Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon has basically summed up my sentiments on the case. It's innocent until proven guilty. Unless some of you here would prefer it to be the other way around....? If so, then why don't you pack up and move to those places in the Middle East where someone who has a grudge with you only has to anonymously accuse you of some kind of "blasphemy" against Allah, and have you stoned to death before you even make it out of your neighborhood.
Don't you think there might be spmething in between those extremes?
Lois
I'm happy to discuss alternatives, but I'm simply trying to calm people who are convinced that the current system somehow failed. It didn't. It worked exactly the way it was designed to. There was not enough evidence available to draw a strong enough conclusion, much less convict. As I keep saying, under this system, you can't just bury a person on speculation.
Either way, what are your suggestions?
I'll have to think it through, buy I'd get rid of all "stand your ground" laws. They are too easily abused. In fact, most self-defense laws should be examined. It's too easy to claim self-defense, especially when there are no witnesses--and most murders have no witnesses. How can a jury be expected to know what a person's state of mind was? Yet that's what needs to be known in any self-defense claim.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I wonder how many self-defense cases are successful when the accused is black--especially when the victim is white. I'd like to see some comparative statistics on that.
Lois