil in Leimert Park following Zimmerman’s acquittal.
Small group ‘taking advantage’ Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti urged an end to the violence: “The trial that we saw in Florida has ignited passion,” he said. “But we have to make sure it will not ignite the city.” At a news conference, Garcetti blamed the violence on a “a small group (that) has taken advantage of this situation.” He said protesters have the right to voice their disagreement with the verdict, “but people also deserve to be safe on the streets and in their cars.” The mayor added: “The Martin family didn’t ask anyone to break car windows.” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck put the public on notice that offi-
LAWRENCE K. HO/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT
Protesters gather to demonstrate at Leimert Park in Los Angeles on July 15 against the verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial. cers would be taking a more aggressive posture toward protesters beginning Tuesday. “This will not be allowed to continue,” he said.
Waiter hit in head Violent demonstrators also took to the streets in Oakland again Monday night, where they shattered windows, lit fires and threw fireworks, bottles and rocks at police. A masked man struck a waiter in the head with a hammer while the worker was trying to keep the windows protected at the Flora Restaurant and Bar, which had been vandalized over the week-
end during similar protests, local media reported. The waiter was seen bleeding and was treated by paramedics, according to reporters with the San Francisco Chronicle and the Bay Area News Group, which includes the Oakland Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News. Oakland police said early Tuesday that officers made nine arrests.
This report was compiled from stories by Los Angeles Times writers Robert J. Lopez, Andrew Blankstein, Ruben Vives, Laura J. Nelson and Rong-Gong Lin II.
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have that protection.” Hightower was prolific on Twitter throughout the trial, averaging about 100 tweets a day since the trial began. He reached a peak of 216 tweets on June 23, the day before testimony began; the hashtags #Zimmerman and #TrayvonMartin have appeared in his tweets 641 and 431 times, respectively.
‘Likes’ and follows
JACOB LANGSTON/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
The testimony of Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel generated tons of Twitter buzz, as well as parody accounts and people who poked fun at her diction, grammar, demeanor, physique and attitude.
Impact of social media, technology on case Digital age has changed the way trials are presented and examined
presidential politics, it has been part of revolutions in the Middle East, and it is going to be an unavoidable part of high-profile legal cases, just as traditional media has been and continues to be. “We feel it would be irresponsible to ignore the robust online conversation, and we feel equally as strong about establishing a professional, responsible, and ethical approach to new media.”
BY EVAN S. BENN AND AUDRA D.S. BIRCH THE MIAMI HERALD/MCT
SANFORD – Even Scott Pleasants, a college professor testifying by Skype in the murder trial of one of his former students, couldn’t keep a straight face when the whoosh-whoosh sounds of incoming calls derailed the testimony. His head, projected in real time on a big screen in the courtroom, was soon completely obscured by the pop-up requests of incoming callers. Tech-savvy pranksters watching the George Zimmerman trial on live television bombarded Pleasants’ Skype account July 3 while he tried to answer defense attorney Mark O’Mara’s questions via Internet video chat.
Skype incident Despite the seriousness of the proceedings – Zimmerman, Pleasants’ former criminal-justice student, faced life in prison for the killing of Trayvon Martin — the professor and courtroom observers were suppressing laughter, the presiding judge was annoyed, and only O’Mara seemed to have a clue about what was going on. “I gotta tell you,” O’Mara said. “There’s now a really good chance that we’re being toyed with. Just so you know.” The Skype incident — Pleasants finished his testimony through an iPhone propped on the witness stand — encapsulated the way technology and social media played into every twist and turn of the Zimmerman trial.
Contemporary media event Although the trial was nationally televised gavel-to-gavel, something Americans have grown accustomed to since the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial almost 20 years ago and most recently the Jodi Arias case, many thousands took to Twitter, Facebook and blogs to opine, vent and bicker about the case. “The case touched so many chords, it became a contemporary media event as people tuned in to find out if their view of reality would be affirmed,” said Darnell Hunt, a sociology professor and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The advances in social media and technology made it possible for people to follow the case but also debate it. “Once a story goes viral, it
New normal for cases
LeBron James posted this photo of himself and Miami Heat players wearing hoodies before the trial. After the verdict, thousands changed their online photos to black, using the hashtag #blackout in a sign of Trayvon Martin solidarity. takes on a life of its own,” Hunt said.
