One of the most damaging moments for the prosecution in the trial of George Zimmerman trial was the inexplicable decision to lead with Rachel Jeantel, a friend of Trayvon Martin’s. Jeantel proceeded to admit to previously lying and then gave conflicted and at points unintelligible testimony. Her statement that Martin called Zimmerman a “cracker” further helped the defense in balancing the derogatory statements of Zimmerman. After the verdict, Jeantel has made statements that seem unhinged and again raise the question on why the prosecutors would place her so prominently in their case in chief. The latest controversy is a new allegation from Jeantel that she warned Trayvon that Zimmerman might be a gay rapist. She is not the only person associated with the trial who seems to be courting the press in the case with disastrous results.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, she said “People need to understand, he didn’t want that creepy ass cracka going to his father or girlfriend’s house to go get — mind you, his little brother is there. Mind you I told you, I told Trayvon, [Zimmerman] might have been a rapist.”
In a truly bizarre interview, Morgan asks Jeantel to school him on the correct spelling and meaning of such terms as “cracka” and “nigga.”
Jeantel called the verdict “BS” and said “Well, the jury, they see their facts. My thoughts of the jury, they old, that’s old school people. We in a new school, our generation, my generation. So –”
Morgan then appears to turn into a cultural anthropologist and asked clinically:
“Let’s talk about ‘creepy ass cracka.’ People have said that that is a phrase used by black people, cracka, to describe a white person. Is that true?
JEANTEL: No! Like I said —
MORGAN: How do you spell it, first of all?
JEANTEL: Cracka.
MORGAN: There’s no ‘e-r,’ right?
JEANTEL: No, it’s an ‘a’ at the end.
MORGAN: C-r-a-c-k-a.
JEANTEL: Yeah. And that’s a person who act like they’re a police [officer], who, like a security guard who acting like — that’s what I said to them. Trayvon said creepy ass cracka.
MORGAN: It means he thought it was a police or a security guard?
JEANTEL: Yeah, he acting like the police. And then he keep telling me that the man is still watching him. So, if it was a security guard or a policeman, they would come up to Trayvon and say, ‘Do you have a problem? Do you need help?’ You know, like normal people.
Once again, it is unclear why Jeantel did not emphasize the concern over a male rape on the stand. One could almost feel the prosecutor cringing at the interview with so many questioning their judgment in relying so heavily on Jeantel.
While on the subject of people behaving badly from the case (a rather long list), there is juror B-37 who announced in an interview that she was going to write a book and had enlisted an agent. She even named her agent as Sharlene Martin. After an outcry over the effort to profit from the case (not to mention a pretty limited foundation for a book). Martin tweeted that juror B37 had regained her sanity and dropped the plans for a book (that was going to be co-written by her attorney husband). She explained that the isolation of being sequestered “shielded me from the depth of pain that exists among the general public over every aspect of this case.”
Really? It took this long to figure out that there was pain over the verdict. What tipped you off after you arranged for an interview, went to the interview, and announced your book? Was it the mass protests in various cities or continuing coverage on television. Ironically, she actually proved the accuracy of West’s disastrous joke in his opening statement: “Knock, knock. Who’s there? George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman who? Congratulations, you’re on the jury.” The joke was bizarre first because you should never cut jokes in a murder trial opening statement with a dead teenage boy. Second, if the jury got the joke, they would realize they were the punch line. The point is that only morons or cave-dwelling recluses would not know anything about the case. Well then walked in juror B-37.
Source: Real Clear Politics
Speaking of books on logic, I cannot recommend highly enough the following:
“An Elementary Approach to Thinking Under Uncertainity” by Ruth Beyth-Marom, Shlomith Dekel, Ruth Gombo and Moshe Shaked.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0898593794
It was originally developed as a training guide for Mossad field agents, but I came across it as one of the texts for my Logic & Legal Reasoning course. The best ways to triage logic when dealing with incomplete information I’ve ever seen. I have the book on my desk to this day.
“Not all who post here are lost or logically challenged”
But some sure are. On both counts.
