Trayvon's Champions in the Streets and the Courts

By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News

17 July 13

n the aftermath of the infuriating Trayvon Martin verdict, it's a moment for emulation. Who can show the way? Without an articulate response in this moment of crisis, inarticulate responses like looting and trashing are inevitable. Protest in a "soft and quiet manner" is equally futile. In this battle, the response has to be strategic, immediate and direct.

The ones leading the way are sixty members of the Dream Defenders, youth of color with seven college chapters in their Florida-based organization. They have begun a sit-in right in the governor's office at the Florida state capitol building. They are not leaving until the governor calls for a special session of the legislature. Their call is for a Trayvon Martin Civil Rights Act that will address Stand Your Ground, racial profiling, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

A similar combination of nonviolent direct action and forward-thinking legislation must spread to every statehouse in the country. Without a revived civil rights struggle, we will learn nothing.

The Dream Defenders' website quotes John Lennon: "A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."

As a civil rights lawyer, I've got to say that the lawyers also need to step up their game. Who are the champions who can effectively prosecute vigilantes like Zimmerman and the Oscar Grant killer cop Johannes Mehserle?

I thought that we could count on people like Jonathan Turley, an attorney who has challenged secret government in the past and has fought for good things. But Turley and others like him carry on in the media about the Stand Your Ground jury instructions that contain "no duty to retreat" and moan that it was right to acquit Zimmerman.

Even those horrible jury instructions mandate that Zimmerman must have been acting "reasonably" in order to acquit. What is reasonable about stalking and killing a young man who had done nothing wrong?

Something not well known: When Zimmerman initially saw Martin and called the police dispatcher, the dispatcher told him not to take any action. Martin saw Zimmerman watching him and walked around his car. Zimmerman rolled up his window and refused to talk to him. When he left the car, he had his gun on him. How reasonable was that?

Responses like Turley's are almost as reprehensible as that of Angela Corey, the conservative Republican special prosecutor who said that this case "was not about race," entered Zimmerman's testimony into evidence obviating his need to testify, and utterly failed to humanize Trayvon. At closing argument, the prosecution actually argued that "we don't know what happened" – you decide. They decided all right – they decided they didn't know and that there was reasonable doubt.

To top it off, the former director of information technology at the prosecutor's office is preparing a whistleblower lawsuit against the prosecutors after learning that they failed to turn over to the defense evidence he obtained from Martin's cellphone while still employed by Corey.

Corey and her colleagues are trained to prosecute people like Trayvon Martin, to defend the rights of people like George Zimmerman, and to play fast and loose with the rights of the accused. For the Republican governor to hire Corey was cynical in the extreme. This can't go on. This kind of stunt has gone on since the founding of America. It's despicable.

Things can be done to win hard cases. Veteran attorney Barry Kowalski was brought into the federal case after the failed Rodney King prosecution in state court, and he brought down two of the murderous cops, even though their high-priced legal team knew the case backwards and forwards. Attorneys like John Burris routinely prosecute cops in the civil arena and should be routinely brought in to fight these cases. Champions like Kowalski and Burris can be found in every state of America. Prosecuting a cop or a vigilante is a special skill. Those who know how to do it should be hired and asked to train others.

Finally, when a criminal case is simply impossible to win, a civil case can result in seizing a sizable portion of the defendant's money for many years to come. The burden of proof is only a preponderance of the evidence, rather than the far stricter reasonable doubt standard. It's an effective strategy that can also be used in hard-to-win rape cases. The district attorney has the power to bring civil cases and should be expected to do so in these hard cases. Civil cases can be a very powerful deterrent.

If you don't believe me, ask a cop. Although civil cases are not brought often enough, you'll find that the cops just can't stop talking about them. Where there's fear, there's power.