More traffic than Morsi An indication of just how viral it went: On July 3, as the world watched the Egyptian military overthrow President Mohammed Morsi, “Zimmerman Trial” was steadily getting about 20 times the Google search traffic than “Morsi Egypt,” according to a tweet from New York Times statistician Nate Silver. The web’s fascination with the Zimmerman case started soon after the former neighborhoodwatch leader fatally shot Martin, 17, of Miami Gardens in February 2012. At first a barely covered news story in Central Florida, Martin’s death was thrust into the national spotlight, heavily powered by social media. Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, quickly turned to the Internet, creating a change.org petition to demand the arrest of Zimmerman. The movement garnered more than 2.2 million virtual signatures. The public outcry seemed to work: Zimmerman was arrested 44 days after the shooting.
Media frenzy As media latched on to the racially charged case, news outlets raced to be first in posting discovery evidence, like Zimmerman’s call to police where he reported Martin as suspicious shortly before the killing. A reporter for Miami’s WTJV and a Miami-based network producer were fired after they spliced out parts of the audio recording that, many said, made Zimmerman sound racist: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks Black.” The second part of Zimmerman’s statement came in response to a dispatcher’s question about the person’s race.
As details of the case circulated — an unarmed teen shot dead while carrying a bag of Skittles and an Arizona drink — the hooded sweatshirt that Martin wore became iconic, with scores posting, sharing and tweeting photos of themselves wearing similar garments.
Hoodies turn black Miami Heat’s LeBron James and Dwyane Wade famously posted pictures of themselves and the team donning hoodies in support of Martin. Others used photos of Martin as their Facebook and Twitter avatars, often with the words “Justice for Trayvon” across the images. As the trial neared an end last Friday, thousands changed their online photos to black, using the hashtag #blackout in a sign of Trayvon Martin solidarity.
Real George Zimmerman site Zimmerman and his legal team also turned to the Web to rally their backers. Zimmerman created a website, The Real George Zimmerman, in which he made his claim of self-defense, quoted historical figures and included a prompt for contributions. The site is inactive. But O’Mara, Zimmerman’s lead counsel, launched another one, gzlegalcase.com, in April 2012, dedicated to raising funds for the legal defense, releasing documents and updates on the case, and acting as a voice for Zimmerman. The site was an uncommon move in criminal trials, but Zimmerman’s team said it generated large amounts of traffic and donations and could be the newnormal in such cases. “We contend that social media in this day and age cannot be ignored,” a message on the site reads. “It is now a critical part of
University of Miami School of Law lecturer Jan L. Jacobowitz said attorneys must use the social-media tools at their disposal in order to effectively represent their clients. “The George Zimmerman trial highlights the new normal, how social media and technology have become part of cases,” said Jacobowitz, director of the law school’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Program. “The digital age has changed the way law is practiced in some ways.” The defense team commissioned a California firm to make a high-tech, computer-animated re-creation of how the confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin may have happened.
‘Avatar’ animation The animation, played for jurors for during O’Mara’s closing argument on Friday, looked like a computer game, with a Martin avatar walking up to and punching Zimmerman’s character. Its creator said he employed motion-capture suits, robotic lasers and flying drone cameras — the same technology used in movies like “Avatar” and “Iron Man” — to make the brief animation. In contrast to the progressive technological aspects of the case, gaffes like the Skype snafu were almost a daily part of the three-week trial. From the start of the trial, Seminole Circuit Judge Debra Nelson had court bailiffs enforce a zero-tolerance policy regarding electronic noises in the courtroom. At least a dozen reporters and public observers were booted from court, one by one (including one from the Miami Herald) when their cell phones chirped or Siri spoke from the bottom of a bag.
100 tweets a day Orlando-based Associated Press reporter Kyle Hightower managed to keep his fifth-row seat in the courtroom gallery throughout the trial by staying electronically silent. “We all have our tricks to avoid getting ejected from the courtroom,” he said. “I actually carry two iPhones into court daily and try to keep headphones in the jacks of each one so that if they do make any unforeseen noise, I
During testimony, attorneys grilled several witnesses about their social-media activities, trying to highlight bias on the basis of Facebook “likes” and Twitter follows. Often, the questioning did little but reveal lawyers’ unfamiliarity with how social media works. Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda accused former Zimmerman neighbor Jenna Lauer of following the Twitter account of Zimmerman’s brother. Lauer, who acknowledged having a Twitter account but said, “I hardly know how to use that,” denied following Robert Zimmerman’s Twitter stream. That led to a painful backand-forth between her and de la Rionda, laptop in hand, about how Twitter works. In the end, neither seemed to have had a very good grasp on the social networking site, and de la Rionda backed down. “I apologize,” he said.
