national debate

Today we are going to get final arguments in the Trayvon Martin trial. I expect that the case will go to the jury today. Millions of Americans have followed this case, just as we followed the OJ Simpson trial from years ago.

A couple of thoughts:

As far as I can tell, there are no heroes in this case.

No matter what the verdict there are going to be some folks that are very, very angry. A young man is dead. There is nothing that we can do to bring Trayvon Martin back. Another young man is on trial for murder. George Zimmerman isn’t a model citizen. He is like most of us, a flawed individual.

Once again, we see a close-up view of our legal system. Once again, we see that our legal system isn’t close being perfect.

I think that it is clear that if this happened 20 years ago there wouldn’t have been a trial. The police would have swept this under the rug. “There is nothing to see here… move on.” The fact that we have a trial is testament to the power of the internet and social media.

Neither attorney in this case has impressed me. (Granted, I haven’t followed every minute, or even every day, of this case.)

One big question that will not be answered in this trial concerns the role of the police. Will the police department get a critical review by an independent body?

In a nutshell, yuck. Simply yuck. There will be a verdict. There will be a movie, and probably a mini-series, which will be watched by millions. Look for several books which will do nothing to resolve the national debate but should make several folks a large pot of money.