Amid continuing protests that turned violent in los Angeles and Oakland, a juror in the George Zimmerman trial has revealed that the six-woman jury was initially split down the middle over handing a “not guilty” verdict, but asserted that all were in agreement that race did was not a factor in the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin.
“An initial vote was divided. Three of the jurors first voted Zimmerman was guilty, while three voted he was not guilty,” a juror told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, adding: “There was a couple of them in there that wanted to find him guilty of something and after hours and hours and hours of deliberating over the law, and reading it over and over and over again, we decided there’s just no way, other place to go.”
While civil rights activists and African-American protesters are all convinced that it was a race-driven crime, the juror, with her identity concealed, asserted: “All (the six) of us thought race did not play a role. We never had that discussion.” Identified simply as Juror B37, she said Zimmerman didn’t use “good judgment” while confronting Martin, but believed that the acquitted white-Hispanic neighbourhood watch volunteer was “a man whose heart was in the right place”.
The juror said she had “no doubt” Zimmerman feared for his life in the final moments of his struggle with Martin. “He had a right to defend himself,” she said, commenting: “I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into. I think both of them could have walked away. It just didn’t happen.”
Although a federal investigation is currently on to look at the civil rights aspects of the case, doubts are being expressed by experts on whether the Obama administration would be able to charge Zimmerman with a federal hate crime because of the reported weakness of the evidence on this score.
Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday termed Martin’s killing a “tragic, unnecessary shooting death” and said the Justice Department was “determined to meet division and confusion with understanding and compassion – and also with truth”. But some other department officials, past and present, were cited by The Washington Post as saying that bringing criminal civil rights charges against Zimmerman would be extremely difficult. “The weakness of the evidence compounds the political problems facing President Obama and Holder, who are under mounting pressure from many liberal and African-American groups,” the paper noted.
The backlash over the verdict continued across America with protests, vigils and prayers. Although largely peaceful in most places, violence broke out in the Californian cities los Angeles and Oakland. In los Angeles, demonstrators stomped on cars, attacked bystanders and stormed a Wal-Mart. 14 people were held Monday night after multiple acts of vandalism. In Oakland, a large gathering of protesters blocked peak hour traffic.