Prejudice Towards George Zimmerman

Update: Jump to the end of the story for a relevant update.

As I wrote a long time ago at Patterico:

To pre-judge a person is to literally “judge before.”  Before what?  Before it is appropriate, before you have all the facts.  Of course normally we think of prejudice as being based on specific traits.  Racial prejudice is to judge a man by his skin color, rather than getting enough facts to judge him as an individual.  But it can be based on anything.

The George Zimmerman case, of course, was based on prejudice from the beginning and most of it seemed to be racial prejudice.  Right at the beginning of the case involving the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I started to get a “Duke non-rape case” vibe.  Read that analysis: virtually everything I wrote held up, and what little didn’t was merely because of the development of the evidence.  In the Duke case, no one was there but the accused and the accuser, and yet people half a country away acted as though they were personal eyewitnesses, and absolutely convinced of the lacrosse players’ guilt.  But by the end of it, it turned out they were guilty of nothing more than a rowdy college party and positively innocent of rape.  And the same was true in the Zimmerman/Martin case.  Right away people acted like they knew what happened—often with blatant appeals to racial bigotry (i.e. “white people have been victimizing black people therefore this allegedly white man must have victimized Martin”), when what should have happened was for everyone to wait for all the facts being in.

Yesterday, we saw a microcosm of that exact same dynamic when the news hit the web that George Zimmerman had been arrested, for allegedly threatening his wife with a gun.  The press and much of the Twittersphere declared Zimmerman guilty almost immediately... based on the word of a woman who has just recently been convicted of perjury.  I mean, there is no guarantee that a perjurer would lie at every opportunity (though rules barring perjurers from testifying do make a great deal of sense), shouldn’t that have given some people some pause?

Via Twitchy we get several examples of this.  For instance Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

I mean, I guess I was wrong to think Zimmerman was an angry, insecure and violent man with severe impulse control http://t.co/yckM7KBipB
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 9, 2013

And Ebony magazine, continued to declare Zimmerman guilty in the Trayvon Martin despite the evidence:

George Zimmerman is being held by police after a domestic incident involving a gun, police: http://t.co/MokEHGrOm8 #justice4trayvon
— EBONY (@EBONYMag) September 9, 2013

And if you go to the link, you get a blog entry that has the following subtitle: “The man responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin has another gun-related incident.”

Well, in fact, he is not responsible for Martin’s death.  The jury and the overwhelming evidence shows that if anyone is responsible, it is Martin himself, for attacking a man merely for allegedly following him.  And they forgot the word “allegedly” when claiming there was another gun related incident.  George Zimmerman should consider suing these people for defamation.  He is probably a public figure, but they are showing reckless disregard for the truth, here.

Meanwhile, alleged media critic Howard Kurtz uses the word allegedly and then pretends that George Zimmerman is guilty anyway:

George Zimmerman accused of threatening his wife with a gun and beating up her father. His downward spiral is seriously disturbing
— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) September 9, 2013

It’s only a downward spiral, Howard, if he actually did it.  Otherwise, it is the latest example of the man being falsely accused and persecuted for the “crime” of lawfully defending himself.

And sadly, even actors who played holographic doctors got into the act:

Still standing his ground, George Zimmerman pulls a gun at home... http://t.co/5qv0kdL0yP
— Robert Picardo (@RobertPicardo) September 9, 2013

Now, Twitchy apparently incorrectly states that George Zimmerman was never arrested.  In fact, numerous reports state that he was detained briefly to diffuse the situation and investigate, and set free shortly thereafter.  As far as the Fourth Amendment and the Supreme Court is concerned, that is an arrest.  That could be critical down the road because George Zimmerman could potentially sue Shellie for false imprisonment based on it—yeah, it turns out that if you get a person arrested on bogus charges that person has a cause of action against you, imagine that!  But in Twitchy’s defense they were positively misled by local police who themselves do not seem to understand the definition of “arrest.”  In other words Twitchy was getting the facts right—he was taken into custody—they just didn’t understand the legal definition of “arrest.”

But before long the story started to fall apart.  According to MSNBC (whose bias against George Zimmerman is well-documented), the police said that George didn’t have a gun, and according to USA Today, Shellie Zimmerman has admitted that he didn’t.  So it should be no surprise that CNN is reporting that the police absolutely will not file charges against George Zimmerman.  Shellie Zimmerman’s credibility is utterly ruined.

(Via Twitchy we also hear that there is some kind of video tape of the incident.)

Mind you there is still plenty of disinformation and misinformation, as well as unanswered questions, involved here.  News outlets, for instance, keep reporting that Shellie and her father are “not pressing charges.”  You see, on the 911 call, Shellie claims George punched her father and smashed her iPad.  But lawyers know that the term “pressing charges” is largely mythological.  The victim doesn’t get to decide if charges are filed.  The state does and they can go forward despite the victims’ insistence that the charges be dropped.  But having worked in a domestic violence unit in a state district attorney’s office, we often defer to the wishes of the victim in a domestic dispute if only because we expect the victim to lie about what happened.  Also the CNN article I cited above treats it as proven fact that Zimmerman smashed her iPad, but I am doubtful that they really know this to be true.

Which is not to say that I am declaring Shellie Zimmerman to have been a liar who decided to take advantage of the lynch mob mentality this country has toward her soon-to-be-ex-husband in order to gain an advantage in the divorce.  Yes, that is a plausible theory at this point, but I am going to reserve judgment about her, too.  I could imagine a scenario, for instance, where she is wrong but not lying.  For instance, imagine George really did attack her father without justification, really did smash and slash her iPad and then kept saying “I’m going to kill you,” as he acted as though he had a gun when he didn’t.

This is the unhappy lot of those who are convicted of perjury.  Once you have cried wolf, they are less inclined to believe you when a real danger appears.  It makes it difficult for you to receive the full and equal protection of the law.  But in the end, there is no one to blame for it, but yourself.

Anyway, bottom line, like most developing stories, a level of caution is advised.  While one doesn’t have to wait for a full trial to determine facts, reserving judgment is nonetheless wise at this time of media frenzy, where getting the story out first trumps getting it right.  While it arguably doesn’t look good for Shellie Zimmerman right now, we should wait for the facts to fully shake out before we draw any conclusions.

Update: Can I call it or what?  Now Shellie is back-peddling.  Previously she said he had a gun, now she is saying she assumed he had a gun because he touched his stomach.  But why didn’t she just say that, instead of positively stating that he was armed and touching his gun?

I wouldn’t be shocked if this post is further updated.

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By the way, the UK’s Guardian’s headline declares George Zimmerman guilty, even as the body of the article admits it is just an allegation.  Lovely.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.