Trayvon Martin Case: As Simple as ABC and Z

The heated and contentious debate concerning questions about the guilt or innocence of Zimmerman along with all the attendant acrimony related to the flawed Stand Your Ground laws in Florida and more than two dozen other states is completely unnecessary. The fact of the matter is that Zimmerman is guilty of shooting and killing Trayvon Martin—a wholly unlawful act for which he should be legally punished.

Reaching that conclusion in this case is as simple as it is clear.

On the day he was slain Martin, 17, was unarmed and talking on his cellphone as he walked back from a convenience store to the home of his father's fiancée—innocent and completely lawful acts. At some point during his walk home Zimmerman spots Martin, calls police, and against the advice of a dispatcher follows and subsequently confronts and accosts Martin. Shortly after Zimmerman confronts Martin the teenager is shot and killed.

It is clear from these undisputed FACTS that it was Zimmerman who initiated the encounter. Unlike in other Stand Your Ground cases where claims of self defense were made, Zimmerman wasn’t approached and then threatened by Martin, he didn’t come upon Martin in the act of committing a crime nor did he intervene to protect another from being harmed by Martin. It was Zimmerman who was the aggressor--plain and simple.

Again the facts are: young Mr. Martin was talking on the phone to his girlfriend and trying to get home out of the rain—Minding His Own Business—when he was waylaid by Zimmerman.

Clearly, it was Zimmerman who set this ball in motion. He was the one, against the advice of a police dispatcher, who initiated the encounter that lead to the shooting death of a teenager who was simply Minding His Own Business.

In a desperate and despicable act of self-preservation Zimmerman has attempted to hide behind Florida’s Stand Your Ground law and has claimed the right of self-defense. Of course such a claim is ludicrous particularly in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Beard v. U.S. (1895). In that case the Court ruled that a man who was "on his own ground (premises)" when he came under attack and "…did not provoke the assault, and had at the time reasonable grounds to believe, and in good faith believed, that the deceased intended to take his life, or do him great bodily harm…was not obliged to retreat, nor to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground."

Even in light of case law that has incorrectly expanded the definition of one’s “premises” to include public spaces or the self-serving claim by Zimmerman that Martin beat him, bloodying his nose and cutting the back of his head, there is no getting around the fact that Zimmerman "provoked the assault" that left Martin dead.

Zimmerman’s actions and his actions alone precipitated this senseless tragedy. Only later would the inaction of Sanford law enforcement officials transform this tragedy into an outrage.

Junk Science Puts Hundreds if Not Thousands Behind Bars

A recent Frontline PBS episode pulled back the covers on an all too common courtroom practice of using flawed forensic evidence to convict defendants. The eye-opening report highlights the disturbing fact there is often no legitimate science underlying the methodology producing the forensic findings.

The Frontline report--The Real CSI--featured a telling interview with Harry T. Edwards a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and an authority on forensic science. He was one of the authors of a landmark 2009 report commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences that highlighted serious shortcomings with forensic evidence and questioned the validity and reliability of so-called "forensic science."

In a telling quote, Edwards says:

"I think I, and many of my colleagues, assumed that the forensic disciplines were based on solid scientific methodology, were valid and reliable. I don’t think that we assumed that there was anything seriously amiss.

We assumed there might be mistakes, but I don’t think that we had been forewarned in any way that there were the serious problems that the committee uncovered. …"

Despite the report done by Judge Edwards and his colleagues very little is being done to correct this glaring miscarriage of justice. People are being convicted and sent to prison (and in some cases death row) everyday based on expert forensic testimony that might as well have been made from whole cloth.

Similarly, the Washington Post headlined a story about a FBI report that also calls into questions--let's just call it what it is--the JUNK SCIENCE of forensics. An interactive in the WP story looking at the accuracy of certain forensic evidence was sobering.

What really blew my mind was the damning rebuke that "bite-mark" evidence received in the Frontline story. As a reporter I've covered a number of murder trials (the case of Doug Prade, a police captain convicted of killing his wife, is the most infamous) that turned almost exclusively on bite-mark evidence. As it turns out, more than 60 percent of the time bite-mark evidence, when used to match teeth marks left on a victim to a specific suspect, are simply wrong. Of course the prosecutors won't tell you that and more importantly, won't let that fact be known to a jury.