Trayvon Martin Case

And so I maintain when you find a case where an armed assailant walked free after pursuing and killing an unarmed teen, let me know.

Fair enough.

At the same time - while I look for such a case, I ask why do you believe this case to be of national importance? You say "you wish it wasn't" which presumes you believe it to be so. Again, I ask why - is it just that the shooter initially went free? the underlying racial issues? As I said, injustice occurs everyday - why did the injustice in this case rate such a media furor?

Your analysis and frustration with the question of "national importance" is grossly misplaced. First, a murder took place. Period. It's definitely newsworthy and it's definitely important. I'm sure we agree there.

The news wasn't that a kid was murdered. That happens everyday. There were unanswered questions that led to more unanswered questions. That's the news. And frankly, to remove the racial underpinnings and coded language of Zimmerman is to ignore a vitally important element that warrants thorough examination. Examination that, in hindsight, seemed to be dismissed with no or very little consideration.

It's important to understand the Sanford community led the effort to raise the issue, not the other way around. It was organic, not contrived or led by a media personality. So the question why it's a national story is really besides the point anyway in my view. I'm more interested in the pursuit of justice and to ensure that we never see this particular crime happen again.

The law and computers are human creations. Each is created differently to serve different functions. When we create computers that can demonstrate and apply the concepts of justice tempered by mercy and compassion in their manipulation of data, then it may be possible to do as you assert. Try as I might, however, I haven’t found an app for that yet.

Have you checked the Apple store? There's more subtle software out there than most people could even guess at.

Emotions are inherent in creation and application of human law and have been since the inception of law within society. Accordingly, as currently written, there is a necessary emotional variable in the equation used to evaluate evidence, pass judgment as to compliance and determine appropriate sentencing under the laws that govern us.

Emotion has no place in law.

Further, I accept it as true that a processer of information unable to adequately manipulate all the necessary variables of a system – such as computers attempting to compute and apply “justice” – will be inherently flawed and consistently render unreliable/incorrect results. I would have thought someone as rational as you could see such an obvious systemic flaw.

So because you can't comprehend such a system it doesn't exist?

If, however, you consider our corporate humanity to be a flaw that must be removed from the creation and application of our legal system, the only way to do so is to cede the right to govern ourselves (i.e. the right to create the laws which will apply to us) to mechanical devices that, at their core, simply store, retrieve and manipulate compilable data. Again, you may wish to surrender to the coming computer overlords. I do not.

Computers would allow a totally unbiased legal system.




From the simple fact, as highlighted by CRed above that "being human" involves more than weighing odds and manipulating equations.

And by 'fact' you actually mean 'opinion'. Don't confuse the two.

The concepts of “right” and “wrong” are not mathematical equations based on data retrieval.

They can very easily be made so.

A process incapable of understanding such concepts will inevitably make choices resulting in specific cases of inhumanity – such as giving more weight to the probability of survival then any other factor when choosing between saving the life of an adult over that of a child.

And the system we have is so perfect?

I am sure you will be happy with the Borg assimilation.

They move too slowly. Matrix, baby!

Your analysis and frustration with the question of "national importance" is grossly misplaced. First, a murder took place. Period. It's definitely newsworthy and it's definitely important. I'm sure we agree there.

The news wasn't that a kid was murdered. That happens everyday. There were unanswered questions that led to more unanswered questions. That's the news. And frankly, to remove the racial underpinnings and coded language of Zimmerman is to ignore a vitally important element that warrants thorough examination. Examination that, in hindsight, seemed to be dismissed with no or very little consideration.

It's important to understand the Sanford community led the effort to raise the issue, not the other way around. It was organic, not contrived or led by a media personality. So the question why it's a national story is really besides the point anyway in my view. I'm more interested in the pursuit of justice and to ensure that we never see this particular crime happen again.

Okay. For what it's worth, I accept that explanation and agree with most of it.

My one contention is that, while I agree that the racial issues underpinning the matter may be an element to the case and certainly bear full examination, I find that much of the racisim attributed to Zimmerman to be the result of media constructs (the original reports that Zimmerman was white, the creation of the term "white latino", NBC's editing of the tape) created to manipulate opinion. In doing so, and in my opinion, the underlying tragedy and the rule of law got lost in the national furor over racial issues.

Have you checked the Apple store? There's more subtle software out there than most people could even guess at.

Great, find me an ethics app.

As to the rest of your pithy remarks, I am simply not going digress further on these points in this thread. I will happly take them up in another or in a discussion through PM's. I will close by stating that your assertion that "emotion has no place in law" demonstrates a deeply flawed understanding of the manner in which societies govern themselves and is so devoid of humanity as to be piteous.

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Emotion has no place in law.
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This is a completely false and inhuman assertion.

Good law and good governance come from finding the balance point between the emotional and the rational. I agree with Joe that if you fail to see some use for emotional input to legal questions than that is 'piteous'

Okay. For what it's worth, I accept that explanation and agree with most of it.

My one contention is that, while I agree that the racial issues underpinning the matter may be an element to the case and certainly bear full examination, I find that much of the racisim attributed to Zimmerman to be the result of media constructs (the original reports that Zimmerman was white, the creation of the term "white latino", NBC's editing of the tape) created to manipulate opinion. In doing so, and in my opinion, the underlying tragedy and the rule of law got lost in the national furor over racial issues.

That's certainly one view point.

But let's be honest here, race is perception in America. The media didn't create that reality and they didn't have to gin it up. We've co-existed with racial tensions for hundreds years and it's always right beneath the surface. Again, to stress a vitally important point, it was the citizens within the Sanford community that felt Trayvon's murder could possibly have been racially motivated. Adding to their collective frustration was the Sanford PD's mishandling of evidence, conflicting police reports, the dismissal of the police chief, George Zimmerman's sudden release, and the confusion around Stand Your Ground. That's a lot for a community, a black community mind you, to digest with not one single answer for a full 30 days.

However you may feel about the media's reporting and coverage, it has largely reflected the festering frustration of the citizens of Sanford, as well as the history of resentment between African-Americans and law enforcement in this country.

JoeRedskin and CRR:

You've yet to explain why emotion needs to be a part of law and justice, you just assert that it should be.

We'll leave it there. If you can't present an argument then we have no discussion, just a disagreement.

It would be a much safer world if computers ran the judicial system jury and sentencing. No human bias.Things would certainly be fairer. Eliminate prejudice against minorities and bias against anybody in jury deliberations. Prevent media hype like MSNBC's campaign against Zimmerman early, and John Edward's charisma in his trial, from having an effect on the verdict.

HOW we could implement a change, I don't know. But I'm convinced jury by only our peers is basically flawed. Because people can be very stupid at times.

Our society is built partly on the idea that majority rule can determine the best course of action overall. But in small groups, it seems like the opposite is true. And as far as individuals go, like George Carlin said: Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!

I think judging whether to take a person's freedom away, let alone their life, should be done by people far above average intelligence. I think we'd need an AI a lot "smarter" than say IBM's Watson, to handle a court verdict, but at least we could eliminate some stupidity that way.