"Not guilty" is not a MacArthur Fellowship award

It looks like I have to write about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman again, even thought I don't want to. That's why I'll be tagging in Ken White, Scott H. Greenfield and William Saletan for the finishing moves.

I remember last year when the activists were saying that they just wanted Zimmerman investigated for the fatal shooting. Well that happened, and we even had a trial despite a lack of evidence and now that the case was decided the activists want more.

It's obvious they never wanted an investigation or a trial; they wanted a lynching.

Since they can't have George Zimmerman's blood the wailing and the whining have started again. We're seeing the return of idiotic "armed with iced tea and skittles" remarks, the return of the assumption that only armed combatants can kill people, the return of error-filled summaries of the shooting and the return of stupid pro-hoodie protests and pictures.

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's hoodie photo wasn't invited to that party, of course. Neither was Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

Despite endless dredging for proof that George Zimmerman is a racist and was motivated by racism, the only racism discovered came from Trayvon himself.

The truth is that George Zimmerman wrongly thought Trayvon was scouting homes for a robbery and followed him so police could find him and Trayvon wrongly saw Zimmerman as a threat and attacked him, and possibly tried to kill him.

As promised, here's Ken White:

I've been a criminal defense attorney for 13 years now, and it's changed the way I view trials. They aren't (or at least should not be) a vehicle for society's judgment. That's the view the prosecution often hopes to promote, in order to convince jurors to vote their fears and anxieties about crime, which they are told relentlessly (and falsely) is out of control. No: a trial is an attempt by the state to exercise power over an individual, limited by the requirements of the Constitution and the rules of evidence and criminal procedure... 

The verdict didn't surprise me, because based on what I know as a trial lawyer (as opposed to an occasional consumer of CNN), the prosecution wasn't proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt, given the law that applied (as opposed to the law people felt ought to apply). I don't see a basis to conclude that a jury of six women of varying backgrounds voted out of racism, rather than voting because they took the government's burden of proof seriously.

Here's Scott H. Greenfield:

As it turns out, much of what was told about the death of Trayvon Martin is either false or mired in mystery. When left with the proposition that we will never know what "really" happened, the significance is that the prosecution then lacks evidence to prove its case. But Trayvon is dead, so it's unfair since he can't tell his side of the story? True, but that doesn't change the requirement that a defendant be proven guilty. The rule is not proof if its available, assumption if it's not. Except in the court of public opinion.

And finally, here's William Saletan:

Martin, meanwhile, was profiling Zimmerman. On his phone, he told a friend he was being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.” The friend—who later testified that this phrase meant pervert—advised Martin, “You better run.” She reported, as Zimmerman did, that Martin challenged Zimmerman, demanding to know why he was being hassled. If Zimmerman’s phobic misreading of Martin was the first wrong turn that led to their fatal struggle, Martin’s phobic misreading of Zimmerman may have been the second.

The anti-Zimmerman activists speak as if they are unaware a trial ever occurred. Too many of them couldn't be bothered to see if it disproved any of their pet theories.