Dismissed for online posts Several potential jurors were dismissed when lawyers discovered Facebook posts and “likes” that revealed their personal views on the case. One man was taken out of consideration for writing on Facebook, “The Seminole County ‘Justice’ System needs an ENEMA.” Martin’s and Zimmerman’s digital imprints also were hotly debated topics online, painting both in a negative light. Martin’s tweets were laced with profanity; his texts and Facebook messages included talk of fighting, drugs and guns. Zimmerman made disparaging remarks about Mexicans on his MySpace page in 2005. None of those things was allowed into evidence. Resuming court after breaks, Nelson would ask jurors a series of questions to ensure they hadn’t violated any of her rules of sequestration. Her script included the phrase, “Did you read or create any emails, text messages, twitters, tweets, blogs or social-networking pages about the case?” Later in the trial, perhaps on the advice of others, Nelson excised the misused “twitters” from her question.
Insensitive caption removed Twitter lit up in the trial’s second week after a photo surfaced that defense attorney Don West’s 23-year-old daughter posted on Instagram. The image, of West and two of his daughters eating Chick-fil-A ice cream cones, included the caption “We beat stupidity celebration cones” and the hashtag #dadkilledit. Many thought the Instagram photo was a dig at witness Rachel Jeantel, a 19-year-old friend of Martin’s from Miami whose cross-examination by West was often contentious. The state filed a motion asking Nelson to investigate the picture, which became a non-issue when West noted it was taken and posted before Jeantel’s testimony started. He later apologized for his daughter’s insensitive caption.
Jeantel’s Twitter buzz Jeantel’s two-day testimony generated tons of Twitter buzz, as well as parody accounts and people who poked fun at her diction, grammar, demeanor, physique and attitude. At the height of her testimony, tweets mentioning Jeantel flew at the rate of 2,393 a minute. The number of people following her actual account swelled from about 200 before she took the stand to more than 11,000 now. While the trial’s verdict was carried live on traditional media, the aftermath continues to be steeped deeply in social media, from Twitter reactions to new online petitions – not unlike what helped push the case in the first place – calling for a Department of Justice criminal civil rights investigation of Zimmerman. By midday, about 148,000 people had signed a petition on moveon.org and at least 250,000 signed a petition on the NAACP’s website, crashing the site several times under heavy traffic.
TOJ
JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013
B5
THE DEATH OF TRAYVON MARTIN
Legendary musician assaulted onstage after dedicating song to Trayvon
Defense attorney Don West, right, questions witness Rachel Jeantel during George Zimmerman’s trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford on June 27.
BY DAVID DEBOLT SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS/MCT
JACOB LANGSTON/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT
Joyner offers Jeantel a full college scholarship CNN interview
BY DOROTHY ROWLEY SPECIAL TO THE NNPA
Rachel Jeantel, the star witness for the prosecution who reluctantly took the stand late last month during the Trayvon Martin murder trial, has been offered a full scholarship to attend any historically Black college or university she chooses. Syndicated radio host Tom Joyner, speaking with Jeantel via phone on his show, said he was moved by Jeantel’s testimony. “If you want to graduate from high school and go to an HBCU — even if it’s not in Florida but especially Florida, like Florida Memorial, EdTom ward Waters or Joyner FAMU — if you want to do that, I want to help you do that,” the radio host told Jeantel. “I will help you get tutors to get you out of high school, tutors to help you pass the SAT and I will give you a full-ride scholarship to any HBCU you’d like.”
Jeantel was the last person to speak to Trayvon prior to his death on Feb. 26, 2012, speaking with him on the phone minutes before he was shot to death by George Zimmerman. She was widely criticized and ridiculed for her speech after testifying. But during an appearance Monday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live,” she explained that she has a speech impediment caused by a bone malformation and has been hesitant to correct it due to the lengthy healing process. Explaining her use of the of the term “creepy-ass cracker” during her witness stand reference to Zimmerman, Jeantel said that in her neighborhood the word “cracker” means a person who acts like a police officer. Joyner later appeared on “Piers Morgan Live’’ this week and stated that Jeantel “deserves a chance.’’
