Not Guilty or Innocent?

George Zimmerman has been found “not guilty” of second degree murder by a jury of 6 women in a Florida court. Now we hear from Jasmine Rand, the attorney for the mother and father of Trayvon Martin, who was shot dead by Zimmerman, that the decision by the jury of “not guilty” is not the same as saying George Zimmerman is “innocent”.  Ms Rand surely must know that in American jurisprudence a person accused of a crime is assumed innocent until proven guilty by a jury; therefore George Zimmerman was assumed innocent of the charge of second-degree murder at the beginning of the trial and remains innocent since the jury found him not guilty.

Ms. Rand does not accept this basic tenant of trial by jury because, as she stated in an interview on television, she believes in social engineering.   Social engineering in this situation means that the feelings of people who deem themselves of having been long treated as inferior to those in the mainstream should receive some recognition of their victimhood in a jury trial. Since Trayvon Martin was a member of a race long held to be in need of governmental care, the verdict should have found Zimmerman responsible for some sort of compensation (even jail time) for the loss of Martin’s life.

Now we are faced with violence in the streets of Oakland and Los Angeles demanding “justice” for Trayvon Martin; they call for “social” justice which really means that preference be given the so-called downtrodden in a jury trial. Then who decides which group should be given preference? It will always be the powerful in government, such as the Democratic party currently, which agrees with those who believe that the verdict of “not guilty” in the Zimmerman case is “socially illogical”.

Are we about to see that violence will be used to destroy the fabric of American justice where one is innocent until proven guilty; to be replaced by “social justice” were justice is not determined by law  stemming from a belief in an Eternal Lawgiver but by men who determine what is just and what is not just, based on their belief in personal power?

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