NOT GUILTY
SELF-DEFENSE CLAIM PREVAILS IN MURDER CASE
SANFORD, Fla. — Neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman was cleared of all charges Saturday in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager whose killing unleashed debate across the U.S. over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice.
Zimmerman, 29, blinked and barely smiled when the verdict was announced. He could have been convicted of second-degree murder or manslaughter.
But the jury of six women, all but one of them white, reached a verdict of not guilty after deliberating well into the night Saturday.
The jurors considered nearly three weeks of often wildly conflicting testimony over who was the aggressor on the rainy night the 17-year-old was shot while walking through the gated townhouse community where he was staying.
After the jury filed out of the courtroom, the tension seemed to leave Zimmerman’s face. A small smile began at the corners of his mouth and very slowly spread. Within seconds, he turned to shake the hands of his defense team, Mark O’Mara and Don West. Zimmerman, who has been free on bail, looked up at the judge.
“Your bond will be released,” Judge Debra S. Nelson told him. “Your GPS monitor will be cut off and you have no further business with this court.”
Then the defendant’s side of the courtroom exploded in hugs. Zimmerman hugged his wife, Shellie, and
friends who have waited during the long trial that began with jury selection last month. Zimmerman’s parents, Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman, hugged each other. Gladys Zimmerman reached over to hug attorney West and O’Mara, who broke out in smiles.
“I think it will take a while for the emotions to set in for George,” O’Mara told reporters afterward.
Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, said the verdict was an unjust end.
Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump, who helped train the media spotlight on the case, said: “All the evidence was there to convict George Zimmerman. This family is heartbroken that the killer of their son is not going to be held accountable. It makes no sense that in 2013 you can follow and shoot an unarmed teenager walking home with nothing other than candy and a drink, and go free.”
Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon’s mom, didn’t comment until an hour after the verdict.
“Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you,” she tweeted. “You are all that I have. At the end of the day, GOD is still in control. Thank you all for your prayers and support. I will love you forever Trayvon!!! In the name of Jesus!!!”
Trayvon Martin’s brother, Jahvaris Fulton, said simply: “Et tu America?” a reference to the Latin phrase “Et tu, Brute?” known as an expression of betrayal.
Defense attorneys said the case was classic selfdefense, claiming Martin knocked Zimmerman down and was slamming the older man’s head against the concrete sidewalk when Zimmerman fired his gun. Prosecutors called Zimmerman a liar and portrayed him as a “wannabe cop” vigilante who had grown frustrated by break-ins in his neighborhood committed primarily by young black men. Zimmerman assumed Martin was up to no good and took the law into his own hands, prosecutors said.
After the verdict, defense attorney O’Mara said the only thing Zimmerman was guilty of was protecting himself. West said he was pleased the jury “kept this tragedy from becoming a travesty.”
State Attorney Angela Corey said after the verdict that she believed seconddegree murder was the appropriate charge because Zimmerman’s mindset “fit the bill of second-degree murder.”
“We charged what we believed we could prove,” Corey said.
As the verdict drew near, police and city leaders in the Orlando suburb of Sanford and other parts of Florida said they were taking precautions against the possibility of mass protests or unrest in the event of an acquittal.
The verdict came a year and a half after civil rights protesters angrily demanded Zimmerman be prosecuted.
Zimmerman wasn’t arrested for 44 days after the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting as police in Sanford insisted that Florida’s Stand Your Ground law on selfdefense prohibited them from bringing charges. Florida gives people latitude to use deadly force if they fear death or harm.
Martin’s parents, along with civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, argued that Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother is Hispanic, had racially profiled their son. And they accused investigators of dragging their feet because Martin was a black teenager.
Before a special prosecutor assigned to the case ordered Zimmerman’s arrest, thousands of protest- ers gathered in Sanford, Miami, New York and elsewhere, many wearing hoodies like the one Martin had on the night he died. They also carried Skittles and a can of iced tea, items Martin had in his pocket.
President Barack Obama weighed in, saying that if he had a son, “he’d look like Trayvon.”
Despite the racially charged nature of the case, race was rarely mentioned at the trial. Even after the verdict, prosecutors said the case was not about race.
“This case has never been about race or the right to bear arms,” Corey said. “We believe this case all along was about boundaries, and George Zimmerman exceeded those boundaries.”
The jurors had to sort out clashing testimony from 56 witnesses. For example, witnesses who got fleeting glimpses of the fight in the darkness gave differing accounts of who was on top. And Martin’s parents and Zimmerman’s parents both claimed that the person heard screaming for help in the background of a neighbor’s 911 call was their son.