The Zimmerman trial wasn’t a game or a sporting event, but there were definite winners and losers nonetheless. As JFK said after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, “Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan.” Well, maybe not this time . . .
Losers
Angela Corey: As if lording over a corrupt prosecution that peddled a fantasy to the public wasn’t enough of a finger in Lady Justice’s eye, there was the little matter of withholding Brady material from the defense. Okay, Corey didn’t invent that particular prosecutorial dirty trick, but in this case it required a whistleblower to break her conspiracy of silence. A whistleblower who was fired on the very day that this case went to the jury. Oh, but I’m sure that was only a coincidence.
The cherry on top was her petulant performance after the verdict as she figuratively stamped her little feet like a spoiled brat and reasserted Zimmerman’s guilt. It reminded me of the way Obama reacted to the defeat of his “common sense” gun confiscation laws. They were two serio-comic performances full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
I’d like to believe that Corey’s career is all done, but let’s keep the slithery Eliot Spitzer in mind before we toss any dirt on Corey’s political aspirations. Whatever Corey’s future may bring, one thing is certain — when Don West told the jury, “there are no monsters here,” he was flat out wrong.
Bernie de la Rionda: To give the devils their due, the prosecution had no murder case to work with although they certainly did their best to fake one. De la Rionda and his team of tub-thumpers spent weeks trying to sell the jury a bill of goods, And when that flopped because the prosecution’s own witnesses turned against them, Bern Baby Bern offered the jury a new theory that contradicted the first.
This case was the perfect example of the prosecution overreaching and stepping on its own dick in the process. After being lied to for weeks, the jury reacted appropriately.
In the aftermath of the Zimmerman case, all Floridians should ask themselves if they really believe that this case was the only time that de la Rionda and his team tried to railroad an innocent man.
Winners
Mark O’Mara: He was a prominent local attorney, a fixture of the bar, president of the county bar association and a legal commentator on Orlando television. In other words, he’s no greenhorn. But his performance and new notoriety have elevated him from the ranks of those who toil in the vineyards of the law to a national brand.
Don West: West was also a well-known local attorney with several high profile cases under his belt before he agreed to second-chair his long-time colleague. After his opening episode of legal Tourette’s, the combative West settled down nicely. He was strong on cross, took no crap from witnesses, stood up to the judge and opposing counsel, and showed real passion. If O’Mara was the master of sangfroid, it was West who brought so much heat that he was still burning after the acquittal. His daughter was right: “dad killed it.”
George Zimmerman: He was looking at thirty years or more in the joint, and now he’s not. Wins get no better than that. Yeah, he’s not out of the woods yet. The White House would love another shot at him – figuratively speaking — and so would the Martin family. He’ll be dodging death threats for a few years, although I don’t take published threats seriously and neither should he. Once the furor dies down, he will be able to go on with his life, none of which will be spent behind bars looking out. He may even get a book deal.
To Be Determined
The Mainstream Media: Not all race-mongers are members of the Klan or fans of Al Sharpton. Some of them write for the New York Times. The Times created the racist narrative that turned this case from a local tragedy into a national flashpoint. It went so far as to invent a unique new identifier for Zimmerman, the “white Hispanic,” with the accent on white, for no other purpose than to inflame black people. The rest of the MSM dutifully followed suit.
When the media’s race baiting finally became just a bit too obvious even for them, they changed Zimmerman’s moniker to a “self-identified Hispanic,” as if he was a fool for considering himself anything other than just another vicious white guy with a gun.
Yellow journalism has become mainstream.
As Juan Williams (no fan of Zimmerman) recently wrote as this case went to the jury: “Whatever the final verdict on Zimmerman, the media is clearly guilty of playing on the most primitive racial divisions in our society to fuel racial animosity and boost ratings.” The question is, will they ever be brought to account for it?