Said Martin smoked weed She went on to say that she was “disappointed,” “upset”
and “angry” over the outcome of the trial. Jeantel refrained from making her true sentiments known about defense attorney Don West, who grilled her for hours on the witness stand. “He’s lucky I’m a Christian,” she said. Jeantel said she’s still grieving the death of her close friend, whom she said was a “calm, chill, loving person” who loved his family, “definitely his mother.” She said that while Martin smoked marijuana about twice a week, he was never prone to violence. “Weed don’t make him go crazy,” she said. “It makes him go hungry.” She described Zimmerman, as “weak and scary,” adding that he should have been “man enough” to testify about the events that led up to the teen’s death.
HAYWARD, Calif. — A woman was arrested on July 13 after allegedly jumping on stage at a music festival and attacking a legendary musician after he dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin, according to police and eyewitnesses. The woman, who police identified as 43-year-old Dinalynn Andrews Potter of Barstow, apparently yelled, “It’s all your fault” before shoving 73-yearold Lester Chambers, his family said Sunday. “She had a crazed look in her eye,” said Kurt Kangas, a friend of Chambers who ran to his aid. “I saw the devil there.” Chambers was performing at the Hayward Russell City Blues Festival downtown when around 5:15 p.m. he dedicated Curtis Mayfield’s hit “People Get Ready” to Martin, the 17-yearold shot and killed by George Zimmerman. The incident took place the same day a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman.
Hate crime charges sought Chambers told the audience if Mayfield were around today, he’d change the lyrics “there’s a train a comin’” to “there’s a change a comin,’” his wife Lola Chambers told this newspaper Sunday. “She must have been an acrobat. She did it in one leap. He didn’t see her coming,” Lola
Chambers said. Eyewitnesses and Hayward police said people on stage subdued Andrews Potter after she allegedly shoved Chambers. Though the police investigation into a motive continues, family members believe the attack was racially motivated and was a result of Chambers’ mention of Martin. The family is pressing police to file hate crime charges. Andrews Potter is White, they said. Chambers is Black.
Bruised and sore Hayward police took Andrews Potter to the police station, where she was arrested on suspicion of battery. She was cited and released, and could face additional charges in the coming days, according to Hayward police Lt. Ruben Pola. Chambers, a Petaluma, Calif., resident, was taken to the hospital but has since been released, and is using a cane to walk. A photo his son posted on Facebook shows a large welt on his backside. His son said Chambers had a “bruised rib muscle and nerve damage and he is sore all over.” Chambers was a member of the 1960s soul group Chambers Brothers and has had a wellpublicized fight with record executives over decades of royalty payments he said he has never received. The Chambers Brothers will be part of the inaugural class inducted into the R&B Hall of Fame later this year, Lola Chambers said.
Lester Chambers, 73, was performing Curtin Mayfield’s “People Get Ready’’ when he was shoved.
This story is special to the Florida Courier from the NNPA News Service and Washington Informer.
FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR YOUNG JEEZY
Rapper Young Jeezy is scheduled at the James L. Knight Center in Miami on Aug. 31.
AVANT
FRI: 07/12 1/4 PG. (4.93") X 10" AS ALL.RIP.0712.FLORCOURemail
MEL WAITERS
FLORIDA COURIER
A Southern Soul Blues Concert featuring Mel Waiters, Sir Charles Jones and Bigg Robb is scheduled Oct. 5 at the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center in Daytona Beach. Orlando: 102 Jamz presents Hook Up #4 starring Jason Derulo and Kat Dahlia at the House of Blues Orlando on July 26. The show starts at 7 p.m.
Tampa: Bruno Mars’ Moonshine Jungle world tour makes a stop at the Tampa Bay Times forum on Aug. 28. Hollywood: The legendary Diana Ross is scheduled Sept. 4 at Hard Rock Live.
