By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
“Now if I stop there it sort of sounds like I’m asking you to let my guilty client go,” O’Mara told the jury. “I’m not. He’s not guilty of anything but protecting his own life. But the quote continues, ‘but for guilt and crimes that are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished, but if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizens say whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial. If innocence itself is no protection, and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizens, then it would be the end of security whatsoever.’”
~Mark O’Mara’s closing argument to the jury in State of Florida v. George Zimmerman
Innocence? You remember George Zimmerman from the last news cycle, right? He’s the wanna-be Batman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin on a rainy night as the teenager came back from the all-night convenience store. George was that “mellow” and “peaceful” man who just happened to pack a gun for self-defense according to his then-lawyer, Mark O’Mara. Exonerated by a hand-picked jury, one of whom now regrets the acquittal saying he “got away with murder,” Zimmerman, we were told, would just ride off into the sunset with his loving and apparently loyal to the point of perjury wife, chastened by the experience of being wrongly accused of murder. George was a victim in all of this his family said, and threats to his life were comparable to the Aurora Theatre shooting or the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He needs protection shouted his brother, Robert Zimmerman, Jr., in an email to St. Mary’s Police Chief Steve Bracknell: “Zimmerman is a Sandy Hook, Aurora waiting to happen. Your job is to protect the communities you serve and you are failing big time.”
George is under assault, you see, and the perpetrators are all of us — or at least all of us who threw some skepticism George’s way. But as recent events have shown, George Zimmerman may not be as innocent in the ways of the world as his spin-meisters would have you believe.
In September, George allegedly stormed into his father-in law’s house and assaulted Shellie Zimmerman, the wife who stood by him throughout the trial but who now says she has “doubts about his innocence.” After smashing up a few things, Zimmerman then allegedly threatened the former love of his life and hit his senior citizen father-in-law in the nose all the while brandishing that ultimate validation of the Second Amendment, a handgun. That case is now dropped after a smashed Ipad failed to corroborate the testimony of two — count ’em — two witnesses. Zimmerman is the Teflon Man, you see.
This month George did an encore — allegedly — on his new girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, who claims that she too was threatened with a shotgun after Zimmerman smashed up her stuff as heard on a released 911 call. George did his own 911 call rebuttal shortly thereafter and then sat peacefully in the dwelling amid his now locked away shotguns as the police broke down the barricaded door to arrest him. Guess the doorbell was on the fritz. Zimmerman, ever the object of everyone’s ill-affections, claims it was Scheibe who did the smashing and the threatening. News is now out that Scheibe contacted a reporter prior to the assault to discuss the details of her relationship with Zimmerman, which, of course, led to a chant of Zimmerman apologists that poor ol’ George is being set up and being victimized all over again. Oh, the humanity! George’s new love denies she set him up claiming she stayed with the man who scared her and has a “fascination for guns” because she wanted to help him. Oh, the humanity!
Whatever the truth, most all would agree that Zimmerman is a man on spiral and the direct isn’t towards the heavens. Por que?, you ask, of the man who was simply defending himself from politically driven charges in his epic TV battle? His former lawyer, who sort of represents him in a defamation suit against NBC, but who announced following the alleged assault on Zimmerman’s wife that he no longer represented him and then added he wanted to be paid for $2.5 million or so in work he’d already done, claims it’s all the haters out there who changed the sweet, innocent lamb of “stand your ground” ( I know it wasn’t raised in the trial but who would claim it wasn’t a big part of the case?) into the Scourge of St. Mary’s. It was all those misguided folks who concluded that shooting a 17-year-old kid armed only with a bag of Skittles and some Arizona Iced Tea was somehow, someway wrong that caused the trauma that now plagues sweet ol’ George Zimmerman.
“He was turned into one of the most hated men in America for having to defend his life. So I’m not sure what happens with a 28-year-old when you do that to him and put him in hiding for 16 or 18 months. Maybe this is some of that fallout,” tutted the admitted killer’s mouth-piece.
Whew! I’m sure glad now TV personality Mark O’Mara cleared that up. For a while there, I actually thought George Zimmerman was going to accept some responsibility for his alleged misdeeds. Perish the thought that some remorse is in order for the man whose estranged wife calls a “pacing lion,” and a”ticking time bomb.”
Nope, we’re all indicted in Zimmerman’s blind rage — allegedly — and it seems everyone around him and even beyond is “in” on the conspiracy to get George. The only innocent in this mess, as Mr. O’Mara claimed then and now, is George. Formerly a victim of politics and now one of society imposed trauma, Zimmerman ought to swear out his own arrest warrant on all of us who believe, as that juror with the slow forming epiphany, that maybe George really did “[get] away with murder.” Ol’ George has become a bastardized version of Janis Ian’s classic tale of woe and the new Society’s Child having been ruthlessly battered by all of us based on our unfounded prejudices. Quite ironic given the history of the case.
If we’re lucky, at our trial we can have Mark O’Mara sitting with us a counsel table and the Zimmerman jury as our judges. We’ll be exonerated from every sin — both now and in the future — no matter how despicably we act. Allegedly, of course.
Source: Click Orlando
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger