Tom: Funny. I suggest that I really can withhold judgment and folks find it hard to believe.

What's the world coming to?

I've never been asked to be a juror. But I THINK that if you demonstrate very much of an opinion regarding either the actual guilt or actual innocence of the defendent, you're disqualified. I've you've already made up your mind (or close to it), you're out. So courts TEND to look for people who do what I'm suggesting we all do--choose not to render judgment, actually choose to presumme innocence.

Brandon: Which is the point. They’ve even said this. I just heard yesterday on Detroit news that it was going to be very hard to seek justice because of the nature of the case--its high profile. Most folk know about it and have already formed some opinion about it. Ideally if you could take a court case out of a particular geographical area, into another area where know one knows about it, then you stand a better chance at finding justice. But it is still a judgment to declare someone innocent before going to trial as this is the nature of justice. Which is OK. Unless you are living on an island, I really have to think that you would lean one way or another. Let me ask this. What happens BEFORE a verdict is in, but it looks like the party is innocent. The evidence is leaning one way--innocence. Then all of a sudden, new evidence is brought in which hands down makes the party guilty. Are you not LEANING in THAT direction prior to that last piece of evidence that declares the party guilty? Now, normally, things aren’t so cut and dry. Its not like one piece of evidence is going to come in and seal the deal. It seems that in most cases it will be that there is a weighing of the evidence and it will fall more to one side or the other--guilt or innocence. But the point still stands even in the process you are always forming and leaning in certain directions and it seems as neutrality or fence sitting is beyond us unless you are totally clueless about the case at hand.

Tom: Presumming innocence in defference to due process isn't rendering judgment. It's withholding judgment.

Brandon: I would say that unless you are living on an island somewhere out in the Pacific and know absolutely nothing about the case then you start forming opinions and lean in one direction or another. But to presume innocence is to make a judgment call until it can be shown that one is not innocent. The best people to do that are people who are not familiar with the case. 

Tom: I wasn't into the whole OJ thing. Anita watched the proceedings almost every day and followed other legal summaries of it. She was really fascinated by it. At the end, she said the evidence presented IN COURT (not shredded into pieces in the "court of public commotion" led her to believe he was guilty. Based on what she explained to me I'd agree, but I try to differentiate such qualified opinion from actually settling on a personal conviction.

Brandon: OK…that seems like avoidance of the question. I listened to the radio and watched the news as much as possible before it started becoming a ZOO. After the verdict I eventually bought Vincent Bugliosi’s book, “Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder”

Considering that Bugliosi got convictions on 100 out of 101 cases including Charles Manson I considered him something of an expert in the field. You know what Bugliosi said? He said it was CLEAR from the GET GO that OJ was guilty based on the blood evidence ALONE and that anyone who thought differently had brains that were on the level of a tomato (seriously. Says that right in the beginning of the book). So if it took your wife to sit through the whole thing (for months on end) before being able to come up with her own presumption of guilt then I wonder about her IQ. Now I don’t mean that condescendingly. I’m sure Anita is on her game. The point is, is that it really didn’t take months to know about his guilt because we knew about the blood evidence very early on. In this case, OJ ended up being declared not guilty even though it was rather obvious before going to court that he was the culprit or had his dirty hands involved in his wife’s murder.

Tom: I'm still at a loss, Brandon, as to WHY you (or anybody) NEEDS to form an conviction regarding anybody's guilt? Can you tell me...what does it help you DO? WHY do you require such convictions?

Brandon: I’m saying that this is just the way things are. Do we just not talk about this? What are we to do? You tell me? What do you want me to do? Why should such hypocrites in the media make one party look innocent but the other guilty and tell us not to do that? It may be that it also speaks to questions of justice. Its not as if no one doesn’t want to get at the truth of the matter. What if it turns out that Zimmerman goes free but he himself knows that he acted rashly and killed Trayvon in murder of the second degree? Do we not ask questions about justice. about just laws? about the importance of extended things like public opinion? about race that seems to have at least one large segment of the population simmering in knots about injustice towards them?

And that’s the thing. D says that all he wanted was the guy to be arrested. But it seems to me D that you also presumed guilt concerning Zimmerman as well. Would you not say that ? At the end of the day, if Zimmerman is let go even though we all believe he’s guilty we simply have to accept the verdict. It seems to me that the process of seeking justice is more important than seeking revenge and undermining that process or that authority.

Let me ask you this. Do you think that Zimmerman who has been reported to have been sobbing in his jail cell when he first got arrested WISHED he had not acted in the way he did that fatal night that Trayvon was killed? Do you think that he feels that he truly believes he acted in self-defense or do you think that he is regretting for acting rashly and really didn’t expect that this, ALL OF THIS, was going to happen? Do you not think that he in hindsight is probably saying to himself, “If I knew what I know now, I would have said, ‘It isn’t worth it to go after Trayvon. I should have listen to the police.” Or do you think he’s sobbing because even though he knows he acted TOTALLY in self-defense he simply has an unfortunate future ahead of him. Because it seems that whatever way you come down on this question, you have some presumption of guilt or innocence.