UNIVERSAL PICTURES PRESENTS AN ORIGINAL FILM/DARK HORSE ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTION A ROBERTMUSIC SCHWENTKE FILM JEFEXECUTIF BRIVE DGES RYAN REYNOLDS “R.I.PD.” KEVIN BACON MARY-LOUISE PARKER STEPHANIE SZOSTAK BY CHRISTOPHE BECK PRODUCERS ORI MARMUR RYAN REYNOLDS JONATHON KOMACK MARTIN DAVID DOBKIN KEITH GOLDBERG PETER M. LENKOV BASED ON THE DARK HORSE PRODUCED BY NEAL H. MORITZ p.g.a. MIKE RICHARDSON MICHAEL FOTTRELL COMIC CREATED BY PETER M. LENKOV STORY SCREENPLAY DIRECTED BY DAVID DOBKIN & PHIL HAY & MATT MANFREDI BY PHIL HAY & MATT MANFREDI BY ROBERT SCHWENTKE A UNIVERSAL PICTURE SOUNDTRACK ON BACK LOT MUSIC
© 2013 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
STARTS FRIDAY, JULY 19
CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES
St. Petersburg: Tickets are on sale for a concert at the Mahaffey Theater with Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. The show is Sunday, Sept. 15. Miami Gardens: The Legends of the Summer tour featuring Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z takes place Aug. 18 at Sun Life Stadium. Tampa: State Rep. Janet Cruz will host a West Tampa Job Fair July 30 from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. at Higgins Hall, 5255 N. Himes Ave. Admission for job seekers is free and
an eight-foot table is free to employers. More information and to register as an employer: 813-673-4673. Orlando: 2013 “American Idol’’ winner Candace Glover and finalists on the Fox show will be on tour at the Amway Center in Orlando on Aug. 1 and AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami on Aug. 2. St. Petersburg: Youths ages 7 to 11 can enjoy a night of football, kickball, ping-pong, foosball, video games and dance parties during “Freestyle Fridays” at the Fossil Park and Willis S. Johns Center, 6635 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. First visit free; $6 each following visit. More information: 727-893-7756. Boca Raton: St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church will host the Vatican International Exhibition of Eucharistic Miracles of the World Aug. 9-11 at 370 SW Third St. More information: 561-392-0007. St. Petersburg: First Fridays are held in downtown St. Pe-
Fantasia and Avant will perform Aug. 2 at the James L. Knight Center in Miami. The show begins at 8 p.m. tersburg at 250 Central Ave. between Second and Third Avenues from 5:30 p.m.10:30 p.m. More information: 727-393-3597. Miami: Join AileyCamp Miami for “Reflections,’’ featuring ballet, jazz, modern, West African and spoken word performed by AileyCampers. AileyCamp Miami is a free summer day camp program for students 11-14 in a Miami Dade public school. The event is Aug. 3 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of MiamiDade County. More information: www.arshtcenter.org. Fort Lauderdale: Through July, the museum/gallery of the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center will be hosting “Portraits by Caribbean Artists.” Four local artists – Phillip Curtis, Shernett Muhammad, Melissa Aldana and Courtney Henderson – will be sharing the spotlight with images inspired by their Caribbean heritage. More information: www.broward.org/library.
TOj B6
FOOD
TOJ
JULY 19 – JULY 25, 2013
Keeping Hearts Healthy According to research from the University of Connecticut, funded by the California Table Grape Commission, eating grapes may help protect heart health in men with metabolic syndrome. In the study, men with metabolic syndrome who consumed grapes lowered their key risk factors for heart disease. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that occur together — high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess abdominal fat and increased blood triglycerides — significantly increasing the risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Eating a variety of grapes may contribute to heart health by: • Promoting healthy blood flow • Reducing oxidative stress • Improving blood lipids • Decreasing inflammation
Grilled Antipasto Skewers Yield: 12 skewers 24 shrimp (31–40 size), peeled and deveined 3/4 pound red or black California seedless grapes 18-ounce jar cocktail onions 3 ounces prosciutto, each piece sliced into long ribbons Marinade: 1 clove garlic, crushed 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped 1/4 teaspoon salt Black pepper, freshly ground 4 tablespoons olive oil Soak long bamboo skewers in water for at least 5 minutes. Thread skewers with 2 shrimp, 6 grapes and 2 onions, with a ribbon of prosciutto winding throughout. Place the finished skewers in shallow dish or plate. To make marinade, whisk together garlic, vinegar, rosemary, salt and pepper and gradually add the oil. Evenly dab on half of marinade with a brush. Let marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and then brush with remaining marinade. Grill on a hot fire for 2 minutes per side. Serve immediately. Nutritional analysis per skewer: Calories 92; Protein 4 g; Carbohydrate 7.5 g; Fat 5 g (Saturated Fat .8 g); 49% Calories from Fat ; Cholesterol 24 mg; Sodium 122 mg; Fiber .57 g