Bron,
Expert in logic? Who me???? Nah! I do, however, consider myself to be well experienced in the high art of common sensery. It’s not something that I learned from a book or in school.
rafflaw,
You betcha!
Elaine:
I have been accused of the same and am taking steps to correct my shortcoming.
Since I am not an expert in logic, I dont know if you are or are not. But those items should help.
The Joseph work is good stuff and rigerous.
Elaine,
some of us are Lefter than others! 🙂
I second OS’s comments. And I would recommend the stiff drink instead of the Excedrin!
Otteray,
Everyone is right…but some are righter than others?????
BTW, weather around these parts is oppressive today. How is the weather in your neck of the woods?
Bron,
Are you implying that Blouise and I ARE logically challenged? We’ll getcha for that!
Bron,
Not all who post here are lost or logically challenged…. Some just have no degree of civility…..regardless if they are right or wrong…. Not can they admit when they are incorrect…..
for all of you who are accused of being logically challenged may I recommend the following, it is only $10 bucks and it is based on Aristotelian logic. I have listened to a couple of the lectures and they are pretty good. Also a book by H. Joseph is very good as well.
https://estore.aynrand.org/p/90/introduction-to-logic-mp3-download
this is not about Objectivism it is strictly a course on logic.
http://archive.org/details/introductiontolo00jose
the link to the book is above and I think you can download that for free.
I have been watching this discussion play out. You are all among my mostest favoritest people, so I am completely unbiased. Everybody is right. So there!
I see that Juror B37 is of the opinion Zimmerman was justified in shooting Martin. It is early in the day, but reading stuff like this makes me think I need an Excedrin….or a stiff drink.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/george-zimmerman-juror-b37_n_3608569.html
“You love us …you know you do.”
Well . . . duh. That’s without question. You’re both two of my favorite people even when we disagree.
And as usual with W=^..^~, that observation is not without merit. The increase of manifest injustices of all sorts are going to lead to eventual social upheaval – possibly even violent – against the government. That’s been my primary caution all along about a two-tiered legal system where oligarchs and their minions are exempted from the Rule of Law. It’s just good sociology, social psychology and mathematics based on observing history. 99 > 1.
Gene,
You love us …you know you do.
I’m going to leave you with this quote for consideration … there’s something going on out there beyond yellow journalism and media mania and any hypotheticals we may concoct:
“Groundswells like the ones that form almost immediately surrounding events like this are occurring more and more rapidly around the occurrance…soon they will break like a wave and the ‘law’ will be cut out of the equation altogether.” (Woosty)
I’ll see you tomorrow.
I remind you both again this was a homicide case, not a civil rights case.
Yet, if at all.
Elaine,
Mine just arrived for an overnight as both parents will be traveling on business … we’ll reconvene at a later time.
Explanation is not the same thing as refinement.
If you two want to take umbrage because of the logic issue again, that’s your problem. I’m pretty direct when I want to be critical and I have not criticized your logic other then when you deployed it poorly – in this thread specifically by offering up straw men.
If that offends either of you, I really don’t care.
I say that in the nicest way possible.
And since the Deen thread and criticism of logic was brought up, apparently the notion of argument in parallel is still escaping you both. If you feel like your confirmation biases aren’t being catered to because the possibility that elitism was a greater problem presented to the actual case than race was, then that’s just an indication of the efficacy of what I’m saying.
Or would you care to try to prove that racism played a larger part in the Z’s initial preferential treatment than elitism?
Noooooo.
That might actually require that you rethink that racism is always the primary problem of injustice in a situation simply because the victim and perp were of diverse race.
Elaine,
Thanks … but I don’t want to be charged with elitism … I’ll have to take it on my own though I would appreciate it if you were present to count the lashes as I tend not to trust The Man.
Blouise,
You’ll have to hold the fort while I’m gone. I hear my granddaughter awaking from her nap. Do try not to be too illogical while I’m away.
Blouise,
I’ll see if I can find a whipping boy to stand in for you when you get into trouble.
😉