The Idea of Justice

                                                                        

 The not guilty on all counts in the Rittenhouse case just doesn't feel like any kind of justice. The letter of the law may have been followed but to my non-legal mind, seeing that person walking free is a mockery. There needs to be accountability. It's uncomfortably like the old joke about the fellas who killed his parent and pled for mercy because he was an orphan. It also raises a number of questions of my mind. 

 The first is: How would this case have played out if Rittenhouse had been a Black teenager, carrying a gun and feeling threatened? I suspect there would have been no case as the police would have shot him right away rather than ignoring him as they did at first.

The second question: What about "the duty to retreat" that I was taught in concealed carry class?  And I seem to remember that it wasn't legal to kill in defense of property. No shooting the fella who's making off with your TV. Which would mean this young vigilante had no reason to be there defending others' property with his big gun. But maybe that's just in North Carolina--gun laws are different in every state.

Third: As the Right turns this sniveling little punk into a hero (truly worthy to be an intern to the likes of Gosnar, Cawthorne, and Gaetz) will we see even more gun-wielding teens, chaos tourists looking for thrills? Anti-abortion vigilantes in Texas, hunting down women suspected of seeking to terminate a pregnancy? Guns brandished freely everywhere?

Fourth: If I were all-powerful and unconstrained by technicalities like the letter of the law (because sometimes the law is an idiot,) what would be my judgement? I believe him when he says he feared for his life--he was in way over his head and that gun he was carrying offered a quick way out. But, considering that he put himself in that situation, I'd have to rule that he deserved a punishment. Yes, his victims put themselves in their situation also. But, boy, were they punished.

I think I'd be tempted to mandate that he enlist in the Marine Corps for a four-year hitch. Let him play with guns and pretend to be a big man there. And when he comes out, if he does, keep him on parole for a very long time. Do not allow him to become a mascot for the Proud Boys and their ilk.

Then I think I'd go after  the gun laws. Since I'm all-powerful.

Just dreaming.

                                                

Accountability, not Justice

The guilty verdict in the Chauvin case was exceeding welcome--but, as one speaker pointed out, it was a victory for accountability, not justice. Justice would have George Floyd still alive to watch Chauvin pay the price of his inhuman actions. 

Thanks to the many police officers who broke the blue wall of silence, to the bystanders who cried for mercy, and, most of all to Darnella Frazie, the woman who caught the entire terrible episode on video despite being threatened with mace, thanks to all these people, we have taken a long overdue step on the road to justice. For without accountability, there is no path to justice.

 

The Verdict

I wasn’t there. 

I’m not a lawyer so my opinion is just that – an opinion. 

There’s a good article HERE that addresses the limitations of our legal system and the laws that made this verdict possible.

Like many, I am not satisfied by the outcome of George Zimmerman’s trial.  But since the entire case came down to whether or not Zimmerman acted in self defense, it appears that the jury rendered the only verdict possible.

If this were a story I was writing, it would be a tragedy. It would be about a man who, because he had a gun and fancied himself in a position of authority, put himself into a situation where things quickly spiraled out of control. 

It would be about a teenager, guilty of nothing more than Walking While Black, whose anger at being accosted by a self-important, wannabe cop, led him to go on the offensive rather than shuffling and grinning,  “Ain’t doin’ nothin’, boss,” and allowing himself to be pushed around because of his race.

 It would be a story about how the man with the gun escaped a prison sentence but was doomed to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, feeling the same sort of fear that Trayvon Martin must have felt as that car continued to follow him down the dark streets. . .