George Zimmerman presumed innocent, Trayvon Martin was not
Every time CNN’s courtroom camera lingered on the sad face of George Zimmerman today, I felt slightly sick. What a nauseating set of events he unleashed on that drizzly Florida night nearly 17 months ago. He may not be a murderer -- only the jury of six women will make that judgment -- but he certainly is a killer.
He has taken one life and ruined his own. The case has also ensnared his wife, who faces criminal charges for telling a judge at a bond hearing that they were broke when their accounts were fat with donations from supporters. (How ironic it would be if he were set free while she went to jail.)
Yet, as he sat there, listening to the closing argument of prosecutor Bernie de la Rondia, who pointed out the many holes in Zimmerman’s story about how he came to shoot Trayvon Martin, I felt a twinge of compassion for the guy, just a genuine sense of sadness that his disastrous judgment has left one family with a dead child and another with a son potentially facing years in prison.
And for what?
Over the course of the trial, which began June 24, Zimmerman has rarely betrayed any emotion. But today as the prosecutor pointed at him and told the jury the defendant was guilty of second-degree murder, Zimmerman slightly shook his head and cast his eyes down.
He is pathetic, I thought. And very, very lucky.
After all, he has the luxury of knowing that the jury will give him the benefit of the doubt.
That, of course, is the very thing he denied Trayvon Martin on the night he took his life.
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Twitter: @robinabcarian
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