GRAPE Family Features
Grapes are a great choice for healthy snacks and nutritious meals
goodness
Crisp, juicy and sweet, grapes are a real crowd-pleaser. Even better, all three colors of grapes — red, green and black — are good for you. Grapes are a natural source of beneficial antioxidants and other polyphenols. Current research suggests that grapes may help main tain a healthy heart, and may also help to defend your cells against a number of age-related illnesses. Scientists are also working to uncover more links between grapes and eye health, brain health, joint health, and more. At just 90 calories per 3/4 cup serving, grapes are a sensible, delicious snack with no fat or cholesterol. People love to eat grapes fresh for a refreshing snack, but grapes also add sweet, juicy, crunch and color to salads, entrees and desserts. Here are six fun, flavorful ways to enjoy California grapes: • Layer — California grapes are juicy, nutritious and beautiful in breakfast parfaits. • Roast — Just like when you roast vegetables, grapes also caramelize, yielding a flavor that is wholly unique. You can top your dish with roasted grapes as is, or turn them into a luscious sauce. • Grill — Oh yes! You can thread them on a skewer with other fruits, like pineapple and mango, vegetables, fish, meat and poultry. Grapes can handle the heat, not only from the coals, but also from a spicy marinade or rub. • Clip — The best way to present grapes on a fruit platter or as a (truly edible) plate garnish is to clip them into smaller clusters. Grapes provide height, coverage, color and simply great taste. • Dip — Rich chocolate — dark, milk, white, flavored — and grapes make a delightful pairing. • Grab-and-Go — Pack them up for a snack or as an accompaniment to sandwiches and wraps. Here is a selection of recipes that show how grapes can add flavor, texture, color, and nutrition and health-promoting properties to appetizers, salads, and sides. Note: Sometimes when a recipe seems too “healthy” to appeal to picky eaters, grapes have a way of making these preparations taste better and look more appealing. To learn more about grapes from California, visit www.grapesfromcalifornia.com or www.facebook.com/grapesfromcalifornia.
Spicy Grape and Chicken Lettuce Cups Servings: 4 as an entrée or 8 as an appetizer 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 tablespoon water 3/4cup low sodium chicken broth 1tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar 3 to 5 teaspoons Asian chili paste with garlic 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce 1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil 6 cloves garlic, minced 3 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced 1 1/2 pounds ground chicken breast 1 1/2 cups halved green California seedless grapes 3/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced 1 head iceberg lettuce, cut in half and separated into leaves
1/4 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped 1 1/2 cups julienne cucumber In small bowl, combine cornstarch and water. Add chicken broth, sugar, vinegar, chili paste and soy sauce. Set aside. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add garlic and ginger; sauté for 30 seconds. Add chicken and cook until no longer pink, about 5 to 8 minutes. Add grapes and green onions; sauté for 30 seconds. Restir the sauce mixture and pour into skillet. Stir until thickened, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Place chicken mixture in lettuce leaves; garnish with cilantro and cucumber. Serve open or roll up if desired. Nutritional analysis per serving: Calories 341; Protein 41 g; Carbohydrate 26 g; Fat 9 g (Saturated Fat 1.74 g); 23% Calories from Fat; Cholesterol 108 mg; Sodium 621 mg; Fiber 3g
Bulgur Salad with Grapes and Kale Servings: 6 2 cups water 1 cup bulgur Kosher salt 1 cup pecan halves, toasted and roughly chopped 2 cups seedless California grapes, halved 2 cups packed kale or Swiss chard leaves, finely slivered 1/2 cup Italian parsley, chopped 1/4 cup scallions, thinly sliced 1/4 cup lemon juice 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 teaspoons lemon zest, finely grated Pinch cayenne Black pepper Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Stir in bulgur and 1/2 teaspoon salt and remove from heat. Cover and let stand 20 minutes or until most of water is absorbed. Drain well and press to extract any excess water. Let cool and stir in the remaining ingredients. Season well with salt and black pepper. Serve room temperature or chilled. Nutritional analysis per serving: Calories 289; Protein 5.8 g; Carbohydrate 33 g; Fat 17 g (Saturated Fat 1.8 g); 50% Calories from Fat; Cholesterol 0 mg; Sodium 181 mg; Fiber 7.3 g